Authors Electric

We all know how important Amazon reviews are to writers, indie writers in particular. With most bookshop chains in thrall to marketing managers from the Big Six, how else can we make any impression on the market which seems to be expanding exponentially? And if we publish only in digital formats, the online review really is the only real way to get exposure. With this in mind I try to do my best for fellow writers and post reviews whenever I can. With my own novel, A Kettle of Fish, I am keen to have as many reviews as possible and although less than 4 stars (see below!)is always a disappointment, I’d rather have a less than wonderful review than one that’s insincere, or even no review at all. And there’s the rub. As a reader (rather than a writer) I’m beginning to wonder how much faith I can put in the Amazon 5-star system. For instance, I’ve just read a novel which, being aware of the author’s reputation, I expected to like a lot. Well for me it was okay, but not a book where...

If no one had said 'Spring's here! ', if I’d not been able to see the light and the primroses and hear the birds shouting, I'd still have known. Spring! What a good word for it!   Today I sprang out of bed at 6am and,  eschewing the usual slorming about in my pjs until after the post’s arrived,  sprang through my ablutions and into my clothes. Primped, prepped and ready.  ‘What’s got into you?’ asked my partner. ‘Are you going somewhere?’  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s just that I want to be ready. I don’t know what for, I just do.’    Did he know something we don't know?  Deep in the limbic Neanderthal recesses of my brain, something stirred, a bright blood compulsion to clean out my nest, and my thoughts and my life, to make all clean, clear and fresh again.        Do you suffer from SAD? Seasonal Affective Disorder. Disorder? Really? But, isn't this alteration from low to high spirits, as the year moves from wint...

I was recently asked to adjudicate a competition for crime stories, and the entries turned out to be a mixed batch. Some stories were a good fit for the crime genre, but others were of a more general nature, probably a better fit for the general or literary short story with a crime as part of the plot. It had me thinking again about the nature of crime fiction, and what diffentiates a crime story from other types of story, even if they include a crime. For the purposes of the competition I decided to use the broadest, most basic definition which was a short story which included a crime. However, my mind kept ticking over on the conundrum of what constitutes crime fiction, and I recalled a similar problem when I was researching for my nonfiction book CrimeFiction and the Indie Contribution . What I found out when doing this research was that defining crime fiction was not such an easy task as I had assumed. Before I started writing the book I thought I knew what a ...

Jean, in her late forties, John Moir, courtesy of South Ayrshire Council As everyone who knows me, and quite a few people who don’t, will know by now, I’m working on a novel about Robert Burns's wife, Jean Armour. Never heard of her, somebody said to me only the other day. Which is one of the reasons why I’m writing it. Even this fine portrait, which seems to be a reasonably youthful Jean wearing smart clothes - as opposed to the elderly  and rather grim faced widow normally depicted - isn't at all well known. Anyway, as usual in mid-project, especially mid historical project, I’m doing a lot of research. Some of it is necessary but some of it is just for fun, meandering down some strange highways and byways of history and occasionally (like last week) coming up with one or two electrifying possibilities about certain – I hesitate to use the words ‘sacred cows’ but they just popped into my head – of Burns lore. Also popping into my head in the early hours of the morni...

My Previous office Some people can write to music; I can’t. I have to have silence, which is a bit of a joke as I have tinnitus, but I’ve learned to push that into the background. I live in a large double-fronted semi, and my office used to be downstairs on the side that abutted next door. They have three children, who have now reached screaming age. The party wall is extremely thin, and the fireplaces use the same chimney which seems to act as a sound box. They’re very nice people, but kids will be kids, especially when they have friends round. Consequently, we’ve decided to have the chimney bricked in and the wall soundproofed, but the guy who is going to do it has broken his hand so the job is delayed for a couple of months. I am fortunate enough to have a studio as well, which is also downstairs and on the other side of the house and a lot smaller, so I decided to up sticks and relocate. It’s been a revelation.          ...

I've started the post today with a photo of Glamis Castle. This is the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and is situated near Dundee in Scotland. Castles are something that we Scots seem to do extremely well. The other is using a language which sounds very bonnie indeed. There's nothing like the sound of a Scot in full flow, be it with the lilt of the Highlands and Islands or the strong accents of Glasgow or Dundee. However, these melodic sounds are accompanied by words which may mean nothing to a reader outside the area.  For example, I have a bonnie wee burn at the end of my garden. A burn would be called a stream anywhere else in the UK. In the middle of Dundee, we have a hill called the Law. Law is an old Scots word for hill. Therefore, the proper name is The Law. As I write crime books this could be somewhat confusing if I said "there's been a body found on The Law". So I have to say the Law Hill. I am sure you are getting my dri...

Weird thing being a writer, I've always thought. Two things have happened in the last couple of days that made me think of synchronicity (among other things). Firstly, out of the blue, a comment popped into my inbox about Wild Wood, my comic subversion of Mr Grahame's mighty masterpiece. It was appended to a review in Awfully Big Blog Adventure from last April, by a man I don't know. Easiest thing to do is to reproduce it: BRIAN BERKE said... On January 1st, 2015 I decided to reread The Wind in the Willows sixty years after first having it read in class at school and then reading it myself. Later, and by chance I decided to see if any books with the work of William Rushton were available on ebay. What a joy to find Wild Wood. It compliments 'The Willows' wonderfully, and it was published to encourage children to read! 12 March 2015 at 05:54 That was good enough in itself, but the synchronicity comes in this wise: the same morning, I trundled down from ...