CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

Here are some of the things that I have learned about marketing which can be stated - in no particular order - without a great deal of background information. They are not necessarily palatable things. Some of them may come across as blunt or assertive. But they are observations that I have made after many years in the marketing business and I offer them for your use. 1. Good writing does not usually sell itself. Just because you have written something - even if it is act

One of the deepest lessons of being a successful writer is to do with where to place focus. I don’t mean the focus that the writer puts on his or her work, though of course that’s linked. I mean the unspoken, often unconscious focus behind or around that. Writing is a lonely affair. It has to be. To get those stories out onto the page or screen from wherever they dwell requires concentration, time and space. But surrounding that work is the invisible framework of thinking

A writer recently asked me this question as part of my coaching programme: I sent a promotion to a cold list offering a free e-copy of my latest book. I had half a dozen or so people click the link to check out the book but nobody went ahead and actually bought it. What did I do wrong? The solution is pretty straightforward. But keep in mind that there are four types of prospect for your book(s), which we’ll cover in a moment. If I’m talking to a cold list, an offer lik

When you think about genres like science fiction, fantasy or horror, what are the first names that come to mind? Asimov? Tolkien? King? Probably. You might struggle to name the second tier of people - their names come slightly more slowly. Only one or two names will leap to mind instantly in any category of fiction. They are the master authors in their particular field. They dominate that category. There are obviously many authors in any given grouping, not just one - but i

I’m going to show you here an excerpt from the beginning of Charles Dickens’ masterpiece of a short story, 'The Signalman'. Then I’m going to ask you some questions to point out to you various features about the excerpt which Dickens is using to have an effect on you as a reader. Here’s the excerpt: "Halloa! Below there!" When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have

I read almost every day about writers struggling in the marketplace, either to get their books noticed and accepted by publishers, or, once published, to get them sold. In both categories, there are scam artists who strive to take advantage of the inexperience of such writers by promising large rewards ‘for such-and-such a price’, whether they are trying to charge the writer to publish their work or later, to market it. The rule of thumb that should be adopted when it comes

Many writers enter the marketplace trembling. They feel that they are leaving their comfortable world of storytelling - when it is comfortable - and crossing the threshold into a new zone where the same laws don’t apply. Many fall for the high-powered hype that comes with being part of the internet society, and start spending money on Amazon Ads and Facebook Ads and all the rest, working on the belief that if they can get their book seen by as many people as possible they’ll

Here’s an exercise for you. Take the following passage (from Jerome K. Jerome’s book, Three Men in a Boat, which I am reading at the moment) and see if you can focus only on the punctuation, which has been interfered with here so that there are at least three errors: It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me

Here are a few more tips to help you with productivity. These have worked for me - they might not work for everyone, but I suggest that you adapt them to your own situations as you see fit. 1. Adopt a plan that extends for decades. This is the Big Picture, around which all the rest of your production schemes will materialise. I developed a Forty Year Plan (I’m heading into Year 11 right now) and included everything that I could possibly think of, including moving house, r