Plastic Bags, Extension Reels, Tarot and Levercastle

At last! The wristband to meet all of my wristbanding needs!

And Lo! There was networking just to the side of the M4 and people looking for new pals did come and the world of the small business saw that it was good.

Starting out at the ungodly time of 6 AM for a 6:45 start (networking breakfast for the win!) I approached Cardiff's Village Hotel before the sun had risen in order to join a cohort of other slightly bleary but otherwise enthusiastic but lovely people for a morning of getting to know yous.

I literally found out about the event two days ago when David of Books & Pontyclun messaged me to ask if we were "still on for Friday", My response: "were we doing something on Friday?" This may signal my level of preparedness at this early rising start of business but not my engagement with the process.

After spending a jolly time learning who was present and then enjoying a quick discussion of regional accents and paying for plastic carrier bags with the lads from DevelopMy I moved on to the main business of the day the Sterling Integrity business show, I had come along primarily to video David's talk in which we will discover why this image

Just another day at the bookshop!

has proven central to David's Facebook marketing in recent days. More, obviously, to follow on that in a short while.

When I actually looked at the venue  where I was to film the talk I noted that I would need that cable extension reel I totally forgot to buy yesterday. So, off to the supermarket I went, good job the weather was glorious for November, really.

Once I returned to the venue I worked out the other thing I'd failed to have adequately prepared for, the mandatory gaffering down of trailing camera wires. Not wanting to be sued I begged for an assist from the kind gentlemen from LNP Sound and they sorted me right out for which I must offer heartfelt thanks as must all the people who failed to break their neck tripping over my cables.

After David's talk I talked to a couple more people, not the least the delightfully enthusiastic Mary Collin, with whom I managed to get into a conversation about Levercastle and Tarot, one of the most interesting conversations of the day! After this I had to leave as time was wearing on and, well, I really wanted to get home and put that order in for a big reel of white gaffer of my very own.

New Things And Old Problems

Not Books Or Not Not Books? That is
the rather confusing question.

In the spirit of blogging more often but with less verbiage here's a quick one just to set down what's going off in the world of everyone's favourite monkey-themed indie author with the initials LS.

I have been messing about with video content. This has lead to me delaying the release of a review because I wanted to put up a video segment to go with it. I'm beginning to reconsider. Vloggers of all stripes put a lot of effort into their craft and, until I have time, I still can't legitimately partake in this hobby, I just feel I can't produce content of the requisite quality.

I'm considering going back into podcasting again. The No Dice podcast was fun for a couple of years, the Tarot podcast I did with Mrs Monkey worked out great and was really a sort of defined set of content that we were happy to donate to the world. Podfade is always a fear but I have some ideas on that front.

I'd like to do a little more software development, not sure what though, a game? I never wanted to develop a game but I am thinking about it now. A web site? I have some ideas but I do believe a website should support an existing social movement or function, not try to create its own. Manuscript V2? Well, further development on Manuscript is needed. Something will happen. That I'm pretty sure of.

The concerns I have are two fold. One, too much to do, too little time. The other surrounds the assignment of an ISBN to my Smashwords published version of TSM. Although I have done the reading and am satisfied that Smashwords are donating the ISBN in a "non-evil" manner as a service I still have a political issue with ISBNs themselves.

I like the idea that a book type object (electronic or paper) with no ISBN is, according to this ludicrous bureaucracy, not a book. This even has tax implications. I like the fact that the earnings from a book with no ISBN are "product revenue" not "royalties". I am amused by the notion that such a ridiculous technical distinction even exists. I revel in the fact that I publish under the moniker "notbooks".

If I take Smashwords up on the offer of a free ISBN then my Notbook will become a Book. I'm not super bothered about whether certain bookshops won't sell my stuff because it has no ISBN. I would love to frustrate the bureaucracy by producing stuff people want to read that they refuse to buy because of a technical discrepancy in record-keeping.

But still... maybe I'm just being stupid. I genuinely don't know. I would have to come up with a new name for my "publishing house" because the whole point of "Not Books" is that they're well... not books.

Hmmm...