News and Views

Today's post is just a general round-up of news from the net.

Kate Jackson has posted an announcement this morning of a new imprint at DC Thompson called Easy Reads which should excite writers (and readers) of category-length romances. I love the covers!
Sally Quilford also has more on this on her blog.

I'm really excited about all these new romance imprints opening up, and all the new opportunities for writers. But I'm also reminded of Anne Ashurst's cautionary words in her closing speech at the RNA conference: always read the fine print and be sure what you're giving away and what you're getting in return. This applies to any publishing house, and Kathryn Rusch recently posted this interesting blog post on how we each have our own, very different dealbreakers.

In other news, Maeve Binchy died this week, aged 72. The Irish Times carried this article in tribute to her. Another great loss to women's fiction.

I came rather late to the news of the eBook debate that stirred at the recent Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, but nevertheless found this blog post by Stephen Leather rather entertaining.
There's been a great deal of talk recently about copyright issues regarding images used on blogs. Dear Author carried a cogent post explaining the issue earlier this week, and social media guru Kristen Lamb came up with a solution.

And finally, for the view ...

No copyright images here - this is a picture I took at work today. I know I complain about the day job and how much it interferes with my writing, but there are compensations. Apologies for the poor quality, but the only camera I had on me was my cell phone.

My New Guru

If you don't already follow Kristen Lamb's amazing blog, you should. I've read her blog posts sporadically the last couple of years, but at the start of this fresh, sparkly new year I read her book "Are you there Blog?" and it quite literally revolutionised my writing life.

Kristen's blog often covers the same stuff as her books, but in bite size chunks. Though with her witty, and sometimes irreverent take on things, the books make for quick, fun reading too.

As a guru of social media, Kristen obviously has a great deal of good advice on promotion for authors, but she also has great writing, business and even personal advice for us. Perhaps the most important thing I took from "Are you there Blog? It's me Writer" and its prequel, "We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media" is that we need to treat our writing careers professionally from the very get go, even if we still have day jobs and can only spare an hour a day to this fledgling new career.

Are we serious about being authors?
Then we can't afford to make excuses. We must be prepared to make sacrifices. We need to take ourselves and our writing craft seriously, and we need to make time for this new career.

Kristen says it like it is, gives real advice and practical tips, and we're all better off for listening.
Don't believe me? Start with these hard-hitting posts:
Don't Eat The Butt: Lies that can poison our writing career
The Why Behind the Buy

So now that you're in no doubt who my new guru is, do you have any gurus in your writing or personal lives? Anyone whose words have changed your life? If so, please share them here. I'm always looking for new inspiration.

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And a marvellous post script to today's post: Congratulations Suzanne Minx on a request. Your patience has certainly been rewarded!