THE WRITE STUFF - THE ARCHIVE'S NEWS FOR HACKS

*A survey by the copywriting firm, Cooper, Murrey Web revealed just 36 percent of Brits with iPads prefer printed books. Cooper Murphy Webb also said more than two in five (43 percent) use their iPad for ten hours or more, although just five percent 'always' leave home with the device. The majority of iPad owners use the device inside their homes and don't leave home with the device.



 * Four billion books translated into 100 languages and a play that has been running in London for over 50 years - whodunnit? Why Agatha Christie, the world's bestselling writer and September 15th sees the 120th anniversary of her birth - expect lots of Christie related happenings across the globe.


* Terry Practchett and publishers Transworld are launching a competition for first time writers where the winner will see their book published and recieve an advance of £20,000 - it's like the X-Factor but with genuine talent. The theme of competition is "Anywhere but here, anywhen but now." Entrants must submit a finished novel of 80,000 to 150,000 words - for more details go to Terry Pratchett's official web site.

* Crime writer, Martina Cole has launched her own record company. The label, Hostage Music - it's like the X-Factor but with talent - is actively looking to sign both singers and songwriters.

* As always when the government f***s things up it is the important services that are cut and with British Councils being told to make a 1.2 billion saving, the unimaginative moronic bland self serving tossers have targeted British libraries and have warned of a severe cut to the £96 million spent on books each year. David Cameron's "Big Society" concept also includes public libraries and suggests that library's should be run by local volunteers. I wonder if sell out, Nick agrees? The Archive is needless to say  horrified and is currently looking at a viable way to arrange some sort of mass protest against library cuts. Libraries must be protected and should be there for all. Any ideas are welcome.

* Stick it to the man - writer Henry Perez has just done that and scored a number one eBestseller on Amazon with Mourn the Living. The book was originally given away free and yet now that the promotion has ended, it is the number one paid for item on Amazon's US Kindle store, raking in a considerable sum for the author.


* Strong rumours are that Borders are due to go out of business and are very nearly bankrupt. This is terrible news but not a big shock if, indeed it does turn out to be true. I'm still in mourning at the loss of the chain from UK stores as Borders was the most varied bookstore there was.  Sad times, indeed.

A Cautionary Tale

"It doesn't matter what writers, publishers, readers, and bookstores say they want.It matters what they're doing.Right now, readers are voting with their wallets. They're making the ebook market grow at an incredible rate; up 6% in just 12 months. That's over a 200% sales increase in ebooks." CHECK OUT THE FULL POST AT A NEWBIE'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING -  Joe Konrath makes some pretty good points

STRANGE HAPPENINGS WAY OUT WEST

Red Brandon did a roaring trade at his saloon in Nebraska - his wife, Ada danced to entertain the customers but one day Red got jealous when one customer positioned himself at the foot of the stage when Red's wife did her high kicks, giving the customer a worm's eye view as it were. Red shot him dead and nailed his spectacles to the stage to warn future customers.



Rancher Jack Zeims of Hutchinson Kansas would not fence his horses, believing they had the right to wander at will. However when a neighbour fenced off his own property to stop the horses wandering in Zack shot him dead. The idealist was hung and his horses sold off.


Jim Bowie knifed Major Norris Wright to death in 1827. The dead man's brother swore revenge and when Bowie was asleep in the town hotel he planned on sneaking into his room and putting a knife in his heart, but the man fell on the knife while sharpening it for the task and bled to death.

Everyone's on Edge

Edge is all over the Wild West Web - Bill Cryder reports on the return of Edge over on his widely read blog, Smashwords now have the eBook listed in their market and are featuring Edge HERE

And Cheaplit, nice name that, have an extract from the new eBook HERE

The Edge is back

"The idealized Westerner lives clean, is respectful to ladies, courteous to his social inferiors and gives his enemies a sporting chance. Edge is not an idealized westerner - not in any way at all. This is where it all begins, one of the most compelling and original western series ever written. A series that will shock and delight in equal measure, for Edge is a western hero like no other - Edge"

The book is also on its way to Amazon's Kindle store and will be showing up there any day now. But the way Amazon's system works at the moment it will appear on Amazon within 2 weeks, although it usually only takes four to five days,  and the expanded distribution which lists it on over 25,000 online sites such as Barnes and Noble will take up to 1-8 weeks.

The book can be bought instantly though direct from the publisher, Solstice Publishing or from sites such as Smashwords.

Edge-Letter-Day

It really is an edge-letter-day with the first of the Edge series now back in print as both eBook and trade paperbacks. Fans of the series may want to join the Official Facebook George Gilman/Steele Edge page to be kept up with all the latest Edge and Gilman related news.


Join up HERE


Thanks to Tony Masero for the bad pun.

True Grit - official photographs as the release date looms ever closer

Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Rose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The real deal

True Grit 2010 is expected to be released on the 25th December 2010 and westerns fans are hoping for a big hit for the genre - this film is either going to be magnificent or it will stink and Jeff Bridges must be applauded for having the courage to try the role made iconic by John Wayne. It doesn't matter that actors other than Wayne have already taken the role of the one eyed law-man for it will be with The Duke that the comparison will be made.

Wayne played the character twice - firstly in an Oscar winning turn in True Grit and then in the less successful sequel Rooster Cogburn AKA Rooster Cogburn and the Lady. There had been plans for a third movie but these were dropped after the less than stellar returns for the second movie. Warren Oates also played the character in a largely forgettable TV movie entitled, True Grit: A further adventure.

At one time there was even talk of a Television Series based around the exploits of the character and with Oates in the title role but the glory days of the TV western were long gone and studio chiefs wouldn't green-light the project. And when a year or so ago it was announced that the Coen brothers would be re-making the movie based on Charles Portis' book western fans were horrified.

Why can't they leave the classic alone? Was a familiar moan but the fact that the Coens, highly innovative film-makers, were behind the project and that Jeff Bridges had been cast in the title role does give strong hopes that this will turn out to be a worthy movie and may even gave the western a profile with a new generation of movie fans for whom the western has always been the genre their dads watched.

Will Bridges still be smiling after the release of the hotly anticipated re-make?

I myself am a huge fan of John Wayne and although the original True Grit is not Wayne's best western, it is a damn fine film nonetheless. Yep, it definitely deserves the "Classic"  status! So I'm eager to see True Grit 2010 - in fact, I can't remember being this excited about a forthcoming film in years. So let's all hope that True Grit makes this Christmas truly special for western fans.

Hard Case Crime - Ardai sees no eFuture for the imprint

Charles Ardai, editor of the Hard Case Crime imprint recently told The Rap Sheet - "“As for Hard Case Crime, specifically, its fate is not particularly tied to this situation; I own Hard Case Crime, and if Dorchester is no longer in the business of printing and distributing our sort of books, we can hook up with another publisher or distributor who is. I am having conversations with several, and I imagine things will become clearer in terms of what options we have over the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, the two books of ours that are on our Web site but haven’t yet been published will no doubt be delayed, and when they do come out it’s likely to be in collaboration with a company other than Dorchester, but I do expect they will come out, and that other Hard Case Crime books will follow."

Ardai sticks to his assertion that Hard Case Crime will continue for some time to come, though in a much scaled down form - the company go from publishing 13 books in 2009  to four in 2010