My Blog
Self-doubt: necessary or a waste of energy?
One of the many things that made Margaret Thatcher anathema to me - even now after all these years - was her apparent complete absence of self-doubt. It's a 'fundamentalist' trait, I suppose, which manifests itself in similar ways whatever the beliefs of the believer....
Making audio books: a sensible investment?
For a while now I've been thinking about doing an audio book, but only recently began to gather all the relevant information about how much it would cost, to decide whether I can afford it, and whether I would ever get a reasonable return. The basic sums are...
Why do we crave recognition?
For the third time this spring I sent off four copies of my latest book to enter a local literary competition. The first time, three years ago, I was quite sure that the quality of the work, its local roots, deathless prose and professional publication values would...
Selling books is harder than writing them!
A group asked me to talk about publishing my own books, and I heard myself saying to them 'Publishing is the easy part, selling is much harder'. For me, that's true, because getting my work into the hands of readers is part of what motivates me to write in the first...
Should I change the cover of one of my books?
The publication of my second novel 'Forgiven' in 2013 felt very stressful, or at least that's how I remember it. I felt it was better than the first one 'A Good Liar' and had certainly been easier to write, taking a year rather than the previous tortuous four year...
Letters from readers
I'm sure more famous authors get loads of letters from readers, but for me it's a new phenomenon: just a few, usually handwritten, in a card or on their own in an envelope. The writers tell me what they've enjoyed about my books. If they're local, they say how they...