As part of Virtual FantasyCon (that awesome event where Murder In Absentia received an unprecedented five awards ;-), we did a blog hunt. As an introduction to this site, I did a post about the historical inspirations behind the fantasy lighthouse of Egretia. This post was originally published on L.D. Rose‘s site, and is replicated […]
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Amazon and Reviews: Myth Busting
I’ve seen people talk about the number of reviews on Amazon that can somehow trigger the “amazon algorithm” to start promoting your book. Some debunking is in order. This is my takeaway from the below article by Cate Baum: Amazon will promote your book whenever it thinks it has a chance to make money. If […]
Historical-Fantasy vs Science-Fantasy vs Speculative Fiction
This is an opinion column, originally written for the Science-Fantasy Society, and first published on their blog here. It collects my thoughts on writing historical fantasy, at least in relation to the blending of science fiction & fantasy. Science Fantasy and Historical Fantasy Historical Fantasy is “a category of fantasy and genre […]
Sales Model of an Indie Author
This article was originally posted on my Quora blog. I’m posting and summarising my experiences in writing and marketing my novels, both as notes to myself and as advice from the trenches for other budding authors. One of the worst aspects of becoming an author, is marketing your own book. I mean, if I was some kind […]
Research and Experimental Archaeology
I get asked often about the research I do for my novels. Even when I’m not asked, I volunteer information… Besides reading proper history books (mostly by modern historians, but the occasional translated original source as well), I particularly like what might be termed “experimental archaeology”. These are people with a keen interest, that review […]
Of Greeks and Romans, and crafting worlds
This is a guest post I’ve written for Pure Jonel’s blog. Originally published on: http://purejonel.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/GP.AM.html Of Fantasy Worlds and Roman Gods I have a confession. It’s about one of my pet peeves. Whenever someone casually mentions the “Greek and Roman gods”, or goes on to describe a “Roman mythology” by quoting tales of the Greek pantheon, […]
What it takes to be an author – part 2
I’ve written before about what it took me to get published. It was a collection of tips and lessons-learnt, which Lifehacker grandiosely called “The complete guide”. However, every so often I come across an article from one of the literary greats about the topic. A couple of really good ones I came across recently, from […]
Quick update to Piracy post
A few weeks ago I posted my views on Digital Piracy. I then posted it around the net, engaging authors in discussions with the hope of trying to reduce stress for my fellow indies. There were mixed responses. This thread on Goodreads shows one extreme: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/17798481-dealing-with-book-piracy?comment=145391619#comment_145391619 The author stopped just short of blatantly accusing me of […]
What it takes to become an author
Unless you somehow missed it, I recently published my debut novel. For those who asked about how I did it, and as a sort of learning exercise, I recently wrote an article for Lifehacker about what it takes to become an author. You can read it in full here: www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/12/the-complete-guide-to-writing-your-first-novel/ While the article contains a lot of information, […]
Dealing with Piracy
I have always maintained that digital piracy is unavoidable, and it is therefore better to treat it as a compliment. It is not a lost sale but more like a book borrowed from a public library – and with the right attitude, you can potentially gain a long-term fan. I have been approached by Mobilism.org about it, and […]
