Authors Electric

  I have to admit I am a very visual person, and I am easily distracted. As a consequence I rarely listen to talk on the radio, don’t really get on with audiobooks, and haven’t – up until recently – engaged with the growing phenomenon of podcasts. If I have time to spare, I tend to read or watch something on a screen. I used to listen to things in the car, but these days I do so little driving, I don’t tend to get the time for any meaningful listening. But I have been encouraged to explore podcasts and so I have been doing so. They are apparently one of the next big things in marketing to the masses. And you never know they might even help sell books! I am trying to make time to listen to more podcasts – the time I spend doing the ironing is one opportunity (!) – finding ones that are especially relevant to writing, my interests and my genre. The world of podcasts is expanding and diversifying. I can guarantee that you will find one that fits just into your niche. A quick googl...

  I am still relatively new to the whole book marketing thing. I’m doing my best with varied results. I’m taking advice and trying to respond to it. This has included trying to build an email subscriber list, writing a personal blog, guest blogging, and of course being a ‘presence’ on Social Media. I have even given TikTok a try - jury is out for me so far, as to how useful it will be in actually generating interest in my books, but it is early days. One thing I have heard over and over is ‘What is your unique selling point?’ Or, what does my writing offer that people are actually looking for? And that if I ‘find my audience’ then the sales will come. My problem has been that my books fall into a very unique genre and I’ve found it very hard to find an audience for them. They are fiction but explicitly Christian. They are historical fiction but are neither romance nor murder mystery, nor are they adventure stories. There is little to no blood and gore, and definitely no explicit ...

Sooner or later we all need to learn how to STUFF IT properly. Stuff a package or a query or an email, on which your world depends, with not just words but little touches of your exceptional soul.  Above you see the stuffing used to get my little book into the hands I need to reach.  1) A pack of 9 colorful rolls of  masking tape. 2) One of many 6x9" envelopes. 3) One sheet of envelope seals  4) Front and back sides of the card accompanying each package 5) One gift bag containing two copies of the book 6) Two promotional post cards inserted in each book Now let's break the stuffing down into stages. I. Artfully stuffing the gift bag . Bag quality was critical. And the size had to be right for two copies of my 55-page book while promising a worthy gift. Inside each book I'd enclose two soft-sell promotional post cards. 2. Artfully sealing the gift bag. Now for the masking tape. The gift bag had perfect side fitting, but I was left with a flap to fold over and this tor...

Image Credits:-  Most images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. One photo taken by me at the Bridge House Publishing celebration event on 4th December 2021. One lovely thing about being a writer is we are easy to buy for. I don’t think it’s possible to convince non-writers new notebooks etc are vital. We know there is no such thing as too many. Just try telling them that… We will want books, stationery, pens etc. Then there are book related presents such as mugs with your book cover on or that of a favourite author’s as most have merchandise. I like that as long as the product is good. Pens, mugs, postcards, and book marks work for me. Things like clothing with books on do not work for me though I liked examples of writers creating face masks with their covers on. So, other than books, what would you have as writing related presents? To Have Pens advertising my books (have these. They look good. They go down well at events. Pens are always handy). Postcards (likewise and ...

We are living in strange times, that's for sure. I know there are prolly many blog posts starting with those words at the moment so, despite my opening, I will not be focussing on COVID. Rather, the focus of my blog will focus on one way we can utilise our time whilst our freedom is restricted - setting up an online course.  If you are currently shuddering at the thought, shudder not and read on because I have 10 tips to get you started. 1. My first tip is that setting up a course is easier than you think. I put it off for years as I thought it would be brutally hard. I was wrong.  Yes, it takes time, but using the correct platform is easier than you think. 2. That takes me to tip number 2, choose your platform.  I use Teachable which is simplicity itself to use. They have videos to talk you through every stage of the process.  There is a free plan which has many limitations but is still good if you want to launch a course and test the waters, This allows you to get...

In the last two months, I haven't had an entire night's sleep. I'm lucky if I have five hours. No weekends. No evenings out. Almost no cooking or gardening. The worst thing? No creative writing, and almost no reading. I'm on a hamster wheel and the faster I run, the faster it spins--the book tour gig is not for sissies. I'm traveling to various cities in India with You Beneath Your Skin , attending panels and discussions and lit-fests and all throughout an inner voice that remains calm and detached keeps asking me when I plan to get back to my current WIP again. I'm fundraising for two charities I've volunteered with for a while: Project WHY and Stop Acid Attacks : all my proceeds go to them. This adds an impetus--I'm pretty sure if this was a normal book, with no causes attached to it, I would have bolted into a hidey-hole a long time ago. To de-stress and keep myself functional, I've turned to meditation--just learning to breathe and rem...

I'm a new entrant to the Authors Electric group of writers/ bloggers.  Not just that, I'm also new at this thing called authoring.  My debut literary crime novel You Beneath Your Skin is due out on the 17th of September, 2019 with Simon & Schuster IN. As anyone who has done this can probably imagine, my life is all mayhem at the moment. So many uncertainties, to-do lists a mile long, everything running way behind schedule. When I started writing more than a decade ago, I hadn’t a clue a writer’s life could be like this. Naively, I just wanted to tell stories, enjoy writing them, and maybe share with a few friends. Wanting to learn better, I went ahead and joined workshops, communities, took classes. My writing improved, I began to have stories published in anthologies and journals. Then I made a decision that changed my life. Writing a novel. Again, as novelists know, it is an agony and an ecstasy, a marathon (unless you get one ...

This month has delivered another hard knock as regards the realities of life with a small publisher. I’m talking about book reviews, not on Amazon or Goodreads or the fabulous efforts of book bloggers (to whom I'm eternally grateful), but the world of the main-stream press, or the bits of it I thought would be accessible to the author of a small but perfectly formed (though I say it myself!) piece of Scottish historical fiction. Print copies don't come cheap I like to think neither myself nor Linen Press took anything for granted as far as reviewers were concerned.   Before Blink was published we made a list of potential review media from the general (Guardian, TLS, Scotsman) to the more niche photography journals. Rather than send review copies unsolicited, each of the reviewers  was sent  (as were many personal contacts, bloggers and bookshops)  book, author and cover info. I was buoyed up by the fact that we got replies from several large circulatio...

Browsing through the Financial Times a couple of Saturdays ago I was struck by a full-page colour ad for a couple of books by an author named Nobu Su. One was called “The Gold Man from the East” and the other “Dynasty Escape”. The imagery was very “James Bond” with a hint of infamous artist Banksy’s shredded million pound painting stunt a few months ago. All very sumptuous and eye-catching. Nobu Su, it turns out, is a flamboyant shipping tycoon from Taiwan who believes he was badly ripped off by the banks in the 2008 crash and has written these books to tell his side of the story. More interesting still, however, is his claim that he has invented a process whereby readers can “hire” the e-books from his nobu-store for a few weeks for a few dollars, after which they will disappear from their devices; a smart new take on the good old-fashioned library concept. You can even borrow a book for free for the first couple of hours, (if you are a fast enough reader). ...

Do I need a book trailer? Reading posts from other authors, the jury is most definitely out on whether or not a video trailer for my historical novel will represent ROI (that's Return on Investment by the way).   But sometimes things just happen. Like being in the golf club on a day when everyone else is out on the course, leaving both me and the barman at a bit of a loose end.  He lets slip (?) that in another life he is a video producer. And I feel obliged (as you do) to tell him about my other occupation and how there's a school of thought that says in this age of short attention spans and social media/multi-media, authors need video book trailers. With which said barman not surprisingly agrees.  So three days later I'm in the local cafe drinking very strong coffee quite early in the day with Gavin Allen soi-meme . He has never done a book trailer, I have never worked with video.  To help us on our way, he has  a one-page 'scrawl' of my idea...

Ali Bacon at the St Andrews Photography Festival  We Authors Electric are a far-flung bunch, but this month, through a happy coincidence, Wendy Jones and I found ourselves in roughly the same place at the same time.  On Friday September 9 th I was reading a programme of short stories in St Andrews in Fife as part of the town’s first Festival of Photography . Wendy, who lives just over the Tay Bridge in Dundee – said she could make it to St Andrews – and by the way, she had a book launch in Waterstones in Dundee the following day.  Some mutual writerly support was on the cards! I won’t elaborate on my own event right now (more coming soon on my own blog ) except to say that I had an appreciative audience (including Wendy!) most of whom were fellow photography fans and some of whom were movers and shakers of the early photography world. As well as getting some great comments from the audience it was a fantastic networking opportunity for me.  ...

I recently spoke, at a writing conference, about Marketing for Authors. Today I would like to share my top 10 tips for anyone new or reluctant when it comes to marketing books. 1. If you think you can't market then change your mindset. You may not be able to market in the same way as everyone else but you can market your book in your own way. You just have to find the way which is most suitable for you. 2. Marketing is fun. Yes it really is. I have done book signings dressed as Jack the Ripper and as a a smiling santa. You may be thinking, I couldn't do that, but what could you do? What lends itself to your genre or time of year. 3. If you haven't done anything to market your books then something is better than nothing. If you do one thing a week to market your books then that is 52 in a year. Two a week, 104. One a day... You get my drift. Doing something could move your book sales forward exponentially. 4. Dare to be different. I decorated my book sig...