Mark Radford - deaf author

The Price of Editing Standards Today

2012-03-03T01:58:00.000-08:00

It seems that as a result of the present global recession, a large number of mainstream publishing houses had downsized their asssets by doing away with their editing departments etc. This in turn have seen charges for freelance editors become a lot more expensive. Since my last book, charges have DOUBLED and a large number of independent authors would probably be questioning whether editors are worthwhile to the cause nowadays with the ebook revolution.

I have my reservations about getting my new book professionally edited as I have come across many basic editing errors in independant authors books where these authors had stated and thanked an editor for the work on their books. The first example is on ONE PAGE alone, where the character Shaun becomes Shawn and back to Shaun again. The next sample is a passage .... fighting to breath. It was not correct as it either should have been 'fighting FOR breath' or 'fighting to breath(e)'. It makes me wonder whether editing standards have actually dropped if authors are paying editors and they can't spot the basic errors I found.

Not only that, in a recent writing magazine interview, a best selling author had stated that he never uses a editor for his books because how many of them had actually written a novel? He had a valid point and felt that he was capable of going it alone. I'm looking to edit to the best of my ability for my new book.

As the ebook revolution requires hardly any set up costs, there are a large number of independant authors who are publishing poor quality work that were rejected maunscripts. It's a sucker punch to those of us who had paid for professionally edited books (my first two books were) to hear of authors who produces poorly written work with bad grammer/spelling yet sells over 2,500 copies a month on Amazon Kindle.

Heidi's Pick 6

2012-01-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

I'm featured as a guest author for Heidi's Pick 6 that can be found at:

http://heidirubymiller.blogspot.com/2012/01/heidis-pick-six-mark-radford-1.html

Heidi Ruby Miller is a Sci-Fi author so do please check out the link.

Duplicate Titles!

2012-01-18T13:56:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I discovered that someone had recently released a new book with an almost identical title to my forthcoming book and had got a website named after it too! It meant that I had to change my title on the new book and its cover to avoid confusion to book readers.

Checking further on the duplicate title in a search on Amazon's Kindle store, I was astonished at the number of authors who had different stories but the same title! It seems to indicate that there are no copyright on titles but surely, it's better for an author to have an original title than face a possible lawsuit from using the same title!

The titles of my first two books stand alone in the search on Amazon Kindle and I have now found a new title for the forthcoming sequel to Early Memory that had not been used.......yet!

Paperback Book - Bargain Stock Clearance Price

2012-01-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

With the sequel to Early Memory scheduled for a Spring release on Amazon Kindle, an opportunity had arisen for a clearance of its remaining 11 paperback copies on my stock in the UK. You can buy a paperback copy of Early Memory for £1.50 (including postage) and I can autographed it on request.

This decision is because all of my future books will be released as electronic books only so no further need to do book signings in person. The clearance price is a bargain as the book is now out of print so it could become a collecter's item in time.

Those who wants to purchase using cheque payment, please contact me by email for postal address. Otherwise buy via Paypal giving me the delivery address for the book's dispatch.

Luc Besson Thrilling Again!

2012-01-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

I'm quite a fan of Luc Besson's movies especially the thrillers that he had done early in his career with 'Nikita' and 'Leon'. I felt that he had not surpassed them since then until now.

My attention was drawn to the movie 'Colombiana' as it had a similar plot line to my debut book Early Memory - a young girl's parents were murdered and she grew up to be an assassin out for revenge against their killers. I rented it and thankfully that's where the similarity ends. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Luc Besson is one of the Co-Writers for it and to me, he's back on form! Catch the film if you can.