(no subject)

First off, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on the book cover -- I don't think I replied to everyone, but I did read every single comment and noted your suggestions, and the designs people offered are open in tabs for consultation.

For the record, it looks like I will remove the white margin around the front image and add colour blocks for the title and author name. I don't know about colours for the spine and back yet; I still have worries about white text on dark, but I'll try a few things and post some thumbnails. I've reduced and generalised the blurb a little, and inserted hard returns instead of tabs (think fanfic paragraphs, rather than tabbed ones). I have, with DEEP REGRET, removed some of the comedy of the author bio. :D

It leaves a lot of whitespace on the back cover, so I may put a little Extribulum Press stamp or something.

I've been thinking a lot, still, about Extribulum, based on the questions and info I've been getting. Lulu now offers a $25 package that allows authors to sell on Amazon and Ebay without an ISBN, which complicates matters slightly (whatever your opinion of Amazon, they are a major market share; I've read statistics that say if Amazon isn't selling your book you've just lost 47% of your buyers). Originally Extribulum's appeal was that it sold ISBNs, but I'm not sure now that it's the direction I want to move in, because that seems to be moving away from the concept: using the internet to connect readers and writers more fully with each other.

I almost want to make it more of a process than a press: something a writer undergoes before putting their book to a publisher. At the same time, I'm conscious of the fact that this fails utterly without engaged readers. A lot of you are very engaged readers and you're excellent critics, but without reader interest the whole thing falls apart and raising and keeping interest is difficult. I could create a community for approved writers to post their books for review, but keeping it going might be an issue. I recognise that I'm a quirk, that I have a built in reader base and that people may not be as interested in reading an entire novel online by someone they don't know. This whole idea, that the reader has to be involved but may not be, is also why it's difficult to require that Extribulum authors undergo that process.

This isn't about marketing digital books, either. I don't want to be a Kindle publishing house; I support the concept of the Kindle and think it's vital to the idea of Extribulum, but those already exist and they do it better than I could.

So, I don't know. I'm going to keep reading and keep thinking about how to implement this concept, but ultimately, as I said from the start, it may not ever happen. The goal of trying to set it up was not to get it set up, but to understand more about how it might function. That's still ongoing. Admittedly this will be much, much easier after Nameless is fully gone to press and after my Big Bang fic gets completed. April is the cruelest fucking month, you guys. :D

(no subject)

Yesterday I was accused.

I was accused of being worse than R!

I was being teased, naturally. But I had remarked that I hadn't eaten an actual meal all day, just snacked, and was told I was worse than R! I defended myself in that I combine things, while R just dips things, but it was pointed out to me that I am capable of cooking and don't, whereas he is just plain clueless.

In RETRIBUTION, I made spicy orange shrimp for dinner.

It smells really, really good -- garlic and orange and OM NOM NOM, but it doesn't taste great. It'll do for lunches this week, it's just not something I want to make on a regular basis. I know I made it properly, so I have narrowed the blame for this down to three possibilities:

1. The sauce needed more butter. (Not my fault!)
2. The shrimps needed a salty marinade of some kind. (Also not my fault!)
3. The shrimps were not the freshest. (Kind of my fault.)
3a. I didn't use juice from an orange, I used not-from-concentrate OJ. This might be my fault, but the recipe didn't state I should.

So bearing that in mind, I share this recipe with you.

( Spicy Orange Shrimp )

Not sad or single. Well, not single.

I am not pathetic.

People miss their significant others all the time when they go on secret missions to Dubai. I haven't even once gone and sat under ex-Tosh's-desk and wept (the desk is ex, not Tosh. Well, she is ex, but I'd never refer to her as an ex-Tosh. That would be tacky).

Loads of people sleep in their boyfriend's beds when they're not there, and just because it's a camp cot under the office floorboards in my place of employ doesn't mean it's not a legitimate bedroom. Exposed pipes are very in right now, and anyway they come in handy sometimes.

I don't care what Martha says, I am not MOPING. I don't mope. I carry a gun and hunt aliens and subdue things with more teeth than all of Torchwood put together, using only a spray bottle and my wits. I drive the SUV at dangerously high speeds. I wear pink unapologetically. I am awesome! And if he had left his coat here I would not be weeping into it because I have self-control.

Max and I will be watching The Adventures of Milo & Otis something with lots of explosions and car chases in it, if anyone needs me. He likes Dudley Moore when people drive cop cars into sharks and shoot helicopters in the face and such.