Personally, I’m not a Stephen King fan – it’s not the way he tells a story, it’s the genre. But years ago I read his ‘On Writing – a Memoir of the Craft’ and I still recommend it to students. Like all his books, it’s an interesting read and packed with useful and down-to-earth advice for writers.
At the moment, his latest book ‘Under the Dome’ is being plugged and if you go to his website you can win a signed copy. All you need to do is submit an original piece – poem or prose – no longer than 2000 words, before 15th December.
According to the website, extracts should be inspired by “whatever ‘Under the Dome’ conjures up in your imagination” and the winner will be chosen on “the readability of the entry and the quality of the writing.”
Still on the subject of books, a survey at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair of 840 international industry experts came to the conclusion that by 2018 digital sales would overtake those of traditional books. This may well be the case and a good site for anyone wanting to know more about writing, publishing and selling ebooks online should visit The Ebook Business Blog.
I can never imagine that browsing a list of titles and downloading them to a kindle could give me the same kind of pleasure as spending a couple of hours in Waterstones, wandering round the shelves and flicking through the books. But times are changing and if you’re an author you’ve got to change with them. Even someone with as ingrained ludite tendencies as myself!
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Steven King’s ‘On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft’is one of my favourite ‘how – to’ reads. I bought it, not because his writing genre is one I enjoy, but cos I figured there has to be a reason he’s the highest – paid writer of the day so best try glean from the expertise of this writing guru. The book did not disappoint – apart from many useful and practical ‘how to’ tips, I got to know an amusing and warm individual with a testimony of courage which inspired me hugely.