Authors Electric

Five of the six books I’ve converted for the Kindle have been books that were conventionally published in the first place, and the rights have reverted to me. The sixth, Beware of Men with Moustaches , was one that had been accepted for publication and then the whole series was cancelled by the publisher. So my latest book is the first I’ve dared to do without the security of a previous history.             I wrote it eight years ago, and my agent handled it. It got very close to acceptance several times, and then fell at the last hurdle. The main reason seemed to be that accountants don’t like birds – they’re not cuddly enough. It’s aimed at the same audience who read The Divide, so I’m hoping to pick up readers that way. How come a talking griffin is acceptable, but an intelligent parrot isn’t? They’ve both got beaks and wings…             I’ve always been interested...

          It is a huge honour to be speaking later this month at the inaugural London Author Fair , held on February 28th at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden.I will be running a workshop on how writers of all persuasions can learn from two of the areas in which poets lead the way - performing their work, and collaborating with people from other branches of the arts. (I will be talking about collaboration with artists and musicians. Expect more of the wonderful photography of my long-term collaborator Veronika von Volkova )           I was a novelist several years before I was a poet. And a headstrong and opinionated self-publishing novelist (at a time when it was very unfashionable to self-publish) to boot. I had also spent years drifting around the music and art worlds, where those strong opinions on what made a successful relationship with an audience fermented and distilled and pe...

What a place to brew beer! Happy is the man, someone once said, who can make a living out of his hobby. I think people who know me well might want to emend that to “Why can’t he take things more seriously? He turns everything into a cause for smiling, lucrative or not. He’s a disgrace.” Which is a pretty tortuous introduction to a series of not-very-well-connected thoughts about the process of bringing a book into the world. Or bringing it into the world again, to be fair, because it’s a rejig/refocusing of the first novel I ever wrote. And as I blogged about it last month, I’ll take a completely different tack to help you not to doze off. The book is called Wild Wood, and Julia Jones’s imprint, Golden Duck, is publishing it. And I’ve been enjoying myself immensely in the process, possibly because Julia and my son Matti Gardner have been doing most of the work. I only wrote the thing, and for the pain of that I refer you to my first paragraph. Now one of ...

A large part of my reading now is of Indie books, with those from Electric Authors at the top of the list. But I do often revert to the old ways. The Luminaries awaits: quite apart from its obvious huge qualities, it's set in the town Kay grew up in. But I've just read a book which really stopped me in my tracks. We were in Turkey in November and had a brilliant time. We were on a tour of the south west, starting in Antalya and taking us round all the great sights - St Nicholas's own cathedral, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, the rock tombs at Kaunos, the white terraces of Pamukkale. Staggering, all of it. Never to be forgotten. Celsus Library, Ephesus One day at a lunch stop, we went into an ordinary tourist shop to look round.  There were a few books there, mainly Turkish. But one, prominently displayed cover-out, took my eye. It was the only copy. What was it doing here? Waiting for me? I'm quite fond of de Bernieres. Captain Corelli was very enjoyable, tho...

Cartoon-ified version of my granddaughter Megan I think the days relating to the old saying 'the camera never lies' are long gone. Just as well really, or we wouldn't have all the amazing book covers that we have these days. And while we all admire the work of writers and illustrators, there needs to be a big thumbs up for the amazing photographers out there who listen to our ideas and desires for book covers, and somehow come up with the goods. I know I'm very lucky because my photographer friend, Rob Tysall and I have been working together for years. His photography has helped sell many hundreds of my articles to different magazines over the years. Like they say – a picture paints a thousand words. And articles definitely sell better when they are well illustrated with good colour images. With the arrival of self publishing and ebooks, I asked Rob to turn his hand to creating some ebook covers for my out of print books. And thought it might inte...

If you're thinking of reinventing yourself online and want to do a photo shoot, start off with a list of objectives. Mine were: 1) To replace an old black and white photo with warm current pictures in color. 2) To replace a brooding, distant persona with a friendlier, more open image--to lead readers gently into the sometimes violent novels I write. 3) To come up with a half-dozen shots that could be used in different places: FaceBook, Twitter, Goodreads, my blog, Amazon's Author page and my email avatar. 4) To channel the rugged presence of my character Boss MacTavin while avoiding all the usual posturing some male writers do for their photos. No raised fists, no scowling. Somehow, instead, a subtle sense of energy. You'll want to consider location, your appearance and even possible poses. I did. But the day before the shoot, I did something thoughtful that did a good deal more to alter the course of the shoot. The first genie in the bottle I had to work the night...

I’m very happy to announce the release of my new novel, Agency Woman, on Kindle! I haven’t released a book since late 2012, so I was quite surprised to find out how exciting it was to do this again. Thanks very much to everyone who has already downloaded, you helped get Agency Woman to Number 21 in the “International Mystery and Crime” chart on Amazon UK (nearly knocking on Ian Rankin’s door at Number 1, though I don’t think he lost any sleep over this! I did, though, because I kept refreshing the screen to check my progress in the charts…) I quite enjoyed being in an “International Mystery” chart, made me feel just like Austin Powers for five minutes! Thanks again…and here is a wee description of Agency Woman: ************************************* A lost, wandering and damaged man finds himself drafted back into the world he thought he had escaped, when the local branch of a powerful, international Agency needs a mysterious job done in the remote Highlands o...