Authors Electric

If you’re just joining us for this latest countdown, I’m listing (in no particular order) the best self-published books I’ve come across. I’m doing this for two reasons: I want to show that self-publishing, despite the commonly held belief, does not automatically signify a lack of quality. Since the hardest part of self-publishing is finding an audience outside your immediate circle of associations, I am hoping to spread the word about these talented writers to a wider audience. If you missed my previous posts, you can find them  here , here , and here .  Okay, let’s get started, shall we? 3.   Dangerous to Know - K. T. Davies ( The Chronicles of Breed series) This is another series that showed up on my Facebook feed, probably because I clicked on last month’s selection, Hero in a Halfling . And if you liked William Tyler Davis’ book, this one will probably appeal to you as well. The humor is drier and less satiric than Davis’ work, but ...

A calotype in the making* Filming a trailer for my latest book with Gavin Allen Productions (see last month's post ) is still a few weeks away, but a location recce has thrown up some matters of urgency.  As you will probably know by now, the book features encounters with early photography and while we’re not, I’m glad to say, planning to replicate the entire calotype process of 1843, even to give a flavour of what it was like demands a degree of historical accuracy.  Luckily we had an expert on hand who agreed with our idea that negatives were very often hung up to dry on a makeshift clothesline. Just one thing had as all stumped – what kind of pegs would be used to attach them? Surely the handy wooden spring clip (I even have some now mixed in with the flashy plastic variety) weren't in use back then? Just in time my calotypist friend emails me with a gratifying quote from 1844,   " let it merely be suspended in the air, and in the absence of a bett...

Yes, I know this post has a long title... that's rather the point. Did it draw you in? More importantly, did it come up when you searched for one of the keywords? Someone who knows what they are doing (unlike me) could make sure you find it, and the same theory applies to book titles. Sometimes - in the interests of market research, naturally - I browse the Top 100 Bestsellers on my Kindle. There's one list for paid and another one for free (which requires an extra click to find it). For this post, we'll concentrate on the paid list, because any fool can give away a book... right? Wrong, as it turns out, with so many freebies around these days, but the same tricks will help you there, too. The last time I looked before writing this post (about a week ago), almost every single book on the first five pages of Amazon's Top 100 paid list had not only an eye-grabbing cover and main title, but also an additional subtitle or sentence, some of these too long to fit in the ...

We recently spent 10 days on the west coast of Scotland; a week in Oban right by the harbour, and the rest of the time in Fort William so we could go on the steam train to Mallaig over the Glenfinnan viaduct. Here's an Oban sunset: From Oban we had a sea safari and saw a whale, rocked about in the Corryvechan for a while (nothing like as fright/sick inducing as I’d feared!). We also went island-hopping (Mull, Iona, Staffa), some of us on a RIB and the sensible (or feeble)people, of which I was one, on proper CalMac boats.  It was magical! I kept on thinking it ought to remind me of western Ireland, what with the sandy beaches, bays and islands off the coast – but it didn’t. It is as beautiful, but somehow seemed more grounded in the rocks. I don’t know what comparisons there are in terms of height, etc, between the hills of the Ring of Kerry and Glen Coe, but the atmosphere is completely different. Something about Glen Coe is dwarfing and chilling, even wit...

I was recently sent a Q&A interview by a publisher for an upcoming anthology Into the Night Eternal: Tales of French Folk Horror,  ( which (shameless plug) will include my novella ‘ A Small Thing for Yolanda’ ). As always that online interview sheet included that old chestnut ‘Which books have influenced your writing the most?’ And, as always, I was at a loss for an answer. The books that had any effect on us at age four are never going to be the same at age fourteen, or forty-four, or sixty-four.   That said I am not sure that books read in adulthood ever affect us in the same way that they do when we are young. I suspect what the question is designed to portray authors as astonishingly erudite by naming the latest literary success or else one of the classic worthies such as Joyce, Naipaul or Woolf.   I have read and enjoyed my share of literary classics – ancient and modern, but I suspect the books that really influenced me the most will always be those fav...

                            I recently attended a book signing in Oxford from the other side of the fence, as a reader rather than an author. I now have a whole new appreciation for my readers. I thought it was a tiring day standing in front of my table talking to readers, but life on the other side of the fence is pretty  gruelling , although massively entertaining.    The signing took place in Oxford Town Hall, a grand setting, but  perhaps a  little too small for the number of readers who attended which meant that many signing authors had to be ticketed, and those that weren't still had queues.    The camaraderie that was evident amongst readers was infectious, from friends made in the registration queue outside the venue that began a couple of hours before the doors were due to open to friends made whilst bumping into each other inside. This was only the second...