All posts by Bob Fowke

publicity

E-books and Kindle Select

For some time we’ve been advising writers to publish their e-books via Amazon Kindle Select. Our argument has been that Kindle dominate the e-book market both in the UK and the USA, possibly accounting for up to 80% of it. By signing on to Kindle Select, writers give exclusive e-book distribution rights to Kindle for periods of ninety days, renewable. In return writers receive a royalty of 70% of the retail price of their e-books provided the price is set to a minimum of $2.99 or equivalent. This compares very favourably with a more standard level of royalty of 30%.

There are serious dangers in the semi-monopolistic position that Amazon has acquired and we recognise this, but writers, especially self-published writers, have to look after themselves and we feel that is our duty to point out the advantages of a 70% royalty and the advantage of receiving one sales report – which much easier to manage than collating sales reports from multiple e-book platforms. The Independent Author blog has a good balanced piece about the does and don’ts of Kindle Select.

books

A History of Wolverhampton
Chris Upton

Wolverhampton

An excellent introduction to a much-changed town. Chris Upton’s A History of Wolverhampton  makes an invaluable contribution to the story of Wolverhampton’s evolution from the rural Saxon settlement of Wulfruna through to a power house of the industrial Revolution and beyond.

News

Trojan Horse Plot

Books in the News

With all the talk of Trojan Horse plots in Birmingham schools, we thought it might be useful to look back at the original. This edition was published by Penguin Classics in 1998 with Robert Fagles (Translator) and Bernard Knox (Introduction).

books

Virtual Women: Ladyboys
Dr. Anne Beaumont

Anne_Beaumont_Cover

Virtual Women: Ladyboys, Changing Sex in Thailand by Anne Beaumont is due for publication shortly and we’re very pleased to add this intelligent and thoughtful book to the YouCaxton list.

Why do some people reject the sexed bodies they were born into and transform themselves into women? Are the brains of men and women different? Is gender identity fixed at birth, is it learned behaviour or is it socially constructed? In this scholarly work, social anthropologist Anne Beaumont shows us that the answers to these prickly questions lie as much in the sphere of cultural difference as in that of science, and she constructs a new framework for gendering the body – one that centres solely on the individual.

Virtual Women takes us from England to Thailand, to the twilight zone of the bars where genders blend into a human hybrid – the Ladyboys (Kathoey) of Thailand who live betwixt and between in sex. Drawing on extensive empirical research and on interviews with Kathoey and with British transsexual women and with the surgeons and psychiatrists involved, Virtual Women brings a new understanding of the transgender phenomenon.

books

Scottish Independence

Books in the news

Three books reviewed in The Scotsman by Matt Qvortrup:

Scottish Independence: Yes or No? by Alan Cochrane and George Kerevan, The History Press, £7.99

Arts of Independence, by Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach, Luath Press, £9.99

Yes: the Radical Case for Scottish Independence, James Foley and Pete Ramand, Pluto Press, £12

To which might be added: Referendums and Ethnic Conflict by Matt Qvortrup himself, published by University of Pennsylvania Press, for a more scholarly take on these matters.

News

Craftsmanship and Art
Prof. Philip Dark

 

Dark_cover
We have just published a new edition of Professor Philip Dark’s 670-page anthropological work Craftsmanship and Art. The work was left uncompleted when Professor Dark died some years ago and it was a labour of love to complete it. One of the strengths of this unique book is that much of the research was conducted in the period 1955-1980 and many of the practices it describes have since been abandoned. The following from the index gives a brief glimpse of its breadth and originality:

Ute Indians
basketry 320
currency of dessicated fingertips 440

Wodabe people
cicitrization 370
hair of women 411
pack oxen 294
stretching of children’s limbs 403

Professor Dark was a remarkable man, a hero of the wartime raid on St. Lazare. It was while in prison camp in Germany that he first became interested in anthropology.

books

Why Darwin Matters to Christians
Adrian Bailey

 

CoverFront for kindle

We have just published a new edition of Why Darwin Matters to Christians, Adrian Bailey’s take on the appropriate response of Christians to the scientific revolution and to Darwinism in particular. Adrian is Chaplain of the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry. This well-argued book has proved to be of interest to many, both Christian and non-Christian.

Events

My Struggle
Karl Ove Knausgaard

 YouCaxton Literary Lecture, 6.30 pm, Tuesday, 27th May at the Pengwern Bookshop, Fish Street, Shrewsbury.

Fresh from his recent biography of Hans Christian Andersen, writer and literary critic, Paul Binding, will be speaking about Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-volume autobiographical sequence, My Struggle. (Translation of the last three volumes into English is not yet complete; No 3, Boyhood Island, came out in the UK in March.) Knausgaard’s sensationally successful Proustian take on the nature of memory holds a warning for anyone embarking on memoir. Memory is: ‘pragmatic, sly and artful’.