Barry's Books
The Darkest Corners
The concluding part of this darkly funny, horror series Darren Shan called... read more
The 13th Horseman
Drake is surprised to find three Horsemen of the Apocalypse playing snakes and... read more
Doc Mortis
The fourth thrilling book in this darkly funny horror series Darren Shan called... read more
Raggy Maggie
The second book in the award-winning Invisible Fiends series. Billy is the... read more
Author Archives: Barry
DIY Book Trailers Part 2
Way back in early March I blogged about how to make your own book trailers, using my Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles trailer as an example. I promised then that I’d do a follow-up post on how I put my Book of Doom trailer together, and this here be that very post in question. First up, let’s remind ourselves what the trailer’s like. OK, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about how I put it all together. If you’ve …
Posted in Books, On the web, video
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Awards and Events
Last week was a pretty big week for me. The 13th Horseman had been shortlisted for the Grampian Children’s Book Award, and I in general had been shortlisted for the Lennox Author Award, and the winners of both were due to be announced. The first award ceremony was the for the GCBA, so on Wednesday I headed up to Aberdeen where I met up with Dave Cousins, Mark Lowery and the ever-lovely Cathy Macphail. The ceremony was great fun, with …
Posted in Awards, Events
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More Apps & Software For Writers
Yesterday I blogged about some software I find useful, and promised to come back with some more today. For perhaps the first time in history I’m actually following up with one of my blog promises, so here are two more of recommendations for apps/software writers may find handy. 3. Scrivener I came a bit late to the party on Scrivener, after hearing me old mucker Tommy Donbavand banging on about it time and time again. It’s a word processing programme, …
The 13th Horseman Reviews and Awards
It’s now well over a year since The 13th Horseman was published, so it’s great to see new reviews still regularly popping up online. Here are a few I’ve come across recently. I’m sharing them now because this is a big week for the book, as it’s up for the Grampian Children’s Book Award on Wednesday. Competition is stiff, so it’ll have its work cut out for it if it’s going to win, but win or lose the ceremony should …
Posted in Awards, On the web, Reviews
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A Tarzan Trailer Swings In
One of my favourite action adventure series of recent years is Andy Briggs’ Tarzan reboot. It’s dark, gritty and modern, while still harking back to the classic adventure tales which first introduced us to the Lord of the Apes. Andy posted a trailer on Twitter earlier today, and I wanted to share it here. If you haven’t checked out the books yet, then I can really recommend them. Visit Andy’s site to find out more.
Posted in Books, Reviews, video
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Useful Apps & Software for Writers
I mentioned on Twitter recently that I’m a big fan of the note-taking software, Evernote, and said I use it extensively when planning my books. I soon got a reply from top author fella, Chris Priestley, who had never looked into Evernote before. We chatted for a bit and then off he went to download it to try it out for himself. It got me thinking that maybe I use some other software that other writers aren’t aware or, or …
Posted in On the web, Personal, Random Writings, Writing Tips
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Box of Awesome
I’ve been meaning to blog about Box of Awesome for a while now, but a combination of looming deadlines and sheer laziness have prevented me. However, yesterday’s announcement about publisher Simon & Schuster teaming up with the bods at BOA has coincided with me finishing a new book, and created a perfect storm of blogging conditions resulting in everything that follows. I first heard about Box of Awesome quite a while back through my son. He’s always finding random stuff …
Posted in Books, On the web
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First Draft Jitters
Well I’ve done it. This week I finished the first draft of the second book in my brand new and still top secret series. What I can tell you is that it’s completely different to anything I’ve done before. This is 1) a happy thing, because I love exploring new genres; and 2) utterly terrifying. Writing A New Thing is terrifying for a lot of authors because it means venturing into previously uncharted territory, and possibly out of your comfort …
Another Bookseller’s Thoughts
Ace Edinburgh Bookshop bookseller and friend of mine, Cat Anderson (who is responsible for getting a copy of The 13th Horseman into Neil Gaiman’s hands) has sent me her thoughts on some of the posts I made on here recently, specifically those about it being difficult to find my books in England. She has kindly agreed to let me stick those very thoughts up here. Whether you’re an author, bookseller, publisher, reader, Scottish or otherwise, everything below is well worth …
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A Bookseller’s Thoughts
Following my recent posts (here and here) about the grim inevitability of having to direct people to Amazon until such times as more bookshops outside Scotland stock my books, I had a long late night chat with Waterstone’s bookseller, David McCormack. David kindly offered to share his thoughts from a bookseller’s point of view, so authors – you might want to pay attention to the below… Between authors believing bookshops will not take or have their book on the shelves, and …
Posted in Books, Guest Post, Publishing Industry
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