Authors Electric

Reviews. They’re a new thing for me. Being on the receiving end, anyway. Some authors don’t read them apparently. A. L. Kennedy, writing in  The Guardian  some years ago, said, ‘They emerge months, if not years after the book is done with, so they're not that much use to the author. If the book's a car crash, it's already happened and we've walked or crawled away long ago.’ Maybe that’s just traditionally published authors. It may be a different scenario for those of us who have published independently. After all, we’re told how important it is for sales for our books to have good reviews on Amazon and GoodReads, or from the many bloggers worldwide. We use snippets of them on social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, and in our blogs and websites as part of our never-ceasing promotion. A review is not just about helping readers find new books – it’s about authors actively helping them do that. New books? And, let’s be honest, a good review can ...

Здравствуйте . As Rabbie Burns said, ‘ The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley’. Not that my schemes were particularly well laid. Perhaps I should have stepped back and thought, ‘You’re going to Russia for the World Cup for ten days in June. Is it really wise to publish a book just three weeks before that and arrange events to attend all through the summer – including every remaining weekend in June and July?’ If I had, I might have come to the conclusion that it wasn’t all that wise. And then add into the mix the serious illness of a close family member... I had been planning this blog post to be all about my trip to Russia and my impressions of the country thirty-odd years after my last one – when it was still part of the Soviet Union, albeit already changing under glasnost and perestroika. And of course this time I was going during the biggest party on the planet – in the country that had inspired my love of football all those years ago.......

As Captain Jack Sparrow says in Pirates of the Caribbean , ‘It’s a funny old world, innit?’ And isn’t it strange how much can change in just a couple of weeks? After all my worries and fears charted in last months’ blog – about readers’ expectation of that tricky second novel, of whether I’d finish everything I needed to in good time for publication day, whether I’d manage to have any sort of launch – everything seemed somehow to come together. Very suddenly. Or, perhaps I should say, just in time, despite my tendency to do everything at the last minute (...like this blog. Less than 12 hours until I’m due to post it. But it has been a busy week – or three.) To backtrack... My second children’s novel,  The King’s Man , was due to be launched on 26th May – a date chosen for one very good, and another less sensible, reason. The former – because it was the Saturday at the start of the UK spring bank holiday weekend, and therefore the school half-term holiday through...

I published my first book last autumn. I think I may have mentioned it in my last Authors Electric blog. I suspect I’ve mentioned it a few other times elsewhere too. I’m pretty pleased about it as you can imagine. I’m sure all first-time-published authors are – both traditionally and self-published. I probably go on about it a lot... It's my book! On a reader's shelf! In some excellent company, of course... (Thanks to Yuko for the pic) This month I’m publishing my second book, the sequel to the first. No doubt I’ll bore people to death with that too. But something occurred to me in the past couple of weeks. Although it might appear to be the same thing, in fact everything has been completely different. Yes, the processes for production of the books have been the same (roughly). Although I forgot some aspects in the meantime, I learned a great deal first time round and haven’t had to reinvent the wheel completely in terms of uploading everything to my chosen ...

Or perhaps I should just stick to 'Hi!' And as a newbie blogger for Authors Electric I should really introduce myself. Alex Marchant, author of historical fiction for children, at your service! [ doffs cap with a flourish, bowing deeply ] I write ‘author’, of course, as we’re all authors on here. But I still say the word – and write it – with a momentary (or longer) hesitation. Because, unlike all the other fine bloggers on here, I’m very much a newbie at this too – and I have to be reminded that, yes, I can call myself an author. I have written a book (in fact, more than one), I have published it (even if independently – and, after all, that’s all the rage now), and I am earning money from it. Well, some, anyway... enough to record on my upcoming tax return. A hesitation, or two, also occurred when I received the invitation to join the Authors Electric team. What could I bring to the party? I’ve been writing my own blog for a few months now, but it’s still ea...

Spirit of the Place by Dennis Hamley. Artwork: Anastasia Sichkarenko It's a very long time since I felt excitement about Christmas coming. Contentment perhaps, pleasure possibly, mildly stirring anticipation conceivably. But excitement? No, not for the last half-century at least. So why should I feel these little thrills of expectation now? Surely I should know better at my age? You can be the judge of that. I know I've been banging on about this for months but now it really is happening. Later this week or early next week the first copies will arrive of my limited edition venture. One hundred copies of a good quality  signed and numbered hardback edition of Spirit of the Place. A beautiful object - I hope .  No, I don't just hope, I know it will be a beautiful production. I wanted to reproduce the whole dust jacket here, because I think it's great. Anastasia Sichkarenko did another lovely job. However, Blogger seemed to think it was an image too far. and...