Some of you may have noticed my attempts to garner publicity for my new novel Timed Out. What follows is a revised version of a little article in The Oxford Writer. I must stress that I am no expert on the subject and I hated the whole business at first. But I am beginning to see ... Read More
If you would like to hear what I sound like and find out a bit about me and my novel Timed Out there’s a Radio Gorgeous podcast of an interview with Donna Freed. I enjoyed it. Donna had obviously read the whole book and I think some of her questions were very interesting. Sorry the link has not ... Read More
Before you can post a review you need to have an Amazon account that has been used to buy something from them (not necessarily a book). You do not need to have bought the book you are reviewing from Amazon. How to do it: Go to product details page. Click on Customer Review. Rate.Write.Submit. You ... Read More
When they say they have never heard of your publisher, smile sweetly and express surprise. ‘Oh, haven’t you?’ And don’t call Driven Press ‘a small global press’ – call them ‘a global press’. When they ask what happens in the end of Timed Out, don’t tell them – just suggest they’ll find it interesting. Don’t ... Read More
One person’s witty, eloquent brainwave is often another person’s cliche. We are urged to avoid them: story cliches, adjective-with-noun cliches, metaphor cliches, phrase cliches. And how we hate being caught using one. After all, we writers call ourselves creative and we think we are original, daring, imaginative. And that’s especially true of those who have ... Read More
Some people who like to see and hold a printed copy, and that is what you can provide at a book launch or a literary festival talk. And meeting people is fun, even if you don’t break even when you have factored in your time and the refreshments. I have arranged two launches for my ... Read More
Here’s another piece of flash fiction. I’m a new member of the Romantic Novelists Association and I wanted to show you that we can be unromantic too. Squint: ‘A condition in which the visual axes of each eye are not directed simultaneously at the same fixation point (i.e. each eye is not pointing at the ... Read More
Or is this a sort of poem? This little piece was first published in an anthology called Oxtail Soup: Stories of Oxford and Oxfordshire, edited by Sara Banerji, and is available as a Kindle ebook. I have tried to improve it slightly. I can see the Castle Mound from my kitchen window. No snow so ... Read More
I don’t remember any buzz around my non-fiction books. Rather expensive lunches with my old-established publishers and a smart party with no books for sale certainly did nothing much for promotion. There were some reviews in the journals, and they appeared in bookshops and libraries, and that was the extent of it. Now I have ... Read More
In my late teens I exchanged one dream, to marry a vicar, for another: to inspire great poetry. My favourite poet was Goethe, who wrote several series of beautiful poems inspired by his long line of beautiful mistresses. (Odd, looking back, that I didn’t dream of writing my own material and finding a handsome chap ... Read More
