Daemons and debates

Again, I've been silent for a few days because of computer woes. Honestly, you just feel that working with a computer is like falling serially in love with men who say all the right things but then don't call you - it's the triumph of hope over adversity (the computer-daemon lurking under my keyboard as I type these words is listening and will probably throw a mega-wobbly in revenge now, so if you don't hear from me for weeks, you'll know why.)

I'm glad to see that another glitch, this time with this blog, has sorted itself out: my Quotes of Note section, which was supposed to lie along the bottom of the page, had mysteriously repositioned it down the side, and the quote looked like pretentious avant-garde free verse - but now it's gone back to where it belongs. However, I don't think it's working too well presentationally and will set up quotes as a label and try to post more soon - I've got loads of the things to share with you!

And no, you don't need to slap my wrist - I haven't hassled my agent in any way, shape or form (one week and counting ...)

Thanks to Si Spurrier for getting in touch about my last post - do have a look at what he says.

Two items to share: first, an article in the Times on the 9th about women in publishing. The gender debate to do with writing and publishing goes on. Cf the Orange prize and whether there should be prizes for women only, the amount of review coverage given by men to books written by men etc etc. The article tells us that last year men bought 128million books (how do they know this?) and women 188 million - and I bet the ones bought by women covered a far greater range of genres too. Look at your family and friends, local books groups and so on - what is the proportion of male to female readers/buyers?
The article is at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts-and-entertainment/books/article1747200.ece
and has a very good comment by Danuta Kean, who writes about the book trade.

Further to my last post and the debate about putting RRPs on books, see http://www.publishingnews.co.uk/pn/pno-news-display.asp?k=e2007051011100676&sg9t=5dd48cfc5428ed8612314deaa691e318