You’re on every book cover. You’re the same woman, with different hair. But I cannot relate to you, and neither can anyone else. You are annoying me. And so I write this open letter to you, 20-year-old faceless girl who does not represent either me or the characters who speak beneath your covers.
Amazon have been accused of gaming the system – or perhaps the algorithm – in favour of books published by their own imprints. But are they really as bad as we fear? I know they’re huge. I know they’re watching us. But how scared should we be? And is there ever a case for a benevolent dictator?
Have you ever read a book and thought – there’s something not quite right here, but I can’t put my finger on it, so I might just go and watch that thing everyone’s been talking about on Netflix instead? Me too. And as usual, I’ve been looking for people to blame. You’re welcome.
What happens when the price of a book makes no sense? Who does it hurt? Is it the publisher, the bookshop, or the author? Oh, come on. You know the answer to this already. You’re only here so I can tell you how smart you are…
On what online piracy really means for authors and musicians; and why it’s all really the fault of Big Tobacco.
In the second part of ‘what the hell is a book blurb and how am I supposed to write one’, we explore the genres of Crime, Historical Fiction, and Science Fiction/Fantasy. Sort of.
What is a book blurb and how the hell do you write one? Is there a magic formula? Well, as it happens, there kind of is. And I’m sort of going to give it to you.
Over the course of the last couple of years spent crunching numbers for this blog, surfing dodgy creative social media and keeping my eyes open (in the darker hours) I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two pieces of advice all authors would do well to live by. The first is to stay far away from tight undergarments. The second is never to…
…having insulted your dearly departed mother, and told everyone on Facebook that you love to torture dogs. At least, I think those are her latest crimes. I can’t be sure. There are so many. I love the Guardian. Don’t get me wrong. I embody many of the stereotypical attributes of a Guardian reader, except for…
I’ve been getting quite a few hits lately from search terms such as “when do I self-publish my novel?” and “when does a book need to be published for the Christmas market?” I already pontificated on the issue of self-publishing for Christmas in this post, but that only dealt with one time of year. Now I’d like to talk…
Tara Sparling writes 