Alison Brodie's Blog, page 2

New year new book: it has been emotional

If I had any fingernails left, I’d be chomping on them. If I hadn’t sworn off all my vices for the New Year, I’d be swimming in them. If I hadn’t set January 26 as the launch date of my new romance, THE DOUBLE, I’d be baking a cake, walking a dog, or at least taking a breather now and then.   But this is it. This is the witching hour. The words are on the page. The years are in between the lines. The story is crouched in the birth canal. The midwives are hovering. At least with Kindle I can go

Seasonal Disorder

    I write romance.  To write romance you need to be in “the zone”; to be steeped in a world of pounding hearts and trembling limbs.  You need silence, order and isolation.  The only visitor you want is your muse.   Let me explain by taking you back twelve months …                                                                        * I was just coming to the climatic love scene THE DOUBLE.  Aleksandr (a Ukrainian smuggler) and Beth (the beautiful stand-in for a rock-star-in-hiding) know they

ebook covers that jump off the screen!

I am starting a gallery of sensational ebook covers that will give us all inspiration.  If you have an ebook cover that you would like to add, email me at: brodie.alison@hotmail.com                                  

Entice Readers with your Book Cover

                                                                                      See how the two complementary colours - green and red - work?  The cat's eye is green, making it stand out against the red.                                                                                                    * Following on from last two blog posts about e-Book Cover design, I am now going to give examples of eye-stimulating book covers and ideas for outsourcing the cover design.   A great book

Entice Readers with your Book Cover

    Above:  See how the two complementary colours - green and red - work?  The cat's eye is green, making it stand out against the red.                                                                              * Following on from last two blog posts about e-Book Cover design, I am now going to give examples of eye-stimulating book covers and ideas for outsourcing the cover design.   A great book cover is the thing that's going to get your book noticed.   Remember, as an ebook, your cover will

Amazon says you can't go nude!

How to design your ebook cover   Following on my from my last blog - Colours for your Book Cover - I am now going to talk about design tips.   Remember, your cover needs to jump off the screen and sum up your story at a glance!  Person or object?   Amazon advises that having a person on your cover is more appealing to buyers.  I agree, yet I have a problem...   When my debut, ‘Face to Face’ was published by Hodder & Stoughton, I was dismayed.  My heroine, Peri, was meant to be one of the most

Colours for your Book Cover.

You’ve written your novel, now it's time to create an ebook cover that will grab attention, jump off the screen and sum up your story at a glance.    As an indie author your cover is a priority.  Vibrant, eye-catching, intriguing.  Easy to do?  Well …   We would all like a cover like Joanne Harris’s “Five Quarters of the Orange” with all its intricate detail that is a pleasure to study (it was only on my third look that I noticed the hand-grenade!). But, sorry, my fellow independent authors, we

Amazon says you can't go nude!

You’ve written your novel, now it's time to create your ebook cover - a cover that will grab attention, jump off the screen and sum up your story at a glance.    As an indie author your ebook cover is a priority.  Vibrant, eye-catching, intriguing.  Easy?  Well …   We would all like a cover like Joanne Harris’s “Five Quarters of the Orange” with all its intricate detail that is a pleasure to study (it was only on my third look that I noticed the hand-grenade!). But, sorry, my fellow independent

Yes! Have a No-No Day ... often

  When your job’s up in your head, you take it with you everywhere. How lovely and super is that, to have a commitment and dedication to your craft so intense that it accompanies you every waking hour?   It is with you every second of every minute of every day, sitting in your brain screaming for attention like a toddler on a sugar high, like an attack of tinnitus, like a buzzy blue-bottle that refuses to fly out of the window.   Writing is intensely rewarding yet spitefully unforgiving. It[image error]

Your Nagging Voice

Ten daily dilemmas before breakfast   Every day every writer hears the voices. You chomp your toast and the voices chomp away at your brain making sure that the last hour contemplating your first positive action on your novel today goes swirling into the black hole of indecision. This is the role of the nagging voice.         Welcome to daily self-doubt that comes with every word you write. There’s an easy way and a hard way to do this. The easy way is to look to the advice of successful