CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

Earlier on this blog I’ve been writing about author platforms — what they are, how to put one together and whether or not you actually need one in order to succeed. I’ve argued that, if your book is attractive enough to get a publisher to invest in it, you can get published without having to fall back on your ‘identity’ via a platform in order to promote it. ‘Quality of manuscript’ and ‘suitability for the current marketplace’ are the senior factors. However, having a platf

Writers usually start out as lamps. They have ideas, they have images, they have emotions, and they want to shine these things out into the world, sometimes frantically, sometimes hopelessly, trying to reach as many readers as they can. They write and they write and they write and then they submit and submit and submit — and, if they self-publish, they spam and they spam and they spam, desperately beaming their work as far and as wide as possible. What comes back? Large

For a few years now I have been hard at work in the marketplace of ‘writers and writing’. It’s been an interesting time, and definitely a learning experience. I have come to know many, many people, not only as writers but as friends, and have developed a healthy respect for what writers all over the world are doing. I’ve also learned to see gaps: gaps in what writers are doing and what they are trying to do. One of these was the ongoing battle with the twin demons of Time a

The Inner Circle Writers’ Group has earned a reputation over the last few years as one of the most constructive and fruitful writers’ groups on the internet. It’s done this largely because of YOU: your participation in the group, supportive remarks, genuine feedback and insights, and general all-round goodness has made this a flourishing and vibrant community for writers new and established. It’s also achieved such feedback because of its production record, with over a hund

The writing life can be a lonely one. Well, it has to be, given that it is all about a person diving into their imagination on his or her own, and emerging with something coherent for the perusing pleasure of others. Other people tend to get in the way of the process, and one of the writer’s chief banes is ‘interruptions’. But the subjectivity of the whole thing can become burdensome. Many writers suffer from depression and anxiety, not only about their writing but about the

I recently posted an item on social media which gave a checklist entitled How to Support Authors Without Spending Any Money and I thought I would reproduce it here and then expand upon it a little. The original went like this: Check their book out at your local library Ask your library to add the book to their collection Review the book on Goodreads/Amazon Follow the author on social media and share their posts Take a picture of the book and share to on Instagram Suggest

Most writers I know write from their imaginations. I mean that they sit down and permit their imaginations to deliver to them a sequence of scenes, images, characters and events which are then written down as a plot. Nothing wrong with that; that’s what we do as writers. But sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you end up with something that appeals to readers, and sometimes it falls flat somehow. If you have a piece of work into which you need to bre

Another point that occasionally comes up is an attitude to do with ‘rules’. The attitude is 'To Hell with Rules.' It's a mistake. I can understand how it arises. I’ve seen many senseless arguments over the years about fiddly rules to do with the use of commas or quotation marks, or even about fonts and font sizes. It’s very possible to develop a viewpoint, if you see too much of that, that says that ‘All rules are rotten’ and to protest against them as a general… well, rule