Not really sure what is going on, but I have been in a very productive mood lately. I have been inspired by the smallest and strangest things in the last month. Ideas for many different types of puzzles just keeps pouring out of my head.
A few weeks back I sat looking out the window and suddenly realised that I could make up a fun maths puzzle based on my washing line. The way I log onto an online web service lead to a difficult code cracking puzzle. And so on.
The good news is that all this has lead to a second volume in the "50 Math, Logic and Word Puzzles" series being published on Amazon Kindle in record time.
So if you like puzzles here is a LINK to volume II.
Here is a little taster, a word puzzle from Volume II:
What word is hidden in the above image
Happy puzzling and never give up!
It is almost 7 weeks ago since I published my first book on Amazon's Kindle platform.
Having never attempted any form of electronic publishing before, I was surprised to discover just how easy the whole process was. After having completed my manuscript in Microsoft Word, it was just a matter of saving it in HTML format, zip it all up, and follow Amazon's guidelines, which helps budding authors quickly upload their manuscript, a front-page, as well as setting a retail price and a target market. Job done!
The actual time taken, from the moment I started to upload everything to the time my first puzzle book was available to the world, was less than 48 hours. Very impressive. However, even more impressive is the fact that just 15 minutes after my book went live, I sold the first copy!
Seven weeks later I can only say that I am still impressed with Amazon's Kindle platform. Sales of "50 Math, Logic and Word Puzzles - Volume I" are steady and significantly higher when compared to the number of conventionally published books I sell each month.
The whole electronic process and experience has made me realise that a monumental shift is taking place in publishing. The public, that is you and me, we want publications to read and to entertain us. And we want choice and access to these publications 24/7 and we don't want to pay a lot each time we decide to make a purchase.
Amazon has turned books into everyday consumables. We buy them, read them, and then we throw them away. Soon we will be looking back at a forgotten time when books were purchased in bookshops, expectantly carried home in a small, brightly coloured shopping bag, before being handled and smelled and read by a book lover, who would keep the book visible and treasured on a shelve full of other books, all of them full of memories, coffee stains, the odd book mark made from an old postcard and pages with their corners bent inwards in a small triangle.
Traditional publishers, old established names in the business will either adapt to this new world of publishing or perish and be gone forever. Authors will have to change too, or never have their work read by readers in every corner of the world.
Sad but true!
The book is dead, long live the electronic book.
