Were you at Winchester?
As a last-minute thing, I was invited to give a workshop on ‘how to submit’ at the 31st Winchester Writers’ Conference. It was my first time there, but I was made welcome by the other delegates and speakers almost instantly. It has a festive atmosphere, and is alive with writers – hundreds of them – from all different genres, and at all different stages of their writing career, but taking it seriously, and learning their craft.
My group were entertaining and lively, and refreshingly varied in their projects – and we tackled the thorny questions of submissions together.
I managed to stay late enough to catch Barry Cunningham (publisher of Chicken House)’s excellent talk on children’s literature, which had me nearly in tears with his description of his former self – dressed a puffin – with children whispering him their deepest darkest secrets. Good children’s literature really does reach out to its readers – and so should strong adult fiction. Writing is given meaning by reading – something we all too often forget.
July 4, 2011 Leave a comment
Are you an e-author or are you for real?
Since I got a Kindle for my birthday, I’ve been exploring self-published e-books, a part of the publishing industry that had escaped me up until then.
In the past if you wanted to self-publish you had to pay a fair bit of money to a printer and that didn’t get you marketing or publicity – it was down to you to get the book out there, in a crowded bookshop market. Now it’s free to self-publish as an e-book, and you can get taken on by the online retailers very easily, often with good royalty deals.
So if you can self-publish – should you?
continue reading »June 21, 2011 Leave a comment
Enter a competition for a free ‘Is there a Book in my Blog?’ report
I am sponsoring www.mymumdom.com for Cybermummy2011 and am offering a free ‘Is there a Book in my Blog’ report to one lucky reader. Have a read of my guest post on there to see how to enter.
Good luck!
June 10, 2011 Leave a comment
Creative Writing Workshops
A new venture for the Book Analyst, I am setting up a local creative writing group, focused on enjoying the writing experience and loosening up writer’s block.
continue reading »June 3, 2011 Leave a comment