Authors Electric

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff online lately about keeping, discarding and re-reading books. In the era of ebooks and online reading, the first two may no longer really be relevant – I have no idea how many books my kindle will hold and even if it did get full, I can store the rest in the cloud on my Amazon account. Not that I entirely trust the cloud (I’m too old. I grew up with the idea that clouds were just weather!). What happens if there’s no internet access, or worse still no computer or no power? What then? It’s a bit like online bank accounts, really; how do you prove that little nest-egg in an online account ever existed if you have nothing to show for it? Which is why I always have a passbook even for mostly-online accounts, so I have something physical with numbers on that proves the existence of my money. I expect that if the internet crashes – if one morning there is no world-wide-web, or maybe the power goes off and doesn’t come back on – that I will have more important ...

Three Billy Goats Gruff - Susan and Andrew Price At last, Three Billy Goats Gruff is available on Amazon, both as paperback and ebook, after much cursing on the part of me and Andrew Price, the illustrator. With apologies for the length, here's what Andrew and I have learned about the process. How To...Olsen This blog is going to be about Createspace . If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. After going to the mat with Createspace, producing the Kindle is cake. But don't let me put you off, if you have a spare picture-book. Lash out a couple of quid on How To Format Your Picturebook For Createspace Without The Frustration and get stuck in. We found Olsen's book invaluable, but worked out a few wrinkles for ourselves too.  Graphics Programme You will need a graphics programme, such as PhotoShop (which you can now rent annually or monthly) or the free Open Source programme, Gimp . There are others, such as Canva and one recommended by our o...

Here I go again, doing what I'm told you absolutely should not do - Foiling The Dragon by Susan Price that is, talking back to your critics. I did it here, when people said my villain in the Sterkarm books, James Windsor, was not believable - and now I'm going to defend my poetry-loving dragon in Foiling The Dragon. I recently put Foiling The Dragon. out as a paperback and e-book. It is, as the strapline informs you, 'A light-hearted fantasy of poets, sorceresses, dragons — and wrapping paper.' It's not epic fantasy. It's meant to amuse for a few hours, and maybe make you smile. On Amazon it's collected some positive reviews. J. Mathews says,  ' I enjoyed this book as a child, and have just read it again. I found it equally enjoyable.' Thank you, J. Mathews. I don't know who you are, but I greatly appreciate your taking the time and trouble to post a positive review. The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price D. Lamb says: ...

Man wielding his mighty plunger You know, we all get bunged up now and again. No, I’m not talking about constipation, I leave that to cringe-making TV ads. However I might be using plumbing metaphors, partly, ok, largely so I can write about men with enormous tools (yes I know there are female plumbers, and small tools, but those are for other blogs, other times). Man with enormous tool. Just because I like writing that.  There have been many discussions of Writers’ Block online, and responses are reminiscent of those about sea- or morning-sickness, or gluten or dairy intolerance, in that those who’ve never had it (YET), often seem to assume it’s imagined or just other writers being over-precious weedy wets chiz chiz. Just apply bum to chair, fingers to keyboard, and keep going, they bark like Sergeant Majors. Those of us with livings to earn can’t afford to have WB! Well those who lay bricks can’t afford to have bad backs, and yet they do. Others, at all levels of fame...

          Well, it's been available on Amazon's Kindle platform for some time now. But at last, at last , it's available as a paperback book, published by PriceClan. A paperback, that will clatter through your letter box, wrapped up in brown card, and solidly thump onto the mat. Or carpet. Or floorboards, or whatever you have under your letter-box.           I set out to achieve this more than a year ago, when I received lots of emails from teachers, asking where they could buy copies of the book. It's always gone down rather well in schools, when I've read it aloud, and it seems many schools want to use it as a class reader.           But it was out of print, and second-hand copies were selling on eBay and through Amazon market-place at silly money.           So I commissioned new illustrations from Andrew Price, and published the book on Ki...