Why I've ventured into eBay

One of my (many) favourite parts of the wonderful Buffy the Vampire Slayer is when they need a mcguffin called an Urn of Osiris. One is duly obtained and when someone asks, amazed that this rare item has been so quickly found, the answer is something to the effect of 'Oh, I got it on eBay.'

I have a mixed relationship with selling books on eBay. I used to regularly sell my Organizing a Murder ebook of party games that way, selling at least a copy a week, which worked wonderfully well as there was nothing to post (and I got really happy feedback). Eventually eBay stopped me from selling it because they said I didn't have the rights to do so. Despite many attempts to point out that, as the author, I had every right, I never got anywhere - any attempt to get an non-robotic response out of the supposedly human customer service team at eBay is a nightmare. I think they have now banned selling e-products.

I've never really bothered selling physical books this way, but I thought as an experiment I would try selling a signed copy of Dice World with a personalised dedication. It's on this week - you can take a look here - and at the time of writing it could be yours for £1.04 (UK only, I'm afraid). I've no idea what will come of it, but I think in the writing business you have to be constantly experimenting with different ways of being in contact with the audience, and I hope this will be an effective one. We shall see! I will update the post with the outcome after the event.

* UPDATED 2 August *

The auction has now finished - and the answer based on this very small experiment is 'Probably not worth it.' The book received 8 bids and sold for £4.10, where I would normally sell them at a speaking event for £8. (To put it into context, I have to pay £4.50 to buy them from the publisher.) So not something I'll try again for the moment - but worth a try.

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog