Yesterdays Big Thing

I like to keep my ear close to the street to keep abreast of what's happening out there and the latest buzz is that things aren't going to well for bloggers who think they can knock out a book. An article on Librarians Place sums it up quite nicely in pointing out that the "bloggers book deal" bubble may well have already burst and that, although bloggers books were popular two years ago, sales of any books who can find their roots in blogs are now very disappointing and often fail to recover the initial advance. Perhaps Anya's agent will advise her to get into Science Fiction as a recent post on "Whatever" backs up the cold hard facts that blog writers do not make good authors unless specializing in fiction. What's that you say? She already is dealing in it ?!? The "Whatever" article even goes so far as to blame the publishers themselves for pandering to the hopes and aspirations of the would be authors in the vain hope that they can ride the crest of the "bloggers write good books" wave. Lord knows what would happen if a desperate person, down on their luck and who harboured aspirations of being an author was approached by an agent claiming to be able to get them a book deal (who would naturally get a percentage of any advance fee) based on the premise that "misery memoirs" were big at the moment. It just doesn't bear thinking about, does it folks .........

Sale of the Century

With only 4 months to go until the few remaining Anya Sicko-fants left in the world can get their mitts on the greatest tome to be published since Janet and John, there's some good news on the horizon. The official publishers price of £12.99 is already being discounted by the likes of Amazon who, possibly in anticipation of being left with the whole boxful that they must have ordered on their shelves, have slashed the price by nearly £4.50 to a cheap and cheerful £8.57 !! Do yourselves a favour folks and never pay the full retail price. Some regular readers may wonder why I am advertising Anyas book for her. Fear not, I haven't gone over to the dark side but I do so out of a sense of justice. After all, the whole point of my cheery little blog is to provide balance and I'm not "Mean ole Miss Negativity" all the time. If you find instances of her book being sold even cheaper then please let me know. We all love a bargain, eh folks !!

Fact or Fiction?

The latest link on Anyas site is to yet another advert for her book, this time on the Waterstones site. However, eagle eyed viewers may notice a small but important difference between the details advertised on the Harper Collins site and the Waterstones one. Whilst the whole thrust of the advertising so far is that it is all true, Waterstones must have some doubts about the veracity of this claim as they have categorized the book as a work of fiction. Oh dear .... Are they privy to some info that the general public aren't? Or has Anya pushed her luck just a little too far in her efforts to get a book deal by any means? After all, the homeless blogger bit was stretching credibility, especially in her refusal to answer even the most basic of queries but the sudden emergence of the whole abandoned baby/abusive childhood elements may have raised suspicions a tad higher. Particularl;y as these fascinating elements weren't even mentioned until the ghost writer hired to beef up the story was brought on board. Not that he had previous form in bunging in these elements for books he had assisted on in the past. Oh wait .... he did. Hmmmm................

Seven, the number of posts with actual news

Ho hum........ Todays post by Anya sees more piffle about how hard it was to write the book and even more reminscing about being homeless. From the amount of whining she does about it, you'd think she had been homeless for years instead of a few months but I guess she has to keep harping on about it as you can bet your bottom dollar that the book promotion will feature homelessness as the tag to draw unsuspecting gullible readers in. It really does look like she can't be arsed writing anything of note these days and every posts highlights the fact that the entire blog is merely a stopgap till the book promotion gets into full swing. Even the links have been changed to self congratulatory and self promoting. Does anyone even read it these days? I only do so out of a keen sense of duty to my readers but with so little happening these days, it seems that the impetus has been lost and Harper Collins made a big mistake in throwing hard cash at a homeless bum with no story to tell. Not that it stopped her coming up with something to justify the bundle of moolah though! The last post with any actual news was way back in November (when she confessed to losing her mind). I can't help feeling that when the book is finally released and the blog is pointed out as the source of it all, those dozens of new readers who pop along for a butchers are going to be sorely disappointed with the actual content. Much like we are everytime she posts..............

Updates

To avoid the mind numbing chore of checking Anya’s' site for updates (which seem to be done every other month now), I have a small script running which checks for changes. The log for Thursday 4th Jan showed a change but all that was apparent was that the cover of her forthcoming blockbuster (no sniggering at the back) had been added to her links column along with a link to the Amazon listing. Strangely though, there was no actual blog entry update as to her status. Just an attempt to flog her goods and chattels via the blog (which the more cynical amongst us would realise was the reason d étre in the first place). Just what does she spend her time doing these days? Apart from reminiscing about the good old days when she was homeless, of course and therefore more interesting than just another unemployed person living in a bedsit. In a curious twist, I received another alert later in the day that there had been more changes to the blog. Naturally I hot-footed it over there (I really ought to get a life) only to find that the expected blog entry wasn't present. In fact, the only change was that the book cover and link to Amazon had now disappeared. Very strange. Could this be the equivalent of trying on a new dress and admiring yourself in the mirror? Had Anya grown so bored, locked up in her bedsit all day, that she was considering an actual post about some actual news but chickened out in the end? I rather favour the hypothesis that she doesn’t want to whip the Media into a frenzy over her book too soon.

1st Post of the New Year

Best Wishes to all Fans of Truth, Justice and The British Way !!