Authors Electric

Well that was fun. Publication Day for “What Lies Around Us” started with a spot on BBC Breakfast. I usually find television studios a bit daunting but this one, consisting of two people chatting on a sofa, watched by one distracted looking cameraman, was totally chilled. It was my first visit to “ Media City ” in Salford , which is a little on the bleak side but in fairness I only really crossed a square from the Holiday Inn to the BBC’s front door. Female First , an on-line magazine then published an article by me on “Ten Things you didn’t know about ghostwriting”, with a big plug for the book, and reviews started to come in on a succession of book blogs. I have written before about how much I like the idea of book bloggers and the fantastic reviews I received this time have reaffirmed my enthusiasm. They have furnished me with an abundance of boastful quotes which I can splash all over my website, and any other flat surface I can find.  There was only ...

When you enter any trade fair you're handed all sorts of leaflets, cards and magazines. The London Book Fair has a daily news sheet  The Bookseller Daily . On the first day, this was the front page headline: Self-Publishing, Agency Under Debate "The future of self-publishing, the new agency model and the Penguin Random House merger will be the hottest talking points at the London Book Fair, industry figures predict. Self-published authors will have a greater voice at LBF than ever before, with agents and authors coming together for the LitFactor Pitch curated by AuthorRight, while the Alliance of Independent Authors celebrates its first birthday at the fair. Agent Luigi Bonomi said: "I think we're really moving into a very different world. To date it has been a reticence, a diffidence towards publishers by self-published authors, and vice versa, and maybe this year the Cold War between these two communities will be broken by the two sides meeting face to face, a...