(If you’re not a Shamen fan, that headline will make no sense. Try saying it out loud. And admire your instant cockney accent.) Making the special print edition of my novel made me think how we still like a book we can get our hands around. Come over to Authors Electric where I’m trying to pinpoint what we love about dead tree books…
Tag: Authors Electric
Our friends electric – writing bloggers rock! My post at AE
Are you fed up with established, old-school-published writers complaining about self-publishing bloggers in the national press? I think it’s time we celebrated the well-informed, curious, generous, adventurous, innovative, pioneering, rule-busting community we’ve built with all our blogs, websites, podcasts, Facebook groups etc. If you think so too, come over to Authors Electric, where I’m posting today, and say ‘aye’.
(Or if that’s a click too far, say it here 🙂 )
Self-publishers: do we still need to explain why? Post at Authors Electric
This time last year you might remember a certain note of monomania on this blog as I geared up to launch my novel. And perhaps creative chaos as I grappled with covers, blurbs and serialising the darn thing.
But I’d also been conducting a less obvious campaign – months of careful preparation to keep my credibility as I self-published my novel.
At the time it seemed necessary; a year on I don’t think we’re so stigmatised. That’s what we’re discussing in my post on Authors Electric today.
(Thanks for the pic BohemianDolls)
Tell me – there or here – what’s changed in indie publishing? Are we more accepted in some quarters of the publishing world? Where do we still have to fight harder to be recognised as quality writers?
Why we need stories – tales of the earthquake at Authors Electric
We know why we write. It’s a natural inclination that some of us have to express ourselves on the page. But what might bring out the storyteller in non-writers? This incident from my recent trip to Italy turned a disparate group of friends into campfire tale-tellers – it’s on the Authors Electric blog now.
Have you had an experience that turned you and your non-writing friends into storytellers? Tell your tale in the comments here
Don’t do this on Twitter – post at Authors Electric
Do you tweet? If you do, you must have your rules of dos and don’ts. If you’re so new to tweeting that it gets you in a flap, you might find my suggestions useful. Or you might want to hop over and tell me they’re insane, rather like the advice some publishers are giving authors who are tweeting for the first time… Join the conversation at Authors Electric…
Thanks for the pic James G Milles
It’s World Book Night – and The Red Season is free
Today and tomorrow – 23rd and 24th April – depending on your time zone, hundreds of thousands of bookworms are celebrating their love of reading with gifts in World Book Night (which you can find out more about here). At the Authors Electric blog we’re marking the occasion with a giveaway event of our own. One of the free titles is Episode 1 of My Memories of a Future Life – The Red Season, which you can find here (UK or US) – and while you’re at it you’ll also find nearly a dozen other fine books at the Authors Electric blog.
Edits forbid a proper writing post right now, as you probably guessed from all the moaning about sore arms. Anyway, I reckon with all those free goodies you’ll be knee deep in reading for a few days (and some titles are free for a few days afterwards so if you’re getting here late it’s still worth checking them out). There will be an Undercover Soundtrack as usual on Wednesday and I hope I’ll be back with a writing nugget next weekend. In fact, if you want to suggest a topic, now’s your chance. In the meantime, happy World Book Night.
Thanks for the pic, Sebastian Antony
RSI and when your books come back to haunt you – post at Authors Electric
I like to think I’m a decent human and would never hurt a fly. But in my books I’m vile.
It bothers me. I used to wake at night worrying about what it would really be like to have the troubles that Andreq and Carol have in My Memories of a Future Life. And what’s happening in Life Form 3 is definitely the stuff of nightmares.
So when I woke with the most debilitating RSI the other morning, like poor Carol, I thought I was getting my just desserts.
I’m at Authors Electric today, discussing authorly karma – and also what I do when I am (as regularly happens) struck down by repetitive strain injury.
(thanks for the pic Lizspikol)
Do you get RSI – and what do you do about it? How bad are you to your characters? Are you grateful you don’t have to live their lives? Tell me here – or come over to Authors Electric
Stand up for good self-publishers – post at Authors Electric
I’m sick of seeing knee-jerk reactions to self-publishers, dismissing us as slushpile rejects, literary no-hopers, copycat dross, self-indulgent narcissists, vanity by another name. If that gets you riled too, you might like my latest post at Authors Electric, where we are having an awfully good rant…
Where do you write? Post at Authors Electric
I’m addicted to those pieces in Saturday newspapers where writers show us round their writing rooms. The walls for Post-Its, the arcane but essential talisman on the desk, the flop-and-read area…. even if we all know that half our work probably happens in snatched scribbles at the Tube station, or in our heads while half-watching a film. Anyway, today I’m at Authors Electric giving the guided tour of my study, for those who are as nosy as I am.
Where are your special writing places? Tell me, in the comments here or at AE – and if you’ve posted about it, share the links!
How long should a book be? Just right – guest post at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books
I don’t do waffle. We magazine sub-editors are Jedis of the delete key. We fillet flabby stories until they’re sharp and focussed. We know readers are busy and we don’t tolerate anyone who takes five paragraphs to explain something when one will do. I’ve always felt that books should be as long – or short – as the material deserves, but economic considerations have often forced authors to pad or to curtail artificially.
So today I’m at Authors Electric, happy to celebrate the emancipation of length… and books that are, like Goldilocks’s third porridge, just right.
Nail Your Novel 