Bestseller Toby Neal has just launched her sixth Lei Crime novel. I asked her how she has changed as an author since she launched the first novel, Blood Orchids, in 2011. I know my characters so well now that dialogue really flows—banter between Lei and her partner, Pono, interdepartmental meetings with Captain Omura, therapeutic phone […]
Whenever I watch TV shows like Downton Abbey, or movies like The Remains of the Day, stories that centre around servants in a thankfully extinct era, I am always struck by the attitudes of the servant class — the way that they reinforce their own subjugation, partly because it allows them to abuse those lower […]
This week, Written Words once again pairs two very different authors to discuss what they think makes a good book. Raine Thomas is the bestselling author of an award-winning series of YA fantasy/romance novels about the Estilorian plane, including her latest, Return of the Ascendant. Doug Dorow is best known for his innovative thriller The Ninth […]
Image courtesy Mary Okeke Reviews. This week, two very different authors answer my unscientific survey of best sellers. Gary Henry is author of the urban fantasy novel American Goddesses and a collection of short stories, What Happened to Jory and Other Dark Departures. Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is author of a number of literary novels that explore […]
A guest post by author consultant Barb Drozdowich I’d like to thank Scott for inviting me to share some thoughts today. I’ve published four books focused at helping authors. They cover a variety of subjects and basically represent needs that I see in my day job, teaching authors WordPress and helping them with various social […]
This past January, Digital Book World reported that nearly 80 percent of self-published authors and more than half of traditionally published authors earn less than $1,000 a year from their efforts. That report has generated a lot of debate. Some very honest and brave independent authors have put their own statistics up against this argument: […]
The master of the thriller, Frederick Lee Brooke, stepped boldly into a new genre with his fourth novel, Saving Raine. Written Words joins the blog tour with Excerpt 2 — but first, what’s this book about? It’s 2021, and personal drones are a fixture of daily life, but due to constant upheavals food is scarce. Rival […]