M.G. Mason's Blog, page 13

As A Freelancer, You Have One Major Advantage

You have something that big business do not. Why not use it to your advantage?

Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Blog Hits

Your blog is a powerful too, don't underuse it. Some things you might try to improve visibility.

Announcement: Buy Me A Coffee and Gain All This Extra Stuff

Hello! If you have got this far, thank you. Due to recent changes to this site, I will no longer be blogging here. All supporting content from now on will appear at Buy Me A Coffee.

However, this in no way means I expect you to pay for anything – let along everything.

I love blogging and I really want to keep giving you great short stories, insights into my creative processes, general interest articles about writing, and more.

I love sharing this stuff but it takes a lot of time and...

MG Mason Interviews And Other Media

This is where you’ll find me around the web!

This was my big interview with Kirkpattiecake about a week before the release of Phobetor’s Children.

In this video, I talk to Boomers on Books about Salmonweird, A Salmonweird Sleighing, and Phobetor’s Children.

Text Interviews

Talking Christmas books – The Christmas Goblin and A Salmonweird Sleighing with Elizabeth Holland.

I spoke to Compass Stories about all creative processes. Read it here.

I spoke to The Book Deligh...

The Women Pirates Who Inspired Robbie Redsword

Article contains a minor spoiler for A Salmonweird Sleighing.

Most of the Salmonweird characters are complete fiction and not based on anyone in particular. But one is inspired directly by two historical figures.

Robbie Redsword gets a passing mention in the first book. During the conversation where Karl challenges Harry over the case of the two Eddies, Harry admits to being the father of the Eddie we knew. The mother was a woman named Rose who posed as a man aboard The Lady Catherine. She...

Authors: Don’t Overlook Fonts in Cover Design!

How much thought do you put into your cover design? The answer should be “a lot.” Readers judge books by their covers, like it or not. But there is more to the cover than the image. Even the perfect illustration or photograph will be all for nothing if you choose an ugly font.

Choosing An Attractive Font

It’s usually the last thing we add and the last thing we think about. Too often, we stick with those that come with Windows 10. While Win10 has plenty of attractive fonts, not all are ...

How A Salmonweird Sleighing Came To Be

If you read the first Salmonweird book at the time of release, you’ll remember the little (then) surprise at the end. It said: We will return to Salmonweird in book 2: A Salmonweird Sleighing, and book 3: Salmonweird TV.

Book 3 is now called Studio Salmonweird and is planned for release in 2022. But it’s book 2 that I want to talk about today. How did it come about? When did I get the idea for the plot, the villain, and everything else?

As this is such a fresh release, I’ve included a ...

It’s A Salmonweird Sleighing Release Day!

It’s here! I can hardly believe it, but today is the day I finally unleash book 2 in the Salmonweird series – the Christmas Cornish crime comedy caper A Salmonweird Sleighing.

Blurb

It’s December and for Karl Blackman, the only living person in the Cornish ghost village of Salmonweir, that means unleashing his inner 6-year-old.

But all is not well, when, following the Advent Sunday service, one resident willingly returns to the afterlife with only Karl to witness it.

Did Karl really see ...

An Interview with Illustrator Leon Active (Oniphoenix)

Hello! In this blog post, I’m interviewing a very special guest – Leon Active, also known as artist Oniphoenix. You may have seen me crediting him for the work he’s done for me. So far, Leon has designed both covers of The Christmas Goblin, the creature concept art for Phobetor’s Children (which gave me a genuine chill) and most recently, Babajide and Philip Latimer for the cover of A Salmonweird Sleighing.

I met Leon in a freelancer forum about 5 years ago and approached him about a new...

Planner vs Pantser vs Plantser: Which Are You?

If you saw my interview with Boomers On Books last week, you’d have seen our brief discussion about the planner vs pantser dynamic. The interview was an hour long and because of all the other things we discussed, we didn’t go into great depth. So I thought I’d write a blog post about it to expand…

Planner? Pantster? Plantser? What Are They?

They’re writing styles – the define how a writer will compile a piece. Normally it applies to novels, but it can also apply to shorter stuff too.

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