I read all three of her books last year, and have to say, it’s a page-turning trilogy that centres around remote viewing, a subject that makes for a fascinating and unique plot. Amanda is currently working on a new book, which she’ll hopefully have more updates about soon.
Many thanks to Roisin Gorman at Sunday World for this amazing interview about my Belfast Ghosts Series books 1 and 2, The Blue Man and The Fairy Lights and my plans for future horror books.
This amazing article came out on Sunday 27 November when I was ill with covid. Unfortunately I was housebound that day and unable to go to the local shop to buy a copy, so I’m especially grateful to Roisin for sending an electronic version.
I’m currently working on book 3 in the series, and I’m now over the 40,000 word milestone-marker of what constitutes a novel. This means I’m just over halfway. If all goes to plan, I’m hoping to crack on and have the draft done before summer, so that my editor and proofreader can go through it. My aim is for this third and final installment of the Belfast Ghosts series to be published by October 2023.
I’m writing this as a follow up to my blog post in February 2021 about my experience of traditional, hybrid and self-publishing. Back then, I hadn’t yet set up my own publishing imprint with ISBNs bought from Nielsen and registered with the British Library; in other words I hadn’t yet started my Indie publishing journey, with the exception of a couple of poetry chapbooks that I had printed myself to sell at open mic events. Much has changed since then, including my opinion. In this updated post, I want to compare all three options in terms of costs versus royalties so that aspiring writers can make a decision about what might be best for their own career.
Happy New Year! 2023 is upon us and a fresh new year is a blank writing pad, or a blank first page in a Word document, to a writer.
As I always do at the start of a new year, I reflect and then assess. I have so many ideas for books I want to write – but deciding which one to prioritise is the trickier part.
Stories are no good stuck in a writer’s head. It’s better to have a first draft out than to be pondering an idea. Jotting down an overview to write later is a step in the right direction, or a chapter plan is even better. My goal for 2023 is to keep up the pace with my writing. I published two novels in 2022 and hope to keep up my output of at least one novel a year as a bare minimum.
Why? Mainly because if I don’t get my stories written down then they’re at risk of never seeing the light of day. It’s a bit similar to my to-be-read list; often I have a pile of books that I’ve bought, but not yet started, and then I buy more. The chances of some in the pile never getting read increases each time I do this. It’s the same for my novel ideas. I have a notebook of ideas with some from as far back as 2009 and I really need to start whittling it away, or a few may never get written. Of course, I always prioritise the ideas that grab me the most at any given time – The Fairy Lights, for example, was an idea I came up with in December 2021, wrote within six months and published in November 2022. I can imagine all my other story ideas sitting in that notebook for over a decade, shaking their papery fists in a jealous rage at my fourth novel for usurping them. Yet, it was the story that I was most excited about at that time, so I went with it.
What’s the goal of this post? Mainly to say that you can expect to hear about more completed novels from me in 2023 – or at least, it’s an expectation I have for myself. I hold myself to quite high standards. Let’s see how this pans out!
Happy New Year! To celebrate 2023, Books 1 and 2 in my Belfast Ghosts Series are only 99p between 2nd and 9th January. Yep, you heard that right; if you haven’t read The Blue Man or The Fairy Lights, why not kick off the new year with some ghost horror?
Speaking of my Belfast Ghosts Series, I’m still working on Book 3, which will complete the trilogy. I’ve been somewhat delayed, what with illness between October to December last year, but I’m hoping that my health will be better in 2023. I’ll be posting more updates about this, which I’m aiming to have ready by autumn 2023. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, hope you enjoy Books 1 and 2 above, and please do leave a rating or review if they make an impression on you. It really helps them to find new readers like you, and is also very much appreciated by me as the author.
Wow, is it really Old Year’s Night? What a year it has been. Overall I’d say it was a good one for me, in literary terms, if not the best health-wise (see my last blog post about that). Without further ado, here’s my wrap-up for 2022.
I never expected to have a book on an Amazon bestsellers list, never mind to stay in the top 10 for 8 days in a row, but The Blue Man did just that. At its peak, it also reached 2113 out of the many millions of eBooks in the Kindle store.
I’m currently on a two week winter holiday from my day work in a grammar school. Seasonal festivities aside, my primary goal of this holiday is to sleep and convalesce. Since November, I have had four illnesses, pretty much back-to-back: bronchitis; strep throat; covid and norovirus. My immune system, and indeed my body generally, needs to recuperate.
Why are we expected, in modern society, to have the same output in winter as we do in summer? When flu season starts, surely it would make sense for us here in the Northern hemisphere, to hunker down and hibernate. Okay, so maybe not like how bears and wolves hibernate, but certainly winding down and working less while sleeping more. I could totally get behind that. According to science, I’m not alone – check out this article on the topic.
Speaking of productivity, in terms of my literary output, I am not getting as much done at the moment while focusing on my health and on spending time with my family. You know what? That’s okay. I’ve never been the type to set strict deadlines for myself, or beat myself up if I don’t manage a certain word count each day. Besides, 2022 has been a productive year for me, which I’ll summarise in my next end-of-year post.
For now, whether you celebrate anything at this time of year, or nothing, here’s hoping for good health and happiness for us all. There’s nothing more important than health. If you don’t have a healthy body and mind (big hugs to those struggling with SAD, I’m there with you) you can’t really do anything. This is the season for some self-care and tlc. Here’s to getting some ZZZs.
As a writer who has been traditionally published (publisher incurs all expenses), hybrid published (author contributes some money towards start-up costs) and self-published (author pays all costs), I have much to say on my experience of all of the above. You may well be reading this post thinking that I started out in self-publishing before going on to get a publisher, but I’d like to let you in on a little truth: the opposite is true.
My journey from small press publishers to self-published
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this post, a disclaimer: I’m not here to slam small press publishers in any way. I have been fortunate to have had some positive experiences with the small press publishers who launched my various poetry collections or fiction books. Now, you may well be confused: why would an author with small press contracts already in place not choose to keep publishing future books with said publishers and instead go Indie (choose self-publishing)? Indeed, two of my past publishers asked me if I had any more books in the pipeline for them. Instead I chose to go it alone. Lean closer so I can whisper in your ear about why…
Okay, so before I start this blog post, I’m going to have to give you a spoiler warning: if you haven’t read my books yet and intend to, you might want to stop reading after this paragraph. Since the title is such a teaser, I’ll get to the point and let you know what you probably already guessed: my fourth and most recently published novel The Fairy Lights is my favourite. It goes without saying that, as an author, if I felt that my best work was behind me I’d stop writing, wouldn’t I? So, of course my latest book is my favourite. Now, let me proceed to tell you why (spoilers ahead).
Back in October, I celebrated the one year publishing anniversary of The Buddha’s Bone by giving away the eBook for free in a 5 day promotion. I decided to wait for over a month to pass as a bare minimum to see any impact on subsequent sales, sales ranking or reviews; this has also given me time to assess whether or not I think offering free downloads is worth it. I’ve decided to divide my observations into the benefits, drawbacks and my opinion. Here is what I learned:
Leilanie Stewart 