Authors Electric

 This is my last regular blog post for Authors Electric, so I would like to say farewell and thank you to everyone who has read and commented on my posts over the past couple of years, and for the support of both my fellow author/bloggers and readers. It’s been an exciting time for me since publishing my first children’s novel The Order of the White Boar in October 2017, and I’ve enjoyed sharing the ups and downs of life as a newbie indie author with you all. But I’ve come to realize that a commitment to writing a monthly blog results in time spent away from getting on with the novel writing itself (which is already rather far down the pecking order in terms of time spent). So I’ve sadly decided to call it a day. But I’m calling it a day on a day when the launch has happened of a wonderful charity auction of books! For the next 62 days, until the Friday that is the annual BBC Children in Need day, an auction of more than 500 titles across a range of genres will be underway at ...

As a writer of books for children, you might expect me also to be a regular reader of them. But how many other adults are? And what types of children’s books do adults tend to read? I remember a beta reader of my first completed (as yet unpublished) novel ‘Time out of Time’ saying she thought lots of adults might enjoy it as a ‘cross-over’ book, owing to the copious references to my 1970s’ childhood. It was the first time I’d really thought about whether my books could be classed as ‘cross-over’. A quick Google search suggests the term might more readily be applied to books enjoyed by both adults and teenagers, rather than children (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/19/thegrandtraditionofcrossov ), drawing on ‘coming-of-age’ themes instead of aiming squarely at pre-teens as my books do. But ultimately, after publishing my first two books, The Order of the White Boar and The King’s Man , conversations with buyers and readers (both face to face and ...

There has been a great deal in the news of late about trade and tariffs and taxes on goods, especially across frontiers in this increasingly global world. I don’t have a great deal of interest in (let alone knowledge of) modern economics. However, for me (as often happens, given my area of research), any and all roads potentially lead to the 1480s and the reign of a certain King Richard III. And a recent incident led me to an interesting related point about the king, his attitudes and achievements. Richard III depicted on the contemporary Rous Roll While setting up the listing for one of my books on the website of print-on-demand company Blurb, I saw a notification saying ‘Value added tax (VAT) will be added to the total price at the checkout.' My immediate thought was 'But there's no VAT on books – at least not here in the UK.' Then, 'Should I reduce the list price so the buyer pays no more than the normal price?' I checked. I was correct. In th...