January 15, 2023

In the News! Interview in Sunday World

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.

Wish me luck!

Posted by on January 15, 2023 in Writing.

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January 12, 2023

Which do I recommend? Traditional, hybrid or self-publishing?

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.

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Posted by on January 12, 2023 in Writing.

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January 8, 2023

Writers write – stories are no good stuck in an author’s head

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!

Posted by on January 8, 2023 in Writing and tagged , , , .

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January 4, 2023

January sales! 99p eBooks this week only

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.

Posted by on January 4, 2023 in Novels and tagged , , , , , , .

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December 31, 2022

A New Year’s Eve literary reflection of 2022

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.

1. I published 4 books this year

Yep, two poetry books and two novels; pretty productive even if I say so myself. Poetry first with The Redundancy of Tautology on 15 June, followed by my third novel The Blue Man on 29 July, poetry collection A Model Archaeologist on 16 August and fourth novel The Fairy Lights on 10 November.

2. Two of my books got onto bestseller lists

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.

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Posted by on December 31, 2022 in Writing and tagged , , , , .

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December 27, 2022

Literary life: on winding down in the winter break

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.

Posted by on December 27, 2022 in Biography, Opinion and tagged , , , , , , .

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December 23, 2022

Why going Indie has been the best decision for my writing career

Glitz and glamour of my own making

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…

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Posted by on December 23, 2022 in Writing and tagged , , , , .

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December 17, 2022

Which of my own novels is my favourite?

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).

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Posted by on December 17, 2022 in Books, Novels and tagged , , , , .

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December 13, 2022

Is giving away free ebooks beneficial for authors?

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:

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Posted by on December 13, 2022 in Resources and tagged , , , , , .

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December 9, 2022

Christmas Fayre event – books for yuletide

It has been a busy literary week for me. Thankfully I’m fully recovered from covid after last week; my energy returned in the nick of time for some more book events.

Today I sold copies of my novels at my first Christmas Fayre event. I sold all copies of The Fairy Lights, most copies of The Blue Man and a few of The Buddha’s Bone and Gods of Avalon Road. Like my festive look here? I thought I’d get into the yuletide spirit and do some Xmas shopping while I was at it, with all the homemade treats and arts and crafts stalls at the Fayre.

Earlier in the week I had to post 5 x hardcover copies of The Blue Man to Edinburgh for legal deposit, upon request. That means my books will be kept at the National Library of Scotland, The Bodleian Library Oxford University, the National Library of Wales, Cambridge University Library and The Library of Trinity College Dublin in addition to the British Library where they will be available in the reading rooms of each.

I’ve also received an order via Gardners Books for Waterstones click and collect at a destination elsewhere in the UK, which means I had to order more author copies since I sold most/all of my books today. But, since there’s currently a postal strike going on, I’ve decided to wait until Monday to sort that out, just in case my order gets lost in the mail.

Whew! What a busy week it has been in the run up to crimbo. At least all my Xmas prezzies are sorted, so that’s one more thing off the list!

Posted by on December 9, 2022 in Books, Novels and tagged , , , , , , , .

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