Authors Electric

Book titles either arrive instantly in my head or it takes me forever to tease them out of my subconscious. Sometimes they reflect the actual story; sometimes they suggest a theme or a tone. I’ve used song titles for short stories – The Leaving of Liverpool comes to mind. This was written originally for a competition, the "theme" for which was that stories should have a "strong sense of place", so I wrote about a plot to blow up the Liver Birds and the folk song just seemed to fit (I remember the version done by The Seekers in the 1960s). My YA fantasy Edge of Dreams is about dreaming and how dreams may in fact be other worlds and become just as real as this world. The title for my thriller Hamelin's Child was one of those that arrived fully-formed. This was more of a theme-title, in that the book is about people-trafficking and the sex-trade. I think it's a strong title and it works, especially in context with a book cover that suggests genre. Its ...

In February, it will be two years since I took the plunge into self-publishing, by releasing a collection of previously-print-published short stories onto kindle. It was an experiment – with the concept of epublishing, Amazon’s KDP process and getting to grips with the technical side of formatting and uploading.  Once I’d successfully managed that, I went on and epubbed a thriller and a young adult fantasy novel. Sales have been good – more than I ever expected – and while I do think the kindle bubble has deflated somewhat, there are still opportunities for writers to take control of their careers. Having said that, there hasn’t been a rush of big publishers beating a path to my door and offering me several million for print rights. Not that I expected it – I’ve been on the fringes of the industry for long enough to know how it works. I’ve had big agents and big-6 (or is is 5 now?) editors in the past and I know I can write, but I’m never going to generate sufficient sales f...

I self-published my first thriller Hamelin's Child back in February 2011 - a giant step after many years of "we love it, but we can't sell it" rave rejections from the traditional publishers. Even being long-listed for The Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award didn't seem to make me a marketable proposition.   So I decided to fly solo - but first I needed a cover. My first attempt at cover design was using a lovely graphic by a talented friend of mine that just didn't work as an ebook cover - there wasn't sufficient contrast at the small size you need for amazon and other ebook retailers. But I attracted the attention of a traditional author who introduced me to my current designer JT Lindroos and held my hand through the design process. Thus the cover for Hamelin's Child was born - and I learned a lot in the process. I recently asked JT to design me a cover for the sequel Paying the Piper , which I hope to have out before Christ...