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A request on my blog’s Facebook page asked if I could follow up my last post with lists of just the bestselling fiction books of 2014. As I write adult and young adult fiction I decided to include both in the following lists. Note: I could only find the top nine bestsellers in Australia.   Australia 1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (193,700) 2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (156,900) 3. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (127,300) 4. Gone Girl (movie tie-in) Gillian Flynn (119,800) 5. The Fault in Our Stars (movie tie-in) by John Green (113,100) 6. The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Riley (106,100) 7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (101,000) 8. Looking for Alaska by John Green (98,500) 9. Personal by Lee Child (95,500). Six are adult novels. Four are different versions of the same two books. Three have Australian authors. Five had film versions out last year. Only one would be considered to have literary merit ( T...

The 2014 top-ten bestseller lists for books in Australia, the UK and the US point to a book buying world dominated by movies, games and children/teenagers. Top-ten bestsellers in Australia.   1. The 52-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (232,900)   2. The Long Haul (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book Nine) by Jeff Kinney (221,800) 3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (193,700) 4. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (156,900) 5. Minecraft: The Official Construction Handbook (135,600) 6. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (127,300) 7. Minecraft: The Official Redstone Handbook (127,300) 8. Minecraft: The Official Combat Handbook (124,100) 9. Minecraft: the Official Beginner’s Handbook (123,400) 10. Gone Girl (movie tie-in) by Gillian Flynn (119,800). Four of the books were manuals for the game Minecraft. Two versions of Gone Girl made the list. The top two are children’s books. Only two of the top-ten had Australian authors. Three...

Hi all, As a personal stand against the ebook price race to the bottom, I made a resolution at the start of last year to only purchase ebooks priced over $5. Here is what I ended up downloading: WTF , an anthology by Pink Narcissus Press, $8.99 Marketing for Authors by Anita Revel, $4.97 The Last Albatross by Ian Irvine, $6.99 Oxygen by John Olson and Randy Ingermanson, 0.99 Turing Evolved by Dave Kitson, free My Name in Lights by Patty Jansen, $1.99 Creating an ebook by Paul Hurst, free Ah-huh, Graham was not very good at keeping his resolution you think, but wait until you read my rationalisations. I sent Dave Kitson an $8 donation when I finished reading Turing Evolved . Patty Jansen’s ebook was a 33 page novella. I think $1.99 is a fair price for a novella. I read Randy Ingermanson’s newsletter, sometimes hurriedly, and mistakenly thought Oxygen was a novella with some writing tips at its end. Creating an ebook , by Paul Hurst is on...

Hi all, Last week I wrote every day for the second week in a row. But unlike the week before when it was all non-fiction, last week it was all fiction. I am still not spending anywhere near enough time writing, but some writing is better than none. Hopefully I can build on last week’s efforts this week.  I spent a bit of time on other writing relating activities, like setting up a group’s page on Facebook for this blog. New Article on Divine Magazine I submitted a new article to Divine online magazine last Monday and, much to my surprise, it was up on the site by Wednesday. That’s two articles for August. The new article is about why I love gardening . The article is an attempt at a more whimsical tone. Over the past year’s 13 articles for Divine, I have attempted different styles and tones, from serious informational, to personal accounts of tragedy, to uplifting interview based articles. Book Sales Up in Australia An article in the Age states that book...

Hi all, I am feeling a bit more awake and alive this week. Last week I was recovering from having some teeth removed. I really did not expect to be so weak and giddy. But my hairdresser who is about to have all four wisdom teeth out said she had scheduled two weeks off work to recover. New Article for Divine Magazine In between sleeping up to twelve hours a night, I managed to research and write an article on recycling televisions. It seemed the right time to write it too with a lot of things happening with recycling electronic waste. On Thursday the Victoria government announced a new scheme. I did a lot more research for this article than other articles due to me knowing nothing about the subject. Part of the research included ringing the director of the Product Stewardship Association. My brain haze had me losing my train of thought during the interview. He helpfully asked me to email him questions, but then didn’t get back to me. Just as well one of ...