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VIDEO: My Self-Printed Interview on Writing.ie

10 Jun

Just before I went to Spain I made a trip to Dublin for the day to film an interview with Vanessa O’Loughlin of Writing.ie, an information-filled, fantastic website aimed at Irish writers but useful to all regardless of geographical location if you ask me. (My post 6 Ways to Sell Your Book Using Social Media is a hit over there, apparently!) In the video we discuss Mousetrapped, self-publishing and Self-Printed, and although I really should have worn something else I quite like the look of my eye-shadow.

It’s a bit long and I know myself how long I give videos on blogs, so if you’re looking for something in particular feel free to skip ahead:

  • 0:38: Writing Mousetrapped… and it getting rejected
  • 1:41: Getting the idea to self-publish
  • 3:12: Making the decision to self-publish
  • 4:18: Editing, the importance of
  • 5:00: Holding your horses
  • 5:52: Writing is re-writing
  • 7:10: My scary bedtime story for self-publishers
  • 8:20: Good rejections/my Selling Houses phenomenon
  • 9:40: Sitting on your book.

I have a blog on Writing.ie called Double-Spaced where I just started a Self-Printed Summer. The idea is that for 8 weeks my posts will guide you through self-publishing a POD paperback and e-book, so if you’re thinking of self-publishing, why not do it now? You can read the first post here.

That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend! I’m off to try and get some writing done.

(And watch the Canadian Grand Prix, of course.)

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Double-Spaced: 3 Book Deals Before Breakfast

3 May

If you haven’t already heard I am now also blogging every Tuesday over on Writing.ie, under the title Double-Spaced.

Today’s post is called Three Book Deals Before Breakfast, and is about how it’s probably best to keep your publishing news – or even just aspirations – to yourself for now…

“A couple of weeks back the news broke that a debut Irish author had reportedly signed an amazing publishing deal worth more than half a million pounds sterling. The following day, all over the country, as yet unpublished authors like myself were handed newspaper articles about it, e-mailed links to reports of it online and asked by parents, friends, spouses, relatives, co-workers and relative strangers just why we wouldn’t go and get ourselves a deal like that?”

 Click here to read the rest of this post on Writing.ie.

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Double-Spaced: My Writing Day

19 Apr

If you haven’t already heard I am now also blogging every Tuesday over on Writing.ie, under the title Double-Spaced.

Today’s post is a blow-by-blow account of my average writing day which, worryingly, doesn’t seem to involve much writing…

“8.46am: Coffee preparation. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf House Blend in a one cup filter belgique.

8.57am: Morning rounds. Yahoo mail, Gmail account, other Gmail account, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Twitter again, Yahoo mail again, Novel Rank, Amazon DTP, Perez Hilton, TMZ, Google News, Twitter, repeat as required.

9.45am: Get dressed.

10.10am: Coffee preparation. Decide to open the Dunkin Donuts House Blend and make it in the french press as this will waste more time.

10.04am: Breakfast.

10.35am: I’ll just check Twitter…”

Click here to read the rest of this post on Writing.ie.

Doubled-Spaced: What I Learned From Other Writers

13 Apr

In case you didn’t already know, I’m also blogging over on Writing.ie. If you haven’t already had a look at the site you really should. It’s packed with useful articles, tips and advice, and it’s not just for Irish writers. I have a few articles on there about e-books and using social media to sell books, and I have a guest blog called Double-Spaced which I post once a week.

Today’s post is about what I learned from other writers, and how I used what I learned in my own writing life.

“For years I sidled up to writers whenever I had the chance, hoping to discover the secret to international bestsellerdom by some form of osmosis as yet undiscovered by the scientific community, attending signings, going to workshops, watching interviews on televisions, hiding in the bushes outside their study windows… Okay, not the last one. (I have to say that. For legal reasons.) But while I ultimately concluded that my time would be better spend actually writing, there was some useful tips, tricks and advice that I picked up along the way.”

You can read the post here.

Writing.ie also has a snazzy store (where – save us all – there is a Double-Spaced teddy bear for sale!) which stocks this fantastic #amwriting mug.

The perfect gift for that coffee-guzzling writing tweeter in your life, I’m sure you’ll agree! (I so want one.)  Click here to visit the Writing.ie store.

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Double-Spaced: The Twenty-First Century Writer

5 Apr

Sorry for the late posting today, but I spent this morning getting my eyes tested. As of tomorrow I shall be a Girl Who Wears Glasses, and I’m quite excited about it – adds to the whole writerly look, I think. Now all I need is a beret, an ironic retro T-shirt and a little leather satchel, and the look is complete. Seriously though, this does not bode well for my blogging-with-one-eye-on-the-TV fun, as the TV eye will need the glasses but the Mac eye won’t. What to do? Blog while not watching TV? Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Anyway if you haven’t already heard I am now also blogging every Tuesday over on Writing.ie, under the title Double-Spaced.

Today’s post is about why we writers should stop complaining about how these days we have to be a jack of all trades and recognize that when it comes to control over our careers, we’ve never had it so good.

“Almost every day I come across a writer who has taken to the magical interweb to groan about how the role of the scribe has changed (now they’re not just expected to write their book but also market, promote and sell it as well), and wax nostalgic about the days when all that was expected of writers was to spend long hours sitting in the Parisian sun, sipping coffee as the world walked by and, whenever the muse reached out from the creative ether to give their shoulder a squeeze, scribble a sentence in their trusty Moleskine notebook with the remains of their dark, stubby pencil.

Or something.

There is a very real chance I’ve read A Moveable Feast one too many times.”

Click here to read the rest of this post on Writing.ie.

I’m also over on Irish Publishing News today with my lovely MS Excel graphs. Any excuse!

Double-Spaced: Career Guidance

29 Mar

If you haven’t already heard I am now also blogging every Tuesday over on the newly-launched Writing.ie, under the title Double-Spaced.

Today’s post is about how well-meaning friends and family are always ready with alternative careers for the Aspiring Writer…

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

Once upon a time I may have wanted to be a writer along with something else (like when I was 13 and reading The Hot Zone convinced me I just had to become a virologist) but as soon as I realized that it was pretty much the only respectable job you could do at home while wearing your pajamas, I decided that I wanted to do it full time.

Fearing for my welfare, retirement fund and future mental health, family and friends rifled through my talents for suggestions of other things I could do. Better things. More stable things. Things that might actually have a chance of transpiring and, when they do, bring with them such wonders of modern society as health insurance, paid time off and – the holy grail – a pension.

Anything but…

Writing a novel, Catherine? Really?”

Click here to read the rest of this post on Writing.ie.

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Double-Spaced: A Wrinkle in Time

15 Mar

If you haven’t already heard I am now also blogging every Tuesday over on the newly-launched Writing.ie, under the title Double-Spaced.

Today’s post is about the weird wrinkle in the space/time continuum that surrounds my desk, and mysteriously makes time disappear…

“I write – or try to – at a small desk in a corner of my bedroom. The desk has to be small because my bedroom is, and my bedroom is small because when you move out of home when you’re 19 to live with a boy, come back again when you’re 21 because rent is expensive, leave again when you’re 22 to work abroad and come back again (again) when you’re 26 because your US visa expired, you get stuck with the box room. But I digress. Looking at this desk – compact, piled with papers, home to a New York Starbucks mug filled with pens and pencils, overlooked by a notice-board hanging above it on the wall and beside that, a sign that says GIVE ME COFFEE AND NO ONE GETS HURT – you might get the impression that it’s your standard, run-of-the-mill work station. But although imperceptible to the human eye, this desk sits amidst a wrinkle in the space/time continuum – nay, a vortex – where time mysteriously disappears at a frightening rate. I sit down at it around ten every weekday morning and yet by six that afternoon or a whole eight hours later, I never seem to have got much done. Where does the time go? And how can you stop it going there?”

Click here to read the rest of this post on Writing.ie.

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