Authors Electric

Author Skin Exposed? Apply Some More Snake Oil.   Here’s the thing; no one knows how to sell e-books. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Permit me to demonstrate. The Social Media Guru Three or four years ago a lot of people were starting out as independent e-book authors. They managed to cast off the stigma of self-publishing like a snakeskin and tread boldly without the cloak of traditional publishing validation. Some were doubtlessly examples of the king’s new clothes, but social media was the elixir of success. A prominent guru in the field of social media for authors proclaimed that traditional advertising didn’t work for e-books. Social networking to the max, push until it goes viral, that was the answer. Blog on subjects of interest to your target readership, make them your friends, coincidentally introduce your book as it fits the conversation and have them refer you on in turn to their friends. Build twitter teams, personally engage with your followers, sell subliminally. Ne...

Do you know that feeling, when you’re going through customs and you’ve done nothing wrong and you’re really not smuggling anything at all, but you meet the steely eye of the official and he very much doesn’t smile back at you, and you know you not only look guilty but you feel it as well? Well, that’s how I feel, having had the temerity to ask for a slot on Authors Electric. Because going by your posts, you’re all hundreds of country miles ahead of me when it comes to ebookery. All I’ve done is put one backlist book up, and it took me well over a year to get that done. But when I’d managed it – in the end, despite all the trepidation, without much trouble at all – I felt such a sense of achievement that I wanted to shout about it! It wasn’t – and isn’t – that I expected to sell many copies. It was that this book, which had meant a great deal to me, was no longer consigned to a great black hole, or to the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ (which Carlos Luiz Zafon has created in The Shadow...

          The 29th day of the month, and the introduction of a new page for Authors Electric.           The 30th - and the 31st, if there is one - have always been given over to Guest Posters, and that will continue, under the very able management of Debbie Bennett. Debbie, Guest Wrangler           The 29th was, until recently, Hywela Lyn's day - but we're sad to say that Hywela has had to resign, because her other commitments make it impossible to keep up with Authors Electric. Blogging is time consuming - thinking of a new subject every month, writing it, rewriting it, finding pictures, rewriting it... (Because writers obsessively rewrite: that's what we do.)           So we well understand Hywela's reasons for leaving us, and we wish her well for the future.         ...

A few weeks ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon in July, I went to a talk by the writer and publisher Diana Athill, now in her middle nineties. Like so many people, I'd read her semi-biography: SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END (I must now get hold of her short stories which I gather are amazing). She is a fantastic person, and so beautiful - really beautiful (I've filched this image of her from the flyer, but it's not air-brushed - she really does look like that).           She came on stage with a little assistance from her biographer, Ronald Hayman, sweeping up the aisle in a violet-turquoise gown, and proceeded to talk, without any backing notes, for about three quarters of an hour (I couldn't do that), after which she dealt very competently with questions which had to be conveyed to her by her agent because she's a bit deaf.           One of the things she talked about was of how she had pared down he...

          I was invited to take tea with Mrs Mubarak at her husband’s palace in Cairo, just before the Arab Spring broke through and toppled his regime, bringing hope to a city which seemed darkened by storm clouds of popular resentment.           Inside the palace Mrs Mubarak, who is half Welsh, half Egyptian, was a gracious hostess and white coated waiters dispensed cakes which she assured me were home made. The tranquillity inside the gilded salon was reminiscent of our own Queen’s garden tea parties – where they also provide excellent cakes – completely insulated from the boiling stew of hatred festering in the hot, over populated streets outside the heavily guarded walls of the palace. It was that contrast, which I had experienced in similar palaces all over the world, that made me start writing “Secrets of the Italian Gardener”.           ...

Writers are often asked where they find their ideas. So to answer that question three of our team - Bill Kirton, Sue Price and Die Booth have got together to share where they find theirs. ____________________________________________________ Bill Kirton - visit website Bill Kirton Finding inspiration is very different from waiting for it to arrive. The verb suggests an active involvement in the process rather than lounging on a sofa in silk dressing gown or smoking jacket with a pen in one hand, a perpetually refilling martini glass in the other and your gaze fixed expectantly on the French windows and the heavens beyond them. Inspiration can  be generated in all sorts of ways. Take a walk amongst people, look at them, their clothes, the way they move, the things they say or shout, their body language (especially if they’re couples). Make yourself do something you’ve never done before, nothing extreme, just something to make your mind move in a ...

          I had good sales in June and July, for some reason. I had The Ghost Drum, by Susan Price done nothing in the way of publicity that I hadn't done before, but my sales nearly doubled in June, and then doubled again in July. We're still talking low figures, mind. The Lear jet isn't on order yet...but still.           For one thing, something odd was happening in Germany. Having steadfastly ignored my kindle output since I started, Germany suddenly sprang to attention and bought ten of my books - one copy each of ten of the eleven books I've self-published.           I've no idea whether this was one person buying all ten books, or ten different people buying a different book each, or some mixture of the above - one person buying five different copies, say, another buying two, and three other people buying one each. Amazon doesn't allow you ...