Jo Ullah grew up with her two siblings in a small village in Dorset. There were lots of animals and her imagination to keep her busy. Her mother was an amazing story teller, she had to be as they were all dyslexic and unable to read – including their father, who was an inventor. Jo is married, has four children and lives in Bristol with too many cats.
[Read more…] about Interview with Jo Ullah: Author of The Locksmith
Alliance of Independent Authors
A New Model for Marketing Literary Fiction: 2016 Literary Fiction Survey Results
Earlier this year, I launched a literary fiction survey to get feedback from independent authors about the kinds of books they had written. The survey was made up of only a few questions, the most intriguing of which asked each author about which category they believed their stories belonged in. For example, was the literary story they had written about family? Was it about abuse? Or was it about the nature of meaning, etc.? The survey was short and directed.
I then offered authors who had participated in the survey the chance to expand on their views by responding to a series of more open-ended questions about literary fiction. The result was 17 author interviews out of 27 survey responses.
Read on for the survey responses as well as my argument about what I think a logical next step is to make these results valuable.
[Read more…] about A New Model for Marketing Literary Fiction: 2016 Literary Fiction Survey Results
Why I Am Eating Some Humble Pie Right Now
It has been a while since I blogged. My interview series with authors of literary fiction is going strong thanks largely to the contributions of the many talented members of the Alliance of Independent Authors and other committed authors. Those interviews have done a good job of keeping my blog busy.
I have been planning a post nevertheless, which, when I publish it in the not-too-distant future, will share some interesting insights from the literary fiction survey I have conducted over the past few months with the above-mentioned authors.
Before then, though, I have to publish this post. And THIS post is born from the fact that I need to eat some humble pie.
[Read more…] about Why I Am Eating Some Humble Pie Right Now
Catriona Troth: A Conversation About Writing and Literary Fiction
Sometimes literary fiction can be, simply, that body of writing that doesn’t fall anywhere else. At least that was the predicament faced by Catriona Troth, the eighth indie author in my literary fiction interview series, when she sought to place her novel, Ghost Town, for sale. Powerful language and the ability to deliver something deeper than a superficial plot are equally defining characteristics.
Timing, finally, can play a role in the genre of a story. Troth’s novel, set in 1981 in the British Midlands city of Coventry, doesn’t quite qualify as either historical or contemporary fiction.
[Read more…] about Catriona Troth: A Conversation About Writing and Literary Fiction
Dan Holloway: A Conversation About Writing and Literary Fiction
I’m excited to publish this interview with Dan Holloway, author, philosopher and Alliance of Independent Authors member. In fact, I’m excited for three reasons.
First of all, as a relatively new ALLi member, I couldn’t have anticipated a warmer welcome than the one I received from Dan and several other members. Dan has been an advocate over the past few days of a survey I launched profiling writers of literary fiction on their authorial works and the great themes that pervade their stories. To repeat, I’m a new member. I have done nothing to earn capital or goodwill from anyone in the ALLi community. And yet…and yet, he is helping out.
[Read more…] about Dan Holloway: A Conversation About Writing and Literary Fiction
Call For Survey Respondents: Independent Authors of Literary Fiction
“It’s Survey Season” by Howard Lake is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Readers of my blog know I am an emerging advocate of independent authors of literary fiction. A few months ago, I published a post called Tearing Down the Wall: Why the Literary Community Should Embrace Indie Authors. In that post, I decried the resistance of the traditional literary community to independently published works of literary fiction.
Well, so now that I’m done bitching about the problem, it’s time to act. So I’m about to try an experiment and I hope that independent authors of literary fiction will help by playing a role.
I’m launching a survey in which my goal–my AMBITIOUS goal, I should clarify–is to publish an epic roundup post highlighting 75 independent authors of literary fiction.
Why 75 authors? Why not 75? It’s certainly more than anyone will find in Amazon’s Kindle store.
Read on to learn more.
[Read more…] about Call For Survey Respondents: Independent Authors of Literary Fiction
