Can Tiktok really boost your book sales? — I’ve recently had two book launches. Part of my launch strategy was to build a Tiktok account for each author name. But can Tiktok really boost book sales? I used the #BookTok hashtag to find reader engagement. …

What happened on Teenage Kicks publication day… — As the title suggests I’ve been writing this column for ten months until publication of my novel Teenage Kicks. I’ve written about ideas, writing it, plotting it, marketing it and publicising it. And now, ten months later, it’s published! My vision for Teenage Kicks publication Teenage Kicks was published by an independent publisher and not one…

Fictional characters and method writing. — I’m a method writer. It’s like method acting where you become your main character in order to know exactly who they are. Plenty of people ask me how much of me there is in my novels. Not much at all, and Teenage Kicks in no exception. Inevitably, everything I write…

How does it really feel to have a novel published? — Nine months have gone by since I started this series and it’s only one month until Teenage Kicks is published on 8th March 2023. Everyone is asking if I’m excited, but here’s how it really feels. Excited? I am excited. From start to finish this project has taken six years. I…

Less is more at this stage… — For the past seven months I’ve been sharing my experience of having a novel hurtling towards publication. Teenage Kicks will be published on 8th March 2023 by Spellbound Books and this week it went on pre-order. It was a bit of a shock as I was expecting it to be…

Holidays and writing — anyone else find it difficult to stop writing? — I treat most of December as wind-down time. If I can, I try to finish most of my writing by mid December and have a break. Even then, I still want to write. I have ideas bubbling and my fingers get itchy to get to the next plot point. But…

Sneering critics and literary snobbery — The other day I was taking part in an online writers chat and someone asked me how long it takes me to write a book. I told them it takes around three months to write the dirty first draft then another three months of checking, edits and tidying. …

Is Marketing Your Work on Twitter Still Worth the Effort? — This article was meant to be about marketing your work on Twitter. I’ve had wide experience of the good and the bad on that platform. Now it seems there is a mass exodus in the wake of change of ownership. …

You’ve caught the eye of an agent. What now? — When I first started to send work out to agents I dreamt of the day I would finally get that email or call. And I did! It was one of the ‘dream come true’ situations where my agent hunted me down to my day job and invited me to lunch. …