Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Pork Chop Express


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A book is a book (sometimes)

With 2015, a new European Community regulation come into being, stating that VAT on digital contents will be calculated based on the country of purchase.
This is extremely stupid – as it hits small businesses, cottage companies and small publishers, forcing them to keep a separate accounting for VAT based on the countries in which their products are sold.
This, because European Community countries do have each a different VAT regime for digital contents – ranging fro 4% to 23%.

The new rule was apparently introduced to solve the problem of Amazon’s tax dodge (Amazon being VAT-registered in Luxembourg) but the effects are horrid – and do not hit Amazon, but readers and publishers.
In Italy – where I live – VAT for ebooks used to be a staggering 22%.
No matter where I purchased my ebooks, that would be the extra for me to pay. Continue reading →


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A drying up of the soul

51H8S032BHL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_I was doing the usual three-cards trick on my shelves, trying to slot more volumes in the same old space, and while trying to find a place for the old London Gazzeteer, I found myself with no place for Peter Ackroyd‘s Albion.
And as it happens, I sat down a while and browsed through that 500-odd pages hardback.

For those that missed it, Ackroyd’s Albion is a book about “the origins of English imagination” – that is to say, a catalog and discussion of those elements that make up the imaginary matter of Britain, that complex collection of legends, images, clichés and stories that is the basis of so much literature, music, art and what not.

Now the interesting bit is I was discussing, two nights back, with my friend Lucy among others, what we perceive as an increasing impoverishment of the imaginary matter backing what’s sold as fantasy, as horror, as science fiction. Continue reading →


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Busty barbarian queens

Back in September, when I did my post about firm-breasted lawyers, in the comments section I vented my hope that by writing better stories we can build a better audience.

And yet… a few days back I crashed into a sword & sorcery plot synopsis featuring

busty and cruel queen Whatshername

And I thought – is the fact that she’s busty so damn important to the plot that we need to know about her busty-ness even before we buy the story?
Because that’s what we get about her – a name, her cruel personality, and her boobs.
And so ok, Whatshername’s cruel – it makes sense you tell me early, because this way I know who the bad guy is going to be.
A bit of a spoiler, but it figures.
But busty?
Am I supposed to buy the book because of that?
Because that’s what the synopsis is for – hooking me and getting me to buy the book. Continue reading →


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My blogging strategies (or lack thereof)

daily-blogging-beatOK, let’s say that blogging about blogging is something I try and avoid as much as I can: blogging, as any other form of writing, works best when it’s done, not when it’s talked about.
On the other hand, when we find something that works (or seems to), sharing the knowledge is a good idea.
We do not live in a vacuum.

So, here’s what I found out.

If you read a lot of those articles and handbooks about the best way to keep on blogging no matter what, and have tons of readers, millions of comments, make money like, in cartloads… When you go through those how-to lists and infographics, they all seem to agree on three points Continue reading →


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Word-count as quality?

very-thick-book

And I like big things
the size of them impresses me
[Styx]

I’ve been told that – when it comes to ebook pricing – selling anything shorter than 100 pages for 99 cents is, basically, shortchanging the readers.

I find the idea somewhat silly, especially when, to support it, I am told that generally speaking short fiction can’t be as good as long fiction.
Quite simply, I’ve been told, there’s not room enough, in a short story, to tell a good, satisfying tale.

Continue reading →


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The gamification of piracy

Last week, Bride of the Swamp God, the first in the Aculeo & Amunet ebook series, was pirated on a forum.
A link, two servers, my ebook available for free.

It happened on one of those websites where the pirate – but they call them sharers – gets points for uploading items, points that can be spent for a number of services… including requesting a specific title, a book, a movie.

It was a first, for me, and while I did all that was in my power to have the links canceled, I had the opportunity of discussing the situation with a friend, and this led to a number of consideration that I’m trying to summarize in this post.
Mind you, I haven’t discovered nothing new, and I’m not offering any momentous solutions.
But let’s try and see where this gets us… Continue reading →