Paganarchy Press

Good friend (and contributor to Liber Malorum) Henry Lauer wrote an article in 2003 titled Odin Has a Light Sabre. I've just re-read it for the first time since its launch and still find it every bit as delightful.

At the end of The Return of the Jedi (which I will refer to as Return from here on in), Luke Skywalker, the Jedi knight, finds himself confronting his dark Jedi father (Darth Vader) and Vader's malignant master, Emperor Palpatine. Palpatine tries to defeat Luke by exhorting him to "give into the hate" that dwells within him. Here we see the fundamental conflict of the Odinnic magician, of the child of Wodanaz. The struggle for Jedi (which are equivalent to magicians) like Luke and his father is to find equilibrium between light and darkness, between Asgard and Hel. Each has an important place in the whole, but when one dominates disaster results.

Read the full article here.

Ooh, I just found this semi-groovy site StoryCode. Forgive me if it's already old news now, but I've just discovered it. Apparently you tell it what sort of books you have enjoyed and it uses some intricate formula to determine which other books you'll like and it makes fairly comprehensive recommendations. Well someone on StoryCode has coded Liber Malorum.

The good news is that Liber Malorum has been given a 5 star Rating! ... but it has only 2 ticks for readability

Liber Malorum on StoryCode

Further to yesterday's post about the ISBN network, I see that Amazon now have my book on sale at a discounted rate of £7.88 - but they still haven't got any copies and have still not asked me for any.

In fact, I think they will be selling books at a loss if they actually make any sales at that price. Fuck knows what they are up to!

I've had a few sleepless nights this year, largely inspired by the excitement of having my book released, but also doing loads of geeky things such as clearing out DBs, upgrading servers and wiping drives.

One of the funny things going on now is the vast number of online booksellers claiming to sell Liber Malorum when it's blatantly impossible because they haven't got any! When I started PagAnarchy Press, I ordered 1000 prints of the book, 920 of which are yet to be distributed as I've still got them with me!

I think Nielsen Bookdata has something to do with it. As the ISBN propagates through the Bookdata network, retailers must automatically draw down that information and pass it on to their customers in order to make sales. I even saw one site advertising the book at a discount rate. Presumably they're gonna be asking me for that same discount? Who knows?

Another thing I notice is that some of the sites trying to sell Liber Malorum include Amazon in the UK, Germany, Japan and Canada, but strangely, the book hasn't yet appeared on the US site, amazon.com

A lot of people out there are writing and asking me where they can get the book - thanks for the encouragement! I'll let you know which retailers take it on as soon as I know.

And I've just decided I'm gonna start a new category on this blog about the book industry. [TaDa - here it is!] As I learn more about it, I'm sure that info will be useful to others out there.

xxx Sean