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Alex Roddie

Happiest on a mountain. Writer, story-wrangler, digital and film photographer. Editor of Sidetracked magazine. Machine breaker.

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Thoughts on Kindle Unlimited, KDP Select, and being exclusive to Amazon

Kindle Unlimited has launched in the UK! Why is that good news for readers? For £7.99 a month, subscribers will get unlimited access to thousands of Kindle ebooks. That includes every KDP Select title plus a good selection of others as well. So: great for avid readers, but what

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Announcing the Pinnacle Editorial Press edition of The Only Genuine Jones

Regular readers will be aware that I recently started a new job as a freelance editor and literary consultant. I started Pinnacle Editorial in July, and it’s been going from strength to strength. As part of my new line of work I have been taking a critical look at

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British climbing is changing

My esteemed colleague John Burns, who is a mountaineer with forty years of experience and a skilled writer, has penned an excellent piece about the changes in British climbing. “I’m going to start climbing,” a friend told me last summer. My mind raced back to when I began climbing

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How’s the new job going, Alex?

I have been asked this a few times over the last month, so I thought it was time for an official update on my progress. In early July I made a significant decision. Prompted by a trip to the Alps that changed my perspective on a few things, I decided

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How Not to Self-Publish by Rosen Trevithick — book review

How Not to Self-PublishThe Totally Splendid Hotshot Author’s Survival Guideby Rosen Trevithick I have published my review of Rosen Trevithick’s very funny new book over on the Pinnacle Editorial blog. You can read it here. Author’s note: From now on, all blog posts on the subject of

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One hundred and fifty years

Image from http://1865.chamonix.fr/En/ Next year, in July 2015, the Chamonix valley will begin a series of celebrations marking 150 years since 1865, and paying tribute to one of the most remarkable periods in modern history: the Golden Age of Alpinism. During this period, which lasted from

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The Ascent of Sasseneire

In the first week of July 2014 I conducted a journey through the Alps, beginning at the city of Aosta and ending at Evolene in the Valais. My original plan had been to climb Mont Brule on my way over the glacier from Italy, but the weather was bad that

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Introducing Pinnacle Editorial

In my last post I revealed that I had quit my day job and would be setting up as an independent editor and proofreader. I’m happy to say that, a mere three days later, I have a fully functioning website and am in the position to begin taking on

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I quit the day job

It’s a fact of our profession that, throughout history, most writers have been obliged to take on secondary employment in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. I’m no different. Although I have been a published author since October 2012, income from my books

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The Heretic by Lucas Bale – book review

The Heretic(Book One of the Beyond the Wall series)by Lucas Bale This blog tends to have a fairly narrow focus — mountains, 19th century history, books about those subjects, and my own writing — but on special occasions I break the trend and write about something different. This is one