Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working on the edge of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors and to support Sagai’s family. …
Read MoreIt’s shaping up
It’s all go, chez Oliver. Yesterday my tech support guy (aka DH) got the self-hosted website up and running. I like the more minimal look, what do you think? Today, I’ve edited all my Alex Oliver books to include a link to my newsletter, which …
Read MoreWrite On – a short practical guide to becoming a published author.
Getting Started – the tools of the trade. Hoards of people want to write a novel. Just as doctors find that everyone they meet tells them about their ailments, authors find that everyone tells them about the novel they intend to write. Authors generally nod …
Read More
How to convert your fanfiction to original fiction so you can publish it and make a ton of money.
First I’d like to say that fanfic is awesome. A lot of people will try to make you feel ashamed about having written fanfic. I’ve read blogs where readers have said ‘I loved that book! Now I know it was fanfic once, I feel betrayed.’ …
Read MoreHow to swap your books from Createspace to KDP
I’m glad to say I’ve finally got this done. I’ve been periodically clicking the “migrate your books from Createspace” link over on KDP, only to find that while it took me to the correct account, it persistently refused to actually verify that account. I also …
Read MoreAnother day, another cover re-design
As is often the case, now I’ve started doing cover re-designs I looked at the rest of my books and thought ‘should I update these too?’ As per usual, the answer was ‘well, let’s at least try.’ I went looking for a new picture for …
Read MoreHow not to do cover art – a case study
I’m sure there are people who approached becoming an indie author with A PLAN and researched how to do it properly before they even started. I didn’t. I became a published author more or less by fluke, and when my publishers folded I found myself …
Read MoreHelp me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,
I need your expert eagle eye. The Cygnus Five books have been through an array of covers. It’s almost embarrassing. The first ones looked like Romance covers – not really appealing to fans of space opera. The second ones resembled hard SF and were colourless …
Read MoreHow to Finish your novel – two essential tips.
Strangely enough, it took me years before these two things occurred to me. Although they’re very simple and very basic indeed, they are my most indispensable weapons in my whole writerly armoury. How to finish a story no.1: Start at the beginning and go on …
Read More
Asexual and Agender; My journey to understanding the invisible orientations
It wasn’t until I was in my early fifties that I finally worked out that I was agender and asexual. Figuring out that I was asexual was the easier part of the equation. That really only required coming across knowledge of the orientation. But it …
Read More