Serialized novels were popularised by Victorian novelists such as Charles Dickens. Today, free online tools enable anyone to do it – and reach an audience. But would you do it for free? What if it lead to a million hits and a two-book deal with HarperCollins? Emily Benet tells us how she used Wattpad as a launchpad, and shares her top tips for success.
Read More
Twitter: Huge distraction? Waste of time? Like shouting into an empty field? That’s what Saul Wordsworth used to think. But now his Twitter comedy character Alan Stoob has become a bestselling book, and may become a Hollywood movie. He reveals how he did it – and how you can create your own Twitter character.
Read MoreAfter a disastrous launch, Ben Hatch’s book Are We Nearly There Yet? went to number one in the Kindle non-fiction charts. He tells is us how his book became a bestseller thanks to the support of his Twitter followers.
Read MoreWhen science fiction novel The Red Men was first written, ebooks and video sharing were futuristic tools. Now, as reality
Read More
We’re all familiar with blog-to-book success stories. But what about blog-to-sitcom? Regular readers will remember Emily Benet. She won the 2010 Author Blog Award in the Published Author category, which was announced at the Publishing Talk tweetup at the London Book Fair. Her début book, Shop Girl Diaries, began as a weekly blog about working in her mum’s unusual chandelier shop.
Read More
Blogging is a great way to raise your profile, connect with readers and encourage sales. But how do you get started? Science fiction author Keith Mansfield started on the road to blogging with a workshop his publisher sent him on – and he’s never looked back. Here he explains how he got started, how he’s benefited from blogging, and shares his top blogging tips.
Read More
Writers’ block: two words that strike fear into every writer. But for the past 11 years every November a website has come to the rescue. National Novel Writing Month was founded in 1999 by US-based freelance Chris Baty and 20 other writers. Aimed simply at getting words on the page, it sets participants a target of 50,000 words written by the end of the month, and provides forums and exercises aimed at overcoming writer’s block. It has an impressive success rate: of the 165,000 participants in 2009, over 30,000 crossed the 50,000 word line at the end of November.
One of those who participated in 2008 was creative writing graduate Julia Crouch, who had hit a wall. It helped more than she expected: before Christmas the books that came out of NaNoWriMo won her a three book deal with Headline. Her début, the psychological thriller Cuckoo, is published in March. Here she explains how NaNoWriMo helped.
Amazing things can happen on Twitter if you catch the eye of an ‘influencer’ or two.
Sarah Salway’s Something Beginning With was first published in 2004. Although it had a blog, this was in the days before Twitter, Facebook, and the huge word of mouth possible to achieve with them.
In November 2010 it was republished by the Friday Project. Within a week, it went from nowhere to the top 250 in the Kindle charts. How did this happen?