Books covers are a tricky issue when you are self-publishing. They are also a personal gripe of mine! There are some absolutely amazing book covers out there, but just as many (if not more!) utterly terrible ones. Overcoming this hurdle as a self-publisher is quite a difficult and very technical task. Like it or not, most folk do judge a book by its cover, so this is one of the first things you really need to get right (as well as writing an absolutely amazing book, no pressure!). There are a lot of companies and artists now springing up on the internet who specialise in the design of book covers for self-published writers. This is a great idea in my opinion. It helps artists get their work out there also, and as long as you are both thinking along the same lines there is a lot of potential. Having said that, some of the offerings I have seen out there probably would not grip me and convince me that I have to read this book immediately. It’s very tricky. My advice So…my first piece of advice is to be really careful when approaching the issue of your book cover. As we have established, it’s a massively important task. You want to ensure you have something professional that really captures the spirit of your book, reflects yourself as a writer and stands out to prospective readers. I’ll be honest – I’m still not entirely happy with my own book cover. It’s sort of an ongoing project – I’ll fiddle with a few ideas every so often, send various designs to people and ask their opinions, before going back to what it was originally, with a few minor tweaks. I have images in my head of what I would love it to… read more →
As a writer I have found the Internet to be a wonderful and endless resource. For many of us, the Internet provides an important foundation for many aspects of the creative journey. We all have our own ideas and techniques that will get us writing. More often than not, our inspiration comes from real life places, people and the things that we experience, but we usually have to go one step further to really develop our ideas in stories and novels. After the initial ‘thought’, which I’ll generally scrawl down on scrappy bits of paper, I will usually spend a good few weeks procrastinating and doing absolutely nothing at all that could be considered productive! It’s only when I get online and look at what other people are doing that I decide to get my act together. I’m not sure about other writers, but to begin with I like to browse sites such as Deviant Art, Tumblr and Pinterest. I will pick out my favourite images to look at whenever I need a little writing inspiration and find the most fascinating, beautiful imagery that never fails to inspire me. Try it yourself! It could be a quote that strikes a chord with you, an image of a person or a place, anything at all. Within our daily lives it can be easy to lose inspiration, so it’s nice to take ten minutes to have a quick browse for anything that might motivate you to start writing if you’ve felt like you are in a bit of writing rut. The wonderful thing about the online world is that it’s been around long enough now for you to be very specific about what you are looking for. There are so many websites and articles out there, that should you have a specific… read more →
Over the past few years, there has been a real surge in how the internet and technological advances have affected the world of writing. The publishing industry is constantly changing and the way we purchase and read books isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. If you are a writer, it’s important that you keep up to date on these developments and use them to your advantage. As we all know, writing itself can be totally time consuming, but add in the need for online promotion and website maintenance and you’d be surprised if you had time to do anything else! The internet has unleashed so many tools for us as writers, but at the same time, it can often feel as if we are the tiniest little fish in a gigantic ocean of other tiny fish, all fighting to be noticed! How can we get others to pay attention to us? We don’t have the powers of the big publishers who could get our book to the front display in Waterstones. It’s all on us to get as much promotion as possible! I personally find it liberating, but at the same time, totally intimidating! I love the new ‘do-it-yourself’ aspect of self publishing. I have complete control and I enjoy the challenge. At the moment, I’m yet to fully dive into that world again, as I am still working on streamlining my book into something I am totally proud of, but I look forward to it. I think that if you are a self-published writer, then rather than allowing the process to overwhelm you, you should step up to the mark, research all the different ways of promoting yourself, really get creative and see what you can come up with. There are a lot of writing forums out… read more →