Some cool vimeo video
This is example of video post format with embedded Vimeo video.
Video post with built-in video player
This is an example of video post with mp4 video URL, running with built-in video player.
Bizarre Author Deaths VI
This week sees the penultimate instalment of the Bizarre Author Deaths series.
Sir Francis Bacon
(January 22nd 1561 – April 9th 1626)
Notable works: Novum Organum, De augmentis, Nova Atlantis
Sir Francis Bacon was an English philosopher, scientist, statesman, orator, essayist and author. A highly successful career saw the multi-talented Bacon serve as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor. Today Bacon is remembered as an important figure in scientific methodology and natural philosophy. His accolades include being widely accepted as the creator of empiricism, in addition to establishing popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often referred to as the Baconian method.
Sixty-five year old Bacon purportedly met his demise when travelling in his carriage in the midst of a snowstorm in Highgate, it occurred to him that snow would be an ideal way to preserve and insulate meat. He immediately purchased a gutted chicken and attempted to prove his theory by stuffing the bird with snow. Unfortunately these actions resulted in pneumonia, and as he was too ill to return to his residence, he retired to the Earl of Arundel’s house in Highgate where he perished several days later.
Christopher Marlowe
(February 26th 1564 – May 30th 1593)
Notable works: Edward the Second, Hero and Leander, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
Poet, translator and dramatist Christopher Marlowe was the most famous tragedian of his time. His popular plays influenced a host of playwrights, including William Shakespeare. Little is known about the private life of this famous proponent of blank verse, a form of poetry that utilises a regular metrical form with unrhymed lines.
To this day the exact circumstances surrounding Marlowe’s death remain a mystery. The renowned playwright met his premature demise at the age of twenty-nine when he was stabbed with a knife by companion Ingram Frizer. The official story is that an argument broke out over a drinks bill, resulting in Marlowe attacking Frizer with a knife, only to be disarmed and despatched with a single thrust of the blade to the eye. Some have argued that the playwright’s death was in fact a political assassination, perhaps related to his work as a spy, whilst others claim it was because Marlowe was deemed a danger to the state, due to his reputed atheistic beliefs.
Click here to read Part V.
Twitter Reflections
December 27th 2011 – Feeling somewhat lethargic after what had been a fairly gluttonous Christmas period, I lay beached on the sofa, remote clasped in one hand, idly flicking through the TV channels. There were only two programmes that even vaguely stimulated my interest. I decided to Tweet this information to the world. The Tweet read:
‘Choices, choices – Kim Jong-il’s state funeral or George of the Jungle with Brendan Fraser?’ #Jong-il #BrendanFraser
It was a defining moment, as this was the first Tweet I had ever sent. No one responded, perhaps because I didn’t have any Followers back then. A little over two years, 4,010 Followers and 7,437 Tweets later I find myself reflecting on my time spent in the Twitter sphere. A period that has witnessed some truly remarkable Twitter events, none more so than the medium’s pivotal role in the Arab Spring.
These Twitter facts pay testimony to the influence of the social media behemoth.
- 1 Billion – Registered Twitter Users.
- 500 Million – Average Number of Tweets sent per Day.
So fascinated with this microcosm of society did I become that I was soon writing extensively about Twitter here on my blog, including posts about the various species that inhabit Twitter, Twitter annoyances, Twitter viruses, how authors use Twitter to promote their books and much more besides.
I’ve seen it all – the good, the bad and the ugly.
The Good – Making Twitter friends, particularly fellow authors. Taking part in entertaining conversations. Sharing interesting and entertaining information with others and vice versa. Utilising Twitter as a curated news feed to get breaking news.
The Bad – #TeamFollowBack. ‘10,000 Followers for $5’ type spam Twitter accounts, more often than not from an account with a profile pic of an under-age looking South East Asian girl acting as jail bait. Incessant Repeater Tweeters (e.g. authors saying things like ‘BUY NOW’ and ‘PRIZE WINNER!’ – more often than not complete with capitalisation and exclamation marks, in some instances I have seen promotional Tweets repeated up to x200 per day).
The Ugly – Justin Bieber.
What have I learnt from my Twitter experiences? As an author I was keen to use the medium to promote my book, Charles Middleworth, a humorous tale of the unexpected. These are the lessons I have learnt:
- There is no correlation between book sale pitch related Tweets and books sales.
- Twitter can be a useful tool in referring traffic to one’s blog (12% of my blog traffic is referred by Twitter).
- Increasing Follower numbers does not necessarily equate to more sales, leads, blog traffic etc.
With my second book, Necropolis, a work of dark humour, due to launch the week of April 21st, I have been considering my future use of the medium. These are my conclusions.
Future Use:
- Utilise a personal/distinctive voice to stand out from the crowd as opposed to add to the clamour.
- Avoid ‘Buy Now’ type Tweets and instead promote book through event/promotion announcements at the appropriate time (i.e. book launch, Amazon KDP, goodreads giveaway).
Comparisons with other social media platforms (my experience):
- Google+ to date has been more effective in driving traffic to my blog (Tangible Evidence: 15% of blog traffic this quarter – Intangible: weight of evidence suggesting Google+ presence improves google search engine ranking).
- goodreads – More effective than Twitter for promoting my book, communicating with readers, improving visibility and measuring results. (Supporting Evidence: Recent Charles Middleworth giveaway had 824 entries, with 319 people adding to their to-read list).
Bizarre Author Deaths V
This week’s blog post is dedicated to two more bizarre author deaths. Initially I did not envisage that this author series would have so many instalments, but with the multitude of bizarre/mysterious author deaths that have occurred down the years, I anticipate that there will be at least a further two instalments at some point.
Edgar Allan Poe
(January 19th 1809 – October 7th 1849)
Notable works: The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, Tamerlan and Other Poems
Poe was an author, poet, editor and literary critic, whose tales of mystery and the macabre are still widely read to this day. One of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, Poe is also widely considered as being the inventor of the detective fiction genre. Evidence of the writer’s enduring popularity is the fact that an original copy of Poe’s Tamerlane and Other Poems sold at Christie’s in New York for $662,500, a record price for a work of American literature.
The bizarre events surrounding Poe’s death were as mysterious as the nature of his writing. On October 3rd 1849 Mr. Joseph Walker found Poe wandering the streets of Baltimore in a delirious state. The writer was taken to hospital, but was unable to give an accurate account of what had occurred before his demise four days later.
There has been much speculation surrounding Poe’s sudden deterioration and death. Due to the fact that he was found wearing someone else’s clothes it has been argued that he was the victim of cooping, a practice in which citizens were attacked, absconded, plied with alcohol and forced to vote for a political candidate. His sudden deterioration and demise has also been attributed to alcoholism, TB, epilepsy, diabetes and even rabies.
Dan Andersson
(April 6th 1888 – September 16th 1920)
Notable works: The Charcoal-Burner’s Tales, The Charcoal-Burner’s Songs, Three Homeless Ones
Dan Andersson was a Swedish author, poet and composer, who became a cult figure in his native Sweden posthumously. Regarded as one of Sweden’s greatest ever poets, his themes of naturalist mysticism and searching for God continue to resonate with his readers to this day.
Andersson’s memory has been commemorated with two stamps in his honour, a museum in his hometown of Ludrika, in addition to a Dan Andersson week, celebrated in the first week of every August. There is also a bust of the iconic poet in the country’s capital, Gothenburg.
The thirty-two year old Andersson met his premature demise when he went to Stockholm in September 1920 to try and secure a job at the newspaper Social-Demokraten. On arrival at the hotel he was due to stay in, the Hotel Hellman, the receptionist failed to inform him that his room had just been treated with hydrogen cyanide, in an effort to eradicate an infestation of bed bugs. At three pm on September 16th 1920 Andersson was found dead in his room.
Click here to read Part IV
My Year In Books
Shortly before Christmas goodreads emailed me a report listing the 22 books that I had read during the calendar year.
(Click on the book links to read my reviews).
Transgressive Fiction/Black Humour
As my second book, Necropolis, due out this spring (date to confirmed soon) is a work of dark fiction, a significant proportion of the books (27%) that I read last year were of the Transgressive Fiction/Black Humour variety. They were:
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Haunted by Chuck Palahaniuk
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Beat Generation
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Queer by William S. Burroughs
Indie Books
Barry Braithwaite’s Last Life by A R Lowe
The Earth Shifter by Lada Ray
Others
Candide by Voltaire
Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Red House by Mark Haddon
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
Pure by Andrew Miller
Pulp by Charles Bukowski
Biggest Disappointments
I enjoyed 19 of the 22 books that I read last year. The exceptions were Pure, The Red House & The Men Who Stare At Goats. The following 2 shared the honour of Biggest Disappointment of the year. I appreciate that many readers will disagree with me on these, especially regarding my choice of Pure, the winner of The Costa Prize in 2011.
Paris’s oldest cemetery, Les Innocents, is overflowing, the city’s deceased having been piled in there for years, resulting in the surrounding area having been permanently permeated more….
Having greatly enjoyed A Spot of Bother and The Curious Incident by the same author, I was very much looking forward to reading The Red House more…
Favourite Book of 2013
This was a difficult decision as I really enjoyed so many of the books that I read last year. After much deliberation I decided that Fight Club, Maggie Cassidy and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich were my favourites. The one that made the biggest impression on me was Solzhenitsyn’s controversial and morose novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a book that I am yet to review.
I look forward to hearing about your 2013 reading experiences.
