Authors Electric

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post, or even dedicate much time to writing. IT issues, both parents ending up in hospital at different times and needing help, coupled with increased work pressures mean I’ve barely written anything for the last six months. Things are settling, though, finally. Parents on the mend, work settled, and have a new laptop all configured with backups restored at last; I got the last few pieces sorted out over the Easter weekend and can now return to scratching that itch I get when I don’t write for a while. On the plus side, I’ve got a notebook full of random jottings I’ve managed to get on paper, and feel sure there’ll be something in there I can use in future work. I’ve not been completely dormant, though. I’m around 10k words from revising the third draft of my Young Adult adventure set in the Middle East. (As a wee side note, my wife has pointed out that my timing is impeccable – I was gearing up to launch a dystopian YA adventure set a few ...

You can find the Book DNA site here. It's a site that aims to put people who love reading and books in touch with other people who love reading and books. You can join as a reader and/or as a writer (since writers tend to be book-lovers and avid readers often write.) You can put forward your favourite books of a year, as I've done here  ...and Book DNA will make you a beautiful page to show off your choices. Or, if you join as an author, you can choose one of your own books, and then show-case five other books which you think will appeal to a similar readership, as I did here... At the beginning of this post and again at the end, I have the opportunity to mention my own book of ghost stories, Hauntings . This doesn't cost the writer anything except the time spent compiling their choice of books -- which, as always, is rather a pleasure. And I noticed a definite up-turn in the sales of my ghost stories after posting this.  The Book DNA site is building a community of reader...

            Do your squirm in your chair at the prospect? You should.  The APE’s a beast made up of three horrific parts. Each in undiluted form is toxic—even lethal—so let’s give thanks we seldom encounter them as concentrates. Most toxic of all: the ACCOUNTANT. In the pure state the Accountant would prefer to peddle widgets than slave over troublesome word-things; he’d rather have his teeth pulled through his dick than sit and write*. He’ll sit at his computer screen and monitor his sales all day, comparing his numbers with those of his foes. At night he dreams of oracles who tell him better ways to move the units he produces.             Only a little less toxic: the PRIEST , a beast who’s obsessed with perfection. He dreams of writing books that readers must put down repeatedly—to gather a tan in the sun of his style or savor a tryst with a fo...

Near the end of 2012, Amazon contacted me to ask if they could feature a page from my ebook, The Survival of Thomas Ford, in the new video advert for the Kindle Paperwhite on Amazon UK. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Paperwhite-Resolution-Display-Built-/dp/B007OZNWRC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1357834972&sr=8-3 The video is at the top left there on the UK page where the Kindle Paperwhite is sold. Page one of The Survival of Thomas Ford is onscreen from 3.00 to 3.06 in the video as the example of a UK book exclusive to Amazon Kindle Select. Someone is shown reading page one of The Survival of Thomas Ford as the narrator says: “…and then there are thousands of books you just can’t find anywhere else like more than 180000 titles exclusive to Kindle.” It’s quite odd to see onscreen, a Kindle held by a hand resting on a turquoise towel, displaying Chapter One, page one, of your book, with the words alongside: “180,000 + titles exclusive to Kindle” It also...