Book series – whether trilogies or longer – have been around for a good long while. They’re especially popular, though, with indie authors (who self-publish their own work), and over the past few years, I’ve seen lots of great indie authors focusing or...
One of the two crucial things that indie / self-publishing authors should pay for is cover design. (The other is editing.) Here are six different covers. Which ones do you think are self-published? (All of these are taken from the September 2016 and...
What are literary agents really after? Do they want first-time authors who’ve already built a huge platform ... or simply a great book? New York agent Mark Gottlieb, who’s currently building his list, has been kind enough to answer some questions about...
One daunting task for many self-publishing authors is how to get their finished book up for sale on Amazon as an ebook. It’s not as simple as just uploading your manuscript ... right? Well, it can be! Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) service gets...
One reader asked me to write about, “Self-publishing, whether to use editors, cover designers etc and how much is a reasonable amount to pay them.” This is a big and important question, and one I wanted to tackle on the blog. (I normally run reader...
Image from Flickr by Jonathan Rolande. Back in December 1998, I spent my 14th birthday money on Nigel Watt’s book Writing a Novel and Getting Published. And for quite a few years, my dream was to be a full-time fiction author. Not everyone has the same...
Back in early 2011, I made the decision to self-publish my novel Lycopolis – and that was largely inspired by Joanna Penn, who was then bringing out her first novel Pentecost. Fast forward three and a half years, and Joanna has now published five full...
Image from Flickr by pasukaru76. There’s one question that seems to crop up more than any other in my email inbox, and when I’m talking about self-publishing. And that’s: How do I stop people stealing my book? A lot of new indie authors are worried that...
I’m delighted to have a guest post today from Megan Hopkins, one of Author Attic’s writers, today. Megan takes a look at the Kindle (and e-readers in general), discussing one of the most debated questions of today’s literary aficionados: whether ebooks spell the end...
You may well have seen the news on my Twitter account, Facebook page or through the Aliventures newsletter ... but in case not ... My new book, Publishing E-Books For Dummies, came out last week. 🙂 I know some lovely Aliventures readers have been eagerly...
This is the first in a series of three posts about some of the sessions I attended at BlogWorld Expo, New York 2012. The full series is: BlogWorld #1: “Should I Self-Publish or Get a Book Deal?” with Scott Stratten and Jim Kukral BlogWorld #2: Chris Brogan’s “Lessons...
Seven months ago, I wrote a rather provocatively-titled post here on Aliventures: Why I’m Giving Up on My Dream. I explained why the writing dream of “get an agent” then “land a book deal” wasn’t looking so great to me anymore. And I outlined my plan to publish...
I love books. Always have done. I could read before I started school (thanks to my mum!) – and I spent my childhood and early teens with my nose in a book. At university, I studied English literature for three wonderful years. And when I got married, we had our...
I’ve been back in England for a week, enjoying unseasonably warm weather! I had a wonderful time travelling round Europe with my husband, Paul. We went to: Bucharest and Brasov, in Romania Budapest in Hungary Vienna in Austria Venice and Rome in Italy We saw lots of...
A few months ago, I wrote about why I’m planning to self-publish my novel, Lycopolis, as both an ebook and a paperback. (More on that in a couple of months!) The ebook world has moved incredibly fast over the past year, and there are more and more self-publishing...
This isn't a post I ever imagined I'd write. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a novelist. Half a lifetime ago, when I was thirteen, I started working on my first novel. (It was pretty crap, for the record, but I learnt a lot.) I've hung around fiction...
I'm back! As you might know, I was in Austin, Texas for the annual South by South West (SXSW) Interactive conference. So what did I get up to? Well, I spent a lot of time hanging out in coffee-shops and at Austin-people's houses – but I managed to catch a few...
(A screenshot from Amazon.co.uk front page) I've been hanging around in the writing world for twelve years, since I was fourteen. That's when I bought my first book about writing, and when I first went to a writers' group. That was 1999. Lots of things which we pretty...
Like many photos on this site, this is with huge thanks to London lifestyle photographer Antonina Mamzenko. If you've been reading Aliventures for ... ooh, a couple of weeks ... you'll know that I finished a novel, Lycopolis, in 2011. This novel represents hundreds of...
Want to fit more writing into your busy life?
My mini-ebook Time to Write has all the tips you need to get started.
Pop your email address in below to join my newsletter list. You'll get Time to Write plus other free ebooks, as well as my weekly blog posts (Thursdays) and short newsletters (Mondays) to help you make the most of your writing time.
Note: I will never spam you or pass on your email address to anyone else. You can leave the newsletter list at any time.