Latest Articles from The Vandal AKA Derek Haines

The Beautiful Bird

The Beautiful Bird Many years ago, I set my eyes on the most Beautiful Bird I had ever seen. She was dazzling in her beauty and song. I was entranced, and from that moment on, I was to devote my life to the wonder of this creature. She was wild, but was caged so tightly, and it was almost impossible to go near her, but over patient months and years, the Beautiful Bird began to trust my devotion. It took so long, but time was of no importance, until the day she would trust my hand in her cage. Her fears, built over many years, were slowing ebbing into a

Self Publishing : An Easy Way To Make A Fool Of Yourself

Don’t make a fool of yourself Publishing a book has gone from exceedingly difficult, frustrating or expensive to just about free and an absolute cinch in almost the blink of an eye. The traditional agency model is under threat and vanity publishers are looking for where their next buck will come from as independent or self-publishing has suddenly become front and centre of the market. No matter what you want to write about, you can jump from your book being just a word processor document on your laptop to a published ebook in less than 24 hours. How about in paperback in less than a week. Within six weeks you

Said Harry Potter – Harry Potter Said

How do you use dialogue tags? Dialogue tags must be the most written about and discussed structure in a writer’s grammatical toolbox. One that I haven’t mentioned before as I didn’t want to join the long and probably never ending debate. However, after getting close to finishing reading the third Harry Potter book, (yes I know I’m a bit late in doing so) I just can’t keep my opinion quiet any longer. I am also readying myself for brutal Vandal reader disagreement here, but I just don’t like dialogue tags with the verb before the subject, which J.K. uses almost without fail. Except when she can’t. ‘Let’s go,’ said Harry.

10 Ideas To Promote Self Published Books

Promoting self-published books and ebooks in an already crowded and competitive market is hard work. Unless you can get your book featured on Oprah next week, it will take patience, a lot of work and of course a dose of old fashioned good luck to get anywhere near the top of the tree. After my post yesterday about an increasing number of writers who are using aggressive and demanding means in their pursuit of success, I thought I might look at more positive approaches to self-promotion and marketing of self-published titles. One vital point to make here is that effective promotion and marketing serves the purpose of attracting people to