SACHA BLACK

the future

Watch and Wonders – Books, Tech and the Future with @alliepottswrite

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Today I am thrilled to have an epic geek-out with my dear friend and slave driver accountability partner Allie Potts. If you don’t know Allie, she writes both cyberpunk style dystopian fantasy with a genetic engineering bent alongside cosy mysteries and (I hope in the not too distant future, non-fiction).

Allie is also a talented designer of covers, logos and, well, pretty much anything you need.

Today sees the launch of her long awaited sequel in her Project Gene Assist series: The Watch and Wand.

In order to celebrate, I asked Allie to indulge me in a spot of geekery about all things tech and the future.

Without further ado… [Read more…] about Watch and Wonders – Books, Tech and the Future with @alliepottswrite

Trad vs Indie – A Debate on The Future of Book Publishing

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future-of-booksSo I did it. I tweaked my final comma, dotted my final I and after writing an email that gave me hives, I pressed send and off went my bookbaby to five terrifying awesome beta readers.

I sat for a while. Motionless. Except for the rapid blink of my eyelids at the completely blank screen. There were no more words needed. What in the fucksticks was I meant to do now? Then the realisation slowly crept in… I HAD NO BOOK. IT WAS GONE. LIKE REALLY GONE. The book that had consumed me for nearly two years, was no more. Holy mother of almighty fuck.

Wana know what happened next…?

I freaked the fudgebuggins out, thats what. It took exactly 4.3 milliseconds before I combusted in a violent meltdown. I really regretted sending it. HOW COULD I SEND IT OUT TO REAL PEOPLE…Obviously its a pile of shite. A fact of which, even the halo holding hand of god couldn’t dissuade me of.

And to my utter fucking horror, I realised there is no ‘unsend’ button. What self serving artificially intelligent email company DOESN’T HAVE A RECALL BUTTON???

FUCK. Like fucking fuck. With six side orders of FUCK MY ACTUAL FUCKING LIFE.

I spent the next 12 hours listing eleventy hundred things that were wrong with my novel. The list included everything. EVERYTHING. Not just main characters, arcs and endings. Oh no. I attacked the detail too, no comma, speech mark or paragraph spacing was left unscathed.

I made the mistake of voicing these concerns to some bastards wonderful friends who told me to pull my shit together before they sent a BitchSlapOGram to my front door. I listened. Just. And only after several more hours of wallowing in a seriously impressive vat of self loathing and book related hatred.

SonOfABitchWhatHaveIDone?

Okay. I’m done. Moving on.

With continued interruption to the schedule, today, I want to debate. I want to know what you think about the future of publishing. Of course, I have brought together some interesting facts and articles and some points of note. So I hope you bought your most opinionated self cause I’m interested in what you got to say. Without further ado…

Let’s talk the future of publishing.

[Read more…] about Trad vs Indie – A Debate on The Future of Book Publishing