Europe risks undermining its own competitiveness drive through curbs on US groups, tech company says

Yesterday I donated my 50th pint of blood. Because it was my 50th, I got a card. A new gold donor card, badge and certificate will be coming in the post. I don’t care about the card, badge, or certificate. But hopefully they encourage others to keep donating. I’m happy to give blood, but my autism means that I find it difficult. There is a form with a series of yes/no questions. Some questions instruct you to ignore the next question if you answer no. Sometimes I miss that, answer the next question, then feel bad because I’ve filled it in wrong.

A FoI request for the data behind the media hysteria over the Tavistock Clinic presents quite a different picture

Queen tells reading campaign that listening counts too – and the publishing industry increasingly agrees

Plan your visit at businesses and locations with sensory information and instructions, for and from the autistic community. Noise, lighting, smells, human load, payment methods, toilets and how to get service.

I’ve been interested in the concept of writer decks for years, since I first discovered that some people use old AlphaSmart devices in that way. People who use writer decks find it helpful to write on a device with no distractions. When I’m writing my books, I refer to my sources and notes (stored on a computer) a lot. If I used a writer deck to write, I’d still need a computer close by for reference, so I don’t want a writer deck for my main writing. But I’m still fascinated by the idea. I recently discovered WriterDeckOS, and decided to try it out on an old laptop.

I sometimes see authors complain about how cheaply books are priced, and subsequently how little they make per sale. A common comparison is with coffee. An ebook often costs less than a coffee from Costa or Starbucks, the argument goes, but the book took months or years to write, whereas the coffee is made in minutes. This is a disingenuous comparison. The two things are completely different, but I don’t think many authors fully appreciate the difference. When a barista makes a coffee, they can sell that coffee once. In order to sell a second coffee, they will have to go through the whole process a second time. If it takes two minutes to make a coffee, it will take over three hours to make a hundred coffees, assuming the hapless barista works non-stop. By contrast, when someone buys one of my books, everything is handled by the vendor, with no need for me to do anything. I can sell my books while I sleep. Even direct sales through my website are fulfilled by BookFunnel and BookVault, without me lifting a finger. Once a coffee has been made, it has to be sold almost immediately or it’s wasted. By contrast, books can be sold, and earn money for the author or their heirs, for decades. I published my first book almost fifteen years ago, and it’s still making money for me. I bought my first copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ more than forty years after it was first published. Assuming copyright law doesn’t change, that book can continue to make money for the Tolkien estate until the end of 2043. A book can also be sold in multiple ways. At its simplest, that means that you can sell it as an ebook, paperback, hardback, audiobook, large print, etc. But the value of the book isn’t in the ebook’s electrons or the print book’s paper, it’s in the words contained within it. Those words can be licensed to others to create products based on the book. We’ve all seen films and TV series based on books, and many authors dream of seeing their stories on screen. You could also licence a book to be used for a role-playing game, a board game, or a graphic novel. I won’t pretend it’s simple, but the options are almost limitless. A book can be sold many times, in a variety of ways. Even the best coffee can only be sold once.

Notepad hijacked by state-sponsored actors (notepad-plus-plus.org) 09:59  ↑ 182 HN Points

Plan your visit at businesses and locations with sensory information and instructions, for and from the autistic community. Noise, lighting, smells, human load, payment methods, toilets and how to get service.

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