First appeared in: Mslexia 56 winter 2012/13 Women have broken into the last bastion of macho writing, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and they are changing the market Forget everything you ever thought about Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF). Forget nerdy boys role playing space heroes or Goth girls dressing as
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First published in the ALCS News August 2012 You have to hand it to the editors of Wikipedia – half of whom are under 28 – youthful rebellion never looked like this. By instigating a 24-hour blackout of the service in January, they became the first generation in history whose
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Have you noticed a disturbing trend in your teenager’s reading material lately? Has a change from lively and engaging child into sullen and difficult teenager coincided with them ditching adventures by the likes of Lauren Child or Michael Morpurgo for bleak futuristic fantasies about violent 16-year-olds or grimly realistic tales
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Why do badly written books become bestsellers? It’s a question that banged against my consciousness as I tried to read 50 Shades of Grey, E L James’s unintentionally hilarious erotic fanfic tribute to Twilight. An ebook, it has become a self-publishing phenomenon, earning the British author an eye-watering advance from
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ALCS News Autumn 2011 An independent publisher tweeted me the other day. His company had developed a free iPhone app, that had done well, but hadn’t produced a single sale of the book it was created to promote. His tweet summed up the problem that faces bewildered authors and publishers after
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Was it a full moon on Friday? I ask, because the trolls were out, and four friends blocked people on Twitter following abusive tweets. All are in the business – high profile authors and literary agents. I am telling you because their night of the trolls highlights one of the
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As well as being a fine poet and novelist, Sarah Salway could teach some of her contemporaries about how to use social media to spread the word about their work. An avid user of Twitter and Facebook, as well as a blogger, Sarah admits social media has revolutionised her approach to publicising
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Mslexia 50, summer 2011 Ghost stories are the biggest trend in fiction right now, Danuta Kean discovers the rules of writing a bestseller Like the spectre in M R James’s The Mezzotint, ghost stories have crossed the literary landscape and passed through genre boundaries to become the fastest rising trend.
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Hello and welcome to my new blog. I’ve been away for a while, but I’m back with a relaunched site that will continue to provide a reality check about publishing as well as reviews of books for toddlers (Babster’s Books) and life as the surrendered wife of a Frenchman (if
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The market also has a way to go before consumers are convinced to buy ebooks. One thing is needed: prices must drop, something that will happen if the supermarkets start retailing ebooks. But that is not necessarily good news for publishers.
