Helen Libby on inspiration, self-publishing, marketing, and other writerly challenges

Self published author Helen Libby talks about her stories, her inspiration, and her career as a writer so far.

Charles Naton: "Being fashionably obscure can actually be an advantage"

Getting a book deal is every new author's dream, right? Why then, are so many traditionally published authors now choosing the independent route? Charles Naton shares his experiences.

Cloud computing sounds risky to me. Am I stuck in the 20th century?

19 January 2016: Twitter went down this morning. Remarkable for such a widely used site. It made me think about cloud computing, and why, despite being on Windows 10, I'm reluctant to store my files in 'the cloud'.

Why didn't I think of that? Oh. I did.

I saw an article in Writer's Forum recently - an interview with a fantastically successful self-published gentleman from my writing group. I thought, "Talk about missing an opportunity. Why didn't I think to pitch that interview idea?!"

Then I realised that I had thought about it. Once in 2013 and once in 2014, when I pitched similar ideas to interview the same author, to the editor of the same magazine. At the time, both suggestions were met with rejection, and I hadn't given it any further thought since.

Can I earn a decent wage freelancing, compared to a full time job?

"Can I earn a decent wage freelancing, compared to a full time job?" someone asked me recently.

Well, it depends! The Author's Licensing and Collecting Society did a survey in 2013, and the results, made available in 2014, said that professional writers only earned an average of £11,000 per annum. However, I think many of those were part time, and many were authors.

Don't be a publisher's nightmare. One space at the end of a sentence is plenty!

My mum always taught me to put two spaces after a full-stop, just as she was taught to do in typing school in the 1960s. But when I started working in marketing and brochure production in the late 1990s, I quickly learnt to stop this bad habit.

Meet prolific book reviewer, Tracy Shephard

My latest guest blogger, Tracy Shephard, is a prolific book reviewer, with ambitions to have a novel of her own published. She has a decent following on her blog, which has surprised her with its success. I asked Tracy about her book reviews, her writing, her favourite books and her life as a book reviewer. This is what she said...

Insider Secrets For Successful Freelance Writing

I was interviewed recently by fellow writer, Tony Riches, for his blog. I thought I'd post a copy on here. You might enjoy it. :-)

You know you're a writer when...

Having read a great blog called, "You know you're a writer when..." by Dylan Hearn, I thought I'd create my own!

Interview: How I succeeded as a freelance writer

I was interviewed by a book reviewer recently who'd been reading my book, Freelance Writing on Health, Food and Gardens. Here's part of the interview.

My writing group - cliques and committees

When I started writing for a living in 2011, I loved the work but felt I needed to improve my social life to make up for being on my own all day. So the following January I joined my local writers group to meet new people and to further my writing career. The website assured me of a friendly welcome and the first meeting lived up to this claim with polite smiles and introductions. But within a few months I was having trouble getting beyond that polite 'hello'. They'd usually rush off to speak to someone else.

Lessons Learned from National Novel Writing Month

Well I did it! 

It was my first time participating in National Novel Writing Month this year and I reached 38k. Now some might consider that a failure, since the aim is to reach 50k, but I remain pleased with myself. By the end of November, I was 38,000 words further ahead than I was at the start of the month, and I'm well on the way to reaching the end of the first draft now. It will grow bigger too, as I carefully edit it.

Meet prize-winning crime writer, Dave Sivers

When I first joined my local writers' group, among the first people I met was crime author, Dave Sivers, who has self-published a range of ebooks for Kindle and recently found his work among the top selling books in his genre.

His latest book is Scars Beneath the Soul, a detective story of murder and mayhem in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire. I asked Dave to tell me about his writing journey. This is what he said...

The highs and lows of a writer's life

Being a freelance writer is a wonderful life - you are constantly learning new things, the variety of work is immense, the creative buzz is exhilarating, and submitting your work for publication provides a feel good factor all of its own. Then finally seeing your work in print.... it's all good.

Literary masters and quack doctors

I never gave much thought to my ancestry until recently when I dedicated time to it for an article I was working on. I delved into the past, engaging with my dad over the work he's done on our family tree. Now I knew we had some distant relationship to Lord Byron, but I didn't know the details. Finding out about it was an interesting process, if a little long-winded!