This week has been a week of more downs than ups, and I find myself perfectly in tune with my current read, Home, by Marilynne Robinson. It has been sitting on my bedside table for some time, waiting for the right moment to arrive – I had dipped into it before and set it aside – which just…
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Jane reflects on the writing of These Fragile Things. It is not often that I find myself in tune with former Tory shadow MP Ann Widdecombe, but I found myself sympathetic to the views expressed in ‘Are You Having a Laugh?’ her examination of the treatment of Christianity in popular culture (and in comedy, in particular.) Or…
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Compelling though it was, in my mind, The Century that Wrote Itself, Adam Nicolson’s romp through the 17th Century, was a story told back-to-front.   In search of personal histories that defined the era, Nicholson started with the almost confessional records left behind by John Oglander, a member of the gentry who made his home on the Isle of…
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If you had a low-key book-marketing strategy that resulted in a hit rate of one in two, would your brave the occasional insult and try it more often? A few weeks ago I had some book-marks printed to advertise the release of my new e-books. I began handing them out on trains to people who were reading…
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It is a wonderful tool, the Internet. It enables writers to research settings for the stories inside their heads without ever leaving the house. Sadly, this has its limitations. Last weekend, I went to Brighton to meet an old friend – an old friend who died in 1821. “Ma! Ma!” “What’s that terrible to-do about? Is…
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Closing my eyes, the reel began to run; flickering images coming into focus, the slightly speeded-up world of silent movies with its exaggerated expressions. A red-headed girl in a seaside resort at the birth of a new century. The sounds, the sights, the smells, the vastness of the sky and, below, the writhing sea, stretching…
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John Murray credits word of mouth as being the best way to sell books. “People don’t like to be told what to read, but to make their own discoveries.” And to brag about them to others, apparently. Despite Stephen Elliot’s assertion that ‘People don’t recommend good books to friends: they only recommend great books,’ there do appear…
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Yesterday I received a cheque for £139.82 from Amazon. Not a particularly large amount, but a significant one all the same. Because the publication of my novel Half-truths and White Lies resulted from a competition-win rather than a traditional publishing deal, I received prize money rather than an advance (albeit for a not insubstantial figure). I have since…
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Massive attack of butterflies at the moment. It could be the combination of caffeine and sugar overload – mmmm, lemon drizzle cake – or the fact that I have just ordered the first printed copy of ‘These Fragile Things’ for final proofing (there was yet another warning that the automated process may have altered the…
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The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook has often been described as the bible for authors. And it has been – up until now. You see, the one major set-back of the Yearbook and other similar publications is that a directory has its limitations. It only allows you to search for the Literary Agency, when, ideally, you would…
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