News: The ALCS Election and My New Writing Book

I have a couple of pieces of news I want to share.

The first is my nomination for the ALCS board.

For those of you who don’t know, ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Agency) pays royalties to authors from secondary rights – such as photocopying and library borrowing. I’ve had several payments from them over the past few years, from my books (the written work and the graphics in them). I probably earn more through being a member of ALCS than I do from sales of my books.

So, when the email arrived to put myself forward for election, I thought it would be a great way to give back, and I think it’s important to have new experiences. The idea of attending meetings, and getting to learn and contribute to helping other writers is an exciting challenge for me. I’m not sure I’ll be voted in. I’m competing against over twenty others, all with far more experience than me, but it never hurts to try.

If you would like to vote for me, (you have to be an ALCS member) you can follow the link in the email ALCS have sent out to members. Everyone has a unique code to access the voting page, so there’s no point in me posting the link here.

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The second piece of news is my short non-fiction booklet on writing. What Do I Know? answers several questions about writing and publishing, and briefly talks about copywriting and dealing with requests for unpaid sample tests. I’m pleased to be able to share my experiences in writing and publishing, going back to 2014, when I first self-published a book and had no idea what I was doing.

The book doesn’t claim to contain expert knowledge, but is a summary of many of the things I learned. Back then, I relied on Amazon Kindle, before creating a paperback (also through Amazon). I didn’t realise the other options which were available to an author looking to self-published their books.

I struggled with marketing, and still do. As I said, this isn’t an expert guide. However, the book tells you some of the ways I learnt to market myself as an author.

I think people will already know some of the answers given, but there is probably something you will learn. It’s about sharing knowledge which took me 7 years to learn. I come across questions on Facebook all the time about marketing, finding publishers and more. So, If I can help someone reduce that learning time, it’s worth the time it took me to put the book together.

You can find it here.

This book is also part of my twelve projects in twelve months. I have set my co-written book, The Snow Was All We Could See for pre-order. So, I only have one more left to go, then I will have completed my self-set challenge.

The books I’ve completed all different, so if you’re not interested in reading a book on writing, you still might find one of my books completed during this challenge will interest you.