Monthly Archives: January 2013

January 31, 2013 · 3:41 pm

…yes, Mabel..it IS the Awards season…can ye brush off acceptance speech Number 17, thanks…#TBSU…

VERY INSPIRATIONAL BLOGGER AWARD

I’ve been nominated for a Very Inspirational Blogger Award by Melissa Robitille, a dear friend, a superb Author and constant smudger of virtual lipstick. The lady in her foolishness has also offered to have me guest blog soon on her site…I wonder if she can get appropriate insurance…???

Here are the rules:

  • Display the award logo on your blog.
  • Link back to the person who nominated you.
  • State 7 things about yourself.
  • Nominate 15 bloggers for this award and link to them.
  • Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.

vib

The Award now sits proudly on my virtual mantel-place , next to the cuckoo clock and my photograph of Lloyd George eating a cheese sandwich!

Seven things about me:

I suffer from a rare condition, computerexplodophobia, which tends to make laptops disintegrate and misbehave dreadfully anytime I come within ten yards of them…

I was a a very advanced child… my first three words were allegedly, ‘Mama’, ‘Papa’, and ‘hexachlorophene’…

I am the most truthful fibber in the world…

I share Oscar Wilde’s desire to ‘die beyond my means’…

I had a powerful wish when I was growing up to meet Sir Winston Churchill…I can wait a bit longer for that…

I am possibly the only Scot alive who doesn’t like Fried Mars bars…

I was born  in the same Govan, Glasgow, street as Sir Alex Ferguson, Manager of Manchester United… he’s slightly older than me, much much richer, but I’m better-looking than he is…

My Fifteen Nominees:

Joe McCoubrey

Faye Tollison

John Guiseley

Emerald Barnes

Wendy Cartmell

Jane Isaac

T.W Luedke

James J Murray

J.J.Collins

T.W Dittmer

D.S Butler

Jim McAllister

Guy Portman

Miranda Stork

Eric J Gates

And to the nominees, who’ll complain they’ve no time to do this stuff, … I AGREE, but I did it!! tee-hee.. have some fun, LADS AND LASSIES…

[BLOG SCRATCHERS CORNER WILL BE RESUMED ON THE NEXT POST (#TBSU)]

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January 29, 2013 · 10:11 pm

…there’s times, Mabel, when I just KNOW my IQ’s hovering about as high as my collar-size…#TBSU…

…the flash of the blindingly obvious, alas, is oft times missed by Master Gallacher…yes, I know, I know, I know…I’m a self-confessed blunderer through the maze we know as the Web and all things computer-ry…however, even I should have twigged this one a lot earlier…let me take you back about eighteen months…I’d just swung on to the massive pink cloud that floats in when you finish writing your first  ever novel…the novelty of the SOSYAL NETWURKING Thing-y was fresh as ye like…I cottoned on to the idea that using LinkedIn, the ONLY thing I knew (slightly) apart from emails, I could go ‘viral’…yup, this ol’ Jurassic was gonna strike it big-time by asking his pals to send it out to their pals, and their pals, and their pals, etc, etc, etc….well, miracles of miracles, that’s precisely what DID happen…in the first month, 80 Kindle downloads… magic!…then after 3 months, 17,000, and astonishingly now, 18 months later, my two crime novels have been downloaded almost 60,000 times…in the meantime, I set about ‘building the platform’ thing-y…focused full-time on jumping into Twitter, grappling with Goodreads (which I STILL don’t understand how to use properly), arm-wrestling with Facebook and developing my own little blog following…notice anything missing in there, Mabel?…you gorrit…NO LinkedIN ANYMORE!..how daft could I be?…mistakenly, like many others I know, I thought LinkedIn was basically a channel to throw your bio-data onto when you were looking for a new job…how wrong I am…the Eureka moment hit yesterday, when contemplating (thinking about, Mabel, thinking about) how next to proceed with broadening my puny reach…AUTHORS, WRITERS, PUBLISHERS, BLOGGERS,, REVIEWERS, populate LinkedIn in their gazillions!…I began to hit the ‘Connect’ button to some of the links to my other author friends…as many as I could …my connections have increased 70% in one day!!... and I have a list of 300 new writing-industry connections, whose own aggregate links total more than 100,000!!!...It’s gonna keep me busy for a while but I”m LUVIN” IT …maybe some food for thought for the rest of you Lads and Lassies out there in BlogLand…meantime, I’m scuppered…Matron’s here with the syringe…see yeez later…

Blog Scratchers Corner

#TBSU

Blogs To Follow:

http://IndieItPress.com

http://www.cjwrightbookswebeden.co.uk/

http://aglimpseofheaventhephilosophyoftruewealth.wordpress.com

http://www.seumasgallacher.wordpress.com

http://www.lisajeydavis.wordpress.com

http://www.mscheevious.com

http://www.OlgaGladkyVerroEditor.com

Share around and enjoy …:):)

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January 28, 2013 · 12:20 am

…taaaraaah!…Publisher-Gate, Part Two…Seumas Gallacher, Author, of whom publishers say, WHO???…#TBSU…

…locked away in my dim mem’ry cells there exists a list…not just any old list, y’unnerstand…Oh, no…this partic’lar list is of things that I’ve come to believe DO NOT EXIST…high on that rank is THE TOOTH FAIRY…ever since my under-the-pillow molar was exchanged in my sleep, not for cash, but for a coupla Luncheon Vouchers…next up, TRUE LOVE…not a hope, ever since Maggie McNulty threw me over for Fatty Nelson, coz he had a dead frog in a jar (we were 7 years old…I’ve never recovered)…also in there is INVINCIBILITY of ANY  sporting outfit that I see fit to support …gives the term ‘Death Wish’ a whole new perspective…comes now the latest addition to those ephemeral entities…PUBLISHERS…despite constant iterations from those who claim to have actually seen one of these creatures, I’m convinced they are figments of the collective imagination of the Society of Quill Scribblers…how else can I explain the absence of ANY contact from these alleged existees?…it certainly cannot be my lack of marketability, Mabel?…my books’ve been downloaded and gobbled up almost 60,000 times in the last year or so…IF, they lived and breathed amongst us, I tell myself, surely ONE of these phantoms would’ve seen and heard even a whisper about me…the Web is the widest communication system on the planet…I’m on the Web…yet nary a tinkle, not one soupçon of eyebrow raised in this direction…it can’t be because I’m Scottish…heck, Sean Connery, Sir Alex Ferguson and Billy Connolly are all Scottish…and people know about THEM…perhaps these persistent delusions of adequacy that visit me from time to time are as much an illusion as the Ghosts of Publisherdom…maybe Matron can enlighten me…yes, please, two syringe-loads tonight, Ma’am…

Blog Scratchers Corner

#TBSU

Blogs To Follow:

http://charactersworthknowing.blogspot.com

http://honestindiebookreviews.wordpress.com

http://www.seumasgallacher.wordpress.com

http://kimtalksbooks.wordpress.com

http://www.lindseykelk.com

http://readfulthingsblog.wordpress.com

Share at will ( or at anyone other than Will if ye please…)

 

 

 

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January 25, 2013 · 2:05 pm

…Publisher-Gate…the first instalment of what may be a long, puzzling affair…#TBSU…

…let me state straight off the bat…I have an excellent, conscientious, hard-slogging agent in my corner…he has the ear (and prob’ly other bits of their anatomy) of some of the prime publishing houses in Noo Yawk, ‘Merica… but even with his tenacity, my little crime thriller babies, THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY and VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK…are still flyin’ solo in the self publishing jungle that is Amazon Kindle…don’t get me wrong… I’m not dissatisfied with the download totals thus far (55,000+ now, and risin’)… but I’ve long since distanced myself from the stool next to the telephone… no waiting for Publisher Godots to call… for once in my life, I’ve been following all the sage proper advice on how to ‘keep hangin’ in there and doin’ all the right things’ in the meantime… ‘building the platform’–DONE… ‘interacting with readers and EMB’DY who’ll talk to me’–DONE… ‘self printed paperback copies and distributed them locally to the book chains myself’–DONE… ‘got magazine and newspaper column inches about the novels and my own back story’–DONE… ‘become the media tart of the guest speaker circuit to readers groups and associations’–DONE-–so, what’s missing from this picture??…yup, PRINCE(ESS) PUBLISHER… conspicuous by his/her absence… yes, I know, I know, I know… authoring’s the kind of vocation where ye become an overnight success after 40 years hard labour… still, ye have to wonder…is there anybody out there?… hello?… if any of you wunnerful lads and lassies scribers have the Chinese Sign on any publishers ye know ( blackmail photos, extortion, all acceptable )… nudge them this way , won’t you?… ta muchly …I’ve a sneaky suspicion it might be something to do with Matron…oops, she’s gallivanting this way with that huge syringe… see yeez later…

VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK currently on Kindle Amazon Free promo Jan 24-28th

Amazon Kindle Links :

US  http://amzn.to/W59BB3

UK  http://amzn.to/13yV1YX

Canada http://amzn.to/14gODEZ

VWB_02

 

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January 24, 2013 · 12:23 pm

…instead of turning the other cheek, maybe best just keep yer cheek out of the way ..#TBSU…

…what do pelicans, ostriches and Government Tax Departments have in common, Mabel?…they can all stick their bills up their a*se!…now hold that thought…when the unspeakable, unthinkable happens to ye as a writer, and ye get a NASTY review, think  ‘bills’ and ‘a*se’…now, that’s better, isn’t it?…one of the gazillions of things and stuff I’ve been learning on this here literary gig is to differentiate between NASTY REVIEWS, and HONEST CRITIQUE...the yobo nutters who spew bile at anybody’s work, just because they can, ignore them completely…as for the others who, in good faith, may not feel as glowingly enchanted by yer work as ye do yersel, THESE are the ones to take heed of…and I’ll let ye into a wee secret…if yer Amazon pages are filled with nothing but emerald-studded five-star reviews…SUMB’DY’s gonna suss that ye’ve had Uncle Fred and Auntie Mabel and the rest of the familial lineage cranking out yer kudos…from my perspective, when I do reviews, I only share with the world at large those who merit 4-star and 5-star tags…anything less than that, I do not ever feel inclined to publicly lambast one of my fellow scribbling strugglers…some may think that a tad dishonest… be that as it may… it’s a stand I take… if I know the writer well enough, I’d share the less-than-stellar review directly…none of us, myself least of all, possesses the monopoly on editorial critiquing skills… (as my good friend, Master Andrew Peters puts it, ‘proofreading is an absolute skill, editing is a matter of opinion’…)…I hope that makes sense to some of you lads and lassies out there…I’d value yer opinions on it…and when the Naysaying Nutters surface, remember the pelicans, ostriches and Tax Departments …meantime from THE BLOG SCRATCHERS UNION (#TBSU), here’s  a smattering of more  Blogs To Follow …

Blog Scratchers Corner

#TBSU

Blogs To Follow:

http://www.ronherron.wordpress.com

http://www.belindawitzenhausen.com

http://www.OlgaNM.com

http://www.seumasgallacher.wordpress.com

 

As usual, please share these around, reciprocate and enjoy…

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January 23, 2013 · 9:15 pm

…just finished…editing the edit of the edited edition… Wha???…#TBSU…

…for years I never questioned the advertisements…yer favourite brand of washing powder, Mabel… ‘NEW AND IMPROVED’ they crowed…but not just one year, but the next… and the next…and the one after that…so I kinda set to thinkin’…after thirty years of NEW AND IMPROVED powder EVERY year for three decades…how bluudy awful was the stuff when they started out?…for the cognoscenti of the literary arts, this is gonna make a bit of sense…(trust me)…take a novel that ye’ve just written…then ye start to edit…it improves (ye hope)…and then ye dabble with it again…and again…and yet again…bits of narrative here…scraps of dialogue there…too many adverbs…overuse of certain phrases and words…the ubiquitous excessive indulgence in the word ‘that’… and so it goes on…I’ve had long-established grandees in the scribblers profession share with me, that sometimes they think they can NEVER edit enough…this last two months I have spent doing precisely what the people I admire most in this industry do…a line-by-blood-sweat-and-tears-line edit of my first two babies, THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY and VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK…don’t get me wrong… I’m still DELIGHTED with the original versions, authorial narcissist that I am…(50,000+ downloads tells me at least SOME people agree with me)… but the gratification of immersion in each and every page to seek to improve is incalculable…I highly recommend it…there are those of you who have supported my own efforts here for the last 18 months… and others astonishingly who have asked my humble advice on writing as a debut indie…lads and lassies, SERIOUS EDITING is the way to go…the ‘NEW AND IMPROVED’ tag line’s what ye seek…go hunt it down…meantime , a wee reminder— VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK is on Kindle Free Promo Jan24-28 this week…pick it up here :

VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK

Amazon Links:

US  http://amzn.to/W59BB3

UK  http://amzn.to/13yV1YX

VWB_02

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January 22, 2013 · 2:46 pm

…put away yer credit cards and PayPal a/cs…it’s FREEBIE time…(from a Scotsman!!??)…#TBSU…

…truth in advertising…an oft-hackneyed phrase I’m sure most of us would agree…my ol’ Gran’pa used to say, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…or was that sumb’dy else?…whatever…so, cards on the table, ‘fess up time, no Bull Sh*t…this ‘ere blog post is targetting one thing, and one thing only …to get ye all NOT to dip into yer pockets, but to download FOR FREE my novel, VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK…now, Mabel, if the good folks out there in BlogLand feel inclined to BUY the other book, THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY at the same time as whippin’ away a freebie???…in all conscience, who am I to stop ’em ?…and if they wanna dig further and push out some pennies and cents on my (critics say) brilliantly funny collection of blog posts, THE BLOGGER’S GUIDE TO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (more truth in advertising! )…be my guest…the Freebie promo STARTS JANUARY 24TH Western Pacific time (so don’t download before that, or yer wallet WILL  get sapped)…all the way until JANUARY 28th…please enjoy…the links are as follow for :

VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK :

US  http://amzn.to/W59BB3

UK  http://amzn.to/13yV1YX

VWB_02

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January 21, 2013 · 6:09 pm

…how much is that Bloggy in the window? the one with the waggly tail?…#TBSU…

…one of the globally respected traits of the Scot is his/her absolute absence of embarrassment talking about money…not the kinda money that spins yer head thinking about, such as the Euro-Debt Mountain…nor the Cousins-Across-The-Pond’s regular dance with the devil at the edge of the Fiscal Cliff…I mean the more down-to-the-varnish reality of change in yer pocket kinda money…the stuff ye actually have to SPEND…I have traipsed through a decades-long career in the banking universe (now whispered in the same tone as genocide and stealing Luncheon Vouchers from Tesc0)…I have seen the trappings of insanity in Macau casinos when Chinese mega-billlionaires blithely blew fortunes at the Baccarat tables…all these recede into petty significance compared with the spending decisions of THE READER AT LARGE,…the supposed raison d’être of we of the quill-scrapers society…it matters not how many years an author toils to produce his/her life’s work…the solitary confinement in sundry candle-illuminated garrets across the globe churning out the literary opii (plural of ‘opus’, Mabel, look it up, dear)…the stretches of starvation struggling to satisfy the demands of agent and publisher…there IS a limit to personal outlay on A BOOK…I’ve referred in the past to those and such as those who rail against paying about the same as a coffee and slice of cheese cake for some poor writing waif’s work…which begs the question (no, seriously, I’d DEARLY LOVE some intelligent responses to this one)…HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY FOR A BOOK ON KINDLE?...don’t peek at my Amazon pages to see how I’ve priced mine, coz there’s a whole range of opinion out there as to what it should be…while ye munch yer cheese cake and sip yer coffee, give it some thought, and let me know…I’m outa here before Matron gets here wi’ that bluudy syringe…

Blog Scratchers Corner

#TBSU

Blogs To Follow:

http://www.thelindenchronicles.wordpress.com

http://nevealane.wordpress.com

http://www.seumasgallacher.wordpress.com

http://motivustraining.com

http://moniqualsexton.wordpress.com

 

As per usual, please share, enjoy, pass around to fellow bloggers …

 

 

 

 

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January 20, 2013 · 2:43 pm

…where have all the readers gone, long time passing?… is humour a GEOGRAPHIC thing?…#TBSU…

…far be it from I, a mere impecunious scribbler secreted away in my desert garret in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East…to cast doubts on the ability for humour to impact better in some geographies than others …but, figures, Mabel…figures they say, don’t lie…as a  throwaway gesture last weekend (that’s ‘throwaway’, NOT ‘giveaway’…), I released on the suspecting world a collation of my blog posts, couched loosely in the HUMOUR (Amer: HUMOR) genre…the usual three-line whip on the family had Uncle Fred and Auntie Mabel purchase the first two…and off we went…or rather, off we nearly went…the first flush of rash splashers of cash piled in from the UK…good ol’ Blighty…North, West, East and South dug deep into the pension pots and bought it…across the Pond, a sparse sprinkling of spenders crept back from the edge of the fiscal cliff and dumped daily dollars on it…thereafter, the Rest of The World voted in utter silence (make that ‘silence’ , coz ‘utter’ denotes a noise)…I can only surmise that the Internet is broken in Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, Germany, Italy,and Japan…or it could be that Amazon Kindle is inundated with the massive sales piling in from these regions and cannot keep up with the record keeping…so, just between us cats, here’s the links once more, with my smiling face on the cover…yes folks that’s a REAL picture…none of your inexpensive caricatures…

THE BLOGGER’S GUIDE TO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING 

Links to Amazon:

UK: http://amzn.to/W58SzQ 

USA: http://amzn.to/UNjx1M  

Tarraaaa:

BOOKBLOGframe

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January 19, 2013 · 5:08 pm

…as useful as a chocolate teapot…my ‘umble take on WURDCOUNT…#TBSU…

…straight up let me say that I profess a deep affection for numbers…I can do the ‘magic factors’ mental arithmetic calculations as easy as politicians tell fibs…I learned  prime number competency at an early age, and still dazzle myself sometimes with my counting speed… comes now the literary angle of the same feature…WURDCOUNT…I’ve read..I’ve heard…I’ve listened…I’ve been befuddled…by umpteen articles, blogposts, columns, advisory pieces…that it’s IMPERATIVE to keep to your WURDCOUNT…target so many WURDS per month, week, day, hour, minute…else yer goin’ straight to Author Hell and yer not comin’ back, Mabel…that’s what they say...borrox, I retort…(new word, Mabel…borrox… it’ll catch on soon enough…wait and see…)…I can well understand it works for SOME PEOPLE, and that SOME PEOPLE embrace the discipline it gives them…but I can’t help wond’rin’,… doozie that I am…how many out there are like me?…just wanting to write at leisure?…and not be bamboozled by the slave-driver need for a sea of print production like an assembly line factory output?…my primary reason for writing is that I ENJOY it…the whole wondrous process of it…pretty parsing play, sentence structure succumbment, validating verbiage…and the assembled committee meetings that constantly go on in my head among my characters…am I to surrender that pleasure to appease the Great God, WURDCOUNT?…not any time soon, Mabel…I’m allowed my opinion, I’m told, so for me, WURDCOUNT is as useful as a chocolate teapot…anybody like a chocolate cup of coffee?…feedback on this as on any of the other trivia I push on to here will be welcome before the WURDCOUNT cops come to cart me away …I see Matron hovering  with the syringe…they must have called her already…see yeez later…

My wee compendium of previous blog posts is available on Kindle:

‘THE BLOGGER’S GUIDE TO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING’

 UK: http://amzn.to/W58SzQ 

USA: http://amzn.to/UNjx1M  

Blog Scratchers Corner

#TBSU

Blogs To Follow:

http://www.davidfagan.co.uk

http://allwriteinabudhabi.wordpress.com

http://www.seumasgallacher.wordpress.com

http://www.janetolearski.com

http://rictof.blogspot.com

http://www.echobooks.com

http://1earthunite.wordpress.com

http://buttontapper.com

http://www.zodiacpublishing.co.uk

As usual, share these along…cheers

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