Second Polish interview

Here’s a link to the interview I did with Polish website Carpe Noctem. There’s also to be a competition to win some of my books in Polish coming up soon. And here’s the text for English readers: Even though “Bad Blood” is your latest book, it was the first one that has been published in [...]

A penny for your thoughts

A friend linked me to the discussion that’s been going on in writerly circles about donation buttons, direct selling to your readers and whether it’s possible to make money from online publication. Here are the posts I’ve been reading: Steven Brust on begging for alms Bill Ward on patronage and an online audience Cory Doctorow [...]

Interviews with Polish websites

A couple of weeks ago I did an essay piece and an interview with Polish website Crime in the Library. Essay is here Interview is here I’ve since also been interviewed by another Polish website called Carpe Noctem. I’ll publish the details when I have them. It’s great that Bad Blood (Wykreślone imię in Polish) [...]

Literary Geek quiz, from Facebook

A quiz about the books I read, like and recommend. Also some questions about what I dislike!

Where do you get your ideas from?

The question “where do you get your ideas from?” is one writers dread. It’s a very popular first question at school visits and talks, and probably a natural one but it’s still extremely difficult to answer. Just googling for where do you get your ideas from? produces pages of authors agonising over this question. Neil [...]

What kind of book would you be? and other questions

I have more questions about the kind of books I like, these ones come from Sarah B. If you have questions of your own please contact me! If you were a book, what kind of book would you be? I’d like to be the book that Harry talks about at the end of ‘The Tricksters’ [...]

Advice for writers

Introducing a new blog section for answering questions about the art and craft and business of writing. The answers I give will be my answers. They are not intended to be authorative but I hope you will find them useful.

Bad Blood in Japanese translation

Bad Blood is currently being translated into Japanese for publication by Shogakukan and I’ve been corresponding with my Japanese translator Ms Yumiko Inui about the text. I’ve worked with a number of translators and it’s always been interesting to see what points are raised. One translator (Swedish, I think) spotted that the chapter titles of [...]

Q&A: 18 new questions on Facebook fan page

I’ve been asked some new questions for the Facebook fan page. Facebook members go here to see the questions, you may need to log into Facebook or join the group.