Author Archive | Chris Day

Struggling authors applying for emergency funds in record numbers The Society of Authors reveals 2015 saw the highest number of applications for financial assistance, with more well-known authors beginning to ask for help By Richard Lea ┬á┬á@richardlea A record number of struggling authors applied for emergency financial assistance in 2015, the Society of Authors has […]

The disruption of the publishing industry has sparked a rise in so-called experts coming out of the woodwork offering services at various points of the publishing pipeline. To a first-time author seeking a route to publication, with no previous experience of putting together a publishing team and negotiating the rules of the industry (many of […]

by Kirsten Oliphant When I joined Twitter in 2009, I had pretty low expectationsÔÇöas evidenced in my very first tweet: Seven years later, Twitter is one of my favorite platforms. Using Twitter, I found my first writing mastermind group, landed podcast interviews with power influencers like ProbloggerÔÇÖs Darren Rowse, and was once retweeted by Vanilla […]

An industry veteran calls for publishing to recognize the need to promote reading regardless of form By Janet McCarthy Grimm | The Association of American Publishers recently released its 2014 results for revenue in book publishing and journalism, and the final number was $28 billion. According to the International Publishers Association, the U.S. is the […]

By Ellen Harvey Testing books isnÔÇÖt a common practice in the publishing industry. It makes sense, considering that for the majority of the industryÔÇÖs history acquiring a new title relied on an individual editorÔÇÖs intuition and skill. In the past, the only way to find out if a book would be successful in a certain […]

Amazon – from clicks to bricks Nathaniel Mott Earlier this month, Amazon opened a bookstore in a mall that used to house a Barnes & Noble. Much has been written about this foray into the physical realm: ItÔÇÖs been┬ácalled a potential library of the future; Amazon itself has been called the Darth Vader of the […]

Anne Miler is a ‘QI elf’ and has shared some book-related facts with us that we think you will find quite interesting… by Anne Miller on www.waterstones.com We are a planet of book lovers: in Iceland, 1 in 10 people will publish a book, IKEA sells a bookcase every 10 seconds, and in Japan they […]

by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine When you hear about networking platforms or building a presence on social media, authors generally talk about Facebook, Twitter, and blogging straight away. Sometimes podcasting and Pinterest┬áare mentioned. But Instagram? We asked our community of writers what questions they had about Instagram. Writer, podcaster, and photographer J.R. Blackwell said […]

With eight million listeners, Janey Lee Grace has spoken to more people in her lunch time than most people will ever do in their lifetime. ┬áAlready a multiple best-selling author with five books to her credit, she is well known the Media Spokesperson for the Organic and Natural Health world and also for Natural Childbirth […]

As a police officer in Swindon, Carl Rosier Jones went to make an arrest only to have a gun pulled on him and shot at him six times. “Fortunately he was firing blanks but I didn’t know that at the time. I┬á heard six bangs and I thought I was dead.┬á It was quite a […]