bookofdoom

The Book of Doom

The second hilarious book in Barry’s AFTERWORLDS sequence – comic fantasy perfect for fans of Pratchett and Douglas Adams. There’s panic up in Heaven. They have mislaid the BOOK OF DOOM – the most important object in existence. Oopsy. They think Satan might have stolen it, the sneaky...

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Random Writings

Useful Apps & Software for Writers

best 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 …

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Blog Swap: SisterSpooky

laura

A couple of weeks ago, while chatting with Darren of The Book Zone, I had an idea. I decided I would swap blogs with some of my favourite book bloggers for a day. They would post something on mine, and I would post something on theirs, for no other reason than it might be a bit of a laugh. So I picked four lovely bloggers and asked them send me a post on any subject under the sun. It could …

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DIY Book Trailers Part 1

Make your own book trailers

Thanks to the rise of YouTube and social media in general, book trailers are becoming an increasingly useful way of getting your novels noticed. For their biggest, most high-profile titles, publishers will sometimes fork out to have a trailer produced, but increasingly the task, like a lot of book marketing in general, falls to the author. For those with no experience of video production, this can be a hugely daunting thought, and many authors simply won’t bother with a video, and …

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Getting Dads Reading

familysharing

Research published today by Booktrust revealed a depressing, if not entirely surprising statistic: Just one in eight fathers reads regularly to their children. The reason I’m not really surprised by this figure is that I’ve done my own research on the matter, although nowhere near as scientifically as I’m sure Booktrust has. Despite writing for older age groups, I often get asked to “do a wee talk” to the lower primary school age groups, and whenever I do I ask …

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Some thoughts on literary Lampard

Frank Lampard

Social media was all a-twitter the other day (see what I did there?) over news that England and Chelsea footballer, Frank Lampard, is to write a series of five books for children, to be published by Little, Brown later this year. Based on my observation and a highly unscientific survey I conducted on my Facebook page, suggests reaction to the news has been fairly negative – particularly among children’s authors. There have been a lot of “he’s nicking our jobs” …

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Doc Mortis’ Musical Taste Explained

Cuddly Radio

Happy Halloween, Fiendlings! In honour of this day of horror, I thought I’d share a little story about where one of the ideas in my Invisible Fiends series came from. So settle down, grab a toffee apple, and prepare to discover the terrifying secret of Doc Mortis’ Musical Taste! If you’ve read the fourth, fifth or sixth book in the series you’ll be aware that the villain of book four - Doc Mortis - is obsessed with the song “The Teddy Bears Picnic”, and the …

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First line revealed

I’ve started work on a novel for adults. Not really sure why, other than that I have a story which wouldn’t work as a children’s book. Today, I wrote the first line, so I thought I would share it here. Here it comes… now: “Casey Garrett died, aged ten, alone and in the dark.” There you have it. One down, thousands to go.

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Is Piracy a Good Thing?

pirate_flag

As I write the headline for this post, I can already hear a thousand authors and publishers sharpening their knives. I want to make it clear from the start that I’m not defending piracy, nor am I attacking it. I’m merely posing a question, and would love to hear some answers from people on it. I’d also like to stress that by “piracy” I mean the type that involves copyright infringement, not boats and eyepatches. The type of piracy that …

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Savile Secures Grand National Victory

In tribute to our fallen friend and colleage, Sir Jimmy Savile, who sadly passed away… um… recently, here’s an old article I wrote for a spoof news website I used to run, The Observant. I can think of no more fitting a tribute. SIR JIMMY SAVILE SECURES GRAND NATIONAL VICTORY First published Sat 8th April 2006 Bookmakers up and down the country were facing record payouts this afternoon, after 200-1 outsider, Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, came from behind to claim …

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Apocalypse Dos and Don’ts

The end of the world is coming. There’s no point crying about it, we just have to accept it and do what we can to prepare for the Day of Judgement when it eventually comes. Luckily, I’ve been given some advice on how best to get ready for The End, and being the caring sort, I thought I’d share it with you lot. Click the image below to read my Apocalypse Dos and Don’ts. You’ll thank me for it some …

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