I am a multi-genre author of fiction, non-fiction, and semi-fiction, a book cover designer, publisher, digital artist, and photographer.
A founder member of Authors Professionals Cooperative (APC), IBBS, and the principal of Electric Eclectic book branding.
For readers looking for their ‘Next best read’, or to find a ‘new’ enjoyable author to follow, here is a great way to get an introductory read.
The following are Novellas or Novelettes, written for that very purpose, as books to acquaint readers with the author’s writing style in various genres.
These books are available as eBooks, and/or Pocketbook Paperbacks, and have been published under the Electric Eclectic book brand.
For those who may not be familiar with the term Pocketbook, they are smaller-sized paperback books, ones which can be slipped into a bag, handbag, or indeed a pocket, hence the name… not really… The term pocketbook originates from the American name for a lady’s handbag, as these books can easily be placed into a handbag.
Once an extremely popular item in the United States in the latter part of the 1930s, pocketbooks fell out of fashion for some reason. However, recently they have ‘been found’ again and are becoming a very trendy accessory to be seen with.
Though smaller in dimension, these books still contain full stories; complete tales with a beginning, middle, and end, not just a chapter or two. The only difference is in their size, which is perfect for those who prefer paperbacks yet often find their size awkward to carry and pack.
Pocketbooks are excellent when commuting, when in a waiting room, say at the doctor or dentist. They are the most convenient books when travelling on holiday, or lazing around the pool, or on the beach.
It’s not important if they get a little wet, sand won’t damage them, and the sunshine won’t stop you from reading. You don’t need to charge them.
You can leave them behind once you’re done, there is no need to transport them all the way home, or you could give them away, sharing them with friends and family.
Airport customs don’t examine them like they do an electronic gadget. Oh, and in desperate times I have used one to prop up the leg of a wobbly table in a café.
All things you cannot, or most probably would not do with an electronic device.
The following image compares a Pocketbook with the size of a regular paperback from Amazon.
Each book below has links to its Amazon page and format. Just follow the link, ‘click’ on it, to find out more, or to make a purchase.
Happy reading, Paul
Three Floors Up. A dark, psychological suspense thriller.
Mechanical Mike. A modern retro pulp fiction tale set in Nazi-occupied France during WW2. A beautiful blond, a mad Scientist, a gumshoe detective, Nazi’s, and Robots. What more could you want?
A short while ago I began reading some of my old journals. I have kept a diary since, well, I suppose from the day I learnt to string two sentences together.
Much of the content of my diaries are pretty mundane. For instance, I could tell you what the weather was like on a Sunday six years ago, or which bar I went into to celebrate passing my driving examination.
Yeah, boring!
Yet, now and again I recorded an event which, on reading them back, makes me laugh, cry, or as in the tale I am about to reveal to you, blush with embarrassment.
To place this story in context I need to tell you a little about myself. My name is Heather. I am 32 years old and single, not having found the right Mr. Right… yet.
I consider myself a modern woman, one with a balanced outlook on life. I guess you could say I am Miss average. The only thing that is not average is my sex drive. I enjoy sex immensely. However, this is not really a story about sex per se.
Now, when I say sex, I do not mean to infer I am a loose woman or one who indulges in strings of one-night stands. I am not a nymphomaniac. On the relationship front, my record is back to being a Miss average and no, I do not sleep with anyone on a first date.
As Miss average, regarding relationships, I spend most nights alone. This is where my craving for sex, and not having a partner to satisfy my needs are in discord. To help balance this fact I have a few toys because, as you know, passion comes in many forms, and one night’s want often differs from another, so the toys I own have been selected with care to satisfy my needs according to my moods, wants, and desires at any given time.
This brings me to my journal entry of two years ago. It is from the day I was moving home.
The last few pieces of furniture, a comfy reading chair, a computer desk, and my bed were the last items I needed to move to my new house. My nephew John, my sister’s eldest boy, was kindly helping me to move these as he owned a transit van, which would save me paying for a removals company.
The last item to be shifted was my bed. This was a divan. A solid base, which is luckily divided into two, making moving it easy, topped with a pocket sprung mattress. The mattress was quite heavy and cumbersome. Something I knew from changing the fitted sheets and pushing the bed aside to vacuum underneath. John and I decided we would lift the mattress, push it off the far side of the bed and onto its side, and then slide it through the bedroom doorway.
We lifted the mattress in unison, revealing what I stored between the mattress and the bed base. It was ‘Dobbin’. The largest of all my sex toys, and named as such because of its equine proportions.
I uncontrollably gasped out, “Oh, Dobbin.”
To give John his due, he simply let the mattress fall back and said, “I think we need a break from all this lifting. How about you make a cuppa? I’ll just nip out for a smoke.” And with that, he exited the room swiftly.
Just to make it clear, Dobbin is long and black, with a proportionate girth. He has moulded veins and glans, and is described as ‘Realistic, firm, yet comfortably cushioned’. The company that produces him say, Dobbin is the closest vibrator to the real thing a woman can own. As yet, I cannot confirm this, as I have not found any ‘real thing’ that measures up to him.
I was left standing, biting my bottom lip and cursing myself for not remembering to pack Dobbin into a box. The thing was, Dobbin is far too large to store in the bedside drawers, so I keep him under the mattress where he is, normally, out of sight.
I removed Dobbin, popping him into a carrier bag and, as discreetly as I could, took him into the kitchen, where I made us each a mug of tea.
The drive to my new home and the unloading were carried out with very little conversation. Neither of us knew what to say and, clearly, did not want to refer to this embarrassing incident.
However, this is not the end of the tale.
Several weeks later I was at a family christening, when John came over to me, asking if I had settled into my new home.
He then continued by saying, “Aunt Heather, have you ever considered the reason you are still single is that you have never found a man who… um… measures up to Dobbin?”
My mouth fell open.
“Don’t worry,” John said, “I haven’t told anyone, not even Chrissy.” Chrissy is John’s fiancée. With those words left hanging in the air, he was off, circulating the room and chatting with the other guests.
John’s words got me thinking. Maybe he was right. So, next week I am appearing on a TV show. You may have watched it. It’s called Naked Attraction.’
The benefit is, that I get to go on a date with one of six men I select based on their physical attributes. Top of my list was that all the contestants must be ‘Hung like a Horse.’
Introducing the latest author to join our Electric Eclectic family, let’s give him a warm welcome.
Tony hails from Manchester, England, but has a touch of the ‘Wild Geese’ about him.
To serve his passion for travel, Tony has worked as an English teacher, Bartender, Taxi driver and, in southern Africa, on construction work in the Transvaal goldmines, and the copper mines of Zambia.
He spent a year as a Special Forces mercenary in Central Africa.
He is a keen outdoorsman, sailor, kayaker, and canoeist, he also loves hiking, back-country skiing, and snowshoeing, he now resides, alternately, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Ste. Adele, Quebec, Canada.
Tony has five novels under his belt.
THE IRAN DECEPTION, a stand-alone espionage novel set in Israel, England, and the USA.
This is the Award Winning novella from Phillip T Stephens.
The first novel, written for Twitter, is finally available in print (expanded and revised).
When a galactically inept inspector tackles the world’s most elusive AI, prepare for apocalypse. Determined to find missing programmer Alyson Sweetcheeks, Detective Bob unleashes a war between a tech conglomerate, a covert cyber gang, the mob, and a malevolent time-travelling intelligence bent on world domination. Will Bob beat astronomical odds to save the girl, the world, and his chances for promotion?
What inspired Doublemint Gumshoe?
When I published my book Raising Hell, author Rayne Hall advised me to tweet regularly with original tweets. So I started tweeting 140 character original stories, four to five daily, which I did for a couple of years. I kept returning to one character, Detective Bob, who had never solved a case. For instance, he would investigate a body with twelve bullet holes in its back, and conclude it was suicide.
I wondered if I could create a Twitter novel from the character, and after researching to find any examples of other Twitter novels, I realized this would be the first attempt. So, I wrote 12-20 episodes a week for six months. The plot evolved over time, as I threw in more and more wrinkles—cyber crips, aliens, Roku’s Basilisk, grey goo, not to mention send-ups of The Crying of Lot 49 and the movie Chinatown. Being a fan of Hong Kong and Hollywood movies, I took a kitchen sink approach, and to my surprise, it came together.
All that remained in Alyson Sweetcheek’s hotel suite:
One cornflower dress,
one navy dress suit with skirt,
one flash drive, and
six Doublemint gum wrappers.
Six wrappers. Crumpled on the bedspread next to her suit. Silver foil twisting in and out of the iconic paper strip: green arrows over mint green mint leaves on a whirlpool printed in green.
Sunlight drifted past the jacket which was draped over the desk chair—its shoulders straightened and lapels flat. Dust motes danced in the sunlight path like fairies in a daydream.
The hotel notified Alyson’s sister Sally. Sally called Alyson’s boss William Zuckerchange. Zuckerchange called the cops. Any sense of urgency collided with the writing on the police department wall: “We see this shit a dozen times a day.”
Another blonde missing from her room? Low on the list of police priorities. In San Noema a missing blonde was as common as a day without rain, as common as open convertibles on Interstate 5 with occupants risking the sulfur-oxide ambiance to tone their rock star tans, as common as a baby in bluebonnet photos in Texas and even though San Noema is a California city, in Texas missing blondes would be just as common.
Alyson isn’t blonde. Nor dumb, as Bob would discover, but that fact mattered little. As far as the cops were concerned, if a girl wasn’t attached to the wallets of prominent men willing to write five-figure checks to city council campaigns (or the daughters of those prominent men) she couldn’t shake a cop from the schedule.
Instead, they sent Detective Bob.
He skittered across her room. A six-three praying mantis with matchstick limbs and bony fingers probing for clues. He paraded his sleuthing skills in vain. Sally and the hotel manager ignored him to argue over Alyson’s outstanding bill.
Bob’s partner Duffy leaned against the door frame, ankles crossed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Wrinkles rode his polyester suit, a suit he bought from the clearance rack of the factory-seconds section at Walmart. He struggled to keep his lids open after a night closing down three different cop bars, which might be why his suit looked slept in. Slept in every night since 1966.
Duffy was destined to make captain. The guy who disappeared when the first bullet flew and reappeared in time to claim the credit. And the commendation. Veins crept from his eyes and down his nose. Five o’clock shadow from the Sunday before last. His hands? Not a tremble or shimmer, petrified by the cheapest booze on the shelf.
Bob probed every inch and surface, flipping the pillows, pulling out drawers. He crawled under the bed, hooked the knee of his powder-blue polyester suit on a nail. Tore a hole.
He swore under his breath. “Oh, feathers.”
Nothing there.
He stood, brushed the bunny dust and dandruff from his shoulder and continued to probe with his best BIC Pen. He poked through the events guide on the desk, pulled a cloth from his side pocket, wiped the dust from his piano wire glasses, and poked through once more.
Sun from the window glanced off the oily spot at the center of his bald pate, fractured like light hitting a disco ball, and blinded everyone in the room. He swore to solve this case. His first solve (far from his first case). A glance at the cornflower dress and the opened curtains revealed the solution like a prize display. “Alien abduction.”
Sally stepped with the precision of a model, legs firm, bronze, a chain tattoo on her ankle. She alliterated perky and petite, from her five-one frame to the gentle slope under her pink crepe blouse to her trim tempting hips.
“Aliens?” She turned to his partner. “Tell me he’s joking.” She smelled of cinnamon and sugar. Bob wanted to sprinkle her on toast.
Officer Duffy pursed his lips tighter than a nip/tuck with Botox. He pulled his iPhone from his jacket and ran his fingers across the screen. “No alien activity reported.” He pleaded in silence, “Don’t say murder. Please don’t say murder.”
Bob ran his hands through the few strands of hair left to comb. “Murder then. It must be murder.”
Phillip T. Stephens attended the Michigan State writers’ workshop. He taught writing and design at Austin Community College for 20 years. His writing and art appear in anthologies, literary and peer-reviewed academic journals. His novella Doublemint Gumshoe won silver in the 2021 Electric Eclectic fiction awards, and his novel Seeing Jesus (soon to be re-released) won three indie publishing awards. He writes five days a week at Wind Eggs.
He and Carol live in Oak Hill, Texas where they built a habitat in the shade of their oaks to house foster cats for austinsiameserescue.org. They found new homes for more than three hundred abandoned pets.
While this post focuses on writing blogs, website content, social media and emails rather than stories and books, much of the following could be adapted by authors and publishers of books.
As independent authors, our ability to write such is of paramount importance to our promotional and marketing strategy. Yet the way you write could be alienating those who are not quite as apt as you or me at reading.
A couple of years ago, I had a wonderful comment from a person who suffered from dyslexia about a post.
Although his comments were primarily about the content and not the presentation of the post, he mentioned he found my post far easier to read than many, if not most.
Curiosity got the better of me.
Why I wondered, could he read and understand my posts, when he struggled to read so many others?
Over the next few days, he and I conversed, by email, about his reading on a personal level and Dyslexia in general.
Before I carry on and explain the outcome of our conversations, I think as writers we should all know and understand what dyslexia and some of the most common reading difficulties are. So, I am including the following few paragraphs & bullet points, (which I cribbed from the internet), for clarity.
A formal definition of dyslexia used by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development states,
“It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge. “
Unsurprisingly, the International Dyslexia Association defines it in simple terms. “Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words.”
In contrast, Irlen Syndrome is a perceptual processing disorder, meaning that it relates specifically to how the brain processes the visual information it receives. It is not a language-based disorder and phonics-based instruction will not help someone with Irlen Syndrome improve in the same way it will help someone with dyslexia improve their reading skills.
At its core, Irlen Syndrome is a light sensitivity, where individuals are sensitive to a specific wavelength of light and this sensitivity is what causes the physical and visual symptoms that people with Irlen Syndrome experience.
People with Irlen Syndrome have difficulty reading not because their brains have difficulty connecting the letters they see with the sounds those letters make, but because they see distortions on the printed page, or because the white background or glare hurts their eyes, gives them a headache, or makes them fall asleep when trying to read.
Unlike dyslexia, difficulties experienced because of Irlen Syndrome can reach well beyond just reading. People with Irlen Syndrome have difficulty processing all visual information, not just words on a printed page, so they often have trouble with depth perception, driving, sports performance, and other areas not generally connected with dyslexia.
Alexia is a form of dyslexia, but dyslexia is developmental, meaning that it does not happen from an occurrence such as a stroke or traumatic brain injury.
Alexia is an acquired reading disability because of an acquired event such as a stroke. It is most common for alexia to be accompanied by expressive aphasia (the ability to speak in sentences), and agraphia (the ability to write).
All alexia is not the same, however. You may have difficulty with the following:
Recognizing words ● Difficulty identifying and reading synonyms ● Difficulty with reading despite your ability to sound out pronunciation of words.
Although you can read words, it is too difficult to read for very long ● Blind spots blocking the end of a line or a long word ● Focusing on the left side of the paragraph or page ● Double vision when trying to read ● Reading some words but not others. Of course, this makes reading impossible.
A stroke survivor with alexia that can read larger words, but cannot read tiny words such as “it,” “to,” “and,” etc. ● Any combination of some of these traits.
My conversations with, (I shall call him ‘Jay’ during this post), led me to take a close look at how I was presenting my blogs, what made them so different and, could I improve them further?
It turns out the style I chose… I was going to say developed, but that sounds arrogant. So, the style I was using at the time was to write in small(ish) chunks, using relatively short sentences and paragraphs, as I have so far in this post.
Unlike this following paragraph…
This differed from most blogs and posts on the interweb which were, (and still are), long blocks of continuous sentences and sub-sentences, forming large paragraphs with very little line spacing or breaks. This may be a ‘style’ welcomed by universities and those writing technical/medical/professional and some literary journals. I have seen many papers which follow this style. I have even read a few and I must agree it makes for extremely uncomfortable reading. To read such a document, one must concentrate fully and focus on each word of each line. Whenever the eye moves from its forced liner motion, even for a moment, is when the reader finds some difficulty in returning to the exact location they were at previously, often meaning one must, annoyingly, re-read sections already read. Like you have possibly just done when reading with this last long drivelling, over-worded paragraph I have written in just such a manner to illustrate my point that it makes for uncomfortable reading, even for those of us blessed with good eyesight and adequate skill. A point which I hope I have now made adequately clear with this paragraph which is representative of many blogs.
Writing in this form creates such a large block of words it becomes challenging to separate them into clear concise ‘bite-sized‘ and manageable ‘lots’ of information.
This is one of the areas of written presentation which was highlighted to me by Jay.
I already used a style of writing which broke long paragraphs into much smaller ones, whenever practicable, but I was not aware of the impact doing so made on the reader. From then on, I broke paragraphs down even further than I did ‘pre-‘Jay’
I was also made aware of unnecessarily long sentences, sentences with too many superfluous words.
This simply meant cutting out all those unnecessary words to make sentences read far more precisely and clearly.
OR
Eliminating irrelevant words.
You see, this is not fictional or creative literature as when writing a novel, or even a short story. This is describing and sharing thoughts, ideas, information, and data. Another skill set entirely.
Authors often discover this when having to write a precise about their latest book, like the back-cover blurb, an agent’s query letter, synopsis, or copy text for promotional activity.
We all know, or at least should, that mixing sentence lengths makes for a better reading experience. But so does spacing and breaking them up as I have done in most of this post.
Please do not get me wrong.
I am not solely writing or directing my words specifically to those with reading difficulties, but I am looking to be as inclusive as possible and not simply because I am attempting to be politically, or socially correct.
I do it because I want as many people as possible to read my words. That is why I write.
Looking at how one presents their posts on the screen does not take much effort. Neither does adjusting one’s style to make it clearer and easier to read… for everybody, including you and me.
To finish, look at this Git-Hub virtual reality page. It shows how we can best comprehend the way those suffering from dyslexia and associated reading difficulties may see the written word.
My lesson, following those conversations with ‘Jay’, is,
“We can all learn from others, even those we may have previously considered had nothing to give us. After all, I never thought a dyslexic could teach an established author how to write clearer, even better.
How wrong I was.”
Thank you for reading another of my Ramblings. Please subscribe to this blog if you will.
I am open to all comments and try to reply to them all personally.
“Way back in 2015, I was commissioned to write a story for a forthcoming comic book format sci-fi website. Alas, the website never came to fruition, and I was left with an orphaned story, a story with no home, a story no one would get to read.
I thoroughly enjoyed creating Mechanical Mike and could not allow it to languish, unloved and unread, in the dusty archives of my computer. So, I took Mechanical Mike from the files, dusted him down, and carefully re-wrote the story.
The result is this Novelette, available as an eBook, or a Paperback Pocketbook.
This is a fun story, a modern pulp fictional tale of a ‘gum-shoe’ style detective, a beautiful blond ‘bombshell’ of a girl, a mad scientist, robots, and evil Nazis, all in occupied France during WW2.
What some readers say…
I can imagine Paul White had a load of fun writing Mechanical Mike. It’s a bit like sci-fi in drag… well a mix between that and a thriller.
Add in loads of World War 2 action, the Nazis with a devious plan to win the war – that’s enough from me – you need to read it.
I loved it.
I.G.
Author Paul White has blended the history of war films, Nazis, World War 2, and Pulp fiction. It is an extremely fast-paced story that skillfully mixes a wide range of genres, including Romance, War, and Thrillers.
The title, the book cover, the colours and design, along with the language used, is very well balanced, making it a great all-rounder.
Pardon me for not sharing the story here, I believe it would diminish the effort of the writer to entertainingly mesmerize his audience… that’s gotta be you too.
I would love to see this book made into a movie.
T.A.M.
What a great fun read. It is exactly what you glean from the cover… and more.
Pure pulp-fiction/comic book meets sci-fi adventure, war-time romance.
I mean, what other read has robots, a mad scientist, Nazi soldiers, a beautiful girl, and lots of action in Paris, France, during WWII?
This is a true must-read for those who want to be excitedly entertained.
Road Rage is a fast-paced dark MC romance with plenty of murder, mischief, and mayhem, from Karina Kantas. (18+)
Beautiful and scarred, Gem works in a supermarket living the safe life she has chosen after surviving a violent past running with an outlaw motorcycle club. Excitement beckons in the form of a handsome biker named Shep, who introduces her to the rest of his legit racing club, Rage.
However, members of Rage won’t accept Gem until she’s proven herself, and Shep sees her as no more than a trophy for his drugged-up ego.
Gem makes the mistake of getting involved in Rage’s illegal activities, which lands her back in the arms of an outlaw motorcycle club and a deadly conclusion.
I shifted in my chair. I wasn’t ready for an interrogation, but I understood their need for answers.
The first round of questions they fired at me were routine: family, school background, and employment record. Then they asked me what bikes I’d owned or ridden.
“I had a Yamaha 125 at college, and then I owned a Harley Softail Crossbones,” I answered.
They didn’t look too surprised when I mentioned the Harley Davidson.
“I can handle any bike from a 125 up to 1000. As you know, I have a Suzuki GSX R600, and a Kawasaki 250, but would I’d like to own, if I ever win the lottery, is a Ducati.” I grinned but it wasn’t returned.
I knew what the next question was going to be, and my mouth dried up at the prospect of answering it.
“Have you ever been a member of any other motorcycle club?” Turbo asked.
This was a part of my past that I hoped to forget. I stared into Turbo’s face. I saw Doc nod, urging me to answer.
“Yes. I used to ride with the Hawks.”
The name was not unknown to them. Blade’s eyes lit. Doc smiled, but Turbo and Gbh looked uncomfortable with the news.
“How long were you a member?” Turbo asked.
“Three years. Listen, mind if I smoke?”
“Go ahead,” Blade answered.
I pulled the packet of cigarettes out of my jacket pocket. My hands were shaking. I hoped the others didn’t notice. I cupped my hands and lit my cigarette, inhaling deeply, glad for the burning taste.
“Do you still associate with them?” Gbh asked.
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t seen a Hawk since I left the club a year and a half ago.”
The chapter of the Hawks I used to run with was based in the South. I made sure our paths didn’t cross.
“And you were a full patch?” Pat asked.
“Women aren’t allowed to wear the wings, but I had the Lady tag, so yes, I was a full member.”
“So, you were involved with their illegal activities?” Blade asked, leaning forward in anticipation of my answer.
“I was involved, yes,” I answered defensively. “Look, that was a long time ago. I’m out of the game now. You needn’t worry about the Hawks.”
“We’re not worried,” Gbh growled.
“I want a copy of your birth certificate and driving license to me by the end of this weekend,” Blade said.
“Okay.” I reached over and took the book Doc was holding out to me.
“Here’s our code. Read it, memorize it then give it back to me next week,” he said.
I was surprised Rage had a code. The Hawks had their own rules of conduct and such, but they were a seventy full-patched member club. Rage had seventeen fully patched members, so I was interested to see what their club rules were.
What Road Rage readers say about the book…
“The story in this book draws you in, entwining you with the characters as each page is read. It is detailed and colorfully twisted to keep you on the edge of your seat. You really feel the pain of the main character and it envelopes you with emotion, as you hang on to every last word. I enjoyed this book very much and recommend it to everyone looking for an exciting story…looking forward to reading many more.”
“The MC genre is my favorite and Karina Kantas definitely did not disappoint me! The well-written storyline and the well-developed characters just drew me in from the very beginning until I turned the very last page. I loved how Gem and Doc’s relationship developed over time since I was rooting for them from the first time Doc was introduced into the story!”
“If you love MC books you’ll fall in love with this one, the characters, the storyline, and you won’t want to put this book down. Absolutely loved it.”
Karina Kantas is an award-winning author and filmmaker.
Karina is a prolific writer with 14 titles that cover the fiction genres of YA, horror, PNR, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, dark mafia romance, thriller, erotica, supernatural, dark MC romance.
When Karina is not working on a novel, she loves writing dark flash fiction.
Karina is an Electric Eclectic author, a podcaster, Booktuber, YouTuber, and radio host, and runs ‘Author Assist’, offering services and training to debut and established authors.
Don’t worry, this SCAM! is a new book by the prominent author, Stevie Turner, and the winning entry of the Electric Eclectic Novella Fiction Prize.
Lauren West and Ben Hughes are saving frantically for their forthcoming marriage and mortgage deposit. When Lauren sees an advert online from a firm of brokers extolling the profits to be gained by buying and selling Bitcoins, she is interested enough to pursue it further.
Lauren clicks on the advert. She is soon contacted by Paul Cash, a knowledgeable stockbroker whom Lauren trusts straight away. He is affable, plausible, and seemingly genuinely interested in her welfare. Lauren looks forward to making enough money to be able to surprise Ben and bring the date of their wedding forward, and also to put a deposit down on their ideal house.
The seat was a fallen tree, a once-mighty oak, now moss-covered, and beginning to rot. It had lain at the top of the hill for as long as I can remember.
It was the place where I often sat in solitude, looking out across the valley to the hills, and onwards into the purple haze of beyond.
I am surprised more people do not know of this place, the place I think of as my own. Yet over the years of coming here, I have only seen a few people before today. The occasional dog walker, the tramp who wandered too far from the village, the little girl with the kite, and one or two more. I have never seen any of those people more than once. It seems that visitors to this place are far and few.
Perhaps, the problem is the woodland. To get to this clearing on the hill, one must trek through the densely wooded area, known locally as the Gallows Trees.
There are rumours abound regarding the woodland.
One such tale is the woods are so named because the town’s gallows were built from the old oaks that grow here. Like the one I often sit on. It is said the lost souls of all those hanged now wander aimlessly amongst the trees.
Another story is, years ago, a fellow called Gallow owned these woods, he was a woodsman. One day a cavalry officer rode up to the Gallow’s cottage on his charger, demanding Mr. Gallow’s surrender his daughter, so to become the officer’s wife.
Gallow’s refused, and a fight took place. As Mrs. Gallows tried to separate the fighting men; the officer sliced off her head with a mighty swing of his Sabre. Mr. Gallow retaliated by hefting his axe high into the air before bringing it down with all his might.
At that precise moment, young Annabel Gallow’s ran from the house, coming between the men. The axe cleaved Annabel’s skull in two.
Mr. Gallows was hung in the town square. His body was left dangling for a week, suspended from a frame he himself fashioned from the very oak trees of his own woodland.
Locals delight in telling this tale to outsiders, informing them Mr. Gallows ghost is constantly looking for Annabel within the woodland. On quiet, windless nights, it is said you can hear him calling her name.
“Annabel”, the air whispers, “Annabel, where are you?”
This is the story the locals tell. But others say it is not true.
One time, not so long ago, something unusual happened here.
A group of men came to this place. They carried with them an array of equipment. I heard they were called Ghost hunters, Spectral engineers, or Paranormal researchers. It really depends on who you listen to.
They were a strange lot, wandering about fixing camera points, heat sensors, movement detectors, microphones, and all sorts of gadgets throughout the woods, and around the green where the tree trunk lies.
Five day’s they stayed. Sleeping in a van, and a few oddly assorted tents at the north edge of the woods, next to what once was Black Mill Farm.
Every morning they milled about drinking coffee and checking their machines. They took turns watching the dials and screens they precariously placed on rickety trestle tables in an open-sided tent.
Nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
This is why, I supposed, they seemed somewhat dejected the morning they were leaving.
I thought I would never get another chance to see exactly what they were doing here, so that morning I walked closer, watching as they unplugged their equipment, and began to pack it away.
I was surprised how much care they took in placing their strange machines into those big black padded cases. Two men carrying them, gently lifting them, and sliding them into the van without dropping, banging, or jolting them.
So intent was I watching the men’s activities, I walked very close to their tent, much closer than I intended.
That was when everything in the tent started to buzz and beep. The men jumped, startled expressions appearing on their faces as they rushed about in excitement. I watched as they stared at the lights flickering and buzzing, pointing, and stabbing their fingers at the screens, and dials.
The men were looking up, out of the tent, in the direction I stood. I looked around and about myself, I could see nothing which would cause them so much excitement.
One man called out… ’Who are you?’
I thought he was speaking to me, so I answered him, ‘I am Annabel,’ I said.
I am surprised more people do not know of this place, the place where a once-mighty oak stood, now fallen, moss-covered, and beginning to rot, the place I think as my own.
If you enjoyed reading ‘This Place‘, I am certain you would love to read my psychological suspense story, ‘Three Floors Up‘, published as an eBook/Kindle, and available from Amazon, https://amzn.to/3uZ5W0q and universally via D2D, https://books2read.com/u/mlYqN7
Despite shops being closed for much of 2020, figures show Britons bought books in volume – although many authors continued to struggle.
UK
More than 200m print books were sold in the UK last year, the first time since 2012 that number has been exceeded, according to an estimate from official book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan.
Although physical ‘bricks & mortar’ bookshops in England were closed from 23 March until 15 June, and then again from 5 November until 2 December, with differing lockdowns in place around the rest of the UK – Nielsen has estimated that the volume of print books sold grew by 5.2% compared with 2019. This equates to 202m books being sold in the UK last year and was worth £1.76bn, up 5.5% on 2019, said Nielsen.
Waterstones, Kate Skipper called the figures encouraging. “So many people have turned to books for sustenance, information and joy through this difficult year.”
USA
Physical retail and online retail have taken dramatically different paths during the pandemic. Well-established chains like Brooks Brothers, GNC, J. Crew, and Neiman Marcus have all made Chapter 11 filings, while Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Target reported record sales.
While book publishing, generally, has performed strongly thus far during the pandemic, bookstores have not.
Despite much positive news around publisher net sales, the U.S. Census data show that bookstore sales declined 28.8% in October 2020 vs. 2019 and 31% YTD.
Through the summer of 2020, Barnes & Noble, like most independent booksellers, balanced opening restrictions against offering online order pickup and greatly expanded online sales. By late fall, cafe and magazine newsstand sales were still down significantly, but book sales were running ahead of a year ago, aided by a doubling in online sales.
COVID-19′s impact on publishing sales and the supply chain has been less than many feared it would be. Whatever doom and gloom surround the publishing industry during the COVID crisis, sales cannot be singled out for scorn. Trade sales in 2020 were almost uniformly ahead of 2019, and in several categories, unit sales were up over 20% through mid-December.
EBOOKS
The ebook format has been to some extent reborn during the pandemic, recovering from shrinking percentages of overall sales, and publisher disdain for the format.
AUDIOBOOKS
After years of spectacular sales growth, audiobook sales growth slowed significantly in 2019: 16.4% versus 34.7% in 2018, based on data from the Audio Publishers Association (APA). NPD Group reported that unit digital audiobook sales were up 15% through May 2020. The AAP calculated that downloaded audio sales were up 17.3% to the end of October.
In the library market, Overdrive, which had been seeing year-over-year growth in audiobooks, saw depressed audiobook adoption in the pandemic. A possible reason cited by the company: commuters who had been listening to books in the car (or on mass transit) were no longer going into the office.
ELECTRIC ECLECTIC asks…
Overall, the numbers are positive for audio; only the pace of growth is slowing.
Podcast consumption offers an interesting perspective on this data.
Spotify reported in July that in its second-quarter 21% of users were listening to podcasts, up from 19% in Q1. Overall consumption of podcasts more than doubled.
Podtrac recorded 47% download growth for the 52 weeks ending November 01, 2020.
Are these listeners being lured away from audiobooks? Or are podcasts just part of an overall burgeoning audio trend?
PUBLISHING
The pandemic has had an enormous impact on how publishing companies are staffed and how staff execute their work. And, by all accounts, that impact may mark a permanent shift in publishing workflows.
In early August, Penguin Random House confirmed it will not return to its offices “until sometime in 2021… or until it’s safe and it’s practical, whenever that may be.”
Also in August, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch sent out a note that “we will not be requiring anyone whose work can be done remotely to return to any of our offices for the foreseeable future.”
GENERAL
Overall retail sales changed only slightly in 2020, but there were huge swings month-to-month. April sales were down 14.7% from March but were followed by an 18.3% jump in May. November retail sales dropped 1.1% from October but were up 4.1% from November 2019.
Book retail is a set of businesses. First, it’s both physical and digital. More than half of all book retail takes place online (with Amazon accounting for at least half of those sales). Physical retail, on its own, has several components, broadly speaking: chain bookstores, independent bookstores, big-box retailers like Costco, and “newsstands” at drug and grocery stores, airport stores, etc.
Then there is digital, capturing more than 10% of most book publisher sales, and the vast majority of self-publishing sales. Amazon controls at least three-quarters of that market.
TO CONCLUDE
The changes in the retail landscape speak volumes. (Pun intended).
On the one hand, from now on publishers must treat bookselling as online- and digital-first, physical-second, with no further questions asked.
Pre-COVID it was still valid for publishers to ponder “where does Amazon fit within our reseller channel strategy?”
The question henceforth is “how do our reselling channels align with an online-first strategy (particularly for Amazon)?”
…And the mouse in the corner might be heard to squeak “and what should we do about the bookstores?”
Although the sudden pandemic-driven shifts may slow or revert toward the mean with the achievement of a “new normal,” we believe that important underlying changes will persist and continue to evolve.
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