According to the Financial Times , a new self-publishing wing is to be offered by Simon & Shuster, as their response to the large increase of consumer interest in self-publishing. However, elsewhere it is claimed that S&S intend to offer their basic self-publishing package from $1,599 USD, rising to $24,999 USD for the deluxe self-publishing package.  So that's from just under £1,000 British Pounds Sterling up to £15,618. Is this true?  Surely I can't be the only so-called indie author to laugh aloud at this.

This is the first in a series of fictional interviews with characters from the Artisan-Sorcerer series, done purely for fun.  This first is with Rowan, who appears in the novel of the same name plus the as-yet unreleased novel, Fabian.   He also appears in Intimations , a collection of five short Artisan-Sorcerer stories. About Rowan: Rowan lives with secrets. His family know nothing of his life after his mother banished him from the family home.  Rowan is attracted to the handsome and vivacious Aiden, a member of Morgan Gruffudd's secretive community of artisan-sorcerers.  But blackmail threatens to destroy the new life Rowan has been building.  People are dying - and Rowan is caught in the middle of a secret war.  Character sketch of Rowan Over to Rowan... Name:   Rowan Adshead. Age:   19. Distinguishing features:   Green eyes, sandy-auburn hair, slim build. Place of Birth:   Liverpool.   My mo...

As I type this, the sun's shining.  When I took these photos this morning, it was raining steadily.  Still, I wanted to share this steep flight of steps cut into the rock which leads up to Mariner's Point.  The 60ft high sandstone column was put there in 1841 after the windmill which used to stand there blew down during a storm.  Sailors had used this as a point of navigation. If you climb the stairs - there's a bench at the top! - you can follow a rugged footpath into Stapleldon Woods.  The ground is pretty much a quagmire at the moment, and so I opted not to do this despite my two dogs straining at their leashes.  You have to watch your footing in places even when the ground is dry, as it's a tangle of gnarled roots and jutting rocks around slopes and dips.  When the ground is a mushy, sliding stew of deep mud and wet leaves it would be too easy to fall and injure yourself.  (And while this might amuse the Caldy fae, from my Ar...

Emily and Poppi    Here're our two Jack Russell Terriers, once again snuggling on their favourite doggy cushion.  It used to be Richard's cushion but they had other ideas.  It's a shame about the red-eye, though I managed to tweak it and reduce it to ochre-eye.  Is it an improvement?  I'll let you decide.   Last weekend saw us in the garden, raking together autumn leaves and making a bonfire from a heap of pruned branches.  The dogs were safely indoors, of course.  The leaves were quite damp from all this rain we've had, so consequently the fire was very smoky.  But it's one of those gardening jobs which simply needs doing.    Smoky autumn bonfire   Just behind the fire you can see our two conical compost bins, which were made from recycled rubber.  They have no base, so to extract good compost  you simply slide a garden fork under them and lift them off.   They're suprisingly light to ...

Sleeping dogs don't peep.   Richard and I went to Chester yesterday for a meal out.  We decided to avoid our usual haunts and try somewhere new to us.  Later, after meandering round numerous shops, we went on to have coffees which tasted like bonfire smoke smells - kind-of smoky and gritty, and spectacularly putrid.   Look, it's only the first week of November so why are most of the shops crammed with Xmas tat already?  I wish we could do as some Scandinavian countries apparently do and ban all Xmas decorations until December.  I'll freely admit I can't abide the forced cheer and frantic commercialism of the festival.  Ok, ok, so umpteen billion people disagree with me; I can live with that.  Call me Ebeneezer if you wish.  Or should that be Ebeneezella?  No matter.  But do we really need to have carols shrilled at us each time we enter shops still decorated with grinning pumpkins?   I've said...

Ready for the chop?  Emily and Poppi offer encouragement.    On Saturday evening, Richard suddenly announced that he wanted his hair cut short.  His naturally curly, thick dark brown hair had been long since his teens.  When we first met, he had what is now called a mullet but at the time the style was simply described as long-at-the-back-and-short-at-the-sides.  Very 1980s.  Which was fine when you were actually in the 1980s.   He'd had enough of total strangers assuming they were both witty and innovative by telling him, often loudly, that he looked like a particular ageing porn star or Frank from Shameless.  And he'd had enough of getting his long locks tangled in the head-straps on his sleep apnoea mask.   He'd mentioned his intention to Ted, when they were in their usual pub on Saturday.  Ted apparently said Richard would never go through with it.  Ted would buy him a pint, (of non-alcoholi...

When I was a child, I read and re-read a novel called Chia , which was about the life of a Scottish wildcat.  I think I wanted to be a wildcat, as Chia's life sounded much more fun than junior school.  Or should I have been a lion?  Elsa was read to death, also.  And don't get me started on Jonathon Livingstone Seagull.   I didn't fancy being a seagull, though; I'm still not a fan of sushi.   Enjoy this fabulous slide show depicting Scottish Wildcats. According to the Scottish Wildcat Association's website, it is now believed that maybe only 100 wildcats now survive. I think it would be a crying shame if this beautiful, magnificent creature was to vanish altogether - and yet this looks likely to happen within the next ten years. There is a captive breeding programme, which seems to have had mixed success.  Part of the problem, apparently, is due to cross-breeding with feral cats.  The familiar moggy and the...