Kindle giveaway

I should have mentioned it earlier, I suppose, but my book is free on Kindle today and tomorrow (Sunday 23 and Monday 24 June). I advertised it on Bookbub, and they’ve done a very good description of it. That’s probably why nearly 10,000 people have downloaded it in the US now, taking it to number […]

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Happy Towel Day to you

I read in the paper that today is Towel Day – Douglas Adams’s birthday. He would have been 61. It’s called Towel Day because, as the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy teaches us, all a man (specifically an interstellar freebooter and stowaway) needs is a towel. Douglas Adams has always meant a great deal to me. […]

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When is success?

Like many people, I tend to judge myself against those who have more than me. This practice – unfortunately but inevitably – means that I constantly feel like a failure, no matter how I am doing. When I decided to self-publish, I tried to avoid this trap by defining some milestones in advance. I decided […]

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The number one rule of blogging

The one thing everyone agrees on, if you have a blog, is that you should be completely consistent with it. You shouldn’t, for example, suddenly stop posting for three months. Nevertheless, that is what I have done. I am a maverick, tearing up the rule book with laxity and inertia. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done since […]

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Guardian Masterclass

I’ve just been to visit the Guardian’s offices again and see their training rooms. Now I’m really looking forward to my Self-Publishing Step by Step masterclass. I’ve chosen a smallish room, to make it as easy as possible for everyone to talk, with a big window and a view over the canal, because I think everyone […]

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On not posting

I haven’t posted here for ages because I’ve been running courses in America, and after that I was caught up in a tremendous whirl of activity, including Upstairs Downton (http://www.facebook.com/UpstairsDowntonTheImproVisedEpisode). Now I am in another (slower) whirl of activity, preparing for my Guardian Masterclass at the weekend. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello, as […]

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Quirky, absurd, whimsical

The Guardian review got me thinking about these words. In a way I’m surprised they exist, since there is very little in Britain that isn’t quirky, absurd or whimsical. I was in Derbyshire last weekend, where I visited Chatsworth House, the ancestral home of the dukes of Devonshire (the earls of Derby, of course, live […]

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