Dear silly writer

At least once a week, I get an email from someone asking for free advice. I don't just mean someone asking a favour; or someone asking a simple question; I mean someone saying, for example, "Hi! I've written a book. Can you give me some advice about getting published?" Bearing in mind that this blog and my books are FULL of such advice, my internal responses to these emails are not really fit for

All writers should self-publish

No, I haven't gone entirely mad. Or even, I venture to say, a tiny bit mad. Nor have I started to believe the self-publishing-is-the-answer-to-everything and the publishing-is-completely-broken rubbish.

I am, as you know, a published (more than 90 books) author who has also ventured into self-publishing, and who is enjoying it. I dare even say succeeding, though John Locke need not watch his

Acquisitions Meetings

This is the crucial meeting in a publishing company, at which the Big Decision will be made about your book: to publish or not to publish. To get to this stage, the book has already seduced an editor. The editor believes that it is The Right Book For This Company. Now, she has to convince the scary sales and marketing people in the acquisitions meeting. This is when the editor's passion for your

WHEN A CONTRACT IS CANCELLED

I see it as one of my missions to open the eyes of the unwary author, telling it how it is, even if how it is sucks. So, I bring you a post from editor (and writer and margarita-drinker) Lynn Price, who talks here about the reasons why a contract might sometimes be cancelled.

She's absolutely right. It's never happened to me but on the several occasions when I've been writing a book after

DECIPHERING YOUR PUBLISHING CONTRACT

When you get your first publishing contract, your eyes will be so awash with tears of joy that you won't be able to read it. When the tears have dried up and you're celebrating properly, you'll be so addled with champagne that you will laugh inanely at all the long words and not know what they mean. When you've sobered up, you'll be so excited about impending glory that you won't care if the

WHO'D BE A (SMALL) PUBLISHER?

One of the most ignorant and annoying things that a frustrated unpublished author can say to excuse constant rejection is, "Kuh, publishers  -  they're only in it for the money, of course." What? So you thought they were in it for a free passage to heaven?

Publishing is a business. So is writing, though a weirdly unprofitable one. Yes, many of us are passionate about writing, so passionate that

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Although you're reading this on October 1st, I'm writing it on September 26th , and I've just read this in today's Guardian. You can read it if you like but the point relevant to my post is that today (Oct 1st), 800 new titles will be launched. In the UK alone.

Now, this is obviously more than on most days, for reasons that aren't relevant to my point but which the article nicely explains. My

MONEY MATTERS - THE MAD MATHEMATICS OF ROYALTIES

Every now and then laziness overcomes me. Luckily, this usually happens when someone has just done something so clever and useful that the most clever and useful thing I can do is tell you about it and then go back to sleep.So, if you have ever wondered about the maths (or math, for you over yonder ocean) of royalties and advances and foreign rights and returns and all sorts of other bogglingness