Busy doing nothing

I've had one of those weeks where it's taken all my time to do almost nothing, so apologies for not finding much info. 

If someone could make up a clever sounding reason for littering this post with lighthouses, so I can say, 'You're absolutely correct,' that would be marvellous.

Free entry writing competitions

If you write plays, here's your chance to go to London to see it being recorded and earn £2,500 in cash. And here's another competition, this time with a £3,000 prize.

Do any of you write plays? If so, does it pay as well as these suggest?

Harper's Bazaar are again running a short story competition and again it seems to be a rights grab. By entering the competition and in consideration for Hearst publishing your entry, you assign to Hearst the entire worldwide copyright in your entry for all uses in all print and non-print media and formats, including but not limited to all rights to use your entry in any and all electronic and digital formats, and in any future medium hereafter developed for the full period of copyright therein, and all renewals and extensions thereof, any rental and lending rights and retransmission rights and all rights of a like nature wherever subsisting. 

I don't advise anyone to give up all their rights, even if they're paid to do so. Giving them up just to be able to enter a competition seems an especially bad idea.

Creative Futures are running three competitions (poetry, fiction or creative non-fiction) for UK writers who are who are underrepresented--those who find it difficult to access the writing world either because of mental health issues, disability, health, or social circumstance. There are cash prizes as well as courses and mentorships on offer.

My News

I've had another great review for my free short story collection.

As always –

New blog posts are published each Saturday. All blog readers are welcome to use the comment section to share writing news, tips, successes, links to competitions and other publication opportunities, to ask questions and to respond to comments from others.

Five freebies and flowers

It's got cold again – do you have any top tips for keeping warm whilst writing? 

Mine are -

Wear fingerless gloves (thanks again Fiona!) as well as lots of layers.

Drink tea and eat cake.

If you can, go out for a brisk walk every day. The longer we sit still the colder we feel.

Free entry writing competition news

Thanks to Barbara Trevitt for passing on the details of this competition for local history stories. The prize is a year's subscription to family history website, Findmypast, and includes unlimited access to the 1921 Census. Sounds perfect for anyone interested in writing a historical novel set then – or who'd just like to find out more.

Thanks to Fiona for telling me about this competition for poetry or prose. The top prize is £500.

Here's a haiku competition with a $500 dollar prize.

And this one, with the same prize is for screenplays.

The Alpine Fellowship's competition offers a £3,000 cash grant as the top prize. I have no idea how a grant differs from any other cash prize – do you?

From The Horse's Mouth have a poetry competition with a £50 prize. (I won last year's short story one!)

Womag news

The latest word count requirements for The People's Friend can be found here. Thanks to Eirin for reminding us about the website and Alyson for pointing out this particular post.

As always –

New blog posts are published each Saturday. All blog readers are welcome to use the comment section to share writing news, tips, successes, links to competitions and other publication opportunities, to ask questions and to respond to comments from others.

Large print books - a chat With Margaret Holbrook

Towards the end of last year Margaret Holbrook published a couple of her books in large print format. When I expressed an interest, she was kind enough to share the technical formatting details with me and I've now produced one of my own. Here's why we did it, and how, in case anyone else fancies a try.

What made you decide to produce books in large print? 

Margaret – I have Dry AMD and now struggle with reading. If I hadn't a problem myself, I perhaps wouldn't have given it much consideration.

In my case it's because both my grandmothers, who were very keen readers and encouraged my love of the written word, suffered visual impairment in later life. Large print books helped them to continue enjoying reading and I'd like to add to the variety of books now available in this format.

Is this something you'd advise other Indie authors to try?

Margaret – Give it some thought. If your books are quite lengthy the printing costs could mount up. I've only published two titles so far. One a novella of about 22,000 words, the other a collection of nine short stories. (Both Previously published, not new work.) Although they were both more expensive to print in Large Print Format, I hope the retail price is not so expensive as to put potential buyers off.

I totally agree about the length, especially with a first attempt, but if you have something suitable and can manage the formatting then I think it's worth a try.

Other than making the font larger, are there others things we need to do when formatting our books?

Margaret – The book size is larger. I'm using 6'' x 9'' and a cream paper and you keep text left justified so the right is 'ragged'. Also leave 1.15 -1.25 line space and don't indent paras, just leave a line space between. This makes them more easily defined. Also, on title page, under title put 'Large Print Edition.' The large print edition will need a new ISBN, but if you're only publishing through Amazon you can use their free one as you would with regular editions.

You'll also need to select a clear sans serif font – that's one with no little flicks or flourishes which can make reading harder for visually impaired people.

Is there anything else that's different from regular print books? 

Margaret – You'll notice there's a lot more 'white' on the page. It makes it easier for anyone with low vision to make out the text.

When you upload the book to Amazon or Ingram Spark, make sure you tick the box to say it's large print, so that shows in the book's metadata and is displayed on the sales page.

Which books have you published in large print format? 

Margaret – The two books I've published so far are Reflections of Murder, a novella, hardback, and Picking the Bones, nine tales in the folk tradition, in paperback.

Mine is Coffee & Cake, a collection of 25 short stories and I've done both paperback and hardback large print versions. It was already available as a ebook, paperback and audio version, so I thought I'd do every possible option!

Do you read large print books? Have you published any yourself, or is it something you'd consider in the future?

(As always – New blog posts are published each Saturday. All blog readers are welcome to use the comment section to share writing news, tips, successes, links to competitions and other publication opportunities, to ask questions and to respond to comments from others.)

New Year, New Start?

How's the writing going so far this year?

I've not done much due to really bad toothache. I've had some treatment now and hopefully it will soon be much improved.

To cheer myself up I've been looking at photos of my garden in spring. Whether you need cheering up or not, I hope you'll enjoy them.

Free entry writing competitions

Thanks to Alyson for sending the link of this brilliant flash fiction competition. There's $200 on offer for the winner, but even shortlisted entries get a small prize, plus publication.

Alyson also sent me the details of this flash fiction competition which offers a £50 book token as the prize.

Papatango are offering a new script writer £7,000, a full run at The Bush Theatre and a share of box office takings. If I wrote plays I'd definitely want to give this a go.

The Curae prize has two categories - short story or non-fiction. Both have a 4,000 word limit and offer a prize bundle including a £500 bursary, mentoring, book token and magazine subscription. You must be a carer of some kind in order to enter.

If you write games, or would like to try, this competition is for you. There's a £1,000 cash prize, plus the chance to earn royalties from every game entered.

As always –

New blog posts are published each Saturday. All blog readers are welcome to use the comment section to share writing news, tips, successes, links to competitions and other publication opportunities, to ask questions and to respond to comments from others.