One of the curious things about writing is the way ‘the rules’ fade away with experience. After a while, writers ‘just know’ how to do things. And good editors know they know. That also means that an experienced editor doesn’t tick off an experienced author for what, on the face of it, seems to be a … More When the writing rules fade away

I’ve never read Game of Thrones. Or watched any of the TV episodes. Apparently it’s the Wars of the Roses with a fantasy setting and modern multi-dimensional characters to appeal to the Z-gen audience, which sounds interesting – and George R R Martin is an excellent writer. But I’ve never gone out of my way … More How books become hyper-sellers

Earlier this week I posed a question: are books getting shorter? It’s a question that should be occupying us now because the rules are changing. In the old days – ‘as recently as five years ago’ – scale was mainly driven by cost. Make a book too big and the cover price would be driven up – … More And the ideal length for a book is…

Decades ago, when I was studying the philosophy of history post-grad under Prof. Peter Munz, he announced to the class that the biggest challenge facing anybody writing a book was sustaining the argument. It was, he warned, the hardest thing to do. I still remember the lesson, along with the derision with which some of … More The trick to structuring your book right – first time, every time

I’ve got a question to which I don’t – yet – know the answer. One of the biggest problems with the new publishing paradigm is the fact that the tools publishers have to make themselves known by are common to all social media and internet users. Any individual voice consequently gets lost in the noise. … More Going viral – the problem with authors being discovered on the web