Blog Archives

Love Refuses to Die = First draft completed

5/31/2016

Today is the day for me to finish the first draft of new novel. I did the research for it earlier this year in Spain. Working title Love Refuses to Die. It is a follow up to Love Mother, Love Daughter. (available fromAmazon.com in print, e book and a brilliant narration by California actress Virginia Ferguson) Using my own system Writing by Numbers it has taken 40 days (just less than 6 weeks) to write 80,000 words. You too could be about to move to stage two of your masterwork. If your book deserves a bigger audience - sign up for the new course that starts very soon.

0 Comments

Here's Looking At You, Kid

5/22/2016

0 Comments

As Time Goes By

5/21/2016

0 Comments

May 21st, 2016

5/21/2016

0 Comments

Writing by Numbers

5/21/2016

0 Comments

WRITING BY NUMBERS

Using my own special system- I have now completed three quarters of the first draft of my new novel in

less than four weeks - plan to be finished the draft by the end of this month. First I outline and then ploughing through at least two thousand words a day - I average one thousand words an hour and quarter of an hour for spell checking and grammarly - so already manuscript is pretty clean. I don't read it - until it is all finished. Funny thing, though I had an outline , one big surprise this week my protagonist, the beautiful Julianne suddenly took off to Casablanca and had a love affair. Very hot and steamy. A romantic encounter in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca. You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss....

0 Comments

Self-Publishing versus Traditional

5/12/2016

0 Comments

BLOG POST 2
PUBLISHER VS SELF PUBLISHING

Back in the day when the traditional publisher contracted and committed to publishing a book they would handle all publicity, promotion, book tours and marketing. These days they expect the author to perform that job and will generally not look at a new author unless they have a following – on
Social media such Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest of at least 40-50K followers.

Many bestselling authors have left their traditional publishers and now self-publish. There will be traditional publishers always for the real top flight best sellers but for most authors, the benefits of self publishing are innumerable.

And the author retains integrity and control of the product.

Personally I have been published and self-published, there were advantages and drawbacks to both processes. I enjoyed being ‘the visiting author’ at publishers’ lunches and having team support from publicity and promotion departments –though they are always very overworked – and there is advantage in knowing that the job of editing and legalling a book was being taken care of in-house.

However self-publishing delivers an immediacy, and the teams of creative and technical people I have worked with outside the traditional publishing houses have been experienced, encouraging and keen to create a top quality product.

There are also opportunities these days for hybrid publishing where some costs are shared between producer and author and royalties are also shared. The secret is to find the best people to do the best jobs and agree to share a project. Like everything in the modern world, the business model is constantly changing and many technology based -companies for example Uber, Air b’n’b and trivago seem to work more efficiently than the older models.

The image of a traditional publishing house can come across as rarified, genteel and unhurried.
Self-publishing is fast, focused, internet and mobile device orientated – the new kids on the block are exciting and know how to do business in the internet age.

If you are a new author, eager to see your work in print and take control of aspects such as
marketing, social media and self-promotion – self publishing has much to commend it.

But if the big publishers come knocking on your door and promise to put all their reputation and resources behind your First book –no one will blame you for saying “yes”.

0 Comments

Love Refuses to Die = First draft completed

Here's Looking At You, Kid

As Time Goes By

May 21st, 2016

Writing by Numbers

Self-Publishing versus Traditional

Author

Archives

Categories