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Writing Update (March 2025)
In an attempt to become more accountable for my writing, I figured I’d post an update once a month. So here it is! Untitled Sci-Fi Thriller (Completed) I’ve sent this to 46 agents, all of them UK-based. So far I’ve had 13 replies. That’s 13 rejections. Here’s a sample of some of them: “I’m afraid…
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Still here. Still writing (and a new book!)
It’s been a while since my last post, but would you believe I’ve been scribbling stories the whole time? That’s not quite true. I have children now, so my time to write can fit on the head of a pin. But I have been writing… and I’ve got a new novel! What’s it about, Stew?…
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Writing a Novel – Epilogue
If anyone’s actually read this far, well done! This series of articles was written with a few outcomes in mind; the obvious one being that it might actually help someone else in pursuit of writing and publishing their own novel. I also wanted to use this series to perhaps gain some more exposure for myself,…
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Writing a Novel – Marketing
It wasn’t until I released my book that I realised generating sales was more difficult than selling table salt to a slug. There is often a conflicting thought process that goes on in the mind of someone ‘artistic’ (for want of a better word). Creating the work, improving your craft, expressing yourself and getting feedback…
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Writing a Novel – Launch Day
In the publishing world, launch day is like a celebration. The event goes off with a big bang and the book starts flying off the shelves. For me, as a self-published author with barely any effort put into my launch day, it went off with a whimper, and the few that sold were primarily purchased…
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Writing a Novel – The Finishing Touches
Naively, I thought that once I had my cover designed, and my manuscript all polished to perfection… that’d be everything I needed to get the book uploaded to Amazon and start selling like hotcakes. Unfortunately, as I’d soon find out, there were many other things I had to do. Finicky things that I probably should…
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Writing a Novel – Cover Design
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover! And yet, everyone does it. We can’t help it, it’s in our nature, which is why it’s super important to have a stand-out, memorable and professional-looking book cover. If those elements are missing, it doesn’t matter how good the actual book is… very few are actually going to…
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Writing a Novel – Prepping the Book for Self Publishing
Thanks to the wonderful technology at our disposal and the reach it creates, we now have the ability to create and sell pretty much any product or service to people across the globe. For books, this has become easier than ever before. Not only can eBooks be bought and downloaded instantly, but paperbacks can be…
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Writing a Novel – (Not) Finding a Publisher
Writing a book is hard. Getting people to read it?… Impossible! Okay, not quite… and it shouldn’t be impossible, not in this day and age. With the internet, artists not only have the available knowledge and tools to create whatever they want, whenever they want – but they’re within clicking distance of the eyes, ears…