Archives

There’s no way to get around this basic fact: writers today can’t just be artists; we also have to be salespeople. Back in the day, the dream scenario used to be that one wrote a [...]

What’s the secret to selling in person? It’s really quite simple: engagement. Remember, every point of contact is a point of sale. You might not sell a book with every point of [...]

‘More are published than could ever succeed’ From the Guardian …self-publishing has contributed significantly to book slop mountain. More than 2.6 million books were self-published in 2023 [...]

My thanks to Nancy Klann Moren for this delightful gift, presented to me at the SCWA St Patrick’s Day gathering in Laguna Woods. She won the limerick competition, of course. And my undying [...]

The Southern California Writers Association very kindly invited me to speak at their St Patrick’s Day luncheon on the 15th of March, in Laguna Woods. I decided to speak about the challenges I’ve [...]

I hesitated to write a newsletter this month. It’s hard to write upbeat things about the writing process when the city you live in is burning at its edges, and thousands of people have been [...]

Have you heard of Women’s Christmas? It’s an ancient Irish tradition called – in irish – Nollaig na mBan (pronounced Null-ug na Mon. Say it three times and you’ll be grand). Back in [...]

Guardian Q&A with Rachel Abbott and Adam Croft on how they achieved success as self-published authors – on everything from marketing, series vs stand alone books and more. Not a new article: [...]

So many platforms for serial publishing! Most of which seem to be devoted pretty much to romance and fantasy. Neither of which I write. *Business idea! A publishing platform dedicated to noir, [...]

…for a while there, at least. From the Wall Street Journal (paywall): Mick Herron was dumped by his publisher. Then he became the world’s best spy novelist—slowly. I have been a fan [...]