Authors Electric

  Yesterday my second full length novel was finally published. It has been a busy and exciting time in the run-up. The writing of the book was finished a long time ago - I long for those days! Now I am in the throes of the far less appealing marketing stage. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could just spend all our time writing, and not worry about getting our books sold and read? Sadly, that is not the way of things. My first book came out during lockdown. I was vaguely aware at the time of something called a book tour – where authors travel from place to place and talk to enthusiastic gatherings about their new release. I was frankly grateful that Covid just made all that getting out there impossible. But how to get my book talked about, seen, bought even? I was fortunate enough to be a part of a writers group who introduced me to the idea of a blog tour. This simple idea relies on recruiting bloggers and book reviewers who are willing to read and review your book on their blogs. I...

You don't even have to pack a bag! Though I’m sure most of you will know what I mean by ‘blog tour,’ I’d hate to start my post by making assumptions, so a brief explanation wouldn’t hurt…           Think of an excited author travelling from city to city, bookshop to bookshop, eagerly waiting for readers to bombard them in their droves, desperate for signed copies of said author’s new book. Maybe even have a little conversation too. Well, ditch that image because a blog tour is quite different (although you’ll still have the excitable author).           A blog tour happens via social media – namely blog posts, Facebook and Twitter. Each day of your blog tour a blogger will hold their ‘stop’ on the tour and feature your new release on their blog. It could be a review, author guest post, book extract or giveaway. Or a combination of these things. Usually, the blogger will then share their post ...

I was invited by John A. A. Logan to take part in A Very British Blog Tour 2013, but being me I was a bit slow to get off the mark, so instead of being part of the tour I thought I would simply explore how British I am by answering the same questions that everyone in the tour did. Now, according to the rules of the Blog Tour, there is a dress code, and as I am averse to dress codes it’s maybe just as well I’m doing my own thing. If you want to know what the dress code is, after all you may want to follow it! Here it is:- Gentlemen will wear suits, white shirts and dark ties (or kilts, sporrans, baggy T-shirts etc). (Tartan ties are expected wherever possible). Ladies will wear dresses (one inch above the knee, no higher, no lower) and floral summer hats (or baggy troosers and bunnets if preferred). A break for TEA and cucumber sandwiches (or Irn Bru and Girders) is expected at some stage and is permissible. The list at the bottom of the page is not a queue. We British hate qu...