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One of the most ignorant and annoying things that a frustrated unpublished author can say to excuse constant rejection is, "Kuh, publishers  -  they're only in it for the money, of course."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

HAVE YOU WON 24 HOURS LONDON?

Thanks to all those of you who commented on my post yesterday and threw your names in the hat to win a signed copy of Blog Baby Marsha Moore's excellent book, 24 Hours London. You helped make her launch day a happy one.

Marsha has just emailed me to say:
The winner is (drawn totally at random out of my empty cupcake box from last night’s celebratory cupcakes): Karen Jones Gowen!

Thank you again

MY FIRST BLOG BABY

Introducing my very first Blog Baby! As I said a little while ago, I had a lovely email from a soon-to-be-for-the-first-time author, thanking me for giving good advice while she was trying to get published. Now, I'm not foolish or arrogant enough to think that I was responsible but I like to think I had at least a spectatory part in the birth and she did thank me so I must have been not entirely

MYTHS ABOUT WRITING

When my life hits its stupidly busy phases, I fall back on the useful practice of letting other people do the work. And when I came across this blog post recently, I bookmarked it for just such an occasion.

In case you need to be convinced as to my definition of busy, I should perhaps mention that at the moment I am trying to sell a house, buy two flats, write a novel, start a new business,

STORY STRUCTURE AND SHAPE

(To the eagle-eyed among you  -  no, you have not gone mad: this is a post from last week. The reason for that is complicated, but then so is my life at the moment... So, yesterdays and tomorrows are misleading because yesterday is about four days ago and tomorrow was yesterday. See, I'm really making your brains work today. You may even need to go and make some Brain Cake.)

Yesterday, I had a

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 8: picture book

This is the first picture book submission I've put up for a Submission Spotlight.

 (All illustrations copyright Beverley Johnston)


The 500 word rule doesn't apply for this, so I am showing you the covering letter, synopsis, and half* the text, along with some sample pictures. Please respect Beverley's copyright, particularly for the pictures: you may not reproduce them without her permission

SUBMISSION SPOTLIGHT 7: adult readers

Another Submission Spotlight before I finally stop doing them and launch Pen2Publication. You should know the form by now  -  constructive comments, please. And remember that the synopsis is not actually included for the purposes of thise exercise, so you have to imagine that it is. Similarly, although the letter refers to "chapters", we only have 500 words here. You will see that some names have