Category: On Publishing
Blue Door Press – An Innovative, Writer-led, Solution To Publishing
The idea for the press grew out of a group of published women writers – of both prose and poetry – who have been meeting for more than ten years. The group’s mostly based in London and the idea for the press started from conversations we’ve shared about publishing – exchanging ideas on how that […]
Learning The Ropes As A Hybrid Author
Smart people disagree on whether traditional publishing or self-publishing is the way to go, or whether it’s getting easier or harder for new writers to break into the business, but most people will agree on one thing: the game is changing. In the last few years, I hear more and more about authors who leave […]
Diversity in Publishing
Just over two years ago, I went on a hunt around my house for our dusty old laptop. I rarely used computers or laptops outside of the office, hence it took me a couple of hours to dig out, and I eventually found it buried under heaps of odds and sods in the spare room. […]
The PHD I Didn’t Do and the Digital Apprenticeship I Did
‘Are you going to enrol for a Phd?’ As a longterm author with a varied back list, learning digital skills was a higher priority. ‘No. I’m going to do an e-apprenticeship instead.’ I opted for a digital apprenticeship to revitalize my literary output. Mistake or a significant learning experience? I needed to re-organise my literary […]
Becoming a Publisher: Patrician Press
Publishing has always been my main career but I have written several children’s books over the years. Having, however, always wanted to write for adults, in 2012 I completed my MA in Creative Writing at the University of Essex. It was then that I was inspired to create Patrician Press. I starting publishing my own […]
Situation Vacant: Writing My Memoir
Business memoirs are read in airports by corporates looking for effective strategies. First-timers also look at the style in which others write. And what to leave out. Family history travelers try to organize their material, without alienating friends and family. Writing a corporate biography requires the same skills as writing a personal memoir, plus a […]
How I Turned My Blog Into A Book
While I was lecturing on the creative writing programme at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, a couple of students asked me if I realised I couldn’t get through a seminar without mentioning food or drink. Really? I mean, really??!! But they were right. And I began to notice how I might describe a bruise […]
On Being a Published Author
I didn’t have high expectations when I entered the women’s fiction division of the Tampa Area Romance Writer’s Contest. All I really wanted was some quality feedback on the first draft of the manuscript I had recently finished. And, truth be told, I needed a distraction. The agent I had signed with a couple of […]
From Letters to Novel
I come from a family who still writes letters—handwritten with envelopes and stamps and delivered by the postal service. While we don’t eschew email, it’s lovely to open the mailbox, recognize personal handwriting, and tear open the envelope. When Matt, my husband, was fighting in Iraq, we wrote letters—and emailed, of course. It was our […]
From Print to Re-publication
Then… When the intermittent electricity failed in a remote village in rural Bangladesh, I lit a candle stub to continue writing the daily instalment of my journal. I had no idea it would become a book. It was 2002, and my first visit to South East Asia. Back home, my head and heart remained full […]
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