Much as I love chatting to enthusiastic readers – whether online or face-to-face – there is one question I dread. ‘When’s your next book coming out?’ ‘I’m working on it!’ I say; which could, of course, mean anything from ‘it’s off to the printer next week,’ to ‘I’ve started a new Word document and have […]
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Authors on Social Media: what readers want
Long before I was published I loved following authors on social media, and now that I’m an author myself, I thoroughly enjoy chatting to readers and writers online. It is, however, an area fraught with risk. How much promotion is too much? Where is the line between personal and professional lives? What sort of posts […]
Who to follow on Twitter?
How do you decide who to follow on Twitter? A quick glance through my Twitter feed offers an eclectic mix of other writers (of all genres), journalists, parent bloggers, beauty bloggers (my guilty pleasure), police forces, bookshops, publishing types, and Real Life Friends (yes, I have some). I asked some of my crime-writing buddies to […]
Caught in the Act
There are few people who don’t admit to doing a spot of people-watching from time to time, and for a writer such an activity is positively compulsory. It might seem a luxury to relax in a cafe or on a park bench watching the world go by, but I can assure you it’s serious business, […]
Should fiction be accurate?
Novels come from an author’s imagination. They are the printed (or digital) product of days and weeks and sometimes years of glorious day-dreaming, created so that readers, too, can disappear into this make-believe story for a few hours or days. But should fiction be accurate? In the last few weeks I’ve been fortunate to receive […]
How books are made
Last week I went to Clays in Suffolk to find out how books are made, and to watch the paperback of I Let You Go being printed. It was a fascinating and incredibly emotional day, and if you are an author and ever have the chance to see your book being made, I’d wholeheartedly recommend […]