Tick Tock trend send book sales rocketing

 Searching for your next big read is about to change with the success of BookTock - think the popular Tik Tok but for books. Actually Booktok is a new option on the hugely popular Tick Tock app.

On BookTok, TikTok creators post book reviews of books in all genres, but in particular, contemporary romance and young adult fantasy recommendations have taken off. Novels like “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid, “November 9” by Colleen Hoover and “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo have gained incredible popularity on the app, and BookTok creators have been responsible for pushing many of these titles to the New York Times Best Sellers list, even though they were all published between 2015 and 2017. 

Books gaining viral fame on the internet may seem somewhat counterintuitive. With the rise of BookTok, the web has created an increased excitement for the written word, rather than a loss of interest. The rise of BookTok has had a notable impact on book sales, especially on independent booksellers who pay close attention to what their customers are looking for.

If you're wondering what BookTock is well explained simply - BookTok is the fastest book club you will ever visit. In under a minute, users film books they recommend, record time-lapses of themselves reading or show their reactions to the final nail-biting or tear-jerking moment of a novel. It’s all very emotional.

Below is a video showing several BookTock reviews.

WORLD EROTICA WARS - COPYRIGHT IS THE FIRST CASUALTY OF SPANKING

 

Anne Wills, a typical doting mother of four,  active in her community set in picturesque rural Virginia, had a steamy other life, a secret identity that would have shocked even the Harper Valley P T A. 

She also wrote kinky erotica books as Bethany Burke and was  known to make low budget spanking movies. She wrote them and on times directed them.  - "Okay, give me intense as you swing that paddle! Good, good. One more spank!"

She truly was an early entrepreneur of online erotica and her spanking website, Bethany's Woodshed brought in a good revenue. She also took time to mentor many erotica authors, publishing them through her Blushing Books Company and soon many of these authors were seeing royalties of ten of thousands of dollars a year.

Now many of these writers are biting the hand that spanked them, sorry fed them, and their complaints against Blushing Books has become a big story in publishing circles.

ARE YOU READY TO BE RESTRAINED, STIMULATED, AND SEDUCED…

'She owns you,' Barbara LaPointe, a retired social worker told the New York Times. She writes erotic romance under the name Stevie McFarlane and, like many other authors, she is currently fighting Blushing Books for the rights to the work she did for them, but is finding that she is held in a real bondage knot regarding the rights to her own work.

Anne Wills, owner Blushing Books

In other interviews with newspapers, more than a dozen Blushing Books authors described a haphazardly run business that frequently failed to pay authors on time, and threatened them with lower royalties and lawsuits for breach of contract if they defected to another publisher. 

Many authors even claimed that they were not being paid for audio versions of their books and some discovered that their contracts gave Blushing Books sole rights to their books and their pen names.

The Romance Writers of America, a trade group, announced that, following an ethics investigation, it had suspended the publisher’s membership for three years and barred Blushing from attending its conferences. The Authors Guild, an advocacy group, is representing 30 writers seeking to reclaim rights to their work from Blushing. So far, one of those authors has stopped Blushing from selling her books after filing copyright-infringement notices with retailers, showing that Blushing did not hold contracts for them. 

'Much of Blushing's contracts go against industry standards and raise many red flags.' Umair Kazi, director of Policy, The Author's Guild.

The Romance/Erotica book industry in the US alone is worth 1.5 billion dollars a year and if worldwide sales are added then the figure is truly enormous. Erotica sales have exploded since the huge success of Fifty Shades of Grey brought literary sadomasochism from the fringes and into the mainstream.

  According to NPD BookScan. Around 60,000 romance and erotica books were published in 2020, up from nearly 35,000 a decade earlier.

It seems readers do like jolly good spanking!

Miss Wills, starting publishing erotica eBooks in 2001, long before Amazon came to dominate digital books and her success was at first small but it soon exploded when eBooks made shopping for kinky literature a simply task, something that could be done one handed.

The spanking Addison Cain

Under the terms of Blushing's contracts, authors were forbidden from talking  about the publisher by a nondisclosure agreement, but author, Addison Cain, one of the company's bestsellers, had enough of the financial spanking and went to the press with claims of missing royalties and all sorts of shady deals. 

This started when Cain discovered that many of her books were being plagiarised, and to add insult she then found out that Blushing had never copyrighted her books which is a standard service that most publishers provide. This meant that she was powerless to stop other author's repackaging her work and selling it as their own. Now, that truly does stink.

Undaunted, Cain  joined forces with several other unhappy Blushing authors and they hired a lawyer to confront Ms Willis and Blushing Books.

Shortly afterwards the conflict went supernova when some routine financial paperwork sent to authors was seen to have been altered by Miss Wills. One author, Zoe Blake claimed that her sales figures had been altered to lower her actual earnings. This resulted in Wills admitting that she had altered the paperwork and sales figures but she claimed this had been done to make the complicated document easier to understand.

Blushing books on Facebook

The conflict continues with the New York Times recently reporting that an employee of Blushing Books had been arrested with Miss Wills claiming that authors royalties had been embezzled by the unnamed employee.

Following the arrest many Blushing authors joined a private Facebook group, Out of the Woodshed where they continue in their fight with Miss Wills to regain the rights to their kinky masterpieces.

Kobo launch new eReaders

 A few weeks ago Amazon launched the new version of the popular Paperwhite eReader, and now Kobo have released an all new version of its reader with a stylus for taking notes while reading.

The new Sage and Libra 2 have been introduced by Kobo with screen improvements for more comfortable reading, new features that include support for speakers and Bluetooth headphones for reading. audiobooks, in addition to stylus pen support for taking notes while reading in Kobo Sage.

There is no doubt that the stylus is a great addition to the eReader and in terms of reading and screen quality, the Kobo is comparable to the Kindle range of eReaders but for me the Kindle, particularly the flagship Oasis model stands out and is just that bit better. Though Kobo does have the advantage in that Kobo eReaders are able to read more formats than Kindle devices, and you can even access the free OverDrive ebook library service. Though given Amazon's massive eBook library and the availably of free software like Calibre, which allows the user to convert any eFile to a Kindle friendly format for sideloading I still think the Kindle has the edge. That's just my personal opinion though and the Kobo range are very very good....very good indeed.

Still if the stylus floats your boat  then the new Kobo is definitely a nice piece of kit.

Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs

 

'From start to finish this book kept me enthralled. Miss Marple on steroids indeed; the plot has been well constructed and worked through and I found it so easy to visualise the characters (particularly Granny who, in my mind, is a sort of cross between the Peggy Armstrong character and that of Patricia Routledge when she played the PI series with a corncob pipe thrown into the mix.) I immediately bought the next one and will get them all as they appear. There must surely be a TV series here for someone who tells such a well crafted tale!' *****

Graphic Novel Review - Slaine: Warrior's Dawn

 

By the time Slaine appeared in the pages of the comic, 2000AD (issue 330) I had long ceased to be a regular reader and although I was familiar with the character, having read the odd episode from time to time, I wasn't really familiar with the strip. That was until I picked up this graphic novel that collects together the first era of Slaine's adventures.

The world of Slaine is based heavily on Celtic legends, particularly those from Ireland but there's a mish-mash of historical myth and legend used to build the world. For instance, the Blood Eagle torture features which comes from Skaldic poetry and is most associated with the Viking legends. It is also interesting that most historians these days are of the mind that the blood eagle was a literary conceit and never actually occurred. It matters not since everything works so well in the world of Slaine, even the time travel which, I believe, features more heavily in later adventures.

The first episode of Slaine, titled The Time Monster sees Slaine pitted in a prize fight against a Tyrannosaurus  Rex and introduces the wonderful character of Ukko - the celtic warrior's sidekick who like most fantasy dwarfs loves gold and is totally lecherous. He's also extremely entertaining and is great comedic device to get Slaine from adventure to adventure. At one point he leads Slaine to buy a prison, hoping to make a great profit but of course things don't work out as planned. They never do and Ukko's money making schemes are often foiled by the barbarian - at one point they come across a cart carrying mead and rather than selling the drink, Slaine decided they should drink it - 'Robbing carts is thirsty work.'

Slaine has the ability to warp spasm - think of the Viking legends of the berserker and you pretty much get the picture - though Slaine's spasms actually physically change him so he becomes a literal representation of the marauding monster he becomes. It sounds weird and it is, but it works supremely well.

There are three artists used in these early stories Angie Kincaid (here credited as Angie Mills), Messimo Belardinelli and Mike McMahon and each have wildly differing styles - McMahon's sketchy art takes some getting used to since it can sometimes be very detailed and at other times deceptively simple, whilst Belardinelli's work is incredibly busy - no one draws grotesque characters like he does. The first artist Angie Kincaid was actually married to Pat Mills when she drew this story and her style is very European - it's such a pity she only did the opening episode since it was she who set the bluepring for Slaine that all others would have to follow.

I really enjoyed this book - laughing as I read in several places as Mills is a master of black comedy. It really is great stuff and if you're wondering why Slaine became such an iconic character then all the evidence is here.

Hugely recommended for anyone interested in great comic book entertainment

Currently available in print and digital.

Achtung!!!! The History of Commando Comics

 Gott im Himmel!

If you think the days of British action comics are long gone, that our square jawed heroes have been replaced by America's costumed crusaders then you are only partly correct in your assessment.

For whilst the glory days of the boy's adventure comic, the days when titles like Battle, Warlord, Hotspur and Victor dominated newsagent's display stands, may have been consigned to history there is one series of adventure comics that are still being published. Commando Comics, published by D C Thomson, first saw print back in 1961 and today more than 60 years later there series is still going strong with four new titles being published every two weeks.

'I've lost count of the number of people who, over the years, have told me they learned all their German vocabulary from Commando. They freely admit that Commando hasn't taught them much of the language but every single one has started the list of words they know with "Achtung!' We're Glad we've done our bit for international understanding.' Calum Laird, one time editor of the Commando series, writing in his introduction to the Carlton Books Commando collection, Achtung.

Though it's not all been stereotypical Germans - Over the decades Commando stories have featured both good and bad German characters, as well as characters from all the other nations that took part in the conflicts featured in the stories. And whilst it is true that the majority of stories have been set around World War II, it is not always the case. Over the years there have been First World War stories, Cold War stories, science fiction stories, westerns, stories of adventures with pirates on the high seas, and lately there have been stories set on the Home Front. The latter series has been very well received - I felt that The Land Army Marches written by Iain McLaughlin with artwork from Vincente Alcazar was a particularly fine piece of storytelling that made the most of the comic book medium.

Each Commando title is a digest sized publication that contains a complete 63 page story, told in panels of striking black and white artwork.

When Commando was first launched back in the 1960's the competition was fierce. Fleetway were the main competitor with it's popular War Picture Library books, and D C Thompson knew they didn't have the budget to compete in terms of the production values of their rival, and so it was a conscious effort to make the Commando covers far more lurid, far more exciting that those of War Picture Weekly. The Commando covers were like a British answer to the American pulp style art and the storytelling within was equally pulpish - high concept plots with steely eyed heroes.

The true origin of Commando though, indeed of war comics in general goes back much further - during the late 19th century the Religious Tract Society began publishing the Boy’s Own Paper, featuring exciting stories of daring and adventure, with strong Christian moralistic undertones. The ‘Boys paper’ was born, and was very much seen as an educational tool for inspiring good young citizens for society and the empire. The publication had a slew of imitators including D C Thomson's first steps into the field with 1921's, Adventure - the paper ran for 1878 issues between 1921 and 1961 when it was merged into Rover.

'Although I’m delighted by it, I don’t know for sure what to put the title’s longevity down to. I think that because each story is so long we concentrate on plot more than visuals (though never at the expense of the visuals) and this gives the finished article a weight that the comics couldn’t. There’s a lot of reading in a Commando so if you’re a story fan, it gives you just what you need.'  Previous series editor, Calum Laird, talking to The Tainted Archive back in 2009

'COMMANDO saw off all its competitors simply because of the quality of its stories, artwork and general presentation, all of which were superior to the likes of WAR PICTURE LIBRARY, BATTLE, WAR AT SEA, AIR ACE and so on. But I have no idea how it has survived. A loyal, hardcore readership? Probably.' Writer, David Whitehead talking to the Tainted Archive in 2009.

The Commando books are now iconic and their contribution to pop culture can not be overestimated - there have been exhibitions of the comic's artwork held at the National Army Museum and stories about the series have been featured many times in the national press - 

'Mein Gott! Donner und Blitzen! Can it really be true? The Commando comic has just turned 60.  For  more than half a century, schoolboys have thrilled at these action-packed wartime stories.' 

The Daily Mail announced when the title turned fifty years old back in 2011. That same newspaper would make a big fuss in 2013 when it was announced that Commando Comics would now be printed in Germany. That article, written in the Mail's usual bombastic style can be found HERE.

And now decades later Commando remains the only British war comic still in production, and although sales may not match the incredible circulation figures of the 1960's and 70's they are still healthy - servicing a loyal core readership and hopefully gaining new readers from time to time. The title is still published in print (ask at your local newsagents) but it has been joined by a digital edition which can be read on tablets, eReaders and computer screens.

I have written two Commando titles myself, with several more in the pipeline...I am honoured to be a part of this long tradition of good old action adventure.

Long may they continue to be published.

Find the official Commando website HERE 

Find my interview with both David Whitehead and the previous editor of Commando HERE

Read David Whitehead's article on writing Commando Books HERE

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