#WW #writerwednesday #ALLIA.
It’s all go around here, preparing to launch the ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT AUTHORS in London, Dublin, Florida — and online.
I’d like to invite you to one or more of the following (free) events.
LONDON
The London bash is Read the whole post »
The fantabulous Joni Rodgers, founder of The LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY AUTHORS, with which I am so proud to be associated, is putting the finishing touches to her book, FIRST YOU
WRITE: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author and the Best Advice I Got While Doing It.
And she asked me to offer 100 words of writing wisdom for aspiring writers.
(Quick Aside: Isn’t that a great title? Joni is the title Read the whole post »
#CreativeKickstart
I spent Thursday and Saturday at peace talks and meditations led by the Vietnamese zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh. The events were part of this monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist’s UK tour, “Cooling The Flames“, which also includes an educators’ conference and a five-day retreat in Nottingham (a few places still available).
My husband, Philip, spent months working with a team of volunteers to organise this visit by ‘Thay’, as he is familiarly known (the word is Vietnamese for ‘Teacher’). Almost 3000 people Read the whole post »
#WeekendWorkUp #writetip #pubtip: My conference journeys and research on behalf of the Alliance of Indie Authors have convinced me that nothing is more important for writers now than understanding
metadata.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then it’s time to get clued in. If you think it’s too boring to bother with, ditto. No, it’s not the most creative thing you’ll ever do, but getting this right is the difference between your readers finding your work and you falling down the back of Google and Amazon.
So I’ve invited metadata (and motorcycle) queen, Carla King, to tell you all about it. This week she focusses on your websites and blogs and next week’s WeekendWorkup will be ‘Metadata for Books’. Take it away, Carla:
Think of metadata as aphrodisiac to search engines.
You can be active on social media sites and guest blog to your heart’s content, but you, your website, and your books are less likely to Read the whole post »
#writerwednesday.
I’m excited to be speaking about the Alliance next Friday at NOT The Oxford Literary Festival (NTOLF). 
This event was started two years ago by writer/performers who were frustrated by the high admission prices at the … yes…Oxford Literary Festival.
Frustrated too by the lack of representation at the festival of Oxford’s brilliant underground and spoken-word scene.
As self-publishing’s potential to bring underground and grassroots voices to their readers is one of my Read the whole post »
I would, except…
Cocoon Nebula
…I don’t have time.
…I need to be near the sea.
…I have to get up early with the children.
The reasons people give for not creating what they want to create are legion but they all have one thing in common: none of them is the real reason.
However it may appear on the outside, nobody Read the whole post »
There are 175 million registered users on Twitter producing about 95 million tweets every day.
One of the key ways Tweeters keep our communications useful is by using hashtags and very vibrant literary communities have grown up around specific hashtags.
So what are they — and how can you best use them?
Here’s what Twitter has to say about Read the whole post »
A common creative question is what to do if you have more than one passion. You like to paint and sing. You want to grow a Internet business and a local charity. Which to choose and which
to drop?
The answer, generally speaking, is: don’t drop.
Make one your main focus – you may think of it as work – but keep the others close by. You may think of them as hobbies.
In his excellent little guide to Read the whole post »
Happy St Patricks Day! Living abroad as I do, I love this day when the whole world goes a little bit Irish.
So today’s the day I’ve chosen for the Facebook launch of my twinned ebooks, After The Rising and Before the Fall that centre on a key moment in Irish history.
An event that has been written about all too little: The Irish civil war.
Called ‘The War of the Brothers’, this short and bitter dispute drove a divide through Irish society that split male and but female friendships, families and even marriages. Divisions that lasted for decades after the war that caused them had faded from memory.
It’s a story that’s relevant not just for Irish people but for anyone who’s ever been involved in any kind of intimate conflict (which I think takes in, er, just about everyone).
The books tell the story of Read the whole post »
It’s mid-afternoon in San Francisco and this evening at 6.30pm a collection of writers, Irish musicians and readers will get together to launch After The Rising & Before
The Fall.
And to kick off the SF Chapter of The Alliance of Indie Authors.
The first time I launched a novel, it was in Dublin back in 2005. I still remember the encouraging faces smiling up at me from a room full of goodwill, many of them family and friends who knew how long that night had been in coming.
It had been a full three years between signing the contract with Penguin and getting to that Read the whole post »
