Mobile Reading in China, Book Sales Trends for 2015, and Upcoming Release by Nick Wilford

The Literary Platform had an interesting article about mobile reading in China. As of last December, there were 557 million mobile Internet users, and there’s been a surge in mobile reading. In 2012, total revenue was 6.89 billion. The predominant form is serialized fiction, and some of the leading companies include Shanda, Cloudary, and TenCent.

"In the past ten years, these Online Literature sites have grown substantially: a parallel publishing system operating seemingly outside of the traditional Chinese publishing industry.

"Chinese online literature platforms have also managed, to the envy of Western online platforms, to monetise the selling of this reading content, in seamlessly integrated, payment mechanisms."

Wouldn’t you like to tap into that market?

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Publishers Weekly posted its weekly update of book sales last Friday. It’s always interesting to see the trends. This year, Trade Paperbacks are up 6%, Mass Market Paperbacks are down 12%, and Audio Books are down 18%. The latter two have been in rapid decline over the past three years.

Unfortunately, they don’t have data for Ebooks. Wish they did!

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Coming May 25th 2015:

A Change of Mind and Other Stories by Nick Wilford
Contemporary speculative fiction
Cover Design: Rebekah Romani
Preorder: Amazon US / Amazon UK
Add on Goodreads

A Change of Mind and Other Stories consists of a novella, four short stories and one flash fiction piece. This collection puts the extremes of human behaviour under the microscope with the help of lashings of dark humour, and includes four pieces previously published in Writer’s Muse magazine.

In A Change of Mind, Reuben is an office worker so meek and mild he puts up with daily bullying from his boorish male colleagues as if it’s just a normal part of his day. But when a stranger points him in the direction of a surgeon offering a revolutionary new procedure, he can’t pass up the chance to turn his life around.

But this isn’t your average surgeon. For a start, he operates alone in a small room above a mechanic’s. And he promises to alter his patients’ personality so they can be anything they want to be…

In Marissa, a man who is determined to find evidence of his girlfriend’s infidelity ends up wondering if he should have left well alone.

The Dog God finds a chink in the armour of a man with a megalomaniacal desire to take over the world.

In The Insomniac, a man who leads an obsessively regimented lifestyle on one hour’s sleep a night finds a disruption to his routine doesn’t work for him.

Hole In One sees a dedicated golfer achieving a lifelong ambition.

The Loner ends the collection on a note of hope as two family members try to rebuild their lives after they are torn apart by jealousy.

Losing a Furry Friend

I have some great new book releases listed at my other site today - The Circle of Friends.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook saw the news last Wednesday - we lost our cat Spunky to cancer. (He’s the one who had major surgery for cancer a year ago.) The poor thing wasn’t eating and several trips to the vet revealed a blockage. When the surgeon opened him up Wednesday morning, she found his intestines riddled with cancer. It was a hard decision, as we were hopeful and didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye, but we had them put him to sleep while he was still under. He would’ve only lived a couple more days anyway.

Those of you who are animal lovers understand that pets aren’t pets. They are family. They are the closest thing on earth to true agape love, as they love unconditionally. Spunky was that kind of cat, too. We didn’t call him Spunky the Love Bug for nothing.

Actually, we had a lot of names for him - Buddy, Captain Fuzzy Pants, Snot Boy (because he liked to rub his wet nose all over us), Pookie Bear, and Buoy. (The latter came from my penchant to say words wrong. Instead of calling him Big Boy, another of his nicknames, I said Big Buoy. My husband thought it was cute and the name stuck.)

I’ve never added a pet to my stories, but I could tell you all the pros and cons. Pros include a constant companion, a purpose, love, bringing life to a home, a guardian, a playmate, a warm pillow, a source of amusement, and someone to cheer you up when you feel down, Cons include the cost (all said and done, Spunky was our $3500. cat), litterboxes/yards, taking care of them when you’re gone, barf, pestering you, waking you up in the middle of the night, illness, and the hole that’s left in your heart when they die.

But I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for the past 9 & 1/2 years we had with Spunky. He brought us much joy and was my husband’s best buddy. And now I’m sure he’s in Heaven, still trying to make friends with Hobbes. (Who was my best buddy.)

How many of you have a favorite furry buddy?

Pitching to the Media and Rich Textures

Today I am over at the The Insecure Writer’s Support Group - Finding Media Outlets and the Pitch. If you want to know how to find media outlets and how to pitch yourself and your book to the media, head on over.

I’m also posting some more photos from our recent trip to the Cape Fear Serpentarium in Wilmington. These shots show you why I love going there and love taking photos of reptiles - so much texture!

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

It’s time for another edition of The Insecure Writer’s Support Group, founded by Ninja Captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh.

I’m still writing and working on the paranormal stories. No insecurities, just slow progress. I’ve also been busy with formatting and I have several seminars and events in the coming months. Not sure why, but the older I get, the harder it is to focus on just one thing. Of course, my husband would claim I’ve never been able to focus on just one thing at a time.

I knew I couldn’t participate in A to Z this year with this blog. But I will be posting over at The Insecure Writer’s Support Group next month. I have my four letters already scheduled and ready.

I’m also helping A to Z co-host Susan Gourley. I’m one of her Dragon Soldiers.

All of that combined should be just enough to keep me busy (and out of trouble) without overdoing it. Because I’m good at overdoing it. My husband says I’m the worst boss ever.

Do you overdo it sometimes?


PS -
Thank you also for the sweet comments on my last post about the character traits of long hair.