Authors Electric

Here's Aunty Debbie trying out her mother-of-the-bride headwear! What’s new on the internet Problem Pages? Aunty Debbie’s been seeing a lot of posts recently about the great God Amazon blocking or pulling books and terminating accounts. It seems the bots are on the rise and the use of AI isn’t helping.  So why would Amazon want to terminate your account? After all, when you sell books, you make money. And when you make money, Amazon makes money. Not much on each transaction – a commission on the sale, maybe a delivery charge for the ebook, a profit on the cost of printing and shipping physical books – but if you multiple that for every one of your sales and then every account on KDP, and it all adds up to a significant amount of money in Amazon’s coffers.  So there is no reason for Amazon to rain on your parade, is there?  Is there?  Well yes. You see when you set up your Amazon account, there are pages and pages of those pesky little terms & conditions . You kno...

Dear Aunty Debbie. I’m so happy!  (utterly deadpan) Why’s that then, Happy Writer?  HW: Because I’ve had an email from a company that’s going to make my book into a film!  AD: That’s amazing news. Which book is that?  HW: The one I put on Amazon last week. The one you told me needed editing and I couldn’t afford an editor, so I published it anyway.  AD: Okaaay. So what will this company do?  HW: Well, they found my book and they must have loved it so much, they told a producer friend who wants to make it into a film.  A D: They just came across it on Amazon?  H W: Yes – isn’t it incredible?  AD: (Totally incredible. As in not remotely credible …)  HW: And they won’t charge me anything.  AD: I’m sure they won’t. Yet. But this is what will happen:  The company’s representative – let’s call him John – will email you a few times, telling you how much they love your book (but oddly never mention anything specific to your story ...

Sixth instalment, eh? Who knew this advice lark could get so exciting? My first agony column (and yes, it really is agony most of the time) was waaay back in 2013. Bad writing has of course been around for much longer than that, but I like to think I've helped so many people better themselves over the years. So what shall we talk about today? I like to focus on the moment, on the themes I'm seeing online and the questions that are really, truly asked on social media -- albeit spiced up just a teeny, tiny bit for added value and then condensed into the pure essence of ... I want to publish a book. I watched a YouTube video by someone who said I could sell thousands a day and get rich really quickly. Tell me how I do it, as I can't be bothered to look online myself and do some research. My time is really important to me. Well, what kind of book do you want to write? I don't want to write a book. I just want to publish a book. Lots of books. Hundreds of books, so I can get...

I do love these occasional witterings I post. I’m sure they completely lower the tone of this blog, but I like to think I’m making us accessible to all. I just did a search – insofar as that’s actually possible in this abomination of a blog platform since Google decided to improve Blogger – and I was surprised to see there are quite a few days where Aunty Debbie has bestowed the wisdom of her years of experience of life, the universe and everything. Well, a bit of crappy writing, anyway …  Dear Aunty Debbie. I want to write a book. What should I do?  Erm – write? It really is that simple. Bum on seat and words on paper or screen.  But how do I get it published?  How do you get what published? You haven’t written anything yet. One step at a time.  So what should I write about?  What inspires you? What do you like to read?  I don’t like reading. I’d rather watch tv. But I travel a lot and all my friends say I should write a book about it and make lots of...

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? So you all thought Aunty Debbie’s helpful problem page had ceased trading since the  last post ? Well, no such luck – I’m still here and still dispensing wisdom like oil of cloves on a rotting tooth. And probably about as useful … I bet you think I make all this rubbish up, don’t you? And I do. Sort of. But every ‘question’ I’ve answered in this little series has been based on fact – a snippet I’ve read online, or heard people discussing. Yes, I have on occasion embellished reality in order to make a point (hey, I am a writer; it's what we do), but the basis is all real. There really are people – authors and readers – out there who genuinely believe this stuff. And it’s my mission to put them straight! Dear Aunty Debbie: I’ve just read this fantastic book on my kindle. Would you like to read it too? I can email it to you with another one I bought last week. In fact, I bought a USB stick from some bloke on the internet – it was only a t...

So the questions have been pouring in to my Agony Aunt mailbox since my last post . People just can’t get enough of my helpful advice, can they? So in the spirit of spreading the love and knowledge, here are some more tidbits for your delectation. Dear Aunty Debbie: Why are some ebooks so expensive? So many people give them away for free, so why doesn’t everybody? Why should I pay for something that isn’t even physical? It’s not like there’s a printing cost, is it? A Broke Reader Dear Broke Reader: You and me both. Broke, that is. But we both have to eat and pay our bills, don’t we? I’m assuming you have some kind of a job to pay yours? And as a writer, my job is – well – writing! So I need to be able to pay my bills too, and it takes an awful lot of book sales at FREE to pay any bills at all, if you get my drift? And while an ebook may incur no print or storage charges, it still requires the same bum-on-seat writing time, the same editing costs and the same design costs. So...

Carrying on my sporadic and probably utterly useless advice column from previous posts , because I'm sure you all are just desperate to know what pearls of wisdom I can dispense, aren't you? I'm a published writer , for God's sake. I must know what I am talking about... Dear Aunty Debbie: I want to be published. I don't care who with, but I don't want to do it myself, because that just means I'm rubbish, doesn't it? An Impatient Writer. Dear Impatient Writer: Not really. I mean you may be rubbish, yes. I can't possibly comment on that. But what's wrong with doing it yourself? Seriously, these days, independent publishing has lost a lot of the stigma it once had. It's not vanity publishing - you're not paying to be published; you are just buying in the services that you need. Think about it - what is small press Joe Bloggs Publishing going to do for you that you can't do yourself? If they edit for you, who will be doing the work? ...

A couple of years back I wrote an agony aunt page here on Authors Electric, so this month I thought I’d continue on a similar theme, but more in the spirit of receiving, rather than giving advice out like blue smarties. I mean there’s just so much advice out there, isn’t there? Everywhere you look are helpful people telling you how to do things you never even knew you should be doing! Write what you know! But I’m not an axe-murderer and there are no fairies at the bottom of my garden…. You should always start a novel with action. Well I’m sure we can all think of a hundred books that start with something other than action. Write every day. Plot everything/don’t plot everything. Write a synopsis before you start/synopses are a waste of time. There are whole books about plot and character development, what exactly a 3 rd person deep POV means and how and when to use it. You can drown in it all. The point is that you can take advice until you’re blue in the face. You can...