A few days ago while in Belfast city centre for book shopping (what’s new!) I decided to pop into Belfast Central Library. Have you ever been there? It’s a gorgeous building, built in 1888.
With my promo novel samples
Five of my books are available at Libraries NI, so I thought I’d see how many were on the shelves in ‘Ulster and Irish Heritage’ on the second floor.
It was great to see that only two novels – The Blue Man and The Fairy Lights – were available, meaning that the other three books were being borrowed. Since my Belfast Ghosts trilogy novels happen to be my most popular, both in terms of sales as well as borrows, there are multiple copies of them available through Libraries NI, which is why there were still copies of those particular books on the shelf. I checked into the libraries NI website later and was glad to see that my books have made it to libraries around the country. Hurray.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tinkering with the cover design for my forthcoming novel, the sequel for The Buddha’s Bone. I’m currently doing a proof read after making the amendments that my editor suggested, and since I find hard copies easier to read, I’ve printed another paperback. For the cover, I decided to use a design that I like, but won’t be using on the final published version, as it’s a bit too literary and not psychological enough. Rest assured you’ll be seeing all versions of the cover design in another post once it’s published.
Thinking of cover designs got me searching back through my Canva Pro drafts for old versions of my published books. It was fun perusing earlier cover ideas for my Belfast Ghosts trilogy, and recalling the reasons why I decided against using each one. Want to have a look? Here you go:
Despite the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, it’s pretty fair to say that everybody, in fact, does judge a book by its cover. As an indie author I don’t have a big PR team to promote my book: it’s up to me to design, as best I can, an attention grabbing cover. I’m happy with the final designs for The Blue Man, The Fairy Lights and Matthew’s Twin and the proof is in the pudding: all three have sold really well. Would they have sold as well if I had used the earlier versions that I eventually decided against? I’m pretty sure my sales wouldn’t have been as strong, as those covers weren’t as eye-catching, either on their own, or together in the trilogy. The colours weren’t as bold, making the titles fade more into the background rather than standing out. Graphics need to catch a customer’s eye in less than a second, I’d say; at least, that’s about how long it takes me to decide if a book looks interesting or not.
What do you think? What makes a book cover stand out? What factors about the design make you decide whether or not to stick it in your basket?
Last week I was gutted when I found out that Self help Africa in Botanic was closing for trade. I have many happy memories of shopping there over the decades, back from when I was a student at Queen’s University Belfast, and it was known as War on Want.
Goodbye War on Want Botanic (Self help Africa)
After speaking to the management, I found out that the store was being made to close, despite turning over a profit, as all the shops on the same block were gradually succumbing to pressure to shut. I can only imagine that the whole block, full of charm and character, is set to be sold off and will probably become a bland block of swish, apartments that are unaffordable for most. Such is the (shortsighted) way of things in the name of business. Hmph to that.
I will miss this bookstore very much
The last day of trading was Saturday 28 June, so as you can imagine, I went on several shopping trips there with my hubby and son over the past week. My summer reading pile would probably reach the ceiling now if I were to stack them all up.
If ever I win the lottery, I will open a bookstore and nobody will make me close it. We need books, culture, art…and community!
Goodbye to another Belfast bookstore, and may it be the last to shut.
Ah, writing success! Doesn’t every author out there want a sea of eager readers waiting to snap up their book? Yes, of course they do. Wouldn’t that mean ‘success’? Of course it depends on what you consider a ‘sea’ of eager readers to be. A hundred readers? A thousand? Millions of readers?
It seems to me that there isn’t a consistent definition of success as a writer. It tends to be based on arbitrary factors, often on the commercial side of the business: how much money an author earns, or whether they can make a living from it or not. On the other hand, some writers view success as the ability to finish a book-length work. If we’re talking purely craft, it certainly can take years to write a novel-length book. My first novel took me five years to finish – longer than my university degree, which took three years. But is the length of time it takes to create a book, or the word count, a marker of success as a writer? What if no one reads that book because the author decides not to share it with the world? That was the certainly the case for my five-years-to-the-finish-line book; I decided it wasn’t good enough and archived it. Does that mean it doesn’t qualify as a success?
No, I wouldn’t say so. Yes, it is a success to finish a book, but my view of success as a writer would tend to incorporate more than solely the craft. A little dash of the commercial side is important too. I think that defining success as a writer would be more a balance of both, though maybe leaning more on the craft side. For me, the ability to write the story that you want to share with the world, and find an audience who want to read your work in addition, is how I would define success.
Pseudologia Fantastica was published on 20 June 2024
Happy Solstice! Litha is here, the longest day of the year. To celebrate, here’s a silly Summer Solstice dance. The skeleton, back by popular demand, is making his dancing debut after lounging on a recliner in last year’s video. Looks like leading an active lifestyle has made him lose a few pounds too, lol!
Silly skeleton video 2025
Summer is officially here, my favourite season. It’s currently the hottest day of the year so far here in Northern Ireland at 26°. As a sunworshipper, I’m loving the heat as well. Here’s a screenshot, mostly so that when it inevitably turns back to typical rainy Northern Irish weather, I can look back on this blog post and know that it wasn’t just a dream, ha ha.
Silly skeleton video 2024
Today also marks the one year bookiversary of my short story collection, Pseudologia Fantastica: Four stories of stalkers and mythomaniacs. Although not as popular as my horror books, this psychological literary fiction collection is a good one to add to your summerween reading list if you fancy something darker for your beach read this year.
Which of my books are NOT horror books? Three of them, actually. Two of my five novels are not horror: Gods of Avalon Road is occult urban fantasy and The Buddha’s Bone is psychological literary fiction. One of my three short story collections isn’t horror either: Pseudologia Fantastica is psychological literary fiction.
My next book, the sequel for The Buddha’s Bone, is also psychological literary fiction. I’m currently working on the edits, with a goal for publication later this year. Lately I’ve been primarily writing ghost horror, so it’s thanks to reader requests that I even felt motivated to write my latest novel in the first place. Honestly, writing something besides horror once in a while is good for me as a writer.
But, if you’re one of my ghost book readers, fear not. I am up to 61,000 words with ghost novel WIP#7 so the first draft should hopefully be finished before the end of this year. In the meantime, the sequel for The Buddha’s Bone gets quite dark in places, so if you plan to read it, hopefully you’ll enjoy it even if horror is more your cuppa tea.
Happy Friday the 13th, horror fans! Anyone superstitious out there and freaking out about the need to tie up their long hair, lest it fall out, avoiding the 13th floor of a building today, or hastily renaming room 13 of their house/school/hotel today? If so, you’re in good company. I love learning about folk superstitions, almost as much as I love a good scary story to read.
It’s too bad the full moon – a strawberry moon, no less – happened on Wednesday 11th June, rather than today. A full moon for Friday the 13th would’ve been a spooktacularly celestial treat.
Anyhoo, if you’re looking for a fright fest of books to read for the occasion, check out my Belfast Ghosts series, a trilogy of standalone ghost novels that will surely leave you haunted…
These days, the news feed on my phone has turned into a book update list, ha ha. My algorithm must be set to books, books and more books, which is true to my life, pretty much.
A story that my son dictated, printed in a booklet
Anyway, here’s the latest book news article I read: Cheltenham boy’s storytelling method helps others with literacy. As an author who works in secondary education (yes, dear readers, sadly creative writing does not keep a roof over my head) and also has a child in primary education, it goes without saying that I value literacy and encourage both reading and creative writing for children. In the article (link above), the mother wrote down her son’s stories and turned them into a book, which they have now published.
Copies of my son’s story, printed for presents
The funny thing is, this is something I did four years ago, although I didn’t officially publish my son’s booklet to buy widely. While he dictated his story, Five sea creatures on a tropical island, I typed it. He then painted an A3 sized picture of the sea creatures, which I scanned and uploaded as the cover of his book. I then printed copies of his story from Lulu (Lulu is also a great printing service for novel proof copies, btw fellow authors), and we gave these as presents to his teachers, family and friends for Christmas in 2021.
It was lovely to see the delight on my son’s face as he unboxed copies of his own book and held his creation for the first time, as a published author. Now, four years later while he is in the ‘Gold’ reading group in his year group at school, it’s a lovely keepsake, and something he enjoys reading aloud to me.
If there are children in your family, printing their work to give as presents is something I recommend. It encourages children to use their imagination, teaches narrative structure, and of course makes handy, personalised gifts; not to mention spending quality literary time with the child in your life.
Ahem! You might know that I am a serious author, but did you know that I am NOT a serious person? Did you know that, in fact, I have an incredibly silly side? How else would I manage to have an incredibly disturbing imagination if I did not have a very wacky creative element to my personality? Watch at your peril…
The bitta nonsense in the above video will rapidly lose you a few brain cells… Balancing bookstack challenge part 1 – epic fail involves the following falling books:
Want to find out if Leilanie will manage to balance the bookstack on the next attempt? Find out in the next exciting episode of Balancing bookstack challenge part 2…
Some more book mail arrived yesterday by two of my favourite ghost story authors: Tina Vantyler and Juliette Harrisson. With the end of term coming up in less than a month, these books arrived just in time for the summer horrordays. Spooky beach reading for me, yes please.
Two of my favourite authors: Tina Vantyler and Juliette Harrisson
I’ve read quite a few of Tina Vantyler’s ‘True tales of the Supernatural’ series and I’m really excited for this ‘Haunted House’ edition. She has a very bingeable writing style and her books are a combo of eerie source material (Vantyler is an English journalist who goes around the UK documenting real ghostly cases from members of the public) and suspenseful writing. Here are the links for her books:
Juliette Harrisson’s books are a recent find for me. I happened upon her book ‘Creepy Classics: Ghost stories from ancient Rome’ and I loved it so much I just had to jump on the next in the series: ‘Creepy Classics: Ghost stories from ancient Greece’ which came out in April this year. Harrison is a Historian as well as author, and these historically inspired stories are both spooky and engaging. Here are the links for her books:
I highly recommend both authors if you are a ghost horror fan like me who is looking for excellent writing and original stories. As for me, I’ll be spending the remainder of my weekend chilling in the garden with my new spooky bookys.
Leilanie Stewart 