Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Writing on a dare

CornettoEtCappuccinoOk, it went like this – I was wasting time yesterday morning, on Facebook, having a friendly chat with some author/publisher friends, here in the old C Block of the Italian Blogsphere.
We were talking original ideas, imitation as tribute and nuisance, and all those things, while each one of us was having breakfast at home (isn’t this web-thingie just great?)
Anyway, we were chatting away and sipping cappuccinos, and I really don’t know how it happened, honest, but one thing led to another, and…

So I bet the guys I can write a fantasy novelette in a weekend, and self-publish it on Amazon Kindle in less than a week.
And not only that!
Being an overconfident fool, I bet I can write a novelette that will be the first in a series, featuring a new setting and a new character.

And yes, this is stupid.
I mean, it’s the weekend, it’s summer, there’s 40+ degrees and 90% humidity, I have two deadlines approaching…
Ah! Continue reading →


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Ancient Masters – Peter Kolosimo

KOLOSIMOMy generation was primed for adventure by Thor Heyerdahl and Folco Quilici, for space exploration by Carl Sagan and yes, for mystery and deep time by Peter Kolosimo.
We were the lucky ones.

So I thought I’ll do a series of posts on these maitres a’ penser of our own.
Books fitting in a pulp hero’s library.

And I’ll start with Peter Kolosimo.
I miss Peter Kolosimo. Continue reading →


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Faster, better (?)

FFBXjyVThere’s something I noticed – I’m getting fast.
At writing, I mean.
Not the mechanical act – I’m still a lousy typist.
The writing, getting the ideas on paper, has become easier.

In the last 24 hours I did the main research and put down the core 5000 words for a short pulpy historical essay I hope I’ll publish by the end of the month, I hammered out 750 words of a story I’d like to pitch to a very hard market overseas, and wrote the detailed synopsis and outline for two novels I’m trying to place with another publisher.

Plus this post – that is very short – and another, longer one for my Italian blog. Continue reading →


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Summer homeworks

Stainless-Steel-Manual-Meat-Mincer-22-So I was not busy enough, right?
And I decided to find me something to do in my spare time (what spare time?!!) this summer.

Fact is, if I want to reach the largest audience possible with my books, I need to widen my distribution.
Granted, Amazon holds 80% of the market – but what about the remaining 20%?

Also, what about those readers that keep asking for epub and pdf versions of my ebooks and don’t feel confortable enough with the idea of justpla in converting the .mobi files*?

So, I’d like to try and put a book or two of mine on Smashwords.
And to do so, I have to learn to format my files for the Smashword Meatgrinder – that is, to prepare files that can be uploaded to that platform, and then be converted.

The process, from what I saw, is a lot different from the standard procedure I use to create my Kindle books.
Not necessarily harder, but different.
And that’s the main snag.

Thank goodness I have a nice selection of handbooks here with me.
Now I only have to sit down and read them, and then start experimenting.

On the other hand, I could just adopt a double standard, and upload epubs directly to Smashwords and mobis directly to Amazon…

Decisions, decisions… I’ll keep you posted.

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* Using Calibre, for instance.

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Other People’s Pulps – Regime Heroes

dfulmineAs mentioned in a previous post, the Fascist Regime was bad juju for the pulps in Italy, but the genre did reflect on comics.
Graphic narratives were popular, and probably easier to manipulate.
A few American comics were “adapted” and later pirated by Italian artists – “Tim Tyler’s Luck” became “Cino & Franco”, Mandrake had its dialogues extensively rewritten, and a series of apocryphal Flash Gordon stories were published when the originals could no longer be imported.
The Regime feared the readers could still be seduced by the American way of life, even through adapted and manipulated comics.

With the American comics gone, the field was open for original heroes. And if “Lucio l’avanguardista” was probably the most all-out fascist-friendly comic book hero, the most popular was certainly Dick Fulmine.

NOTE: I’m indebted to my friend Alessandro Girola, who first wrote about Dick Fulmine on his blog, Plutonia Experiment.
Much of the research behind what follows started on Alex’s page. Continue reading →