Public Libraries Task Force formed

Libraries should be more like coffee shops, claims a new report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport - the report which  likely cost a fortune to carry out, came up with findings that are as expected pure tripe. Libraries should, the report claims, deliver Wi-Fi in a comfortable setting when in reality many libraries do this already. It was also claimed that libraries should be more like retail outlets with the usual amenities of toilets, sofa and special offers. Though I can't help feeling that making libraries more like retail outlets goes against the entire philosophy of what a public library should be.

Libraries across the country have been closed down over recent years by local authorities in a brutal program of cost cutting exercises and once these libraries have gone it is unlikely that we will ever see them again. William Sieghart, author of the report told the Independent newspaper that he found it astonishing that one third of England's libraries don't yet offer Wi-Fi. He said that while libraries remained a vital part of the community there need to be a reinvigoration of the library system in this country. A task force will be created designed to work with local authorities to improve and revitalise libraries. The first meeting of the task force will take place in February 2015.

That's all very well but local authorities should cease closing public libraries at once - it is shameful the way councils up and down the country continue to waste money and yet make severe cuts to vital public services. I like to think that this task force will do some good, but the realist tells me that it is all a smoke screen to close yet more libraries.

This month writers across the country will feel one of the very real effects of library closures when their annual statement for PLR payment (Public Lending Rights) arrive in inboxes. I took a drop in my own PLR payments this year, despite having more titles available than the previous year. I may have more books out but there are less libraries supplying my books. For most professional writers PLR payments are essential, after all most of us don't earn big money from our work, and we are acutely feeling the effects of the brutal program of library closures across the country.

Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 12 Jan - 18 Jan 2015
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	113	95	101	224	89	97	169	888	127
Unique Visits	98	86	93	219	75	89	152	812	116
First Time Visits	86	81	84	212	67	89	140	759	108
Returning Visits	12	5	9	7	8	0	12	53	8

Sherlock Holmes and the Queen of Diamonds Book Review

Sherlock Holmes and the Queen of Diamonds, a pastiche by David Whitehead and Steve Hayes, two writers well known to the Archive, is now available as a low price Kindle eBook and it's well worth reading and will appeal to not only fans of Sherlock Holmes but  anyone who likes a well written, no nonsense action adventure with a cerebral leaning.


I found it interesting that the authors chose to write this Holmes book in third person, rather than the more usual first person from Watson's POV - After all Conan Doyle used the first person with Watson narrating the story for most of his Holmes adventures. True he did use the third person a couple of times, as well as having Holmes narrating a couple himself but these are oddities and don't stand up there with the best of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures. I asked author David Whitehead why he opted for the third person and he told me that he wrote the novel from an un-produced movie script written by Steve Hayes and that the third person narrative style was the only way to tell the story. After all there are sections of the story that neither Holmes, nor Watson witness. And of course using the third person means that the author(s) don't have to slavishly try to recreate Conan Doyle's own style, which is often a failing with Sherlock Holmes stories by other hands.

The story starts off feeling very much like a traditional Conan Doyle Holmes adventure but there is a major twist around the half way point that I just didn't see coming, and from that point onwards the feel of the book changes and it becomes a roller-coaster action adventure - think Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes but with more substance. The Holmes of this book is very much the deductive genius we know and love but Watson seems often to be a rather useless appendage, likely due to the third person narrative and of course that the main thrust of the story is not the relationship between Holmes and Watson, something intrinsic to the Conan Doyle stories, but rather the relationship between Holmes and a brash American, whose identity I'll leave the reader to discover for themselves.

That said this does indeed feel like a Sherlock Holmes adventure and I was hooked after the first few pages. If you like Sherlock Holmes then you'll enjoy this, but the book will also appeal to those who enjoy a damn good adventure - the kind of book that used to fill the paperback rack in years gone by.

Quite excellent...a story that can quite cleverly fit into the canon without causing any major ripples.

Sales of adult print fiction declined in 2014 but digital fiction prospers.

The latest Neilsen Bookscan review which looked at the book market during 2014 shows a decline in sales for adult print books, whilst the market for adult digital fiction has taken another jump with predictions that the consumer eBook market will be worth £350m this year. Out of all the adult print books published during 2014 only three titles sold more than 100,000 copies. These big sellers were from Lee Child, Martina Cole and CJ Sansom.

'Any drop in sales of adult fiction can mainly be put down to the migration to eBooks,' Said The Booksellers, Phillip Jones in reponse to the Neilsen report.

Alison Flood, writing in the Guardian reported - 'Within digital adult fiction there was growth in three unexpected genres - short stories, graphic novels and westerns while sales year on year of literary fiction fell, as did sales of romantic fiction, crime and science fiction.'

RIP BRIAN CLEMENS

Sad to hear the screenwriter, Brian Clemens has passed away at the age of 83 - my generation grew up with his writing. He penned scripts for shows such as The New Avengers, The Persuaders, The Champions, Danger Man and many others. In fact the list of 1960's/70's adventure television he wrote is endless. Later he went onto create The Professionals which starred Lewis Colins and Martin Sheen but he was also responsible for movie scripts such as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Highlander: The Quickening.

He left behind him a legacy of cult television that will be enjoyed and admired for many years to come.

Weekly Stats Report: 5 Jan - 11 Jan 2015
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	117	121	83	104	75	69	108	677	97
Unique Visits	87	108	71	99	64	66	102	597	85
First Time Visits	79	100	69	97	63	64	99	571	82
Returning Visits	8	8	2	2	1	2	3	26	4

Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 29 Dec - 4 Jan 2015
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	93	438	122	114	118	71	96	1,052	150
Unique Visits	73	424	115	102	93	66	87	960	137
First Time Visits	69	423	112	98	88	64	86	940	134
Returning Visits	4	1	3	4	5	2	1	20	3

The Sheriff by Chuck Tyrell

 I'll be bringing the Archive back to life this week, after weeks of being snowed under with work and I've got some exciting western related news coming, including stirrings from the Chap O'keefe camp, as well as a look at the latest titles from the astounding line built up by Piccadilly Publishing.

And so to kick things off I'd like to direct western fanatics to the new book from Chuck Tyrell. The book's available as a low priced eBook, and anyone wanting a western fix should check it out.


 Four riders pounded toward us from the east, raising a cloud of dust and firing like they had all the bullets in the world. I took a bead on the lead horse, a three-color paint, and squeezed off a shot. The horse went down and the rider tumbled head over heels to the ground. When he scrambled to his feet, I put him down again with a shot in the brisket. I jacked another shell into my Winchester. 
    I switched my aim to another rider, not worrying about the one I’d shot. He was dead.
    The other three scattered. There wasn’t all that much cover on the flat, but they ran for what there was. Andy was firing, but the running horses showed that his lead took little effect.
    “Aim for the horses,” I hollered.
    A six-gun cracked and a bullet plowed into the dirt not an inch from my left foot. I whirled and pulled the trigger when the Winchester’s muzzle lined up with Denny, whose hand worked at earing back the hammer of an old Colt Army M1861. My bullet took him just above the belt buckle and knocked him on his butt, where he sat, staring with disbelieving eyes at the blood stain spreading on his shirt.


The eBook is available now - it's on my own Kindle and I'll be getting to it pretty soon - things have been so frantic lately that I haven't had any time to read fiction of any kind - (rare for me since I've always got a book on the go). And I can recommend this book with confidence because Chuck Tyrell, a man who also, like myself, publishes westerns with Black Horse Westerns always delievers a totally readable and enjoyable book. But don't just take my word for it - Chuck's won an award or two.



Charles T. Whipple, an international prize-winning author, uses the pen name of Chuck Tyrell for his Western novels. Whipple was born and reared in Arizona’s White Mountain country only 19 miles from Fort Apache. He won his first writing award while in high school, and has won several since, including a 4th place in the World Annual Report competition, a 2nd place in the JAXA Naoko Yamazaki Commemorative Haiku competition, the first-place Agave Award in the 2010 Oaxaca International Literature Competition, and the 2011 Global eBook Award in western fiction. Raised on a ranch, Whipple brings his own experience into play when writing about the hardy people of 19th Century Arizona. Although he currently lives in Japan, Whipple maintains close ties with the West through family, relatives, former schoolmates, and readers of his western fiction. Whipple belongs to Western Fictioneers, Western Writers of America, Arizona Authors Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Asian American Journalists Association, and Tauranga Writers Inc.