Ten Things That Happened While I Was In Bath

Bath in a bookshop in Bath
photo by Janet McKnight

Just back from a short and most pleasant visit to Bath. Still catching up but here's a few things that happened while I was gone:

I: Bloody Scotland launched its website, and very pretty it is too. There's also news of a short story competition that could see you published in a Blasted Heath ebook anthology.

II: Dead End Follies listed Ten Literary People On The Web That You Absolutely Need To Know and were kind enough to mention me. "I suspect Allan has eight pairs of arms, six brains and needs about twenty minutes of sleep a night for optimal functioning." I wish.

III: Anthony Neil Smith made his excellent Choke On Your Lies free for Kindle on Friday. It goes back to 'paid' on Monday so grab it while you can.

IV: Liberties Press has reduced the price of Declan Burke's Irish Book Awards-shortlisted Absolute Zero Cool to £1.95.

V: Speaking of Dec, here's a piece on ebook pricing he wrote for The Irish Times. And here's another interesting piece on ebook pricing from Digital Book World, specifically in relation to the impact of Amazon's KDP Select.

VI: Here's a chance to win Gerard Brennan's chapbook: Possession Obsession And A Diesel Compression Engine.

VII: NoirCon 2012 looms ever closer, with distinguished guest Lawrence Block and keynote speaker Robert Olen Butler (this I'd love to hear: Butler's book on writing fiction, From Where You Dream, is a mind-blower).

VIII: Benedicte Page gave Blasted Heath's February titles. Ray Banks's Wolf Tickets and Douglas Lindsay's The Unburied Dead a nice shout-out in her ebooks round-up in The Guardian.

IX: eBooknewser lists 10 Boards For Ebook Fans from new social networking site, Pinterest.

X: Some much-appreciated and very inspiring Amazon customer reviews have appeared for a few of my books. Two-Way Split is described as having "a gut-knotting finale that unfurls with the inevitability of all great tragedy and the best nasty sex ever" (thanks, Maya!); Savage Night is described as being "Shakespearean in scope and theme, unrelenting, tragic ... a powerful revenge tale, in which violence, fate, love, hate and even humor commingle like blood and wine, one barely distinguishable from the other" (thanks, Marilyn!); and finally "the writing quality is high, the stories are top notch, and this piece is worth your attention" (thanks, Pearce!) is a terrific response to Hilda's Big Day Out.