Tag: Links

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Links I’ve Stumbled Across this Week

A few random links that caught my attention

Top 10 gaffes on Facebook, Twitter and Google

RIP floppy discs 

Don’t judge a book by its cover, particularly in France.

I was amazed to discover that these books were orginally self published.

These social media statistics are fascinating – it is amazing how fast social media is growing!

Milestones

This week I passed a couple of milestones:

I managed to get my 1000th follower on Twitter.Thank you to everyone who has followed me @farmlanebooks. I love discussing books over there and look forward to many more bookish chats in the future.

I also recieved my 1000th positive feedback on Amazon. My book-selling business is dwindling now that my boys are too big to go book scouting with me, but it is nice to know that my customer service is continuing to be of a high standard and hopefully I will be able to grow my sales again once my oldest son starts school in September.

Nothing to do with books

I was amazed by the 2010 Optical Illusion of the Year competition. The winner is in the video below, but I highly recommend looking at the others – especially the one with the waves of moving dots.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Do you own an e-reader?

If so, there are still a few weeks left for you to fill in my short survey. Thank you to everyone who has already answered my questions – I hope to compile the results soon.

Elsewhere on the Internet

David Mitchell explains why he likes anonymity and talks about his new novel.

The secret of savage book reviews on Amazon – the wife did it!

Penguin books make a costly typo.

Will a blog ever win the Pulitzer prize for journalism?

Do you know who the wealthiest fictional characters are?

Are book covers an endangered art?

46% of Amazon Marketplace sellers are considering quitting

This has nothing to do with books, but I was amazed by this new train design from China. This bullet train will never stop, saving lots of time on each journey. My two little boys watched this over and over again, so if you don’t enjoy it you can always use it to entertain some small children!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week and Solar winners

Thank you to everyone who entered my Solar give away.

The winner of the signed copy of Solar is: Lu from Regular Rumination

The 3 Solar T-shirts go to: Jane Willis, Natalie Newham and Teresa Majury

Congratulations to the winners! I will get in touch by email soon.

Blogger discussions of the week 

  • Next Read had an interesting discussion about deciding which books to read and review.
  • Regular Rumination wrote a great post about how negative book reviews can make the book more intriguing to the reader.
  • Book Lust discussed falling for book hype.

Elsewhere on the Internet

As a book seller on Amazon I am quite annoyed by their new policy which forces sellers to ensure their books are not cheaper on other selling platforms. Luckily I don’t normally have the same stock for sale on different sites at the same time, but this will have a big impact on some people.

This is a lovely little video about the publishing industry – I thought it was very clever!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Book News

The  long list for the Guardian First Book Award 2009 has been announced. It is great to see The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey (one of my favourite books of the year so far) on the list, but I haven’t read any of the other books. Have you?

Steven Spielberg hooks Michael Crichton’s pirate adventure.

James Kelman rants about Scottish literature.

Booker sales flatten after longlist boost.

Books added to the wish list this week

Fizzy Thoughts made me want to read The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim

Nymeth recommended Saplings by Noel Streatfeild . This was the Persephone book which intrigued me the most during Persephone Reading Week, hosted by Claire from Paperback Reader and Verity from The B Files. I’d like to congratulate them both on an amazing week. They did a great job promoting these books and my wish list has just grown to include all of the titles from this publisher! Thank you!

Awards

bbaw-button2009Thank you so much to everyone who nominated for a BBAW Award! I was nominated for best general reviews blog, best literature review blog, best reviews, best writing, best new blog, most altruistic blog and best commenter – thank you so much! Finding I had been nominated for so many awards was one of the happiest moments in my blogging career.

zombie_chicken_awardJenny from Jenny’s Books awarded me the Zombie Chicken award. Thank you so much! If you haven’t seen Jenny’s blog then you should go and take a look. She writes really good reviews.

She has just reviewed a scary graphic novel which sounds great: Bayou, Vol. 1, Jeremy Love & Patrick Morgan I was thinking about buying it, but I’m just not sure I could cope with the nightmares she says I’ll get if I read it!

BethFishReads awarded the Kreativ blogger award to me. Thank you Beth!

Beth was one of the earliest subscribers to my blog and has been there for me ever since. She is one of my favourite bloggers.

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Bookish Links

 
Neil Gaiman wins the Hugo Award for The Graveyard Book.

The Guardian has revealed the VERY long list for the Not the Booker Prize.

I found this article about the secrets of the Amazon best-seller list very interesting.

This list of the 50 Best sites for audio books addicts was very useful.

Book discoveries

Another Cookie Crumbles persuaded me to add The Magic Toyshop to my wish list.

I’m always on the look out for good audio books to listen to, so Beth Fish Reads review of Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan added it to the TBR list straight away!

Award

Sandy kindly awarded me the Kreativ Blogger award.

Thank you Sandy!

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If you haven’t visited Sandy’s blog yet then you really should. We have a similar taste in books, so if you enjoy reading my blog you will love hers.

Sandy is also one of the best commenters in the blogosphere. She is almost always the first person to comment on my posts and I am really hoping she wins the best commenter award (along with a few of the other categories!) at this year’s Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Bookish Links

My School Book Club is a great new idea for providing books to school children in the UK. Go and take a look if you’d like more information.

Entertainment Weekly have launched a new blog.

The Boston Bibliophile had a great post about bloggers and commercialism.

Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness wrote a great post about the importance of book reviews on a book blog. Make sure you keep writing them, despite the fact they have the least number of comments!

The Infinite Shelf has a great cartoon about battling with unread posts on Google reader

If you’d like to sell your old books here are 100 sites for selling all your books.

Books I’m looking forward to

The release date for Steig Larsson’s new book was announced this week. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest will be released on 1st October 2009 in the UK. 


I thought the sad death of Micheal Crichton to cancer last year meant that the end of his books, so am happy to discover that he had completed another one before his death. Pirate Latitudes will be published on 16th November.

Award

Cathy invented a new award to honour blogs which she can’t stay away from, despite an over-loaded Google reader.

I had a lovely, warm fuzzy feeling after discovering that I am among her first recipients for this award. Thank you Cathy!