… and how to put them right! Advice and opportunities for new, aspiring and upcoming journalists and writers of non-fiction
New year, new generosity. It’s a resolution, you see. I’ve always been a bit of a skinflint … But first, a happy new year to all my loyal subscribers and readers. And second, although I don’t normally do ‘personal’, I ought to perhaps explain that things have been a little quiet lately, mainly due to …
They’ve been overdue a make-over for a while, so I’m happy to finally unveil the brand new ‘Mistakes Writers Make’ covers! They feature in the background a repeating list of synonyms for ‘mistake’ and ‘writing mistakes’, including a number of fanciful neologisms. This was in part inspired by Kate Bush’s atmospheric track 50 Words For …
As writers, especially when active on social media, we regularly hear of stories of poor behaviour in the publishing world — abuse of copyright, vanity publishing rip-offs, accusations of plagiarism, terrible rates, and so on. These often serve as a warning — stay away! — and are shared among us. But if it is you …
Like any writing advisor, and like (I expect) most writers, I receive my fair share of requests for help from budding writers. As an aside: they’re usually far more polite via Twitter and email than they are via Facebook. Why is that? Anyway, I vaguely recall a very polite one from someone who, to give them …
In following the social media streams of many writers, I often read that writers aren’t in competition with one another. But we are, of course. There is a finite number of people in the world, therefore a limited number of readers, and a limited number of works they can read. We are all in a …
No, it is not the “ideal” time to be writing, nor one when there is suddenly “no excuse” to not be writing. Neither is it the only opportunity you’ll get to finish that novel, nor the time to be “making the most” of a lockdown by willing creativity to flow from your fingertips and chastising …
I have only once appealed an Amazon book review. It was a brief, positive review in itself — “a good book” or something similarly mundane — but it was a one-star rating, I presume because the reviewer had misunderstood the one-to-five-star system Amazon adopts, and had given me the lowest. The appeal was successful, and …
Not for the first time in my freelance career I have writing advisor and author Simon Whaley to thank! It was he who suggested, in a previous post on his brilliant The Business of Writing blog, that writers who’ve self-published ebooks through Amazon should consider widening their distribution through other networks. The prospect of doing …
These last few days I have been indexing one of my health books. Actually, I have been re-indexing it, because I have updated the 2015 version of the book for a brand new second edition to be published in 2020, and the addition of new material and an amended layout has resulted in more pages, …
Do you know what a knobbly monster is? Having just a few weeks ago come across the term, I’m not ashamed to say that until then I hadn’t a clue — and this, two decades into a career in journalism and writing. So on the basis that surely I can’t be the only one, here’s …
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