Author: Alice McVeigh
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The Netherfield Cats
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for a bit of escapism, a good-news day. So, I got to thinking, what did the Netherfield cats think? Read on to find out! Afterwards, you can read a post that I shared recently about our two sausage dogs on social media. (Why? Because our twin dachshunds…
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It’s a Steal!!! However – in other news – the BBC has aced MISS AUSTEN (the TV series)!!!!
#MissAusten #JaneAusten #PrideAndPerjury #JAFF #HistoricalFiction Everyone here will know, by now, about Meta’s immoral and illegal “scraping” of well over SEVEN MILLION books, in order to train generative language AI – without compensating a single author, out of the seven million of us concerned (of whom I’m one.) However, it still came as a shock…
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How NOT to run an audiobook crowdfunding campaign
Sooooooo, this was going to be about my Kickstarter attempt. But – before you buzz off, possibly permanently – relax. It won’t be!!! No appeal will be made to your wallets. You might even learn something from all my mistakes!!! Sooooooo, I got the idea for a Kickstarter this time last year, while attending the…
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Publishing and Marketing Scams
Nothing is more gullible than a new, self-published author. Has to be, because all any author has to do is to put a single notification on some historical fiction Facebook group site to suddenly sprout an army of supposedly new fans: Let’s choose HARRIET, which is, as it happens, free today and for a couple…
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The Servant Problem
I have given in at last. After holding out since forever, we have finally hired a maid. We’re not talking Regency levels of staffing here. Then, even relatively poor gentry would have kept several servants. My maid simply pops around for three hours (in Orpington, Kent) quietly restores everything to its proper place, and leaves…
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“What nobody ever told me” OR “Tell her to give me a ring”
I’d been married to an Englishman for maybe five years when I first toured the US with a British symphony orchestra. Which felt a bit backwards. While I was touring, my husband called most days, and on one occasion he needed my advice urgently (the fridge-freezer? Can’t remember.) At any rate, he requested the hotel…
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A Moral Dilemma …
Embarrassing recollection #10002 (and counting)… When I was young I played principal cello in my High School Orchestra. (No big deal, I know, but I was also principal cello in the Virginia All-State orchestra and the famous D.C. Youth Orchestra, so I must’ve played cello OK.) Now it just so happened that most of the…
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“Mansfield Park is too dark.” Really???
“Mansfield Park is too dark.” Really??? I don’t think so. How can a novel where nobody perishes, a novel where there is no scene of violence, war, destruction or self-destruction possibly be dark? Some people do fret about the slave trade (Sir Thomas’s plantations were 99% certain to have been worked by slaves. This is…
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Selling Paperbacks
“Well,” as one wit in our cohort concluded, “that’s six hours of my life I’ll never get back again.” Which reminded me of what we used to say in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: “Of all the concerts that I ever played, that was one of them.” It was my very first attempt to sell paperbacks in person.…
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So… you’ve read all of Austen. Now what do you read?
(Now every single blogger here is secretly thinking, “Read ME!!!!” Lol.) Not that I don’t think it an absolutely fab idea for you – just to take a reader at complete random – to scuttle off to Zon, having enjoyed a blog by – just to take another example at complete random – me. However,…