Advice for New Writers

I would like to recommend a website for writers who are looking for a community that will offer feedback and support for their work. Write and Share is a UK based website that has grown at an incredible rate during the last twelve months. I have been with them from the start, and I can't actually remember how it was that I connected with the owner, Naomi Chance. All I know is that she is a wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic writer who shares her passion with others.

I have become very closely affiliated with Write and Share, and now offer my own writers' advice corner. Here is the link: http://www.writeandshare.co.uk/category/author-catherine-greens-advice-corner/ Under my personal account I have posted some short stories and extracts of my novels, which you can read and review as you wish. This is the same for all members of the site. I encourage you to look at my writers' advice articles, especially if you are an amateur who is seeking guidance, or an Indie author simply learning more about your craft. I write from personal experience, and am confident in what I share.

For the Love of Books

I have finally embraced the digital revolution, and have acquired a Kindle. I love it. I was resistant at first, because I am of the old school generation where we believe there is nothing better than curling up with a good book. I realise now that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. I can enjoy both, and each has their own merits and advantages.

The Kindle, for example, is like a portable library. I had great fun one evening browsing the top 100 free bestsellers (I’m a penniless writer, there you go!). Anyway, my husband was greatly amused as I sat giggling away to myself, and proceeded to download somewhere in the region of 50 eBooks. Add to that a couple of PDFs that I had acquired, and my reading list is now looking extremely busy.

My Kindle is perfect for reading one-handed, for example while I am propping my daughter up as she learns to walk. Or I can stand in the kitchen with it while I am cooking dinner. And I have a very handy reading light so I don’t disturb my husband while I’m sitting up in bed at night. Oh, and I can comfortably recline in bed with the Kindle, something I struggled to do with my books before.


I was also very excited when I searched for my novel Love Hurts on the Kindle and found it second in the list of books with that name. It means my sales are doing well and I'm getting some exposure. Thank you my adoring fans! And for those who haven't yet read it, why not? It is even on special offer now until 5th January, so snap up a bargain while you can.

Do not despair my precious books! I still love you just as much. There is nothing quite like picking up a nice shiny new paperback, opening it for the first time, and inhaling that special smell of excitement and adventure. Every book is different. I love smoothing my fingers over the covers, and feeling the texture and shape. I love seeing the crisp, white pages of print just waiting to be explored. And I love walking past my bookshelves, and glancing at rows of beautiful, delightful, tomes of imagination.

So I have deduced that the Kindle, or indeed any other eReader tablet, is a great gadget for an easy to handle, quick to access book, and also a means of storing various books, magazines and newspapers. This is perfect for a frequent traveller, and saves lots of bag space for a young family with a modest car. But the good old-fashioned paperback, or hardback book, is a sacred and beloved text. It is to be treasured, revered, and will never be cast aside or forgotten, at least not in my world.

Writing In A Foreign Language by Alex Laybourne

I moved to the Netherlands in 2006. It wasn’t really a big adjustment for me as I had always wanted to leave England, or certainly the area I lived in, and with my mother being Dutch, and me moving to the same town she grew up in – that is another story entirely – you could say I really was moving to a home away from home.

Now, almost five years down the road I am married, with three wonderful children and have never regretted making the move. However, I have learned that being a writer in a different country certainly comes with some limitations. Let’s face it, if we boil it down, I am writing in a foreign language. Sure almost everyone in Holland speaks the language, but there is a difference between speaking and being able to read a full length novel and understand it well enough to at least feign enjoyment.

Thanks to the Internet this problem has never hindered me, and now with Kindles and e-readers galore stocking the shelves, getting my hands on an English book is not a problem. Writing and promoting one on the other hand is a different kettle of fish; from writing circles, critiques, friends to bounce ideas around with, beta readers. Ok the last one is probably stemming from my somewhat Luddite lifestyle.

It goes without saying that a large percentage of Indie author promotion is done online, hanging around the social media scene, dropping links and making your presence known on sites such as Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Authors.com and Wattpad, but there is still a lot to be said about face to face interaction and sales. Approaching local Indie bookshops and even larger stores (I have read several people saying that they approached their local Barnes and Noble for book signing sessions and have been given a place on the shelves in that particular store) and requesting some of their time and pitching a sale the old fashioned way.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew what I was getting myself into, and I accept that the majority of my sales will be via the online promotion work that I am doing. I am not afraid of hard work and am looking forward to the adventure that self-promotion is proving to be. I am not the first writer that is trying this, and I will not be the last. All Indie writers face an uphill battle for promotion, regardless of where we live.