Plagiarism

Blogger, Janet of 'Tidalscribe' mentioned an interesting fact recently about reading on a Kindle compared to a paperback. Even if you’re enjoying a book, it’s easy to forget what it’s called as the title is not staring you in the face. It reminded me of my recent brush with plagiarism. Shortly before Christmas I mentioned …

Communicating

The problem with being an ‘unknown’ author is that normally you don’t have a large team behind you with an enormous marketing budget. It reminded me of my previous career in banking when the dedicated small business centres were initially being set up. Head of the first and largest in the country at the time- …

Waiting for Santa -Val’s Tales

It doesn't look as if the final audio story for Val's Tales will be available on our YouTube channel before Christmas, which is a shame as the 15th December was our first anniversary. Never mind. I'll let you have a sneaky read, and you can check out our podcasts for all the others. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmbM57q4SzHbOcx3CPbr1Q Apple …

Book fairs and book fayres

A couple of months ago, the local council approached authors in the area with a view to putting on a Christmas book Fayre. The date was set and it took place this Saturday afternoon with I believe seventeen authors altogether in attendance. I read and write fiction, but it was interesting to see the number …

Waiting for Santa

It’s been a very busy week this week. As well as preparing for a forthcoming book fair, we’ve been rehearsing more intros for the audio productions of our podcast ‘Val’s Tales.’ The latest one is in two parts and is called ‘September Swan Song.’ You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PjEjbO243I I was delighted when …

Trust

Something a little different this week. Although I wasn’t brought up with technology from an early age, I have learnt the importance of being cynical online. If it smells like a fish, and swims like a fish it’s a pretty good bet it is a fish. Of course, it could be a mermaid but that’s …

Book Fairs and Book Covers

Have you ever heard the expression ‘I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like?’ I think it was originally intended as a mickey-take for someone who didn’t understand the Hoi Polloi snobbishness of ‘good art’ and was intended to make them feel foolish. Research showed that surprisingly the quote was published …

Character Interview Gina from ‘Alderslay’

A totally different character from TJ, I’m delighted to introduce you to Gina from my latest book Alderslay. If you read the previous character interview, I wonder who you would prefer as a friend, TJ or Gina? You might be in for a surprise but you’ll have to read the book to find out why. …

Interview with TJ from ‘Story of a County Boy.’

As I mentioned the other week, an author friend sent me some questions to interview one of my characters. It was a great idea and inspired me to carry on with the sequel for the first book in the series which was called ‘Story of a Country Boy.’ The first book describes the adventures of …

Books and Twitter and a little bit of everything

I know I said I might do a character interview but there’s been so much happening on the book and podcast front, I thought it better to delay it for a week. By coincidence, two items this week relate to books and lockdown, and two to foxes. In the Summer, Nikki Vallance did a series …