Posted in Choosing the writing life, marketing books, platform, pseudonyns, romance writing, starting over, writing life, Writing romantic fiction, tagged amazon, indie publishing, Melinda Hammond, middle grade fiction, Richard Hammond, The writing life, What's in a name? on February 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Just received this email from Amazon’s automated preference service. Alas, no The Miner’s Wife.
A bit sad really, if it wasn’t kind of funny…can’t wait to see what happens to my ‘Around Australia in 8 Romances’, except I’ve wised up and they will be published under Mel Hammond.
And to make matters worse, my co-author is equally as infamous, sort of…ever heard of a bloke who carried a fridge around Ireland??
From here on in just call us Lindy and Dick😇
Posted in narrative in fiction, writing fiction, writing first person fiction, writing young adult ficton, tagged amazon, marcus sedgwick, Teen fiction, the printz award, young adult fiction on March 12, 2015| 1 Comment »
In a blog post, titled ‘YA is not, nor should be, a genre’, Marcus Sedgwick says the following:
I have been witnessing a stream of books sent to me to review, or quote for, every single one of which was written in the first person present tense, with a certain breathless intensity of oh-my-weird-little-life. Usually there’s cancer, death, divorce etc. thrown in to the mix. Let’s be clear, there’s nothing wrong with writing in the first person present in itself. Many good books have been written this way. Well, one or two, at least.
You can read the whole post at http://www.marcussedgwick.com, and while you’re there don’t forget to check out our latest favourite, ‘Midwinterblood’, winner of the Printz Award, 2014. It tells the story of love strong enough to withstand centuries, painted in seven brief vignettes that spiral backwards in time to a moment of sacrifice that tore two lives apart.
Posted in book publishing, ebooks, Fiction, indie publishing, marketing books, Reading, social media, traditional book publishing, writingReading writing fiction, tagged amazon, Ebooks, Goodreads, indie publishing, Reader book buying habits, School Library Journal blogs 3, Teen fiction, teen reading habits on February 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday’s post about reader book buying habits got me curious…how exactly does my fourteen year old daughter choose the books she reads and buys?
Here’s the short answer:
1. She checks out Goodreads and follows the links to authors and books that look interesting
2. She reads School Library Journal blogs
3. She reads Book Review sites (sometimes she finds links to these on Goodreads)
4. She searches Common Sense Media to check for content and appropriateness (can you tell her mother’s a teacher?)
5. She goes to Amazon and downloads a sample chapter
6. If she likes the chapter she buys the ebook on her mother’s Amazon account
7. And finally, if she absolutely loves it she is then allowed to buy the print copy (a rule instigated by her mother who nowadays has to stand at the door of her study to place aforesaid books on perilously high piles of books bought indiscriminately over many years of bookshop trawling)
Conclusion…we love our local bookshop (and every bookshop between here and New Zealand) but the Internet has opened up our lives to a world of books we could never have otherwise found. We are voracious readers and will always love the texture and smell of books, and our house will always be full to brimming with the things, but our iPads with our iTunes and Kindle apps allow us the added pleasure off fossicking for reading treasure that until now we would never have had the opportunity to enjoy.
growing up writing 