Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, July 29, 2018,
There isn't much time left before the Smashwords Summer-Winter sale ends. Wait until Wednesday to make your choice and you'll be too late. No time for novels? There are plenty of books of short stories to download either at big discounts or completely free, as well.
Take
Artists and Liars, for instance. It's a collection of short stories, flash fiction and poetry–11 works in all–linked by an art theme. Do you know the difference between a collector and a connoisseur? What goes through ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, July 22, 2018,
There's a school of thought that says, as soon as a story, poem or novel etc. is rejected you should send it out again. Like a boomerang, you should throw it straight back to another publisher. This is probably the best antidote to rejection, because it doesn't give you time to worry or get depressed. Your writing is your product, and as with any other business, it isn't going to enhance your reputation or improve your bank balance until you sell it.
Those are the pros, but there are some ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, July 11, 2017,
One of the joy's of self-publishing is that you're free to do what you want with your work. No one might read it, but at least the decisions are yours and no one can insist on a different cover or cutting out your favourite scene. All the responsibility and the rewards are yours–as well as all the chores.
It's easy to see publicity and marketing as 'housework'–jobs that need to be done, that take up far too much time when you could be actually producing something, and whose benefits ca...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, March 6, 2016,
In :
Coming Soon
Would you rather have the good news or the bad news first? The good news. Right, here it is. Smashwords is holding its seventh annual Read an Ebook Week from today until 12th March 2016, and my books are all enrolled in it. That means you can get Discord's Child FREE (
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/410566) and Discord's Apprentice (
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/542490) and Artists and Liars (
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/322872) for half price. All you have to do is go to ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, July 27, 2015,
I'm depressed. It isn't the fault of the weather, although a weekend of continuous rain is enough to make even my normally bouncy, happy-go-lucky bichons huddle on the settee and hide their heads under the cushions. No, what's made me feel like burying my head is listening to Open Book on Radio 4 yesterday.
Mariella Frostrup asked someone from one of the big publishers what her favourite crime novel is. She was one of those young women who speak like an uncertain Australian. You know the ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, July 21, 2015,
You may have read in a previous post that
Discord's Child is currently available free in Smashwords' summer promotion, which runs until 31st July. I have mixed feelings about providing work for nothing.
Generally, I feel that it's letting the side down. Most authors struggle to get work published and make a living from it. As enjoyable and rewarding as writing is, it is work. No one would suggest that nurses, teachers or accountants should work for nothing, simply because they get satisfa...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, March 30, 2015,
In :
FantasyFiction
I had a really strange dream a couple of nights ago. I don't know how it began, like most dreams the action seemed to have started some time before I became aware of it. I was evidently involved in a promotional event for Discord's Apprentice resembling a village fête or town show. However, I was not giving a talk or being interviewed. I scrambled into a barrel mounted on a stand like a cannon or a cement mixer next to a stall, which could have been a tombola. (I put it down to watching a t...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, March 24, 2015,
In :
Coming Soon
I have an announcement to make (shoulders back, deep breath)–Discord's Apprentice, Book II of The Exiles of Ondd, will be launched in June on Kindle and Smashwords. At least that's the plan. June seems ages away at the moment, all of nine weeks, but I know it will go by in a flash.
I'm planning a series of 'activities' and 'events' in the run up to publication day. These will be announced on my website, which I shall be revamping shortly, this blog and other sites such as Goodreads, Smas...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, July 20, 2014,
In :
Inspiration
Researching a novel can be fun or frustrating, but it's always time consuming and, all too often, the facts that you find the most fascinating never make it into the finished work. That doesn't mean that the hours spent checking websites, hunting out books and talking to experts are wasted.
The more background information you have, the more confidently you can write. You'll know your characters better and won't have to waste time rewriting because you've placed them in impossible situatio...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, June 15, 2014,
Strange how those little jobs that you thought would only take a minute or two have a habit of eating up half your day. Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, can be a great help to writers as a means of publishing their work and of keeping up with what else is going on in the 'literary' world, but if you aren't careful, you could find that there's no time left for anything else. Coming up with a strategy to keep them within bounds makes sense.
Be clear what it is that you want to ach...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, June 2, 2013,
In :
Coming Soon
I've spent much of this week so far outside my comfort zone that I haven't even been able see where it is–not that I should complain, because it's all been prompted by some rather nice things. I've had a poem commended in a competition and another shortlisted, but what really got me moving was when someone contacted me to ask where they could find my short stories.
I've been planning to put a themed anthology online for some while and this seemed like the ideal prompt. As The Grid has a co...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, March 11, 2013,
Writers are usually advised to target their work at a particular market. Up to a point this makes sense. If a magazine only accepts certain genres or lengths, or has a dislike of present tense narrative, it's usually wasting your time and theirs sending them things that don't fit. Most competitions have strict rules and often have a theme, but are more flexible with regard to style. How far should you go in adapting what you write to fit the requirements of editors and competition organisers/...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, January 8, 2013,
A friend recently complained that when he did a search on Amazon for Discord's Child, my novel wasn't listed. I couldn't understand this as a Google search for the title finds it straight away on both the Amazon.com and .co.uk sites. I tried the Amazon site myself and discovered that if I used the title alone, or my author name (K. S. Dearsley) Discord's Child was top of the list. However, if I prefixed the title with 'book' or 'novel', as my friend had done, it didn't appear at all. Inst...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Wednesday, June 13, 2012,
In :
Competitions
June has been encouraging so far. My story, 'The Adult Prodigy', has been accepted for Nameless magazine; I've had the proofs of 'Heavy Air' for the Bridge House anthology, so that should be out soon; one of my poems, 'Masters of the Air', came fifth in Mary Charman-Smith's competition and another, 'DNA', was shortlisted. I say all this not just to show off, but because it reminded me that sometimes competitions have prize-giving events, and while these are fun, they can also be nerve-wrackin...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, May 6, 2012,
In :
Competitions
I had to cancel my cover competition. The last minute rush I had hoped for never materialised, and without entries there is no contest. It was really disappointing. I'd expended a lot of time, effort and money promoting it only to receive less than a handful of entries. In fact, I received a better response to my post on a Kindle forum announcing the flop. Initially, I was inclined to think it was a total waste, but I'm beginning to see there are things I can learn from it.
My advice to ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, March 13, 2012,
Marketing my novel, Discord's Child, has had some unexpected side effects. When I first set up this blog and website, and joined Twitter and Facebook, it was because a prospective publisher had asked about my 'online presence'. At that time I didn't have one. I'm not sure that any of these things have gained me readers, but they have brought me other things.
I have found work writing copy for web designers and various businesses via Facebook. Getting my cover contest in Network Arts' news...
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