Reeling Them In Isn’t Enough — As hard as it is (in a hugely crowded market) to capture your reader’s attention at the start of a novel … 5 Ways To Grab Your Reader At The Start Of A Novel The opening to your novel is gold dust — don’t squander itmedium.com … that on its own is not enough. A great opening hook can draw any of us into a book and keep us reading for a few pages…

During the recent Massive Autumn Book Launch Event (MABLE) from Fantastic Books Publishing, two of the authors chose to be interviewed by their own children. For very different reasons, each of these interviews made for compelling viewing. The Budding Professionals In the first, Sci-Fi author Jack Mann was grilled about his space adventure…

Five Gems Picked At Random — My reading list got a bit out of hand again — busy week. Instead of sitting down for a marathon reading session — it’s still a busy week and I didn’t want to rush — I plucked five articles at random from the list and read those. I was lucky…

It Doesn’t Have To Be Fantasy — I was on my own, in the middle of nowhere with night closing in. No street lamps because there were no streets. Not even a track, just rough ground and the ghosts of broken fences shimmering through the dusk. The fences marked boundaries that I had to follow, but they…

When self-doubt and uncertainty hits — This question: How do you tackle self-doubt and uncertainty that comes with your writing? was posed by Sahil Patel. My moments of self-doubt and uncertainty tend to come when my plot hits a roadblock or my prose is suddenly flat as though a steamroller has been over it. The former…

Sometimes a nice BIG earner —

Good Books & Board Games — Writing, Reading, Blogging, Gaming… — There’s always a snatched corner of time for the pen When I saw this question — What is your focus during May? — I wanted to leap right on it and share what just landed on me. Because what just landed on me is something quite wonderful. It’s MABLE! And…

Time travel, a serial killer, an obsession with other people’s money — I planned to mention animals. We’ve shared our home with a variety over the years. But on reflection, I’ve written reams already, making them hard to count as “things you didn’t know”. …

People pay fees to use your work and that money is yours — Last month (March 2022) 98,000 writers received a share of £26.8 million — that’s an average of about £270 each. It’s not a fortune, but in these straitened times, it all helps. The money came from secondary rights income via the UK collecting society. …

Featured writer at Flint and Steel — How did you discover Medium and how long have you been writing here? Medium’s been on my radar for years as a place with interesting articles, but I didn’t investigate it as a platform until 2021. I published my first story in March 2021. What are you reading, listening to…

Being Yourself How can you be a master marketer, get everyone talking about you, and reading your stuff? …

Writing with depth behind it — For this article I am highlighting three writers who have focused on aspects of England in their writing — not in all their writing, but in the examples I have linked below. It is the depth behind these pieces that particularly attracts me. If the piece explores an historic feature…

There’s nowt left to say —

Get a good map — When I first saw this prompt from Ellie Jacobson in Flint & Steel, I didn’t think it was one for me because I’ve been writing on Medium for less than a year. But it made me think about what helped me to find my feet on the platform. And there’s…

January Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Self” — Spinning stories by the sea wall. From the time we moved to Holderness, I was captivated by the way things were constantly changing and never quite as they seemed — a perfect ambience for spinning stories — a village the wrong way round, a lighthouse in the middle of town, a turn in a road that…

Don’t wait for these people to find you — they’re looking, but it might take forever — It’s hard enough making a living as a writer, so why would anyone turn down money they’ve legitimately earned? Maybe they don’t know it’s there. I don’t have a simple answer, but I know how you can get your hands on it. Your writing is accessible around the world, and…

People are collecting money for writers, and they want to put it in your pocket — I spent the best part of two decades embroiled in the not-for-profit world of collecting societies, during which time I oversaw the distribution of tens of millions of pounds to writers. …

What is Public Lending Right and how do you access it? — Although it would be an exaggeration for any author to suggest that every library loan robs them of a sale, the argument that libraries boost book sales has equally insecure foundations. As with so many aspects of the publishing world (and indeed of the world in general), there will always…

What is it and what can it do for you as an author? — The International Authors’ Forum already represents almost a quarter of a million writers, artists, and journalists worldwide, but if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. It’s another of those mega-organisations that seems to work in the shadows. Probably against expectation, I am not going to recommend that you…

The opening to your novel is gold dust — don’t squander it — If you’re not a famous best-selling author with a huge following, you have no guarantee of readers flocking to grab your book, so when someone gets as far as reading your opening sentence, you should do everything in your power to keep hold of them and draw them into the…