Wednesday 7 May 2014

Three little writerly non-fiction books

Sell Your Books! A Book Promotion Handbook for the Self-Published or Indie Author by Debbie Young

I bought this months ago for my kindle then it got buried under other purchases, and I have only just read it. A great little book, full of very good advice on how to market your book, either digitally via blogs, facebook, twitter, goodreads etc or in the real world via radio interviews, bookshop appearances etc. I'm ok in the digital world but far too terrified to go out into the real world with my books in my sweaty little paws. But it's good to read about how I ought to do it, and I would recommend this book to anyone who is self-published.

The Business of Writing: Part One: Business Start-Up by Elizabeth Ducie

This is a great idea for a book - writers need to treat what they do as a business and be serious about it, especially if they intend giving up the day job and making their living from writing. And at only 77p it certainly seemed worth the pennies.
However it is a very short book which skims over the subject, and reads rather as though it is the introductory chapter to a longer book. It hints at rather than explains all the considerations a new business start-up brings. I found my appetite whetted but not not satisfied.
It'll be interesting to see what subsequent books in this series are like.

Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter by Nicola Morgan

I bought this ages ago when it first came out, but hadn't joined Twitter then, so I only read the beginning chapter at that point. I've now bitten the bullet and signed up, so thought I'd better find out how I ought to be using it. This is a wonderful little book, which makes you feel like the new kid in school who's been allocated a helper to show you round and make sure you know where the toilets are and everything, and that helper is lovely and friendly and very knowledgeable. I found it really useful, have set a few bookmarks in it, and now need to go to Twitter and follow up all the leads.

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