Making a Living From Books
How many authors are not making a living from books they have written? Come and see what we're doing about it in these difficult times
Megan Publishing Services
Discover thrilling tales from Thailand to Wales – 60 novels by Owen Jones!
Megan Publishing Services
Discover thrilling tales from Thailand to Wales – 60 novels by Owen Jones!
Chalita Majang
Chalita took over from Owen Jones as the owner of this blog, because Mr. Jones wanted to devote more time to writing, while Chalita wanted to get into blogging and help readers and writers to follow their passion for books.
Chalita is new to blogging and reviewing books, but she is learning quickly and is eager to help.
'If I cannot help directly, I know that I can always call on Owen', she says. 'Owen has vast experience in reading and writing books, and has more than a thousand books registered in his name at the British Library'.
The dog, Angun, which means Grape or Grapes in Thai, was an eighteenth birthday present from a friend. She was a lovely dog in every way imaginable, but was killed shortly after giving birth to and raising her first brood of puppies. She is sadly missed, and hasn't been replaced.
'A new dog just wouldn't be the same', she said sadly.
Anyway, times have changed, and Chalita now has a demanding job in Bangkok.
'I will be devoting as much time as I can to running the blog though', she said earnestly. 'And, if I see that people like my style of blogging, then I will rearrange my life a little in order to devote more time to it. I love reading and interacting with people anyway, so that wouldn't be a hardship. I suppose that I have to wait for the older visitors to get used to my style, and to try to attract new people who will come here for me.
'If you have any ideas about what you would like to see on this blog, please drop me a line' :-)
In the meantime, the format of Megan Publishing Services will remain roughly what it is now - a resource for readers and writers and a showcase for the books of Welsh writer Owen Jones.
Owen Jones has written fifty-odd novels in various genres mostly set in Wales, Spain and Thailand (the three countries where he spends most of his time). Similarly, many of his books have an element of the supernatural or paranormal, but not all of them, since he has a 700,000-word fictional biography, a spy thriller and military drama. Mr. Jones is strong on series. He only has a couple of stand-alone novels.
Selling Books
I recently saw a writer asking the question whether it was more important to have a good book cover or to have the book well edited. The overwhelming response on the forum was that if the cover is unappealing then no-one will ever know about the poor editing!
3D Book Covers
Just as the owner of a clothes shop would not dress the mannequins in the window only once in ten years, neither should an author set and forget his or her book covers.
Modern Digital Designs
...Finally, so far, that is, some authors are putting the 3-D cover with the blurb on a relevant background image, and that is the bee's knees in book advertising covers for me.
Side-effects of COVID-19
There have been several medical side-effects of COVID 19 noted, but I want to talk about social side-effects.
Thai Fruit Curry
I started to eat curry when I moved to Portsmouth as a student in the Seventies. In those days, nearly all 'curry restaurants' were Indian, or so we thought. I usually ate a moderately hot curry, but sometimes, if it was on the menu, I would choose the Malaysian curry, which was milder and contained pineapple chunks and slices of banana. I liked it with paratha or chapatis.
Indie Book Sales 2021
This article concern our opinion on indie book sales in 2021 for most of the indie authors and the indie book market as a whole
Dere V14 Air Notebook
This is my review of the Dere V14 Air Notebook that I have been using in my home office for the last eighteen months as my main computer
Virtual Assistant
"So, my fellow authors, beware of a sweet-talking virtual assistant, because they can ruin your business and leave you with nothing, while they can always find another mug to milk".
Our New Blog Theme
We decided to buy a new blog theme since the previous one was seven years old and the designers had stopped keeping it up to date several years ago, so as WordPress developed, certain key features had ceased to work.