Authors Electric

A month or so ago I treated myself to a bread making machine. The plan was and still is to make gluten free bread for him-in-doors and speciality breads for me. When my bread maker arrived I excitedly unwrapped it, washed it out and plugged it in. I then realised I didn’t have at least half of the ingredients needed, so of I went to the local store. Half an hour or so later armed with my ingredients I read the instructions and a line at a time I diligently followed the recipe. For the next couple of hours, the house was filled with the glorious smell of baking bread. However, when the timer beeped sadly what came out didn’t live up to that delicious smell. The word ‘brick’ is the best word to describe my first attempt. I decided to try again. So I double checked the recipe and my ingredients. I then realised the yeast I’d purchased wasn’t suitable for a bread maker. So off I went and sourced the correct yeast. My second attempt was less brick like but, to be honest, you...

After a long time away from social media I’ve started to tweet and Facebook again. Since I last used social media as a marketing tool things have moved on and I discovered:  Images on twitter are ‘the’ thing National and international celebration days allow you to plan ahead and use hashtag terms you know will be trending So last month I researched dates I could use to market my short story collections ( Anansi - Brer Rabbit and Coyote ). During my research I found  Awareness Days and Days of the Year  which contain a list of international and national days.  I then needed to know what the ideal size for Twitter and Facebook images was. So I researched into this and during my research I came across this blog post , which breaks down the page layouts and sizes for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Youtube. Using this I created a template for Twitter images (1024 pix x 512 pix – although you can use other sizes) and a templ...

Last month I wrote about a slight aversion I have to  making the first mark in a 'lush' note book.  I stated (perhaps rashly) that I'd let you know how it went with the newest note book I'd purchased. Well I'll be honest it's still sitting on my desk looking lovely and untouched. However breaking news... during the first week of September I took a short holiday and treated myself to a lovely note book (spiral bound, lovely owl themed print on both covers, inside covers a gorgeous dark purple, lovely feeling pages etc.) and I've written in it! It may be because we were in the middle of the New Forest enjoying being pampered in a posh hotel but the pages now contain: A reworking of an old picture book story that wasn't quite working  A new picture book story that came from 'one' of those conversations you have at night in the bar Notes for the last story in my latest collection of short stories featuring the trickster character Coyote (whi...

I teach a number of writing courses that encourage students to earn money from their writing. As part of their marketing campaign I always suggest that writing a blog can be a good option. The reasons I give are the very reasons I blog. They include: It provides you with the opportunity to exercise your writing ‘muscle’ Blogging doesn’t cost you anything apart from time – so can be a cost effective marketing tool It allows you to create your USP by proving you know your subject – great if you want to impress an editor It enables you to reach a worldwide audience and market yourself and your work, even when you're asleep Now when blogging there are things you should do and things you shouldn’t. What follows are a few tips that will hopefully help you create a blog people will want to visit plus a few tips on blogging etiquette. What you should do when blogging: One: Don’t just use it to sell, sell, sell. Write something of interest; create a blog that is u...

Anansi - by Lynne Garner It's that time when I look at my previous years sales and try to discover any patterns in said sales. Now as it's also my turn to write a blog post I decided to share some of my 2014 results with you. For the purposes of this blog I've looked at sales from September to December 2014 of my ebooks Anansi the Trickster Spider volume one and volume two  plus the physical book which contains both volumes . The reason it's not the entire year is I didn't upload these books onto Smashwords or create a physical version via CreateSpace until September. Firstly I looked at the sales of these titles as ebooks only. As you can see the Amazon sales dwarf sales from Smashwords. I also noted that on Smashwords my sales were 11%  of the total number of the free sample downloads (which is much higher than I anticipated).       However results become a little more interesting when I add the sales of the physical book. As you can ...

In January of this year I combined my two ebooks (Anansi The Trickster Spider - volume one and  volume two ) into a single volume of 18 stories. However rather than create another ebook I decided this version would be available as a paperback version. What I didn't realise whilst turning this into a physical book was that I was obliged to send a copy to the British Library and if requested to another five libraries, these being: The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Cambridge University Library The National Library of Scotland The Library of Trinity College, Dublin The National Library of Wales The principle of legal deposit has been well established for nearly four centuries. Publications deposited with the libraries are made available and preserved for the benefit of future generations, so these books become part of our national heritage. However there are also other benefits, these are: One: Most of the books submitted are listed in the British Nati...

A few of years ago I wrote two picture book stories 'Where It's Always Winter' and 'The Perfect Christmas Tree.' As the titles suggest they both have a festive or seasonal link. Once I'd completed them I sent to various publishers who I believed (because I'd researched their previously published titles) might be interested in them. Again and again they were rejected, which is something you sort of get used to as a professional writer. However a couple of the publishers didn't send me the standard rejection letter. They told me they'd enjoyed the stories but were withdrawing from seasonal books so weren't in a position to take. This is where my journey into becoming a publisher started. MadMoment Media Ltd was set up and with a very limited budget we had these two picture stories (plus a few others I'd received good feedback on) into apps for the iPhone and iPad. This meant a steep learning curve and a fair few hours spent i...