Do Authors Dream of Electric Books?

The Monthly Janus - February/March

2012-02-29T21:57:00.010Z

To save trawling through every post (though trawling through every post is most definitely good) we thought it would be a nifty idea to dedicate the first of every month to the titular Roman deity who likes looking at what's just happened and what's about to come. A one stop diary padding shop.Coming in MarchDan Holloway will be performing poetry from his forthcoming series of A-side/B-side

What’s In A Name? by Hywela Lyn

2012-02-29T07:00:00.000Z

When I first started writing (many hundreds of years ago), it never occurred to me that I would want to use a ‘pen name’ (nor indeed that I would ever see my stories in anything but a real, tangible, paper book – how times change!) Having graduated from short stories published in magazines, to writing a draft novel or two, several years elapsed during which writing took a back seat to my other

Snow, World Book Day, and a give-away e-book. Enid Richemont

2012-02-28T07:00:00.000Z

I'm sitting at the computer looking out into my cold-shocked garden, and waiting, like a child, for the promised snowfall - even though, last winter, I got very tired of it. Like so many other people, we've stocked up - such a shared and primitive instinct to do this before the weather really clamps down - even though the snow will probably only last a day or so. In these temperatures, my

Tiring of an Old Love - Andrew Crofts

2012-02-27T01:40:00.001Z

Last month in this space I bared my soul regarding difficulties in my relationship with my desktop. Altogether more traumatising has been the discovery that I might have fallen out of love with an even more long-standing soul-mate. When I was first introduced to my pretty young iPad a year ago I imagined that it would merely widen my horizons, offer me more options and some lively

E-publishing Charity's Child - by Rosalie Warren

2012-02-26T07:00:00.002Z

Hello!Charity's Child was my first novel, published in 2008 by the small new independent publisher Circaidy Gregory Press (still going strong and branching out all over the place). Kay Green, who runs the press, gave me my first experience of working with a savvy and eagle-eyed editor, and without any doubt she helped me turn Charity into a better book.It came out; we did some publicity - oh, the

THE SPIRITUALITY OF BLACKSMITHS - Susan Price

2012-02-25T00:30:00.000Z

'HEAD AND TALES' by Susan Price: cover by Andrew Price The first story in my new e-book collection of folk-legends, HEAD AND TALES, is ‘The Boy and The Blacksmith’. In short, the story is of a blacksmith challenged to a trial of skill by the King’s goldsmith. On his way to the trial, the blacksmith meets ‘a raggedy navvy-boy’, who tags along with him. Before

Why I Love E - Publishing - Avril Joy

2012-02-24T06:00:00.003Z

In the past year or so, in between working on a novel and editing publications for Kindle, I’ve been writing prison stories. These stories come from my twenty five years spent working at HMP Low Newton – a women’s prison on the outskirts of Durham City. I left the prison three years ago but it’s only recently that the stories have begun to emerge. Natalie Goldberg – of whom I’m a big fan - asks

The Top 13 Things I Won't Miss About Publishing Companies - Simon Cheshire

2012-02-23T05:00:00.000Z

This is that seven-year project. The cover's done, but the book isn't (a-hem)... Here's a shot of me at Shakespeare's Birthplace. For no reason whatsoever. At the moment, I'm working on a couple of projects, one of which is something I've been trying to get right for about seven years now. Seven. Years. It's getting there. Slowly. In ye olden days I would, by now - a few months off having

Why I don’t want to invent a publishing name by Diana Kimpton

2012-02-22T01:00:00.000Z

As a traditionally published author moving into self publishing, I’m surprised at how much of the advice on offer suggests I should invent a publishing imprint for myself. Initially I accepted that advice at face value and started thinking of possible names. But, as I struggled to decide whether Kubus Books sounded better than DK Press, I realised the whole process was making me uncomfortable

Pauline Fisk: EXTREME RESEARCH - An Author's Guide to finding the next book

2012-02-21T06:00:00.009Z

'The gap year novel has arrived, hot from Belize and Pauline Fisk's capable pen.' The Irish Times In 2008 I went on a research trip to Belize. I’d long been aware that there were no novels about gap year volunteering for young people who might one day want to do it. Yet it was an important rite of passage which I knew from

The rescued desk - where do you write? Roz Morris

2012-02-20T00:01:00.031Z

My desk is an old dining table. It has been with my husband longer than I have.He didn’t acquire it by choice. Years before I met him his mother found it by a skip. She delivered it to Dave ‘in case he’d find it useful’. He didn’t, because he didn’t need two dining tables. So he put it in the box room. Then I moved in.I was a private scribbler, a manic creative. The box room became my study and

Technophobia by Karen King

2012-02-19T00:30:00.000Z

Technophobia according to dictionary.com is ‘an abnormal fear of or anxiety about the effects of advanced technology'. There are a lot of people who suffer from this to some degree, who are scared of our reliance on computers, mobile phone and other gadgets. They go on about the good old days when life was simpler and slower, people were friendlier and technology hadn’t taken over our lives.

The Final Straw; How I Came to Indie Publishing: Catherine Czerkawska

2012-02-18T08:00:00.015Z

Astonishing 100 year old colour picture of the Ukraine by Prokudin-Gorskii It was May 2011. I still have the email. My epic Polish historical novel, The Amber Heart, had finally been sent out by my agent, and he forwarded the first rejection. It went like this: 'With real reluctance, I am going to have to pass on this. I loved it, while thinking some editorial work needed to be done. But the

Jane Adams: (Almost) Technological Musings

2012-02-17T11:21:00.002Z