East Wind, West Wind: The Books of Trevor Hay

Working Type Books has worked on several titles for Trevor Hay. Here’s an interesting summary of his varied career and writing, many of which are available from Australian Scholarly Publishing.

About the Author

Dr Trevor Hay is a scholar of comparative and intercultural literature, specialising in Chinese theatre, literature and folklore and in English language writing on China. He is a collector of antiquarian books about China, Central Asia and Tibet and has travelled and worked intermittently in China over fifty years, including a period of UNICEF literacy consultancy with ethnic minority groups, and most recently with a Chinese-Australian group researching Buddhist art in the Dunhuang caves of the Gobi. He has been an Australian Research Council researcher on the teaching of Chinese language and culture for international students and has worked with Chinese community arts and culture groups in Australia, including as narrative consultant for a historical drama society and as an expert committee member for an association for the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. He is a fluent speaker of Modern Standard Mandarin. He is currently writing his twelfth book.

 Books by Trevor Hay

Tartar City Woman: Scenes from the Life of Wang Hsin-Ping, Former Citizen of China, Melbourne University Press, 1990, biography, history.

East Wind, West Wind, (with Fang Xiangshu) Penguin, 1992, biography.

Black Ice : A Story of Modern China, Trevor Hay, (with Fang Xiangshu), Indra Publishing, 1997, novel, historical fiction.

China’s Proletarian Myth: The Revolutionary Narrative and Model Theatre of the Cultural Revolution, Lambert Academic Publishing, 2008, Chinese theatre and politics.

A Dream of Red Dragonflies. A Strange Tale of China, the World — and a Third Place, Tantanoola, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2016, novel.

Letters from a Floating Life, Tantanoola, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2017, novel.

The Secret of the Lunar Rainbow, Tantanoola, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018, novel.

Redgrave’s Ghost, Tantanoola, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019, novel.

The Tengu: Tales from the Temple of Ordinary Terrors, Tantanoola, Australian Scholarly Publishing, novel, 2020.

The Library of Lost Horizons. An Antiquarian Voyage, Arden, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2023.

The Man who Loved Dragons. My China Curios and the Gates of Dreams, Arden, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2024.

Progressive Web Apps -- a platform agnostic solution for ebook readers

How Progressive Web Apps Are Shaping the Future of Ebook Readers

by Harikrishna Kundariya

In recent times, the whole process of digital content access and consumption has gone through a great transformation. One of the tools that many people around the globe use for reading is ebook readers. With Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) emerging, a new dimension has been added to the future ebook reading experience, presenting a seamless, responsive, and immersive experience in an easy format that can easily adapt to a variety of devices and environments. In reality, PWAs are presenting ebook sites with the much-needed opportunity to revolutionize reading experiences while filling the gap that has thus been formed between websites and native mobile apps.

This article delves into how Progressive Web Apps are revolutionizing the future of ebook readers and categorizes the features and benefits that may dictate the course of ebook consumption into the future.

What Are Progressive Web Apps?

Progressive Web Apps represent native app experiences delivered through web-based applications without reliance on native technologies from mobile or computers. Like regular websites, PWAs run instantly, support all devices for responsiveness, load offline, and can be accessed directly from any device's home screen without user interaction with app stores. PWAs are fast and reliable, with app-like performance, making the experience engaging, even in situations where there is little or no internet.

Seamless user experience on multiple devices

PWA provides the ebooks an experience of reading as if it were a native application. They assure smooth cross-device functionality, hence an ebook reader can read anywhere at any time on any smartphone, tablet, or desktop. Unlike native apps, these work across all platforms without having to download and install separate applications from stores. They thus save users from managing multiple apps to enjoy an uninterrupted reading of their ebook library. The Progressive Web App will be platform-agnostic, ensuring reading is accessible and convenient on all devices with a consistent responsive experience.

Offline Access and Synchronization

The biggest challenge ebook platforms faced was uninterrupted reading when there was no internet. In this respect, PWAs stand out, because they are built to be offline-capable. By using the service, the background scripts run on top of a webpage, without disrupting its functionality—PWAs can cache all the needed assets, including ebook files, to ensure that the users can keep reading even if there's no access to the internet.

This will make it possible to keep reading from your favorite series while you're traveling, as you are when commuting, even when connectivity might be spotty or unavailable for your ebook reader. Once connectivity comes back online, you will automatically update in the cloud and find what you've been reading synced throughout all of your devices. This level of convenience upgrades the whole user experience, which is why PWAs become an excellent option for ebook platforms looking forward to offering flexible and uninterrupted reading.

Optimized Speed and Performance

Ebooks must be fast and performant, and PWAs guarantee fast fluid experiences. Techniques such as caching enable them to load fast even on slower networks, reducing wait time. They are also lightweight, requiring less storage space on devices. This means they don't take a lot of storage space for content and features like native apps do; instead, they stream or cache content, thus reducing how much space will be occupied on a device without diminishing functionality. That makes PWAs very suitable for storage-limited users who want the best reading experience possible.

Engagement Features and Notifications

The ebooks can be made more enjoyable through PWAs with features like push notifications, where it notifies a user of a new release, reading milestones, or reminders to read. This makes the experience very personal and engaging because it reminds users to continue their favorite books or reminds them of events like book club meetings. This ensures that users are connected with their ebook libraries, thus bettering reading habits and engagement. Another area is push notifications, which will allow ebook platforms to be in touch with the users, hence improving retention and further use of the platform.

Low Cost and Easy Updates

Developing and maintaining native apps on each operating system is expensive and very time-consuming for ebook platforms. PWAs are relatively affordable and only need one codebase for all platforms, thereby simplifying the development process. As well, PWAs have automatic background updates, in which the user does not have to manually download updates. This means that the platform would never stop evolving because bugs can be fixed quickly and new content added the same way. With a PWA, there is a more agile ebook platform solution. The experience is streamlined and efficient for the developer and user.

Improved Discoverability and Accessibility

PWAs can significantly improve discoverability. They are especially great for markets where accessing the app stores may be difficult. The ebook platforms may send users directly to their sites to access a PWA in an instant. This improves acquisition rates and increases platform reach. Second, PWAs are friendlier to people with disabilities because they can be developed based on web technologies that support a screen reader and adjustable fonts besides offering high-contrast themes. This makes ebooks much more accessible to everyone, closer to reaching an even wider cross-section of a population for reading books even with visually impaired populations.

Future of Ebook Readers with PWAs

PWAs will definitely change the game in the digital reading world, making it much more accessible, performance-wise, and engaging. An ebook will generate an amazing load-time experience due to cross-device capability, offline capability, and push notifications, which will take readers anywhere they want, at any time, to read their favorite titles with flexibility, responsiveness, and immersion. As ebook platforms adopt PWAs, they will change the face of digital content consumption, making it easier and more accessible on any device so that the next generation of readers can find content easily.

In a nutshell, the influence of Progressive Web Apps on ebook readers is just tremendous. They are flexible, high-performance, and engaging in fulfilling the needs of today's digital readers while making development easier and discoverability better. More ebook platforms embracing PWAs will make ebook reading faster, more accessible, and more enjoyable than ever before.

Reports:

Article contributed by Harikrishna Kundariya

Biography:- Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, Cloud & AWS savvy, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies. His 12+ years of experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and SaaS applications.

Library Thing Might Be Your Thing

If you love both books and being organised, this site may be of interest. Library Thing allows users to catalogue all of their books plus movies and music, and keep track of their reading progress, along with linking to like-minded bibliophiles and finding new titles to peruse. Also available in App form on Apple and Android.

Features include

• Add books, movies and music from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 4,941 other libraries.

• Track your reading progress, rate and review.

• See detailed charts and stats about your library and reading life.

• Find your new favorite book with personalized recommendations.

• A warm and welcoming community of nearly three million book lovers.

• Join groups and talk with other book lovers.

• Our Early Reviewers program offers over 3,000 free, early-release books every month.

• Apps for iPhone and Android.

• Available in over 50 languages.

Rules for Reading

Author Ryan Holiday details his down-to-earth reading habits/strategy.

“If you see a book you want, just buy it. Don’t worry about the price. Reading is not a luxury. It’s not something you splurge on. It’s a necessity. Even if all you get is one life-changing idea from a book, that’s still a pretty good return on investment.”

— Ryan Holiday

Music and cultural critic Ted Gioia outlines his lifetime reading plan, and it is very impressive and inspiring.

“When I was 18, I tackled War and Peace. When I was 19, I did Don Quixote. The next year, I read The Brothers Karamazov, and after that it was Moby Dick and The Tale of Genji and The Magic Mountain. And I’ve kept doing this for decades. The cumulative impact of this is life-changing.”

— Ted Gioia

Choosing Amazon Book Categories

Uploading your book to Kindle Direct Publishing / Amazon is the beginning of a process rather than the end. The next task is to optimise your metadata for visibility / search. Reedsy is offering a free course on the basics of Amazon advertising.

“In this article, we’ll reveal the importance of choosing the right categories and provide you some practical steps to perfectly place your book on Amazon’s bulging shelves. ”

— Reedsy

K-Lytics

If you are serious about optimising your online presence as an author, K-Lytics is worth checking out. Their site asks the following rhetorical question:

“Do you want to sell more books, face less competition, and achieve a higher return on your publishing investments?”

— K-Lytics

Their paid market reports burrow into the details of hundreds of genres and micro-genres. Seeing the maths underneath the book markets is a bit disconcerting, but in a world governed by algorithms and visibility, these insights are essential. The specificity of some of the genres and sub-genres is almost comic: Scottish Romance (what about Scottish Time Travelling Romance?); Cosy Mystery; Urban Fantasy, etc.

“You do not have to be afraid of numbers. We will help you to understand and use them to your advantage.”

— K-Lytics

Get Your Title Onto Borrowbox via IngramSpark

Bolinda Audio produces a book-borrowing app (Borrowbox) used widely by Australian libraries. An author client contacted them recently to see if there was a way of including their ebook title on the platform. They responded promptly with the following:

“We would be happy to distribute your titles to libraries via our digital lending solution BorrowBox, but we simply don't have the resources to deal direct with individual authors. If your titles are available from a digital distributor such as Gardners, Ingrams, IPG, or Faber Factory, then we could make them available via BorrowBox.”

Borrowbox is an excellent app with a very wide variety of audiobook and ebook titles, and represents an great opportunity for independent authors to get in front of new readers.

Jenny Wellington on ABC Radio

Jenny Wellington, author of the very entertaining novel Damengin, was interviewed on ABC Sunshine Coast — audio below.

“Damengin is a country town in Queensland weighed down by the worst drought in living memory and its inhabitants are all desperately waiting for government drought relief.

The bad news is that the funds have been sent and spent by Council's Shire Clerk Shifty Grey and his corrupt cohorts.

This is a rollicking fast-moving story about political skulduggery, greed, love and lust. It features outrageous characters, blossoming romances, pathos and importantly, has an incredibly happy ending.”

“A lovely Aussie story that everyone can relate to. Loved reading the book right from the start. I could hear the author reading the story to me at the start and as I got further into the book, wrapped into the characters of the story, I couldn’t put the book down as I sat in on the edge of my chair wondering what was going to happen next.”

— Christine, Queensland

Making Sense of Amazon's Pricing Algorithm

An interesting plain-English explanation of the multiple algorithms behind Amazon’s seemingly capricious and constant price changes. Authors are often surprised to learn that while Amazon may pay royalties according to the prices they enter when uploading their new title, the price seen by potential purchasers will vary from day to day.

“Though daunting to many, these algorithms don’t have to be intimidating once you know what they want and how they work. ”

— Reedsy

Keywords are the Key

The most important part of uploading to Amazon KDP with ebook files is getting the metadata right. This turns out to be a little more complicated than one might expect. Fortunately, others have done the legwork and put the information out there for KDP users.

The following two free titles are well worth consulting on this front:

Let's Get Digital by David Gaughran

Ricardo Fayet's How to Market an ebook

and David Gaughran posted some verypractical tips recently:

https://davidgaughran.com/amazon-book-category-kindle-categories/

and he put up a video too on a related topic before that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fXU8R0cHOM

Joanna Penn goes into this topic too in some detail:
https://www.thecreativepenn.com/book-categories-keywords/

https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/the-basics-of-book-metadata-and-keywords

More Recent Book Covers and Drafts from WorkingType

Authors, Don't Forget Libraries

Independent authors sometimes forget the library market. Libraries have made a largely successful transition to the era of the Internet, becoming multi-use spaces, offering ebooks and audio books and maintaining their print collections. Many libraries are quite supportive of independent authors. Joanne Penn has posted about getting books into American libraries, but similar principles also apply in Australia. Apart from contacting individual library corporations, try reading this kindle book on the Australian market. URLs for Australian library distributors below. And don’t forget to register for Public Lending Rights!

ALS
https://www.alslib.com.au/

James Bennet
https://www.bennett.com.au/

Peter Pal
www.peterpal.com.au

Inside Kindle — Analysing Sales and Market Data

An interesting webinar staged by Reedsy on the dynamics/underlying principles of the Kindle webstore. With an astonishing 70,000 titles published per month (!) independent authors really need to understand the platforms to which they are uploading their titles. While it may be dispiriting to see one’s book chunked into tiny little categories and subject to algorithmic vagaries, there is also power in exploiting this really quite remarkable flood of sales data.

“With 70,000+ books being published each month, you need tools and strategies to help you and your book stand out from the crowd. Knowing your market is the essential first step.”