For Authors
Instafreebie Giveaway #1 – Analysis
I was introduced to Instafreebie as part of Mark Dawson's Self Publishing 101 course which included mention of it and a voucher for an extra month's premium subscription. Instafreebie is a site to which authors upload .mobi, .epub and (optionally) .pdf versions of...
Stryke First – Final Polish and humiliation at Cafe Nero
The first novel in my comic fantasy trilogy, Stryke First, is now inching its way towards publication. Having been through three drafts, I've now printed the 80,000-word manuscript out and I'm marking up all the little cock-ups for amendment before it has a proof...
The best anti-procrastination, time management tool I’ve ever used
Want to get more writing done? Or, indeed, any work that involves sitting at a computer. Buy yourself a cheap kitchen timer and choose a time between 15 minutes and, say, 35 minutes (start small). Press Start and work on your project exclusively until the beeper goes...
Self Publishing Your Books Through Draft2Digital
I've heard Draft2Digital mentioned a couple of times, including on The Creative Penn podcast. I've three books published with Kindle Direct Publishing and had made the decision to remove the two lesser sellers from KDP Select and see whether wider distribution would...
How to win at NaNoWriMo
How to win at NaNoWriMo [You can find my NaNoWriMo profile here - please Buddy me!] On 28th October 2014, I made the snap decision to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. On the 1st of November I had nothing more than a vague idea of a theme and how the...
The Perfect Keyboard for Writers and Writing
My attempts to find a really good, reasonably priced, keyboard for banging out the words have seen me accumulate a big pile of the things (I realised this the other day when I had a big clear-out in the office) but I think the search may finally be over - and...
Why you MUST have a paperback version of your Kindle Direct Publishing book and how to get it shipped next day
Why bother? I launched the first edition of Your Craft Business: A Step by Step Guide back in October 2012 and, of the many thousands sold since then for every paperback I've sold via Amazon I've sold four Kindle ebooks. Desktop-publishing the book, registering the...
The HP Chromebox – the perfect tool for writers?
I'll come clean right from the outset - I've been a user of Chrome OS (the operating system used on Chromebooks and Chromeboxes) for a couple of years now. For over a year, my main laptop has been the HP Chromebook 14 and my Windows laptop has hardly been used in that...
Watercress
Fat Harry the costermonger yawned, blew at the steam on his coffee and waited for the first girl to arrive. The rain tumbled down the sides of the bridge as Harry sat beneath its span, breathed in the stench of yesterday’s vegetables and smiled - there was money to be...