If you really want to know, Phil Plait has done the maths. Read the full article on his Discover blog by clicking here.

As an experiment, I’ve put together a book of photographs called Ambient Randomness via Booksmart. It’s a collection of pictures of everyday objects and landscapes taken using the simple 2.0 megapixel camera on my mobile phone. Although the majority of the images were taken in Somerset, others were snapped as far afield as South Wales, London, Dublin, and Barcelona. Although the pictures look good in the preview, I’m not sure how well they’ll print out. You can see the preview here:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/270507/5a978b7b423fe3cd9166e36b021a4533

I have my first mention on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_Press

This morning is one of those bright, clear autumn mornings when everything looks like you’re viewing it through the wrong end of a telescope. A few hundred yards from the house stands the village church. I can see it from the bathroom window while I’m shaving and cleaning my teeth. It was built in the 1950s to replace the original building that was destroyed by German incendiary bombs during WWII – something that seems almost unimaginable on a morning like this.

If you haven’t yet read my short story collection The Last Reef, you might like to know that the ebook version’s currently on sale at half price from Fictionwise - which means you can download the entire 60,000 word book to read on your computer for only $4.00, which is roughly £2.29 - less than the cost of a pint of beer. You don’t need a special ebook reader, as the download is available as a pdf file.

You can read a sample story and buy the book here: http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook71799.htm?cache

CHIP HEADS

By Gareth L Powell

Five years ago, the first neural chip implants appeared – soft biotech gel memory chips that held our schedules, important birthdays and anniversaries, the phone numbers of our friends and families…

Over the next few months, the chips were steadily upgraded. New models were released with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. They took the place of our mobile phones and our internet browsers, giving us inbuilt access to the sum total of human knowledge, twenty-four hours a day.

We became reliant on them.

And then something in the net ate everyone’s brain.

Well, not everyone. There are still some unaffected people – children, some pensioners… and people like me, who dug the chips from their heads and survived.

The affected people move in strange patterns, like shoals of fish or flocks of birds. They are calm and do not see the world around them – until whatever it is that controls them releases its hold, which it does every few days, for them to eat and shit and go crazy… Then they’re back to walking in strange, soothing patterns again.

When they’re released, they’re usually starving. Like ravenous zombies, they’ll eat anything to hand, pursue any animal or unaffected human they see and tear it apart.

Trust me; you don’t want to be caught in the open when that happens.

Currently, I’m living with a handful of unaffected men and women on the upper floors of a downtown tower block. The lift doesn’t work and we’ve blockaded the stairs – but we’re not going to stay here forever.

There are mobile phone masts and Wi-Fi servers everywhere. Somehow, they still have power. If we can knock out enough of them to disrupt the signal that controls the chips, maybe we can make a difference… And maybe we can start to rebuild.

Today, I’ve been discussing plans for the launch of an anthology of local-themed stories, and we’re trying to decide if it would be worth getting local bookshops involved, or concentrating instead on attracting online sales – and that’s why I want to know: as science fiction readers, where do you buy your books?

Personally, I tend to purchase the majority of mine online because a) it’s generally cheaper, and b) there’s usually a better selection – most of the SF books I want to read simply aren’t stocked in local bookstores.

So, in the interests of market research - where do you think is the best place to advertise a new SF anthology, online or in-store?

Since turning freelance, I’ve been reading a lot of books about the business and craft of professional copywriting, and below (in no particular order) are the ones I’ve personally found most useful, interesting and inspiring:

• How to Set Up a Freelance Writing Business by Jason Deign
• Gabay’s Copywriter’s Compendium by J.Jonathan Gabay
• Write To Sell by Andy Maslen
• The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert W. Bly
• How to Write Sales Letters That Sell by Drayton Bird
• The IDM Marketing Guide Edited by Robin Fairlie
• Success… And How to Avoid It by Matt Coward

Plus, the following DVD is pretty good. I’ve seen Andy live several times and he has a series of online articles that will be of interest to anyone in the advertising or direct marketing industy.

• How To Write Copy That Really Sells (DVD) by Andy Owen

Do you have a favourite reference book that you always keep by the keyboard? Share it with us by leaving a comment.

I thought I’d try my hand at podcasting. This is my first attempt. It’s a bit rough (as I’m still learning how to use Audacity) but think of it as an experiment, and let me know what you think:

mid-life-crisis-by-glp

I watched The Philadelphia Story on DVD this evening, for the first time in several years, and it’s still one of my favourite films. It has a crackling script and a great cast, including Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant — but it’s Jimmy Stewart’s Oscar-winning performance as the frustrated, principled writer, Macaulay (Mike) Connor that gets me every time I watch it. I guess it’s easy for me to identify with him. You see, Connor really wants to write short stories but has to work as a journalist in order to make a living, and you can see that – despite his tough talk – it’s really eating him up inside. He’s facing the one dilemma every serious writer faces sooner or later: how to balance the need to write with the need to eat.

Tracy:  These stories are beautiful. Why, Connor, they’re almost poetry.

Mike:  Don’t kid yourself. They are.

Tracy:  Tell me something, will you? When you can do a thing like that book, how can you possibly do anything else?

Mike:  You may not believe this, but there are people that must earn their living.

Tracy:  Of course, but people buy books, don’t they?

Mike:  Not as long as there’s a library around.