Writers Remedies

In the advent of my book talk at Coventry Central Library, I will be interviewed by Phil Upton of BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio for a five minute chat. Interview on BBC Coventry about Book Talk Radio interview with Charles Jay Harwood I will be holding the following day at Coventry Central Library on Tuesday 8 July at 10.30am. As I write in 2 different genres (art instruction and fiction thrillers) will do a talk on both subject areas. The talk is to last about an hour, with half-hour overrun allowance. There is a lot to cover, as I shall bring my art instruction books, sample paintings, as well as the fiction thrillers that I write under my pseudonym. Book Talk with Charles Jay Harwood The author never knows how the book talk will pan out, despite planning, so I have drafted an outline on how the author talk will run. I will begin with my art books, showing samples and original artwork. I shall then follow this with how I got into writing and how th...

Getting authentic customer book reviews is, in my view, more difficult than writing the novel. Need an honest view of how to get customer reviews for your books? Well, the reality is, some seemingly infallible strategies simply don’t work. My personal experience has yielded the following results from trying many different strategies at getting book reviews. Put a Note in Your Book Asking the Reader to Post a Review after Reading Asking for Reviews at the End of Your Book I left a note in the back of my book asking for a book review, but as other authors are likely doing the same thing, the person who purchased your book is likely to turn a blind eye, and so far has yielded no reviews. Email Customers on Amazon who Read your Genre I went through Amazon reviewers who leave copious book reviews. I am careful to find a fan of the genre that I write in (ie, thrillers). I also looked for customers who posted reviews on a book that exhibits my book under ‘people who brou...

Can book cover design really make a difference to book sales? Color and fonts can have massive impact upon the sale of your book, according to reliable sources on book publishing. But I wanted to find out for myself. I decided to conduct an experiment on book cover design to see if book sales increased (or reduced). The focus of this article is on fiction books. Tips on Color Theme for Book Sales The colors used on your book cover should inform on the type and genre of book it is. Primary colors against dark or black are powerful, and are often seen on political or crime thrillers; soft blues and mauves can be seen on contemporary women’s fiction, yellows and greens on humor. However, every color should be considered when designing a book cover. Fonts for High Selling Books Simple, large fonts are best, so that the title of the book can be read when the book cover is on thumbnail view. I stretch my fonts as large as the book cover will allow, retaining a portion of the...

Not so long ago, I did not know what an Epub was, and did not know how to create an Epub of a book. Epub is now widely used in epublishing and has become a vital part of formatting files for indie writers. What is an Epub? EPUB stands for Electronic Publication. The International Digital Published Forum (IDPF) demands that e-books are created to this format. The file will possess the extension, ‘.epub.’ For example, mynovel.EPUB. Epubs possess particular characteristics in that: The text is free-flowing meaning that the text will fit on the screen of any device, unlike PDF, which is a static document. Epubs can possess metadata about the book, a book cover and a live table of contents that can be displayed alongside your book (known as NCX explained in a moment). Epub books can also contain raster and vector images within the book. The Best Format for Uploading Books Books can be uploaded via various formats, such as web page filtered and inserted in a zip file (I ...

Polar views exists on whether the indie book should be given away on a free promotion on Amazon. There are many pros and cons of freebies. Having self published books for some years now, can see both sides, but the focus of this article is when to think twice before running a free promo of your book on Amazon. Why Not Run a Book Giveaway for Getting Reviews Few could argue that running a free promotion of a book will cast spotlight on the novel for a day or so. If the writer is lucky, the free promo may spark a few sales on the tail end of the promo day, but in my experience, is rarely sustained. A free promo is also good for a series of books. The first part of the series is given away to whet the appetite of potential customers, and if liked, may pay to upload others. Pitfalls of Promoting Book Giveaways You Can't Post Reviews on Amazon from Kindle Of course, the author has to commit his/her books to Amazon for 90 days on KDP Select in order to run free ...

Formatting table of contents links to make a book easy to navigate around may appear fine when viewed on Word and on the look inside preview on Amazon. However, the TOC may not be live within the kindle reader. How can the publisher create a NCX File to make these links live? Here's how. How to Make TOC Live in the Ereader Table of Contents in Kindle Aren't Live Creating a table of contents by creating links within the document via the use ofbookmarks is covered in another article within this blog. This article focuses upon how to make the table of contents live within the Kindle so that the reader is able to navigate to any chapter without having to scroll to the contents page. What is the NXS File in Epub Books? Here we can see the Kindle has merely created links to the cover of the book, the beginning and end,. The contents appears greyed out (arrowed). This basic navigation is insufficient for the Kindle user who wants to be able to navigate to chapt...

A book talk has been arranged for me at Coventry Central Library in the West Midlands on Tuesday 8 July 2014 at 10.30 – 11.30 am. Coventry Library is located centrally within the Shopping Centre not far from West Orchards, perfect for a pop in for a listen. A Book Talk on Thrillers at Coventry Library I plan to provide copies of my thrillers, The Shuttered Room, Falling Awake, A Hard Lesson and Nora. It is always difficult to gauge how many books to supply for these occasions, as the size of the crowd cannot be anticipated. Hopefully, there won’t be enough books! I have just completed a light edit of all my books and plan to do a reading from one of them (yet to be decided). Incidentally, all my books take place in locations not far from Coventry, including Coventry itself (the Godiva Statue gets a mention in Nora). Locations include fictional villages in Warwick, Solihull, Bedworth and Lichfield. All thrillers are set in the modern day. The murky side of human nature ...