Reviews
So many books, so little time...
When it comes to writing book reviews books, I've found that a one-size fits all approach not to be very useful. Here are the 5 types of review I write, ranging from the full length, everything but the kitchen sink version, to zero words except to say "This book exists"!
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Thumbnail sketch of a very useful book I came across recently. If you want to tighten up your prose, this is the book for you.
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OK, so this is a review of a fiction book -- but I think we can learn a lot about great use of language, convincing research and pace from reading it.
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How should you pitch a publisher with your book proposal? Or, to look at this another way, how should you not do so? This book answers that question.
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It goes without saying that in order to write well you have to read well. This slim volume of Borges' essays is perfect for the creative non-fiction writer.
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A resource base for writers.
A specialised writer's search engine, and a free novel organiser.
Read MoreMy thoughts on this book for would-be published authors, having read around a third of it up till now. Executive summary: so far so good.
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Writing full time is not likely to earn you a living. Best-selling author Joanna Penn shares her ideas and experience of using her writing to earn money in other ways.
Read MoreThe long and short of book review lengths, or why I decided to start writing thumbnail sketch book reviews instead of full length ones.
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You could let Grammarly take some of the strain of proofreading. Photo by Pink Sherbert Photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/
Read about a great proofreading tool, and maybe win a year's subscription!
Read MoreWriters' block is just one of many writerly ills. In this book, Roy Peter Clark offers over 200 practical tips.
Read MoreHow can a self-published author get noticed these days? Kristine Kathryn Rusch has some surprising answers.
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If you're looking for a handy, no frills book of suggestions for blogging, this book should meet your requirements. Having been designed as an email course, 30 Day Blogging Challenge, written by Nikki Pilkington, consists mainly of 30 very short articles on different aspects of blogging. Being able to buy the whole lot in the form of a book is excellent for those of us for whom deferred gratification is an alien concept.
Polish Your Fiction is another title in Jessica Bell’s “in a nutshell” series. It is subtitled “A quick and easy self-editing guide”, which is a very apt description.
Well, the London Book Fair has been and gone. Is it only a week ago that I was trudging home with publishers’ catalogues and notes from the various sessions I attended?
I found it really useful: three days’-worth of excellent talks and discussions, for the princely sum of £35.
There are lots of books about writing – so many, in fact, that you could comfortably avoid doing any writing at all simply by setting out to read them all. There does come a point where you need to actually sit down and write. But if there is one book that is worth taking time out to read, and use as a reference, it's Business for Authors.
The History and Art of Comic Books is a course at the City Lit college in London. There are several courses on graphic design, and even one for learning how to create cartoons and comics. This one, however, is not so much hands on, but a romp through several decades of comic book art in four weeks.
I love books that you can dip into, and I am always interested in what writers have to say about their craft. Jurgen Wolff’s Your Creative Writing Masterclass has proved to be highly rewarding on both counts.
If you listen to blues songs, you will discover that amongst the angst, the stories of “my baby done packed her suitcase and caught the midnight train” (they must have amazing rail services in the USA because all the trains seem to depart at midnight), and being down and out, there are some real glimpses of a deeper Truth, with a capital “T”.