Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 38

Happiness Matters

Happiness Matters

The publication of my latest book Happiness Matters on kindle yesterday marks one small milestone on the ten-year journey to put my dreams for a bit of daily peace and joy into practice.

 

It has taken ten years, from the time I first sat at my computer and said, ‘So now, I am going to write about how to be happy’.

Writing about happiness matters seemed a bit presumptuous, back then, until I realised that writing is how I express myself best, and how I make sense of things....

‘Choose Me’ by Kay Langdale

Book Review – ‘Choose Me’ by Kay Langdale

It’s very rare that I read a book I really, really don’t want to end. A book in which I feel so invested, I want to congratulate the characters for what they have achieved.

This is the story of how a young boy’s mother dies, leaving him an orphan – his father, a shadowy figure, introduced his mother to the drug habit which killed her and apparently left behind nothing, except that Billy looks exactly like him – and the quest to find Billy a new famil...

What Remploy did for me

What Remploy Did For Me

When I was a beneficiary of its expertise, Remploy was still owned by the Department of Work and Pensions. Following extensive factory closures, it is now in private hands, owned by Maximus and an employee trust. Since the reorganisation, what has happened to its disabled employees? They have not just gone away, and there will be hopeful for suitable openings, as anxious as the next person that their last job will not become a distant memory.

I was in and out of work a...

SixtyFive Roses by Heather Summerhayes Cariou

Sixtyfive Roses by Heather Summerhayes Cariou

Sixtyfive Roses

 

Sixtyfive Roses by Heather Summerhayes Cariou tells the story of her sister, Pammy, born with cystic fibrosis, and the effects this has on their family: two parents, four children and grandparents.

Heather, older sister of Pamela, is naturally protective towards her younger sister who is diagnosed with CF in infancy because of ‘failure to thrive’. Pamela, it is clear, is lucky to survive her birth, and lives to the grand age of...

Every indie author is different

Every indie author is different.

We all do things in our own ways, and indie publishing is one area in life where it is impossible to generalise. The technology and the rules, the specifics are always changing, so publication represents a best guess snatch at the options, which will have changed again by this time tomorrow.

But how exciting to realise that the indie landscape is constantly evolving: so many other landscapes are fixed and uniform, it is delightful to consider that indie publis...

Taking Advice

Taking advice

It is good to listen to our audience, and taking advice is always useful, whether that is from a single reader or a roomful of expectant hopefuls. As I may have mentioned, writing is a solitary and often isolating preoccupation, so it is essential to maintain contact with people in the real world outside. Without that grounding, our work, and our whole world, can come adrift.

But…. we mustn’t listen so hard to our audience – unless we are a paid writer of text for a company broc...

The processes of indie publishing

The processes of indie publishing may seem complicated, but like every task in life, they can be broken down into sections which we tackle one at a time, in sequence when it suits.

First, we decide that going indie might be a good idea, then we start to enquire, find resources and read about it. Then we read some more, then we venture to work out what the jargon means… and we keep reading.

Then we look at what to do – finish writing, edit, send out to external editor, re-edit some more, and s...

Book reviews by Jerry Waxler

Book reviews by Jerry Waxler

I am delighted to read a recent blog post “Two inspiring memoirs about suffering” by Jerry Waxler, an American author, teacher and advocate for the personal value of memoir to transform our lives.

As well as Trapped Jerry reviewed Sixtyfive Roses, an account of the life and death of a dearly loved younger sister from cystic fibrosis. (Who knew all about her ailments from an early age: in her infancy Sixtyfive Roses was the closest she could get to pronouncing cyst...

A lovely way to edit

A lovely way to edit

Over the holidays, I’ve been learning how to de-format and re-format text for uploading onto Kindle, because I’m going to publish Happiness Matters and Making Miracles myself (with a lot of help from my editor, cover designer and typesetters…).

One Saturday afternoon I decided to sit down and learn how to do formatting, as per instructions in Chris Longmuir’s book – see my previous blog post – and I finally got a handle on the process by about seven o’clock the same eveni...

The Joys of Self Publishing

THE JOYS OF SELF PUBLISHING

As the season turns and I find myself looking forward to a warm Summer, I am also embarking on a new career as an indie publisher, contemplating all the joys of self publishing.

My second book, Happiness Matters is ready to go and all the pieces of the jigsaw are slowly coming together. I have spent the last few weeks learning about formatting – for kindle, Epub files – and setting up accounts on IngramSpark, CreateSpace and KDP. (For the moment, HTML eludes me, bu...