Rather than an article, I include below links to two others, with my thoughts on them. I think they show pretty well the current turmoil that the publishing industry is in. The first is titled “Cover Story: The Quiet Catastrophe, Then Reinvention Of Book Publishing”, by John Birmingham on which-50. Here’s a notable excerpt: The last […]
Article
National Maritime Week – two millennia ago
A few weeks ago, Mary R. Woldering has asked me to contribute a piece for her blog, with the theme of National Maritime Week. I have chosen to address the issue of the life of ancient galley-slaves, and who really rowed the naval war galleys. Below I reproduce the full post. Hi, and welcome to the […]
Book Marketing 2.0
A few weeks ago I ran a Facebook giveaway for marketing material – images to help authors put some pizzazz in their book marketing efforts. It gotten quite a response (particularly the later analysis of results), so I thought you’d all appreciate seeing what the fuss is about. Here are a few different ways in […]
The effectiveness of Facebook giveaways
Last week I ran a giveaway on my Facebook author page, in order to generate more likes. Let me first announce the winners, and then do some analysis on the effectiveness of such giveaways. Huge congratulations for Phillip J. Kessler and Karen Tate for winning marketing graphics! I’m sure you’ll be able to see the […]
Everyone is the hero of their own story
This is a little exercise I sometimes do, to help me write. It’s probably old news to some authors, and won’t work for others, but for me it’s a useful little bit. I write Felix’s mysteries in first-person voice. This means that we see the case unfolds through Felix’s eyes, we learn the evidence at the […]
The Immortality of the Mystery
A guest post I have written as part of Mystery Thriller Week, originally published on Rae’s “A new Look on Books” blog. What’s in common between the latest scientific research about virus propagation, genetic modification for interstellar colonisation, and ancient priests poking about in animal entrails to predict the favour of the gods? More on […]
Historical Facts as Inspiration for Fantasy
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 […]
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 […]
FELIX THE FOX MYSTERIES 