Category: Insight

The Self-Publishing Conference 2014 – a review

On By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Review, Short Stories, Uncategorized2 Comments

Before I write my review, I’d like to reiterate a statement I made on this very blog on 11th March 2014.

‘Even if we don’t take all the advice that’s offered to us, we owe it to ourselves to find out what is on offer out there, and this has to be one of the most beneficial days any self-published author could spend.’

I would now like to follow that quote by saying, that if I hadn’t already said it; I would be saying it now.

The event was held at the Stamford Court Conference Centre in Leicester yesterday, Sunday 30th March 2014. It was well organised in every respect, including overflow parking, to allow for those who don’t know how to guide their car between two white painted lines …

There were 4 sessions, which overall offered a choice of 21 seminars to attend. This meant that each delegate made their own choice of which seminar to attend during any particular session. These were pre-booked. Apart from the final seminar, each was followed by a refreshment break.

Rather than tie my faithful (or new) readers down, with a detailed view of everything, I will be writing individual posts over the coming weeks on the four seminars I attended, which were:

1. Work successfully with bookshops and libraries to sell your book.

2. The importance for new authors of an author website.

3. The importance of cover design.

4. Using your existing author website to the full.

Needless to say, the impact of the seminars I attended will be reflected in my follow-up activity. For now, I’ll say no more on that subject. I would suggest, that attendance at the conference next year would be beneficial to any self-published writer. I will most certainly be highlighting it in my diary.

Sponsors of this year’s conference were: Writers & Artists, Writing Magazine, Nielsen, Matador (Troubador), Kobo, Writing Life, Cornerstones, TJ International, Cameron, Self-Publishing Magazine, Booked PR, and The Writers Advice Centre.

It would be remiss of me to leave out one important personal aspect of my attendance. I got to meet fellow writer and blogger, Paul Ruddock. We attended a couple of the seminars together and used every available moment in between, to discuss views that would have taken a much longer time by email or blog post. For any of you that wondered; yes, he really is a nice guy.

The A to Z Challenge starts tomorrow.

Thank you for reading.

Writing … by the numbers

On By TomIn Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Short Stories1 Comment
Do you know how to write your numbers?
Do you know how to write your numbers?

It doesn’t matter what you write; whether it be non-fiction, fiction, articles, reviews or simply readers’ letters occasionally – you will at some stage find yourself using numbers. Yes, we’re all very good at words … a few letters added together. How rapidly can you remember when a number should be spelt out as a word, or written as a figure? Is it two, or 2, forty, or 40?

Like many areas of writing, I rely on my military background for a description. Yes, it’s that old faithful; it’s a bloody minefield.

Before looking at the detail, let’s look at the circumstances. If you are writing for a magazine, newspaper, or any established publication, you have it sorted for you. Every publication has a ‘house style’ or ‘submission guidelines’ which will keep you in line. This is equally true of feature/article writing or non-fiction. Imagine you’re about to write a piece for ‘Young Scientist and Inventor’, or some similarly titled magazine – it will have its own rules.

Rather than make this post look like an algebra lesson, yes, that mathematics discipline that involves letters and numbers – I’m going to give an intro here, and a link to ‘Creative Writer and Artist’ which is one of my two websites. I have a comprehensive guide to using numbers within creative writing on that particular site.

* If the number is between one and ten, it should be spelt out. Anything from 11 upwards should be shown as figures. There are of course some exceptions.

* A sentence is best not started with a number, because it must be spelt out, so the easiest thing to do is avoid it; by restructuring the sentence. Enough said there.

* If the two different ‘categories’ of numbers are to appear in the same sentence, then a fair guide is to show both as spelt out – not one spelt out, and the other shown as a figure.

Now, be honest; how many of those three points were you confident about? Obviously, there are exceptions, as there are with any rules or guidelines. Think about such things as; dates, times, distances, temperatures, measurements … getting the point? 

At this point I’d like to express my thanks to Lorraine Mace and Maureen Vincent-Northam for covering this topic so well in their joint venture; ‘THE WRITER’S abc CHECKLIST’. I’ve learned about writing numbers from various sources, but the aforementioned book is my bible on the matter. If you haven’t got a copy – get one! It’s available from various sources, including; Amazon and Accent Press.

Unless you’re one of those clever-clogs writers that already has this area sorted in your mind, please feel free to use the link below and see a more detailed explanation, and as always; thank you for reading my blog.

http://www.tom-benson.co.uk/writing and numbers 

 ***