VAL PENNY

Let me preface this article by staing the obvious! Agents are individuals and their opinion is just one opinion. (Although I appreciate that when you've been on the receiving end of several rejections, it may not feel that way.) Also bear in mind that because they are indiviauals different agents will be attracted by different aspects of your pitch. A visual person might be attracted to a mood board, while others may find a list of tropes or themes helpful. There is an elemen

When I worked in the real world, long before I was an author, I met many people from different backgrounds and each had a name. There was the lady who had married twice - her maiden surname was Robertson as was the surname of both her husbands, so she was Mrs Robertson or Robertson or Robertson. There were the people who made up what I called my dark rainbow, Mrs Brown, Miss Gray, Mr Black, Dr Green and Dr Orange and the fun names, Mrs Bird, Miss Snowball and Dr Bean.  Then I

I have now finished the manuscript of the next DI Hunter Thriller. I wanted to treat you all to a short excerpt from near the beginning of the book. Please let me know if you enjoy it. The Extract Chapter one “The festival is here again. I love this time of year. The city is so busy and vibrant,” Hunter smiled at Meera. “Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, isn’t it?”               “It is. But what we call The Festival is really several different festivals of the arts. The ori

I genuinely feel that if you have put in all the work required to complete and novel (congratulations) it is a shame if it wastes away in your cupboard or on your computer. Therefore, I happily share the routes to publication with you in the hope it will help gain your book a larger audience. I previously dealt with vanity press, hybrid press and self-publishing. Now let’s look at traditional and independent publishers.               When people talk about traditional publish

Let me start at the very beginning. You will often hear people say - everyone has a book in them … This is not true. Others will tell you – I’m going to write a book when I retire … Most of them don’t. This is because writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes months of creativity, weeks of editing, time to work through the comments of beta readers and the editor and ends with continual marketing. So, if you have completed writing a novel and whatever state it is in

It has been a busy old writing year this year for me. I am beginning to find my feet in the world of Book Signings and enjoyed a successful event in Sheffield, Sugar and Spice run by the talented author C.N. Marie. I was grateful to have the assistance of fellow author A.J. Roberts at that event. I was also thrilled to be included in the line-up at Wonderland run by the Powerhouse who is author Annalee Adams. This event took place in Nottingham and fellow author Mollie Sykes

It is a pleasure to be part of the tour for Hetty Waite's new YA novel Evolve. Many thanks to Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines for including me. Many thanks to Hetty for taking time to chat with me about her writing and her new book. Let me share the recent conversation I had with the author. What inspired you to write your most recent book? Evolve  is the second part of The Chromosome Trilogy . The idea for the trilogy came from a single,unsettling thought: what if

I write two series of books and chose to write my books in series in order to develop my characters. However, I have also written stories with standalone characters and, indeed, all my books can be read in any order as standalone novels. There are certainly advatages and disadvantages to writing a series or standalones books. I want to explore those here. Advantages: For me the big draw for writing a series was the opportunity for character development because writing a serie

We are always told that we shouldn't judge a book but its cover. However, in reality is everybody does just that and covers are crucial to the success of any book. For authors it acts as a primary marketing tool because it creates the readers' first impression of the book and the story within. This is how it helps to drive sales. For the readers the book cover sets their expectations of the tale the book will tell. A strong cover conveys genre and tone, builds credibility, a

Writing crime fiction may not seem like an obvious way to exercise your funny bones, however You will find that a comedic phrase or...

A Fighting Chance is the second in my series of Jane Renwick Thrillers and readers have had to wait patiently for this novel to...

My new Jane Renwick Thriller , A Fighting Chance , will be published next month. I am excited about sharing it with you. However, unlike...

It is my pleasure to introduce author Elizabeth Cain to the blog for the first time. Like me, she is passionate about mental health and...

It is my great pleasure to welcome fellow author Mollie Sykes to the blog today. Mollie has published several books and contributed to...

Let's imagine you've finished writing your book, the editing is done and it's almost ready to go. Now is the time to write the blurb that...

Every gripping story needs compelling characters to tell it and as the writer it is your job to create those characters and breathe life...

Some people say that everybody has a book in them. I doubt this is true. Even if it were so, I do not believe that everybody has the...

Authors generally fall into one of two categories, those who plot or those who don't. When I first started my writing career, I admit...

We learn early on in our writing journey that every story must have a beginning a middle and an end. We are also taught that our main...

The start of a new year is always exciting with the opportunity to look forward rather than back. This year my publishers, SpellBound...