Latest Articles from The Vandal AKA Derek Haines

The Cosy Author Cuddle Huddle

I’m an author. Me too! I’m a writer. Me too! Being an author, novelist, writer or whatever tag you place on yourself is a rather thankless occupation. After slaving away for months and months on end writing a great story and going through the pain of editing, proofreading, independent appraisal, finding an agent or publishing it yourself, what do you get? If you’re lucky, some sales that go nowhere near paying for the time you spent writing, some good reviews, a lot of criticism and a feeling that you’d better start all over again. Better luck next time. We are all honest enough to know that a raging bestseller is rarer than

Crazy Man Attacks Poor Innocent Dog

What types of titles catch a reader’s attention? I know it’s an old journalistic saying that when a dog bites a man, it’s not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news. It is also a good example of how to attract attention by writing good titles, or in the case of newspapers, headlines. So, if you are reading this now, the chances are that the title caught your attention and prompted you to click and read. So perhaps this is food for thought when writing titles for your blog posts, book titles, chapter titles or even titles of poetry. Will your title grab a reader’s attention and make them want

Should I Translate My Ebooks Into US English?

Would my books sell better in US English? There is no doubt that the popularity, market and acceptance of ebooks is predominantly in the US. In two recent articles, I posted on Just Publishing; one confirmed that the US is by far the biggest ebook market in the world, with the surprise being that the UK is sixth, and only represents 3% of the world’s ebook market. The other article highlights how little the UK market values ebooks, with the Brits reluctant to venture beyond £0.99, whereas the US market is strong up to $10.00 for an ebook. These facts bring me to having to rethink my ebook marketing because I

How To Self-Edit And Proofread Your Book

Proofread your book yourself, but take care Self-publishing may be an inexpensive way to publish a book, but without thorough proofreading and good editing it can turn out to be an embarrassing disaster. Engaging reliable and professional proofreaders and editors, while a wise move, is far from inexpensive. Charges range considerably, but at say $0.02 per word for proofreading and $0.03 and upwards for editing, it doesn’t take applied mathematics to discover that for a 100,000-word novel you are looking at a sum in excess of $2,000. While there is just no escaping the absolute necessity of having an independent pair of eyes, at least, by proofreading your book before publishing, you can