Apr
14
At last, today is April 14th which means my first non-fiction book is finally published. It’s called Advanced Twitter Strategies for Authors: Twitter techniques to help you sell your book – in under 15 minutes a day!
Mar
21
Lately on Facebook, writers have been tagging each other to prompt them to write ‘seven things you don’t know about me as a writer’. I was tagged by two authors, Catriona Troth and Philippa Rees and so I duly wrote my post on Facebook. I thought I reproduce it here on my blog as well! Read More
Oct
23
Sep
11
Read how music not only influenced the way I write, but also what got written on the page in my guest post on Roz Morris’s Undercover Soundtrack series.
‘Hacking to music’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week my guest is cyberthriller author Ian Sutherland @iansuth
Soundtrack by John Barry, Vangelis, Ennio Morricone, Elgar, Moby, Leftfield, Underworld, The Smiths
I write to music; never to silence. For me, music is essential. It rapidly gets me in the zone and allows the creative juices to flow freely. Right now I’m listening to the movie soundtrack of 500 Days of Summer. I love it when the two tracks by The Smiths come on.
There’s a pragmatic purpose to my use of music. As most people appreciate, writing is one of the most solitary professions there is. And one of the reasons I procrastinated so long in my life before finally…
View original post 792 more words
Sep
5
A balanced and in-depth review of Invasion of Privacy by Roweena Hoseason of the prestigious crime and sci fi blog site, Murder, Mayhem & More.
I’m dead chuffed that the book defied her expectations, which had been set from reading so many clichéd cyberthrillers. “All in all this an accomplished thriller”.Read on for the full review…
Invasion Of Privacy utterly defied my expectations, I’m pleased to say. I’ve tried to read several ‘cyber thrillers’ before and they’ve all defeated me. You either drown in unintelligible geek speak or, at the other end of the spectrum, get the impression that the author know nothing about what he spik and is merely one page ahead in the user manual. So I was cautious; even more so when I read the blurb which suggested several crime-thriller clichés like the spunky woman detective making her way in the man’s world despite the frailty of her inner femininity, blah blah woof woof. By this point I’ve normally left the building and gone for coffee.View original post 499 more words
Aug
5
I’d like to share the guest blog post I recently wrote for The Alliance of Independent Authors [ALLi]. It went up on July 18th…
When I first decided to become a published author, I bought a copy of Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and The Writer’s Handbook. The year was 1999. I still have them. I resolved to purchase updated versions a few years later when I finally finished my novel. After all, I’d need all those addresses for agents, editors and publishers to send my manuscript to.
And here I am – ahem! – 15 years later and I’ve finally finished my novel. (That’s a whole different story, so let’s not get into that!) So, as per my prior resolution, I now need to buy a copy of Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2014. Don’t I?
Actually, no. I don’t!
Jan
15
You know you’re an author when….there are so many cliches out there that humorously finish this sentence. They range from ‘… no one will ever play you in scrabble’ to ‘…you go on dates with people and falsely deny that you are going to write about them’ to ‘…you have certain punctuation marks you can’t stop obsessively using’ or even ‘…you take a pen and paper with you everywhere, sometimes even into bed, just in case you have an idea at three in the morning that absolutely must be remembered.”
And like all clichés, they have their basis in reality. Well, I’ve just experienced one. And as a result I’m feeling very writerly!
Nov
1
Has Stornoway – most famous as the town displayed at the top of the BBC weather map (usually covered in clouds) and the capital of the islands of the Outer Hebrides just off the west coast of Scotland — suddenly become a focal point for the crime fiction genre? And either way, why the hell am I writing a blog post about it? Read More
Oct
25
Just how much has coffee culture invaded our day-to-day life? If my crime thriller novel, Invasion of Privacy, is anything to go by it’s incredibly pervasive. As I near the end of writing its first draft, it’s clear to me that coffee culture has utterly permeated my own lifestyle. And not just because of the copious amount of coffee I’ve drunk during the writing of the book – a lot, by the way – but because sheer number of references to coffee throughout the novel.
Read More
Oct
10
Have I invented a whole new fiction genre? Or have I written a book that no one will read?
One of the golden rules of marketing is to go niche. Or even ‘ultra niche’. The idea is to dissect a larger market, identifying smaller sub-niche ones to focus on and dominate. This niche market typically has a need that is not serviced well. And then if you come along with a specific solution laser-targeted at this new niche then you can build a strong business. That’s the theory anyway.
Advanced Twitter Strategies for Authors is for fiction and non-fiction authors, published and yet-to-be-published, who want to take advantage of Twitter to proactively market their books. All in under 15 minutes a day!
When a beautiful young cellist is found brutally murdered, elite computer hacker Brody and police detective Jenny team up to track down the serial killer responsible. The answer lies in an illegal voyeuristic website impervious to Brody’s considerable hacking talents.
Hired by a global pharmaceutical company to test their digital defences, elite hacker, Brody Taylor, applies his computer mastery and repertoire of audacious confidence tricks to penetrate their most secure systems.
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Ian Sutherland 