I’ve been doing a lot of wittering on about competitions and prizes lately. So I thought it was time this blog had one of its own. Remember the Book Title Generators? Well, how about a flash fiction competition where you write a 500 word story, inspired by your very own personalised book title? Choose your genre! If you’re…
Category: Creating the Bestseller
The Crime Thriller Book Title Generator
Stuck for a title for that crime novel you’re working on? Or perhaps you have no intentions whatsoever of writing a book, but find yourself preoccupied almost hourly with schemes and plans for murder, mayhem and wildly inventive violence. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a title to go along with your plotting? (Oho! You…
Is the Bestseller Dead?
In this post back in the wilds of 2013, I explored (with the aid of some lovely data. And maybe some pretty shoddy guesswork, it has to be said) how many books an author has to sell in the English-speaking world to achieve bestseller status. In most countries, a bestseller is defined only by what…
Nice Writing Karma
You probably won’t believe me if I say that when I posted 5 reasons why you should be entering Writing Competitions last week, I had no idea that I’d just been shortlisted for the RTE Today Show / New Island Books ‘Get Your Book Published’ competition. Talk about some gorgeous irony, eh? But that’s what happened.…
Are you writing? Then SHHH! I’ll tell you a secret
Writing competitions might save your life. Unless you’re keen on starving for your art, in which case you should probably stop reading now. Writing competitions are the lowest common denominator of literary prizes. And I mean that in the best way possible. Because we may be living in an era when writing competitions have become the new – if…
OH YES! … It’s The BRAINY Book Title Generator!
I want you to be honest. Go on. You can tell your Auntie Tara. Were you too embarrassed to try the Chick-Lit Book Title Generator? Was it just too darned demeaning, even in the name of fun, to attach your name to book titles for such an apparently fluffy, commercial genre? The sort you would never write? (If you ever were…
The Next Big Book Trend: That One From Before
What goes around, comes around. Apparently, we are regressing, in terms of fiction, back to the sensationalistic stories of old. People seem surprised by this. I am surprised by people’s surprise. It’s like being taken aback because skirt lengths have changed again. If you didn’t see it coming, you were standing in the tunnel with…
OOOOH!! So Close… IWC Novel Fair 2014 Near Miss
In English, it’s often said ‘nearly never won a race’. And in Co. Clare, where I’m from, we say ‘nearly never bulled a cow’. Bovine or not, it’s the same thing, really. At the end of the day, having entered the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair 2014, the results of which have just been announced, I…
It’s The Chick-Lit Book Title Generator!
Stuck for a name for that chick-lit book you’re writing? Or simply want to know what your weepy romance novel would be called, if you ever got around to writing one? Well fear not! The Chick-Lit Book Title Generator is here! I know you’re dying to know, so here’s mine: Where Rainbows Might Speak by Tara Sparling (that’s…
Writing Dream Teams? Or Just Plain Ridiculous?
I tend to spend most of January in a fantasy world, for obvious reasons. One: In that temporal space, I am Queen and Chief of the Secret Police; and Two: I haven’t experienced real-life daylight for over a month. For the purposes of blogging, this has resulted in predictions for famous writers, and predictions for myself. But…
Tara Sparling writes 