Authors Electric

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. What is your policy on recommending books? I have a couple of policies. Firstly, I only recommend a book to someone I know well enough where I have a reasonable knowledge of their reading tastes.  I want someone to enjoy what I recommend. Secondly, and if it is a book I’ve found useful for my writing, I will share my thoughts on it on social media. I occasionally recommend books on Goodreads . I write a weekly blog on that so if a useful book has gripped me, I will mention it there. Fiction can be more difficult to recommend, I think. Tastes differ. While I love fantasy, not everyone does. Even for those that do, there are different kinds of fantasy writing.  I always go for the humorous type rather than the deadly serious (with the exception of The Lord of the Rings , which encompasses everything. Yes, there is a deadly serious story. There is also humour. The hobbits, Pippin and Merry, make me smile, espe...

My life as a book reviewer started when I joined Goodreads. I’d been told it would be good for me as an author to connect with my potential readers. If you’re a Goodreads Author (a self-identified category), you can fill your profile with photos and videos, author events and, of course, what you thought of the last book you read or wanted to read or just wanted to comment on. As a Goodreads reviewer, my first task was to assign stars to the books I had read. I decided to limit myself to the books I had read in 2016. All the same, I agonized over the difference between 3 stars and 4. Would the author hate me? Would the author even notice? Hold on, you say. Since when is handing out stars the same thing as writing a book review? I’m glad you asked. Age of Reviews Egyptian burial chamber. Image source: Wikipedia Everyone’s a critic. So it stands to reason that literary criticism has been around since man first set awl to stone. Book reviews, on the other hand, are...

My book fairy journey: The stickers arrived, the preparation happened and the six places I left my books in central London on Saturday 16 September 2017. Today, Goodreads turns 10 and they've celebrated by teaming up with The Book Fairies. Authors and readers were invited to order some special stickers, put them on the front of their books and then hide those books in plain sight for people to find. I had visited The Book Fairies website before, and loved the idea (you may have read about actress Emma Watson leaving books on London's underground for people to find, well this is the same thing and she is an official "fairy"). So, when I received an email from Goodreads, telling me about their #hideabookday to celebrate their tenth birthday, I knew I had to get involved. Throughout the year, The Book Fairies website sells stickers, badges, bags and ribbons that you can use with the books you're gifting. I opted for the stickers, as they had a few for Goodre...

So picture this, sensation seekers. At a specified time on Monday, I will be hunched over my laptop fielding a million calls from slavering punters desperate to know the nuts and bolts of historical fiction-writing. In actual fact, I am due to take part in an online forum organised by my e-book publishers Endeavour Press. Historical books are a substantial part of their trade, and a substantial part of my output. My first book when I moved from children to adults was called A Fine Boy for Killing, set in the British Navy in the second half of the eighteenth century. My latest effort, which I am only halfway through, is the third in my series of novellas based on the life of Nelson. In between, there have been further delvings into times past (should that be passed, I wonder?), one of which, Death Order, uses the mystery flight of Rudolf Hess as its basis. I'm not a great believer in conspiracy theories, but some of them are just too enticing. My last novella, Napoleon:...

Reviews for The Survival of Thomas Ford have been popping up quite quickly lately on Amazon. The 200 th one came in on Amazon.com, the U.S. site, around Christmas Day, and then the 207 th review appeared there a few days ago. On Amazon.co.uk, the UK site, The Survival of Thomas Ford has 93 reviews now. That amounts to nearly 300 reviews total if Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com are combined (though not quite 300 as there are a few reviews duplicated on both sites). It has taken 3 years for the 300 or so reviews to accrue on Amazon for The Survival of Thomas Ford, so roughly 100 reviews a year, or 1 review every 3 or 4 days, on average. Noticing this led me over to Goodreads, to seek out some other 3-yearly statistics for The Survival of Thomas Ford. The “Rating details/Book data” section there tells me that: 1053 people on Goodreads have “added” The Survival of Thomas Ford 276 have “rated” it 63 have reviewed it And that “81% of people liked it” O...

A writer, yesterday All jobs have their good points and bad points, and writing is no exception. You just have to learn to live with the frustrations. However, there are some things that, try as I might, I just can't muster the good grace or inner calm to let slide, but about which I can do n-o-t-h-i-n-g... For instance: Brain Donor Book Reviews. I don't mean internet trolls, exactly, I mean stuff that's just plain thoughtless and pointless. We all like, and need (even crave!) people to comment on our work, but not when they say "I loved this book" and then give it one star. 'Cos it's the star people notice. Or when they say how much they hated every word of every sentence, because you gave one of the characters a green jumper on page 139. Or when a middle aged person gets sniffy about a children's book being childish. It's! A! Children's! Book! The worst of it is that these things are indelible. Even if you, very nicely and very pol...