I have decided to exercise regularly in 2015. The treadmill in the den is too easy to walk away from when inspiration strikes. Not so with swimming - once you're in the water it's hard to walk away and immediately start typing. Oh, and in the cause of precision, when I say "regularly", I should …
Author: Andy McKell
A guy who writes speculative fiction, between doing a bit of acting
Anthologies and Contests #2
Last time, I praised the opportunities for unpublished writers offered by submitting to Anthologies and Contests. So where do you start in your search for Anthologies and Contests seeking submissions? Today, I list a good number of links below, to get you started. And please note that I in no way endorse any of these …
Anthologies and Contests
I hope at least a few of my readers noticed I've been away for a few weeks 😉 Between family issues, travel to internet-free zones (yes, they do exist - welcome to the 21st century!), laptop failure (I smugly take full backups daily) and various other distractions, I have had to let my blog simmer …
WRITE, DARE, SUBMIT – Guest Post
Today's post is a departure - a guest post from I.O. Kirkwood - but still within my "How to get Published" series theme. IO is a rising writer with a refreshing viewpoint. She, too was an unpublished writer until recently. Now read on... WRITE, DARE, SUBMIT Write Since the age of 12, in almost 32 years, I …
Quick Fixes To Attract Publishers
Last time, I covered the need for an unpublished author to demonstrate a large Following for his/her as-yet-unpublished work and ended with the tantalising hint of a Quick Fix... Remember, you need a big Following to catch the eye of a publisher and encourage that eye to glance at your life's work manuscript, currently sitting …
How Big Is Yours?
How To Impress Publishers With A Huge Following Last time, we saw that an aspiring author needs a big Following to get the attention of a publisher. So how to achieve that? Tricky. Without any published work, the newcomer has little to share about his work. All he can do is to show the world …
How To Spot A Winner
Last time, I considered "Failing To Spot A Winner" in the entertainment industry. Now, let's look at the reverse of the coin. How To Spot "Potential Success" Today, a publisher will assess the potential of an unknown author's manuscript by checking "Social Network Following", before glancing at the work. The assumption is that a huge …
Failing To Spot A Winner
. The traditional publishing industry does not exactly have 100% record of identifying books carrying the stamp of massive popularity and commercial success. Consider this list of best-sellers from various genres and their initial rejection totals (source: "How Stuff Works"): Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (38) Dune by Frank Herbert (20) Carrie by Stephen King (30) Dubliners …
More “Revolutions”
Over the past few months, I have worked with an excellent team of writers to produce the science fiction series, "No Revolution Is Too Big". Each part is written by a different author in a "shared world" approach, based around the adventures of a particular alien. We all pursued this alien across time and space …
Writers Write, Right?
My blog has been a little quiet these past weeks, as I've been catching up on some writing. I have seen a few independent writers recently close down their blogging activities on the grounds that they wanted to spend more time with their work-in-progress novels. Writers write, right? Well, yes, but... The demands of the …
Andy McKell, Speculative Fiction Author 
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