Steve Griffin's Blog, page 7

What I wish I’d known before publishing as an Indie Author

Amazon needs help to sell my books? What the…? [image error]

That���s the one thing I wish I���d known before I started writing, or at least publishing, as an independent writer – a question I was recently posed on Instagram.

As an indie author, we���re already set back by a lack of professional support and ��� all importantly ��� distribution. We���re not in the bookshops generally, or if we are it���s only through local relationships. Therefore online distribution is critical to us.

Like most i...

Freebie Friday giveaway of The City of Light & 16 books!

Freebie Friday is nearly here…

I���m excited to announce I���m joining a massive Freebie Friday giveaway this Friday 12th November 2021. Seventeen books from fifteen authors will all be free, including the first book in The Secret of the Tirthas, The City of Light!

Here���s all the books you���ll find free on Amazon (and in some cases elsewhere):

The mega-giveaway is organised by a group of fabulous authors who I���ve been connected with for a couple of years on Instagram ��� do go ...

Interview by US fantasy writer Jessica Cantwell

I’ve been interviewed by talented US fantasy author Jessica Cantwell on her blog. Here’s her intro, click the link at the bottom of the page for the full interview. (And while I’m here, a quick reminder that both The Boy in the Burgundy Hood and The Girl in the Ivory Dress are on Kindle sale over Halloween – hurry!)

Halloween is days away. Now is the perfect time for a ghost story!

Enter The Boy with the Burgundy Hood, a fantastic book by Steve Griffin. This is an entertaining read...

What I’m writing now… plus a Halloween Sale!

Now that we���re properly into the spooky season, read on for an update on my latest ghost story as well as for details of my Halloween sale.

What I’m writing now

I���ve started writing the third Ghosts of Alice story, with a working title of Alice and the Devil. What���s interesting about this story is that I normally start with an outline plot but this time I���m writing as a pantser, as it���s informally known in the trade. Most writers are plotters, but there are a few (including s...

For National Poetry Day 2021 – a poem & 2 books

It���s National Poetry Day here in the UK so here���s All, the opening poem in my collection The Things We Thought Were Beautiful, and a couple of poetry book recommendations.

And here’s the two fantastic independently published poetry books that I want to flag up, which both mean a great deal to me. With excerpts from my 5 reviews of each, they are:

US poet Sherry Lazarus Ross���s Seeds of the Pomegranate:

���I loved ���Touch Me���, in which the poet asks ���How many times can the ear...

Vote for The Girl in the Ivory Dress #CoveroftheMonth

They say not to judge a book by its cover but I need you to do just that. If you like the cover of my book, The Girl in the Ivory Dress, please vote for it for the Cover of the Month contest on AllAuthor.com!

I���ve just been nominated for this contest and need as much support as I can get.

Please take a short moment to vote by clicking the image – thank you!

Click to Vote!

The post Vote for The Girl in the Ivory Dress #CoveroftheMonth appeared first on Steve Griffin.

The Real Fire that Inspired The Girl in the Ivory Dress

The fire that Alice finds herself having to deal with at the start of my new ghost novel, The Girl in the Ivory Dress, was inspired by a real life tragedy, the near-destruction of a heritage gem just a few miles away from where I live – and where I had at one stage been planning to get married.

Clandon Park House is an eighteenth century Palladian mansion near Guildford, run by the National Trust. On April 29th 2015��a fault in a distribution board led to an inferno that shot flames high ...

The Girl in the Ivory Dress is out now!

Big news ��� my latest novel, The Girl in the Ivory Dress, is out now!

I���m so excited about this book. It���s a ghost story for adults and continues the story of Alice Deaton, who we last saw damaged but not destroyed at the end of The Boy in the Burgundy Hood.

Here���s what it’s about:

After a fire tears through the country house where she works, Alice Deaton accepts a desperate invitation from an old friend whose guest house on the Welsh coast is being haunted by a horrifying ap...

The Girl in the Ivory Dress – cover reveal!

I’m very excited to share for the first time the cover of my forthcoming ghost story, The Girl in the Ivory Dress!

It’s the second story featuring Alice Deaton, in a series of standalone novels called The Ghosts of Alice. The book will be released in the next 2-3 weeks.

What do you think?

The post The Girl in the Ivory Dress – cover reveal! appeared first on Steve Griffin.

Jocelyn Merivale – a tribute to an inspiring artist

“It’s not just that Jocelyn was contrary, she loved a fight, and was a good sparring partner. It’s that she seemed to me the opposite of just about anybody else I ever met.” – John Merivale’s Eulogy for Jocelyn, 23 September 2014

I can’t tell you how stunned I was to receive this piece of treasure in the post the other day:

Jocelyn Merivale, as regular readers of this blog may know, was a painter and friend, whose fabulous work inspired some of my poems in Up in the Air.

I got to kn...