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Author Newsletters by Allison Symes

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 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Do you have an author newsletter? It took me a while to see their usefulness but I’m glad I have now got on board here. I use the free Mailchimp plan which is enough for my needs. I use my monthly newsletter to share news, writing tips I’ve found useful, links to my on-line stories, my blog, plus I will share the odd giveaway (where I’ll put in some of my stories not found elsewhere). I enjoy putting the newsletter together and think this is crucial to the longer term success of such things, no matter how you define success. I don’t define success by subscriber numbers funnily enough. It will be ages before I would have to upgrade to a paid plan on Mailchimp but what is encouraging is in having a consistently good open rate.  I subscribe to author newsletters too. I love finding out what my favourite writers are up to, which was the key reason to finally decide to have a newsletter myself.  If I have any specific new

Transport Options, by Elizabeth Kay

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What sort of transport is there going to be in your book? How is your hero/heroine going to effect an escape when the odds are stacked against them? There are so many things to consider, and being both believable and original can be a tough call. The genre and the age-group are the most important things to consider at the outset. Children are the easiest, as suspending disbelief comes naturally during play. Adults are a bit harder. I’ve divided things into categories, to make things easier for me as well as everyone else! So I’m taking the UK and the US as standard here, and then I’ll deal with the rest of the world. Many categories overlap, as the entertainment industry has borrowed from a multitude of sources. I’ve excluded transport which is regarded as more of a sport, such as skating, hang-gliding, wind-surfing, scuba-diving, etc., although they may be relevant when you’re trying to find a way of getting someone out of a sticky situation. Ordinary everyday Underground or subwa

What Can an Editor Do That You Can't?--Reb MacRath

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Tomfoolishness and poverty prevented me for too long from having anyone edit my work. After all, I reasoned, what could one do that I couldn't? I went through every page no less than fifty times, then ran the last through Premium ProWriting Aid. I had beta readers too. And I had won a Stoker Award, along with some glowing reviews. But I'd entered the Zone of the Big-Time Boohoo, readier by the day to rant until the cows came home against agents and trad publishing. Or, worse, to  beg hourly on Facebook for more reviews and sales. My work, I believed, had been good enough--but good enough no longer cuts it. Last year I reviewed my quandary in a colder light. I'd been around for decades: first as a horror writer, then as the author of mysteries too quirky and short for the  gatekeepers' taste. And, as an older writer, I may have grown set in my ways--likely more than a few of them bad. I had to reinvent myself, to do something dramatically different. It had to be bigger a

It's the Little Things by Misha Herwin

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  Scrolling through my phone this morning I saw the quote that inspired this blog. Not realising it at the time I got up and went to do something else at which point what I wanted to write was fully formed but there was no way I could find the exact quote I wanted to use. So instead of a few pithy words I am ambling through this long introduction, which is a little ironic as I want to write about how the small things in life are the ones that can bring joy. This is especially true when it comes to evaluating success. I don’t make a living out of my writing. I’m not sure if I even cover the costs on some of my books, nor am I well known for what I do. I can’t say therefore if being in the best seller list would make me any happier than I am. Initially I suspect there would be a moment of euphoria, a sense of achievement at having finally been validated by the rest of the world. But how long would that last? In the event, this is a question I will never have to answer. What I do know

Is It a New Publishing Model Though? I Guess We'll Watch and See... by Dianne Pearce

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( https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/books/publisher-authors-equity.html ) I t's no secret that I am a publisher. And, after seven years as an indie publisher, I am changing my business model to be an author services model. So, you can self-publish, anyone can with some minor computer savvy, but you can also do it with my help. The difference between what I was doing and what I am now doing is that, before, I was an "indie," meaning that I took a book on spec, and did quite a bit of work to create the book in the various formats, and hoped it would sell, and, if it did sell, split the profits with the authors. The authors tended to give me their book, and then waited for it to sell. Now, (if I choose to take a book) I ask for a fee for my services, and the author gets the same services from me, but keeps all the profits, should they occur. This change means two things for the author who wants to work with me: >They must pay for the services I used to do for free and &g

How to Live with the End in Mind: Wendy Mitchell’s Choice -- by Julia Jones

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  When John’s Campaign went to the House of Commons in March 2022 to explain why legislation is needed to ensure the right to a care supporter, we were asked who we would like to speak on our behalf. Without hesitation Nicci Gerrard and I invited Wendy Mitchell. We feel passionately that there should be ‘nothing about us without us’ but as a dementia campaign it is not always easy to find people living with the condition who feel able to describe their experience in public. Wendy was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2014 when she was 58. At first, she sank into a deep depression but then decided that there was hope.   She would live as well as she could for as long as she could – and encourage others to do the same. Since then, thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people have been inspired by Wendy though her blog ‘Which Me Am I today?’ her books, her public appearances and her extraordinary feats such as sky diving and wing-riding, undertaken when she discovered that battling de

Trigger Warnings by Neil McGowan

The main topic of discussion in my house these past few weeks (at, least, in terms of book-related) has been trigger warnings, and whether they’re a good thing. I’ve never paid much attention to them, viewing them (rather cynically) as a marketing strategy – I’m reminded of when I was a teenager and a sure-fire way to guarantee a record would sell was to plaster it with stickers spouting text such as ‘Warning: contains explicit lyrics’ and similar. Of course, this all-but-guaranteed people would buy the records, because, well, forbidden… I’m aware there’s been a growing discourse on whether books should contain them, although I’ve not been following it as such – my social media presence is minimal to say the least, so most of what I hear is second-hand information. In my day job, I teach IT systems to healthcare professionals, and part of my remit is to look after mental health nurses. We often chat with them outside of training (and they’re a wonderful resource for a writer, but I