Authors Electric

I have been staying a little bit clear of social media since the Christmas break allowed me to take a pause, reflect and re-charge. But as I slide towards the building momentum created by the events and projects due to take place in 2026, I have posted a few times and tried to keep up with things. Now, I almost wish it would cease to exist.   It’s just that I don’t see positive comments about anything anymore. The internet is awash with bitter jealousy, vengeful spite and comments designed to pull anything and anyone down. It’s always had trolls and bots ‘commenting’ on everything, but lately it’s got nastier and more humourless.   It isn’t just to be found in the cyberspace – there’s always been a whole culture of build ‘em up, pull ‘em down in this country – it’s just got worse. So, I am asking, why can’t we offer ‘congratulations’ or say ‘well done’ anymore?   I knew who my real friends were as soon as I started being published, writing and performing, because along ca...

Do authors need a website is a question I have been pondering for a while. More specifically do I need a website now I am a published author. I already have an online presence. I’ve been on Facebook for many years, just a personal account, mainly to keep in touch with friends but I tend to make my writing related posts public and shareable. Many years ago, I started on Twitter to connect with other writers. After a while my writing bubble burst so I deleted my account. A few years later, my username was still free so I started again   – things had changed a lot, then the changes went too far and I quit for good earlier this year. I’m on Instagram – a fellow writing friend told me I need an online presence there, and now I’m on Threads too, which I am enjoying but I’m not sure if being there is helping with book sales or even general recognition. It takes time to grow an audience, but how do some people’s innocuous posts garner viral status - if I try to be funny, there is n...

Dear Aunty Debbie. I’m so happy!  (utterly deadpan) Why’s that then, Happy Writer?  HW: Because I’ve had an email from a company that’s going to make my book into a film!  AD: That’s amazing news. Which book is that?  HW: The one I put on Amazon last week. The one you told me needed editing and I couldn’t afford an editor, so I published it anyway.  AD: Okaaay. So what will this company do?  HW: Well, they found my book and they must have loved it so much, they told a producer friend who wants to make it into a film.  A D: They just came across it on Amazon?  H W: Yes – isn’t it incredible?  AD: (Totally incredible. As in not remotely credible …)  HW: And they won’t charge me anything.  AD: I’m sure they won’t. Yet. But this is what will happen:  The company’s representative – let’s call him John – will email you a few times, telling you how much they love your book (but oddly never mention anything specific to your story ...

Because social media and the trials and tribulations associated with using the various options loom large in the novel I'm currently writing, I thought I would share what's been happening with my own social media accounts. They haven't caused me quite as much trouble as my characters are having in the novel, but I must admit to finding aspects of them a little baffling/annoying/anxiety-inducing just lately. I've been using Twitter (X) and Facebook for some time. Although Twitter has been horrible lately in many ways, there are still some nice things about it. For instance at the time of writing I've just taken part in a hectic and very friendly discussion there with other writers and readers about cosy mysteries, using a hashtag to group all the relevant posts together. And then there are the cat and dog accounts, of course! I see that recently many of these have also appeared on other platforms, so I'm fairly confident that if/when I give up on Twitter I will s...

Katherine Roberts’s blog post a few days ago about the tyranny of social media struck a chord. Social media have changed our lives.  First Facebook, whose friend connections at least made sense. I mean, it’s just another way of connecting with friends you have in real life, isn’t it? (IRL if you will… see what I did there? Oh heavens, two deeply irritating social media cliches in one go. Sorry.) Oh, and their relations, who you may have met. And their in-laws, who you definitely haven’t. And then… crikey who are these totally strange friends from round the world I’ve never come across before? Photo by Leila Larochelle: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ white-and-brown-deer-standing-on-snow-10709569/ Then Twitter, which revolutionised everything. I remember when I first, tentatively, tweeted and followed other accounts. How amazing it was to connect with people I had absolutely nothing to do with and would never come across otherwise, not just in different parts of the UK but on d...

Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Many thanks to Gill James for taking the image of me reading from From Light to Dark and Back Again at the Bridge House Publishing Celebration event in December 2023. All good fun! What are you hoping for in this new writing/reading year? Writing wise, I would like more things in print. Reading wise, I would like to discover authors new to me. The big eye opener for me in recent years has been discovering the wonderful world of non-fiction, especially history. The start of a year is when I miss most favourite authors no longer with us. I always looked forward to the new Terry Pratchett book for example. Nearly always ended up having that as a Christmas present.  Having said that I was given A Life In Footnotes which is his biography (written by Rob Wilkins) and am loving that. (Wouldn’t surprise me now if I go on to discover more on the wonderful world of biographies!).     I look forward to book ...

  So, confession time; I'm rather fond of Twitter. On the whole I only follow people I like or am interested in, so I have seldom been troubled by trolls or hate speech, and whenever it has managed to infiltrate, I can mentally filter it out, in the same way I do with the horrors that pop up on the television news or the front pages of newspapers, concentrating my thoughts on things that I can do something about myself – of which there are shockingly few. I enjoy the distraction of the gossip on the Twittersphere, and the feel-good videos that go viral, and I learn more about what is happening in the publishing and writing worlds than from any other source. The last few books that I have read have come to my attention from tweeted recommendations. I can see that social media has handed a megaphone to people with some pretty nasty opinions, but these people have always been there, sounding off in the pub, or berating their partners and families with their unsavory  views ...

  Political Story-Telling by Bronwen Griffiths  Humans are natural story-tellers. Politicians know this too and through the ages have used story-telling to gain and hold on to power. Just as writers have to think carefully about their titles – which title will catch the public’s eye and perhaps result in better sales? – the politician and the newspaper also want to catch our eyes with their headlines and slogans. This is nothing new but with social media it’s easier for politicians to speak directly to voters.    Pithy phrases such as ‘Make America Great Again’ or ‘Taking Back Control’ and ‘Oven Ready Deal’ (Brexit) pit one community against another. The story is that one side has been betrayed and the politician will be the saviour. It’s the old, old story of vanquishing the monster. For the right-wing the enemy is the ‘metropolitan elite,’ ‘the woolly liberals,’ the ‘woke.’ For the left it’s the rich and powerful. However, as Robert Shrimsley points out in his anal...

All through the Covid pandemic, I've been under continuous low-level stress, that spikes and ebbs depending on news I receive on personal and professional fronts. April has been a surreal month for me, as I'm sure it has been for all of us (I've been self-isolating since March due to low immunity ). The most mundane things like going for a walk, grocery shopping, watching a play, seem like things I must have done in another life that I have but a vague memory of. I've worked from home for more than a decade, so the 'circuit-breaker' here in Singapore has not changed my life in a drastic fashion. It has taken away options, though. I can't pick up my laptop and write at a cafe if my muse proves elusive, or call a friend for coffee to listen to each other nattering about our lives, or work off some steam at the gym. Add to that the relentless barrage of ugly news, and it makes me want to curl up and hide. Having looked at all this in a calm fashion ...

The world is finally united.   I just wish it was for something good instead of the deadly Covid19 virus.   Being isolated at home with my husband is not a hardship. We’ve worked from home for years, but now, I’m cooking a hell of a lot more! We don’t go out for dinner like we used to. We did, however, venture out of the house over a week ago, but that was for essentials.   Okay, I lie.   Wine really isn’t an essential, but it makes life a bit easier.  Physical isolation from the outside world has thrown off my sleep patterns, even more so than usual. The days of the week, normally a marker of tasks and events, are now cluttered in my mind.   Does Monday feel different from Thursday or Friday? Does it even matter? Certainly, the precision of time is now less important. There are fewer (no) appointments or meetings I need to keep. I don’t have to check my schedule because … well, there’s no urgency to be anywhere. Instead, mundane tasks ...

Social media in general is getting a bad press these days and for very good reasons. But writers would be unwise to distance themselves entirely, as this post (adapted from https://alibacon.com ) shows. Over two years ago, while despairing of my then work in progress (now fully fledged as In the Blink of an Eye) I stumbled on a newspaper article describing the St Andrews Photography Festival. St Andrews, what's not to like? This was so germane to my languishing WIP I was immediately intrigued and also a bit cross there was no official website to tell me more. However there was a Facebook page - a poor relation to a website perhaps but as I ran my eye over it, I mused how wonderful it would be to be involved and I found my fingers adding a post about my photography interests and my writing and inviting the still rather mysterious festival to contact me.  Afterwards this struck me as ridiculously brazen. I was an 'unknown' writer with a novel lying aroun...

Eva Noemi Cienfuegos Sometimes we don't see the trees in a forest. We've been preoccupied - justifiably - about the flagrant abuses of privacy and exploitation of social media by deadpanned corporate owners in puerile tee-shirts, along with their platforms being weaponized in the interests of oligarchs and fascists in Moscow, London and Washington. A lot of us - including some of my good friends - have quit Facebook and other forums in disgust. I myself have stopped buying social media promo-services in protest - a gesture, I know, but I did let them know.  But I don't want to quit hanging out with my friends on Facebook, Twitter, et al, however, given their too-often discounted, fine company. Why cut off my nose that way? We've all been using the Internet to commingle long before there was a Facebook anyway (beginning with forums and bulletin boards back in the day). Before that we had (and still have) coffee houses, taverns, graffiti, and letters, poetry and or...