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Tuesday Round-up | 15/1/2018

Tuesday Round-up | 15/1/2018

by | Jan 15, 2019 | Blog, Favourites

My Tuesday round up was quite successful last week, so here’s another one. If any of you have blog posts or articles that you think would be useful for next week’s roundup, feel free to send me the links and I’ll give them a read.

This week The Creative pen discusses the benefits and fallbacks of voice technology with Bradley Metrock, The KOBO writing life podcast talks about the making of the movie version of The House With a Clock in its Walls, which sounds fabulous and has been added to my TBR list.

Podcasts

What if the future is voice first? What if people ask AI assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant to find them a book to read? What if the primary consumption of books is in audio format, not print or ebook? I talk about these questions and more with Bradley Metrock.

In this episode, Rene from PR sits down with the cast and crew of the recent film The House with a Clock in its Walls (based on the novel by John Bellairs) to learn about their experience working on the movie and their favourite books. Rene chats to director Eli Roth about his experience directing a fantasy/horror movie geared towards a family audience, actor Owen Vaccaro about working with successful actors Cate Blanchett and Jack Black and music composer Nathan Barr, about incorporating old school horror-flick sounds into the movie’s score.

What are scene and story climaxes? Why do you need them? In this episode, I talk about the decisions your characters make, as well as the actions they take, when faced with a dilemma. You’ll hear Matt Bizzel’s horror short story, “A Window Out: Or, the Accidental Death of Frank Ortiz” and my analysis of the scene. The editorial mission encourages you to collect examples of these critical decisions and actions by reading and watching stories—and from your own life. 

Articles

Videos

Tuesday Round-up | 08/01/2018

Tuesday Round-up | 08/01/2018

by | Jan 8, 2019 | Advice, Blog, Favourites

First of all, happy New Year!

We have all made New Year’s resolutions from time to time. This year I have only one: I promise to be better at updating this blog.

As part of this, I have decided to do a weekly roundup post of articles and podcasts which I feel will be useful to you. This week we have podcasts from The Creative Penn and Kobo Writing Life with some fantastic information on marketing, and articles with information on where the future leaders of the publishing industry think it might be heading, some useful information on phrases to avoid and how to write good dialogue, and a link to the Sunday Times short story competition sponsored by audible where you can win a first-prize of £30,000!

I want to especially mention the amazing members of the Twitter #writingcommunity, who helped my author profile @AHJohnstoneAuth to 1000 followers!

Podcasts

  • The Creative Penn | Lessons For 21st Century Creatives With Mark McGuinness;
    • On the current climate for creatives and makers
    • Having rules and boundaries around creative time and connected time
    • Different types of assets creatives have, including reputational assets
    • The importance of creating value with our work
    • Looking through ‘the other end of the telescope’ in order to serve the reader
    • The ‘ecosystem’ of a creative’s time and business
    • The importance of rest and taking time off from creative work and listening to your body
    • Swallowing the frog in any type of work
    • Opportunities available with audio
 
  • Kobo Writing Life | Ep 131 – Ricci Wolman
    • How to use Freebooksy and Bargainbooksy to reach more readers. As Ricci explains, they try to keep things streamlined to make securing a spot as painless and time-efficient as possible. Written Word has close to 1M readers across their sites.
    • Ad stacking as a marketing technique to increase your reach.
    • Their latest site, Reading Stacks, which focuses on the growing importance of audiobooks and makes recommendations for the best books to use your subscription credits on. Check it out at https://readingstacks.com/
    • The ever-growing importance of investing in advertising if you want to grow your book sales. As competition grows, the cost of advertising is growing, and Ricci predicts this will continue. She recommends having a diversified marketing strategy.
    • We’d highly recommend checking out WWM’s author blog, where they deliver tons of valuable information. Read their latest post, “Top Ten Publishing Trends Every Author Needs to Know in 2019,” for a stellar summary of industry updates.

Articles

“But we can agree that TV is part of the culture, right?” Yap asks in response. “We’re all human. Whether you want to call it entertainment or art, we’re all contributing to the culture.”

“It’s a total homogenization of culture,” Chew says. “Streaming has changed everything. I hope they’re not comparable. I don’t think literature is entertainment.”

Videos

Is your book edit ready?

Is your book edit ready?

by | Oct 16, 2017 | Advice, Favourites, Reading List

This post offers a selection of my personal favourite titles on self-editing. Many new writers have been caught out in thinking that once they have completed their first draft all they need to do is find an editor to spruce it up with a proofread. This could not be further from reality. The editor is who you go to once you have gone as far as you can without help (self-editing) but how do you go about such a task? In truth, the answer, like in writing, is that there is no single right way to go about it and, unfortunately, there is no magic wand I can wave to make it easy either. Your best bet is to find a system that works for you but always be open to listening to how others do theirs.

The advice in these few books is succinct and concise, so new writers will find it endlessly useful.

Outlining your Novel

Let outlines help you write a better book!

Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.

Creating CharActer Arcs

Have you written a story with an exciting concept and interesting characters—but it just isn’t grabbing the attention of readers or agents? It’s time to look deeper into the story beats that create realistic and compelling character arcs. Internationally published, award-winning novelist K.M. Weiland shares her acclaimed method for achieving memorable and moving character arcs in every book you write.

Edit Ready

Edit Ready is an author’s reference book for use during story development, writing and both self editing and when you get your manuscript back from your editor.

The Emotion Thesaurus

One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character’s emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by highlighting 75 emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each.