Val Tobin's Blog, page 22
October 24, 2016
October 23, 2016
William Shakespeare Timeline Infographic…
Cool timeline of Shakespeare’s life and works.
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog
Source: NoSweatShakespeare.com
October 16, 2016
October 5, 2016
Walk-In Promo
Available to the first 100 readers, you can now get Walk-In for .99 with the coupon code JT32U. The coupon expires on October 31, 2016.
Download Walk-In from Smashwords here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/645701
A young psychic woman fights an attraction to a handsome but skeptical novelist while she battles a power-hungry sorcerer determined to make her his next conquest.
September 26, 2016
Guest Author: Frank Parker
Enlightening interview with author Frank Parker.
Hey, everybody! Top of the evening to you, and welcome back to our September Spotlight of indie authors here at Blackwood’s. Today’s special guest is the awesome Frank Parker! Let’s have a little chit-chat with him.
Here’s Frank! (I really love this pic of him.)
Everyone has a story about why they love to write. What’s yours?
I was an avid reader from an early age – one of those people that cannot resist reading the back of the cereal packet and sauce bottle whilst eating breakfast! And I was read to; my mother’s way of sharing her own love of reading with her children. Our knowledge and understanding of the world around us comes from reading. Our formal education consists principally in studying prescribed texts under the guidance of our teachers.
It was not long before I felt the need to challenge some of the discoveries I made through…
View original post 629 more words
September 20, 2016
UK Vanity Publishers Austin Macauley & Pegasus in Horrible Bait-And-Switch
More shady vanity publishers to avoid.
A number of UK-based vanity presses are engaging in unsavory tactics: passing themselves off as trade publishers and only hitting writers with the bill when it comes to contracts.
I moved back home recently and started being assailed by all sorts of seamy ads aimed at writers in the UK/Irish market. One of the most widely advertised is a vanity press called Austin Macauley (I’m not linking to them and boosting their SEO, here’s a link to a Google search instead).
The basic MO is to pass themselves off as a regular publisher – right down to having commissioning editors, submission guidelines, the works – when they are really what the industry refers to as a subsidy press.
A subsidy press is generally defined as a publisher which requires its authors to make a “contribution” towards the publishing costs of the book. In practice, subsidy presses are simply vanity presses…
View original post 1,135 more words
September 13, 2016
Why the Fashion Industry is Dying—Laughing at Salad & Cleavage Snacks
Excellent article on the fashion industry’s oversights.
Today we are going to talk about something a bit different, but maybe this might inspire your fiction, because if the world changes guarantee you a writer was behind it
September 12, 2016
Roxanne Tellier – Hot Town – Mean Streets – Jazz Hands!
A new voice I discovered at a party who should be heard.
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say
What ..are we back? Now?Like this now?
Sheesh, I am no good without routine ..give me time off and I collapse into inertia. Or maybe it was the heat this summer or maybe I’m just lazy. Whatevs. I feel like a kid coming back to school after summer vacation, with an essay so banal that even the dog won’t eat it.
View original post 1,288 more words
September 9, 2016
Make a writer’s day
Make a writer’s day. Leave a review.
There are a couple of things guaranteed to make any writer’s day. Sales and reviews. Sales are wonderful and it would not be honest to say otherwise, but that is not always the biggest gift for a writer… anyone can buy a book, but what we really want to know is whether they enjoyed it.
Not everyone feels they know how to write a review. Rosie Amber has a very useful set of review templates on her site that offer a way to write a simple or in-depth review. These are exceedingly useful to any potential reader who looks at them.
From the author’s perspective, a single line works just fine and can have me them whooping like idiots:
More is good too and we can learn a lot from constructive criticism and critique. We might smart a bit at some of it. We may not always agree… but we…
View original post 79 more words
