MORE FROM OLD SALT PRESS

YES! ANOTHER FREE PROMOTION!

My saga from the old whaling days, A Love of Adventure, will be free on Amazon for a limited time from May 21.

Born at sea and raised on shipboard, adventurous young Abigail Sherman wants nothing more than to be wedded to the ocean for life. Like her mother, a pioneer seafaring woman, Abigail is convinced that her destiny is to be a captain’s wife at sea.

Instead, fate conspires against her. Beset by problems with the British administration in New Zealand, her widowed father packs her off to Puritanical relatives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to learn proper womanly decorum. Arriving on the same day as the momentous news of the discovery of gold in California, Abigail does her best to conform, despite being involved in the Women’s Rights movement, and a sensational murder trial.

News of her father’s brutal murder drives her into a marriage of convenience with a strongwilled young whaling captain. Her legacy is the ownership of the brig she grew up on, and a puzzling rhyme that may lead to a fortune. But, before she can return to New Zealand to collect, Abigail must outwit the grumbling seamen of her husband’s ship, a mystery murderer, and her own attractive, strangely hostile husband.

When originally brought out (as Abigail), this colorful seafaring saga attracted enthusiastic reviews. “Lots of adventure, a colorful cast of characters, and enough whaling details to provide a first-rate vicarious experience,” wrote Joan Hinkemeyer for Library Journal, while Publishers Weekly applauded, “Excellent characters in full sail amid tangy salt air and creaky timbers offer prime entertainment ... engagingly captures the atmosphere of whalers and their world.”

 

Now re-published by Old Salt Press, A Love of Adventure now includes an extensive glossary of whaling and sailing terms and words.

 This follows promotions of Rick Spilman's nailbiter Hell Around the Horn, and a Wiki Coffin mystery -- also set off that grim outpost of the world.

To read A Love of Adventure, you do not need a Kindle e-reader. With the free Kindle app, Kindle books are readable on iPads, Blackberries, android tablets, smart phones and desktop and laptop computers.

By popular demand

The free promotion by Old Salt Press of The Beckoning Ice has been extended for two days.

It now ends on May 22.

Dr Who finale

There are six reasons to watch the finale, according to The Telegraph

ONE: At last we find out the Doctor's real name.  (Isn't that an invasion of the Privacy Act?)

TWO: We find out the real significance of Clara Oswin Oswald, who keeps popping up throughout space and time, then dying. First she was a Dalek, then a Victorian governess-cum-barmaid. Now she’s a modern-day au pair. (My guess is that she is a reincarnation expert.)

THREE: There will be Guest Stars. Alex Kingston as the Doctor’s wise-cracking wife River Song and Richard E Grant (as Doctor Simeon/The Great Intelligence) both return.

FOUR: New Monsters. Show supremo Steven Moffat said he wanted new monsters for the finale. Hence the undertaker-like Whisper Men, who are mysterious and almost faceless creatures, who do ... what? (Personally, I reckon he should pick up the Wooden Tops, mysterious and almost faceless creatures from Victorian children's fiction, which terrified me when I found the book in my grandmother's attic.)

FIVE: It's written by Moffat himself.

SIX: It's the Telegraph critic's last fix for six months.
FIVE:

eBook sales slowing

Over 40% sounds like a wonderful increase in annual sales

But according to the Christian Science Monitor, it is not.

The good news: The number of e-books sold last year grew by 43 percent.

The bad news: After three years of triple-digit increases in sales, that’s a serious slowdown.
That’s the latest news from the Association of American Publishers, which released its annual BookStats study Wednesday. The report found that digital books remain the fastest-growing segment of the publishing market, but that record growth is hitting a plateau after years of runaway sales.


Among the report’s findings:
• E-book sales grew by 43 percent in 2012
• E-books now represent 20 percent of all books sales
• Some 457 million e-books were sold in 2012, compared to 557 million hardcovers sold in last year
• Even if e-book sales have slowed, the industry has made massive progress: the 457 million e-books sold in 2012 represent a 4,456 percent increase over 2008 when 10 million e-books were sold.
As for the reasons behind the e-book slowdown, analysts’ explanations vary. Some, like Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch, cite the enduring strength of the print format, which continues to outsell digital books by a margin of 4-to-1.
“In all the talk about e-books, we often lose track of the fact that more than three out of four books sold in the U.S. are still printed ones,” Pietsch said, as reported by USA Today.

Hobbit filming recommences

It's hardly an unexpected journey ...

Actors involved with The Hobbit movie trilogy have returned to Wellington from around the world, with filming for the final two films expected to resume today.

Director Sir Peter Jackson could not be reached for comment yesterday, but industry insiders say his Stone Street Studios in Miramar will be working on new scenes for the next 10 weeks or so.

Lord of the Rings fan site TheOneRing.net said it was able to confirm "from the very best of sources" that work on the remaining two films would kick off today.

"It seems likely that most of the principal cast will return for the segment, although not all are specifically confirmed," the website said.

"Lots of actors have reported through social media that they are returning and we know this block of filming has always been in the plans."

British actor Adam Brown, who plays the dwarf Ori, tweeted on Saturday evening that he was at Los Angeles International Airport with "half"' of The Hobbit crew, getting ready to fly to New Zealand.

What happens to pirates after they are caught?

They go to paradise, apparently

Anthony Denselow, in the Seychelles, contributes a fascinating story to the BBC magazine.

There are more than 1,000 convicted Somali pirates in prisons around the world. Some of them end up in a UN-funded jail on the tiny island nation of Seychelles.

The pirate prison is situated high in the hills -- and tourists paying big bucks to stay in thatched villas on the beach have not a clue it is there.

"I am in Victoria, the islands' capital, to witness an astonishing sight that is about to disappear forever," writes Denselow.

"In the heart of town is the beautiful black and white Creole courthouse.

"Outside, lolling on benches are groups of handcuffed prisoners.

"It is a sun-kissed Dickensian scene that I cannot imagine anywhere else.

"Six Somalis, in flip flops and chained in pairs, are brought into the tiny court where a judge and nine lawyers clad in black and wearing wigs barely give them a glance.

"These six were arrested last August hundreds of miles north - nearer Yemen than Seychelles.

They are accused of attempting to board a merchant ship and were captured by the Dutch navy with help from a Spanish helicopter.

Charles Brown is a barrister from Cumbria and one of two UK Criminal Prosecution Service lawyers who have been seconded to the attorney general's office in Seychelles to help prosecute pirates.

He says that they can look pretty shell-shocked when they first arrive in these lush islands, but describes the Somalis as a "cheerful and reasonably intelligent lot". "

Naturally, the men claim to be simple fishermen (though their boats seldom have nets, and never refrigeration equipment), or maybe even boat people, but with more intensive patroling of the Indian Ocean, they are not getting away with it.  Guns are usually thrown overboard, but grappling hooks are enough to get them arrested.

In fact, so many are being arrested that until recently they were simply dumped on some Somali beach.  But it is now much more organized -- and in Somalia itself, there is now a secure prison funded by the UN, where convicted pirates serve sentences that can be decades long.

Others serve their time in foreign climes ... including the idyllic Seychelles.

Yahoo to buy mega-blogger

Yahoo squandering a billion on Tumblr

The BBC reports

Yahoo's board has approved a deal to buy New York-based blogging service Tumblr for $1.1bn (£725m), US media reports say.

The acquisition is expected to be announced as early as Monday.

The deal was a "foregone conclusion" and was a unanimous vote by the board, tech blog AllThingsD reported, citing sources close to the matter.

If confirmed, it will be CEO Marissa Mayer's largest deal since taking the helm of Yahoo in July 2012.

Analysts say that by acquiring Tumblr, Yahoo would gain a larger social media presence and enhance its ability to attract younger audiences. It will also help Tumblr generate more revenue from advertisements.

On its home page, Tumblr says it hosts 108 million blogs, with 50.7 billion posts between them.

Under the terms of the acquisition, Tumblr would continue to operate as an independent business, the Wall Street Journal said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

About 700 million web surfers visit Yahoo's website every month, ranking it among the top in the global industry.

Record-breaking art sale

Christie's art sale out-plays expectations

A contemporary art sale at Christie's in New York has made $495m (£325m), the highest total in auction history.

The sale included works by Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The sale established 16 new world auction records, with nine works selling for more than $10m (£6.6m) and 23 for more than $5m (£3.2m).

Christie's said the records reflected "a new era in the art market".

The sale featured works from institutions and private collections, including that of the late singer Andy Williams.

Paintings from the Williams estate included Edward Ruscha's Mint, Willem de Kooning's Untitled XVII and Basquiat's Furious man.

The top lot of Wednesday's sale was Pollock's drip painting Number 19, 1948, which fetched $58.4m (£38.3m) - nearly twice its pre-sale estimate.

Lichtenstein's Woman with Flowered Hat sold for $56.1m (£36.8m), while another Basquiat work, Dustheads, went for $48.8 (£32.1m).

All three works set the highest prices ever fetched for the artists at auction.

Christie's described the $495,021,500 total - which included commissions - as "staggering". Only four of the 70 lots on offer went unsold.

Brett Gorvy, head of post-war and contemporary art, described the amount as "the highest total in auction history".

"The remarkable bidding and record prices set reflect a new era in the art market," he said.

Steven Murphy, CEO of Christie's International, said new collectors were helping drive the boom.

"Twenty-five percent of our buyers last year were new to Christie's," he told Reuters. "And four or five of the key lots tonight went to people who have never bought here before."

Mark Rothko's Untitled (Black on Maroon) from 1958 was the fourth most expensive sale, raising $27m (£17.7m).

FREE PROMOTION from OLD SALT PRESS

The Beckoning Ice free for a very limited time

To celebrate the launch of my Promise of Gold trilogy by Old Salt Press, the fifth Wiki Coffin mystery will be free on Amazon.com for three days.

This promotion begins on May 18.

The Beckoning Ice, the fifth in the Wiki Coffin series, finds the U. S. Exploring Expedition off Cape Horn, a grim outpost made still more threatening by the report of a corpse on a drifting iceberg, closely followed by a gruesome death on board.  Was it suicide, or a particularly brutal murder? Wiki investigates, only to find himself fighting desperately for his own life.

“Combining historical and nautical accuracy with a fast paced mystery thriller has produced a marvelous book which is highly recommended.” -- David Hayes, Historic Naval Fiction

Don't be put off by the fact that it is part of a series, as it can be read as a stand-alone mystery.  So go on, get acquainted with my Polynesian hunk of a hero, Wiki Coffin, while you have the chance. And post a short review, to say what you think.

Pirated 50 Shades a boomer in China

Contraband erotica is popular, according to The Telegraph

And censorship be damned.

Ever since Fifty Shades of Grey was translated into traditional Chinese for the Taiwan market last August, contraband copies have been making their way onto the bedside tables of the mainland.

As many as 400 booksellers on Taobao, China's enormous shopping website, are stocking pirated versions of the novel, with the whole trilogy costing roughly £13.

Wrapped in the same distinctive blue steel cover, these copies are printed off in the southern city of Guangzhou from smuggled Taiwanese editions.

The Good Union bookstore, which usually sells school textbooks, said it had sold roughly 80 sets of the trilogy in the past month.

"Not many people know about it yet," said a spokesman for the Foreign Multi-Resource bookstore. "There has been no publicity, so it is only a cult book at the moment," he added.

Opinion, however, is divided about the merits of Christian Grey's - or, in the Chinese version, Ge Lei's romance with his young female conquest, Si Di'er.

"Most of the feedback we get is that it is very repetitive," said the spokesman.

The users of Douban, a Chinese social networking website, gave the book just 5.3 out of 10, complaining of its "tedious style".

So whether it will lead to a population boom in the Celestial Kingdom is moot...