E-BOOKS is it the way forward

I have read two articles recently one was from a newspaper and the other in the writers mag.  I found them very, very interesting and wanted to share what they said.  Firstly the newspaper article stated that around 26 % of adult fiction sold was self published or their own editions, particularly pointing to amazon.  Amazon has already revealed that the best selling author for 2011 was a first time novelist, selling 250,000 copies.  A number of publishers are looking at signing up this author for more books.  Another author who sold over 40,000 copies their book have been snapped up by Harper Collins.  E-book sales rose 20% in 2010 and the figures for 2011 are expected to be a further 25%.
It is becoming more apparent that with the right pitch and story even unknown authors who would have taken years and many rejections are getting their work seen and read.

The second article I read was that although there is a rise in e-books one type of book that is still having a high demand and impact to be printed, are picture books, even e-book junkies are favoring p-books for their children.  Working in a school with children I can see exactly where they are coming from. 

Wellies

A few months back I bought my son some wellies.  I chose them, as at the time I thought blue dinosaur wellies would be fab for my little guy.  To which he preceded to turn his nose up at them and ignore them sitting there quietly in the wardrobe.  How many of you know a child that's never wanted their wellies? If you think back how many of us never wanted wellies? I still recall my red wellies, only because after they finally got too small someone in my family threw them on the roof of the garage and I could see them out of my brothers bedroom window.  Every picture and back then that wasn't many, had me running around in my red wellies.  What is it that attracts children to the fashion statement of wellies? My son finally gave in and joined the 'I love wellies' brigade and where as I was trying to persuade him to wear them, now I am trying to get them off of him especially when he wants to wear them to school.
What made him change his mind?
The freedom that he could
The freedom of free will.  Just because he did not want them when I chose them, using my free will , didn't mean that at some point he would decide  when he wanted to!
Yes it can be annoying at 7 in the morning, your sorting yourself out for the day and your child 'demands' he is wearing wellies to school/church/grandma's but that little annoyance is nothing to the knowledge that he has free will and with it comes his dreams and imagination, on occasion we need to remember our wellies and how things can sometimes be simple if we just remember our pasts and our free will.

Inspiration

Where do you find your inspiration? is it all around us? do you need to experience something unusual or magical to be inspired?  Today was an inspiring day.  Not because I of something unusual well not at first, it was certainly something magical.  I went to the park with my little guy and daughter and it was there watching the joy on his face, the excitement and thrill, yes you could say this is inspiring.  But what inspired me more was the idea of the other children in the park.  In this enclosed space could be tomorrows doctors, teachers, lawyers, nurses, actors, politicians, plumbers, electricians, authors, to name a few.  What can I say the list could go on and on and on but, what really inspired me was that these young people over come obstacles most of us would refuse to even contemplate.  Climbing things more than double your height jumping to infinity and beyond, shooting down a slide or going against gravity and climbing up, giving total trust to sometimes strangers or friends as they sit on the other side of a see-saw or being pushed on a round about.  And on odd occasion they do get bumped or dizzy or fall the little guys just get up rub their knee, elbow or head and carry on.   How many of us if we made things to scale would do what they do.  Yep there would be a few into extreme things that may enjoy it, this was my inspiration, how amazing children are.

But I don't stop there, now for the unusual, before Christmas I had written the verse for a children's picture book about a Robin, then because I wanted to show the agency I was sending it too that I wasn't a one hit wonder I wrote another book, but really for me my inspiring sign was seeing a couple of robins where I work.  Living in Athens I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I have seen a Robin over the years.  When I do see them its a reminder of home, Christmas and anything to do with my childhood, I love Robins to me they are my sign and inspiration.  So on this beautiful warm sunny spring day, whilst waiting in my car with my children my little drop of inspiration came calling.  There in front of me a metre or two away a Robin came.  It just reminded me that inspiration is all around us in many forms and ways.  You don't need to visit historical sites or meet famous people, it could be through a gesture you see in the supermarket.  It could be like my Robin something personal that I would get.  So the next time you feel the need for inspiration, open your heart and look beyond the immediate vision, look deeper, there will be something there waiting just for you.

What is a writer?

I have not been here recently to make a new post, due really to, tooo much other stuff filing my day.  I seem to be making major tracks with the book I started writing on my NANO quest and three poems have been written and sent off for competitions.  But the question I ask myself and I ask all of you out there to think about is,  What is a writer?
The more I write the more I am understanding that it is not I that is telling the story but my characters.  Something I had not experienced until about 10k into my NANO book, don't get me wrong I had written other stories, but they seemed to come from me, I can see where alot of writers get writing block from.  If you are only depending on yourself for a story how can you go forward when you reach a mental rock.  Surely if there is more than one of you telling the story when you get to that rock they can help you climb over it and tell you how it got there.  What I am saying really is, although, yes I am the writer, its my characters that are writing the story, and although I do have the delete option at the end of the document.  It is nice to listen to there version once in a while.