Evenin' All

[Joe Botting]

Hello all (again to some of you - I signed up briefly several years ago, then lapsed for various reasons). I'm a palaeontologist by profession, a naturalist by inclination, and do silly things like playing the irish harp, t'ai chi, reading (mostly fantasy and traditional crime) and walking over mountains for light entertainment. I'm not sure where the writing falls in this, but somewhere in the middle - I write a lot of scientific papers, a decent amount of semi-popular and popular material when I can, and fantasy as and when I can fit it in. The latter really needs a reason for me to do it, and despite living in China and being about as busy as ever, I've just rediscovered the urge to carry on with what I've been doing for years.

Amusing as it might sound to those of you who are into double (or triple) figures already, I'm still trying to finish my first trilogy. I've tried to get the first book taken by editors in the past, and had the usual polite (and sometimes genunely encouraging) declines. I'm now considering self-publishing via Kindle, just to see whether it gets a good reaction, but am concerned in might just get lost in the piles of, shall we say, not-quite-polished volumes already there. But Anyway, hello all, and I'll try to settle in this time round and get to know you a bit - although I may be restricted to posting at odd times due to being about eight hours out of sync...

Hobgoblins,
Joe

[Jim Steel]

Welcome back, Joe!

[Colin (Black Abyss)]

Welcome Joe,

A palaeontologist..well, well. It's great to have a stamp collector on board

[Joe Botting]

Welcome Joe,

A palaeontologist..well, well. It's great to have a stamp collector on board

Grrrrr. Keep that up and I'll be forced to set my armoured worms onto you. They may be tiny, but they're really, really cute.

(Oh, and thanks for the welcome, folks.  )

[jim mcleod]

Hey Joe.  Naturalist you say, does it not get chilly when walking across those mountains? 

[Debbie]

Hi Joe

There are a few of us who are selling quite nicely on kindle/smashwords and some very supportive groups on facebook (with some damn good authors in too!)

Deb

[David Brzeski]

I agree with Deb.
I'm not a writer, but I am on several facebook groups which give writers a good place to promote their wares.
I'm sure there are still many cases of works that would seriously benefit from going through a good editor, but there's a lot of good stuff out there which would never otherwise get published.
I think, like the digital music market, while it means anyone can put their product out there, the social networks & blogs tend to help the worthy stuff float to the surface.

[Joe Botting]

Hmmm... thank you all. That does sound good - as always, it's mostly a case of finding the right places to get known. I can't get access to Facebook while in China (the Great Firewall, you know) - but I'm sure I can get something sorted out. Will give it a go, I think, and then I just have to hope that it's not one of the ones worthy of sinking...

p.s. Jim - Groan... this is why the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union wants to change its name. It regularly leads to a lot of confusion, with the -general assumption that this group of mostly elderly folks wielding abstruse identification keys, ridiculously over-the-top cameras and butterfly nets are just waiting for the right moment to tear all their clothes off...
But you're right, it does get chilly nonetheless:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27381147@N03/5222933897/

[David Brzeski]

As long as the right people here get to know what you're up to, it'll certainly filter through to the right places on facebook.