advice | Alison Morton Author

Crimefest 2018 - a tale of intensity and stamina

In the CrimeFest bookroom. Oh, look, INCEPTIO!

Crimefest 2018 is over. I enjoyed it immensely, but goodness, you need stamina as it’s full-on. I don’t mean concentrating during the excellent panels (full details here), nor the snatched lunch breaks nor the feast of books in the bookroom run by Waterstones Bristol Galleries.

No, […]

Achieving the private/public balance of being an author

Is an author who publishes books, by whatever route, entitled to a fully private life? Yes, and no.

Publishing a work – fiction, non-fiction, academic – makes that work and its author’s name available to the public. A fiction writer may use a pseudonym, of course. Readers will read the work – let’s call it […]

Do you have transferable skills for the business of being an author?

Did you ever think you’d write a book? Or several? Many writers come to it late or write part-time; they’ve had or still have a Real Life. Faced with the organisation behind marketing their book, which seems like rebuilding Rome, they worry about their inadequacies on the business side. All they ever wanted to do […]

Online etiquette for authors

Few people look at Debrett’s Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners these days. Just for those unfamiliar, this book covered how to reply to an invitation, how to address H M The Queen and which knife and fork to use for each course, amongst other subjects.

Old fashioned as these things sound, they are […]

How to write a 'damnèd, smiling villain'

Octavian (Author photo) Shakespeare’s Young Octavius

O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain— At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. (Hamlet, Wm.Shakespeare)

“And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, […]