Authors Electric

I feel at present a bit like a locked-up princess in a castle , because the pavement in my street has been dug up in order to lay cables. The result is that for two days I've had a very small opening through which to exit, and heaven help me if I'd suddenly put on weight. As for a shopping trolley, forget it. T here also does seem to be a serious shortage of local princes on white horses ... My film project has gone quiet at present, partly because I unexpectedly had to undergo surgery due to a medical error. Because of a totally benign mark which might, or might not have been (it wasn't), I was scheduled for a 'needle' biopsy - a very minor procedure, except that in my case I was given, in error, a 'core' biopsy under a local anaesthetic which damaged an existing breast implant, so fairly swift surgery, due to possible infection, was vital , and my implant, which had been in place for almost seventeen years, had to be re moved, to be replaced in a...

When I first left university I worked briefly for an investment bank. The phrase 'fish out of water' doesn't cover just how unsuited I was to this job, to that whole world. But I did learn some useful skills. One thing that the bank took very seriously, oddly, was the written word. Documents and letters were always checked again and again. One day I was responsible for a letter to a client called Angus. The letter was, as always, checked by a number of senior people before it went out. But despite all that no-one noticed that the letter was addressed to 'Dear Anus.' The spell check didn't pick that up because 'anus' is a word. Of course, Freud did have a hand in this. The client was a horrible man and we all secretly wished to insult him. But, for me, the incident has stayed in my head mainly because it demonstrated how a number of well educated people can look at a document carefully, even a short document, and fail to notice a significant...

Happy New Year to everyone. I've just been reading some of the posts on Authors Electric and am fascinated by the range of subject matter and the breadth of experience on display. It really is amazing to be able to draw on so much experience and share in other writers' creative processes. I can only thank all the people who are contributing. As for me, the New Year got off to a good start as my book (or rather the story that lies behind the book) was featured in the Daily Mail. I have to say that the Mail is not my favourite paper but, of course, I'm grateful for the publicity. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2893028/The-girls-called-Hope-good-reason-stories-inspire-New-Year.html Also, when I had to go to the offices of the Mail with my three year old daughter for the photo shoot, the staff were all wonderfully friendly and highly professional. They spent hours turning us into 'Daily Mail' people. Even my own family can hardly recognise us. Y...

At present I am in a situation where I have to listen to Radio 4 in order to understand the way in which my book is being published. Crowd funding is just so new that everyone, even those in the thick of the process, do not quite know what it is that they are doing. So I was interested when I heard Paul Kingsnorth talking on the radio. His book 'The Wake' was published (crowd funded) by Unbound and became the first ever crowd funded book to finish up the Booker Long List. So what did he have to say about the experience? The word he used was 'micro-publishing.' He employed that word to try to explain the difference between buying a book in a bookshop, or purchasing an e-book on-line, and subscribing (or pledging) to a book which has yet to be published through Unbound (or another crowd funding publisher). So what is the difference? Well, on the face of it - very little. In both cases you finish up with a book. If you buy a book, or an e-book, in the normal...

     Frances Thomas, writer and reader, said:  "No! You must publish! Ebook if you have to. You have two readers waiting in this house for starters, and I'm sure there are many many more. A bas les publishers! We want Sterkarms!!!"            Jenny Alexander, writer and reader, said: I feel the market is really pushing us to self-publish by being so 'narrow and risk-averse.' Feedback for the dream-book I've been working on for two decades has been entirely positive about the book but the killer-strike is that it's 'too niche' for t he market. I'm so sorry to hear you've taken the same hit, Sue. At least if you self-publish you should sell to everyone who's loved the first two Sterkarms, as well as new readers. And having been doing it for a while now, I personally don't think anything's wasted in the writer's life xx. "           Mary Hoffman , writer and reader, said: " That is so ridicu...