Yesterday was busy. I decided to reward myself for all my hard work on the translation with a theatre break. One of my Starlight guide teachers was giving a talk for schoolchildren, but with a twist. He played the straight man while two naughty children (the puppets) kept interrupting, setting light to balloons filled with hydrogen and so on. It was a great laugh, and I was very glad I…
I always thought that I was the only fossil on La Palma. Geologically speaking, La Palma is a baby island. The very oldest rocks here are just two million years old. Most of the north of the island is 1.5 million years old. Most of the south is about 700,000 years old. And the very southern tip is just 41 years old. I always through that was far too young…
Yippee! 200 copies of my book have shipped from Seville, on their way to La Palma. The printers say they should be here in two weeks, although it wouldn’t astonish me if it took a few days longer. And I’m halfway through the first draft of the translation. And the postman brought a nice cheque for my story “Scream Quietly” which will be in a time travel anthology shortly. (Yes,…
Amazon.com have this really nice program called Advantage, designed for people selling their own books/CDs/DVDs. But you need a US bank account, and you need to deliver your books or whatever) to their warehouse in the USA. This isn’t going to happen with my books any time soon. Amazon.co.uk don’t have Advantage. They do have something called “Fulfilment by Amazon” which seems similar, but I’d still have to get the…
“A Breathtaking Window on the Universe” is in production at the printers, and it should be here in 2-3 weeks. I need to get ready to sell it, don’t I? So I’ve improved the webpage for it and added extracts from the book, and my next move will be to look into getting it listed at Amazon. Meanwhile I’m doing enough tour guiding to cover my social security payments and…
The English version of the book is still “in validation” at the publishers. In theory, it should get the green light on Monday, and move into production. I’ve done about a quarter of the translation. It’s not quite as difficult as I expected, and I’m making better progress now that I make a note of puzzling words and carry on, then send an email to a Spanish astronomer asking how…