Murphy’s Law has struck again for this writer! No news (publication or otherwise) for a while and then lots all at the same time!
New Book – Tripping The Flash Fantastic
I’m delighted to announce my second flash fiction collection, Tripping The Flash Fantastic, has now been published by Chapeltown Books.
It is the dream of most authors to have a book out there with their name on the cover. I am thrilled to have achieved that and just as thrilled I have followed up on From Light to Dark and Back Again.
Chapeltown Books have a distinctive branding style of a central image surrounded by a frame. I love the ones used for From Light to Dark and Back Again as well as Tripping the Flash Fantastic. The idea of course is for this branding to stand out and I think they do.
What is nice for the cover for this one is the central image wasn’t my first choice. What was needed was an image that would suit the rectangular frame. My first choice didn’t cut the mustard there! I am so pleased it didn’t though. This second choice is far better and works so well. I have historically based stories in TTFF and the cover is a great reflection of that. A huge thanks to Chapeltown Books. A good cover design matters. It is the first thing that draws people to even looking at your book.
Online Author Event with Gill James and Dawn Kentish Knox
I plan to have a cyberlaunch and will post about that separately BUT I am pleased to say I will be taking part in an online author event with Gill James and Dawn Kentish Knox later this month.
The event will be held via Zoom and is free but you do need to register. See the link
Gill, Dawn, and I will be reading from our respective works and will be discussing what inspires us and which writers have influenced us amongst other topics. Hopefully there will be time for questions from the audience too. Save the date and time – Saturday, 26th September from 3 pm to 4 pm and DO get some good questions ready!
I hope to share a couple of stories from Tripping the Flash Fantastic (naturally!) and I hope to talk a bit about what drew me to writing flash fiction and why people read short fiction, amongst other themes. I do hope to “see” some of you there.
I’m really looking forward to this as (a) it will be good to see Gill and Dawn again, albeit only online and (b) it will be my first big opportunity to talk about my new book. Also, I hope in using Zoom and the like more and more, I can improve presentation skills and so on. You do learn as you go in the writing world. Nothing you learn is ever wasted has been my experience to date and I expect that to continue!
And interestingly I will be interviewed and doing some interviewing, all in the same event so this should be great fun.
Stories included in New Book – The Best of Cafelit 9
It has been a busy couple of weeks and the next couple of months or so will be too.
As well as my new book, I am thrilled to say I have two new flash fiction stories in The Best of Cafelit 9, recently published by Bridge House Publishing. The stories in this anthology were voted on by other readers so I am honoured to have two stories included here.
Conclusion
I’ve mentioned before that a lot of the author’s work goes on behind the scenes. Publication day is very much the public face of what a writer does and the buzz of being published does not diminish with time. Indeed, if anything, you can become addicted to it!
I now have the interesting situation of publicizing more than one book and learning how to market both. I am planning to hold a cyberlaunch for Tripping The Flash Fantastic and hope to post about that in due course.
Flash looks deceptively easy to write but I learned a long time ago that when someone makes something look easy, that same someone has worked for years, often decades, to get to that point. And yes I am working on a third flash fiction collection. Always follow up!
The biggest disappointment I think for all writers in this peculiar year has been that none of us have been able to “do” our normal events. It is lovely going to a “physical” event, meeting up with author friends, hopefully selling books and so on. Zoom has been a lifeline in that it has helped festivals to move online and so on. I’ve enjoyed taking part in online events for the first time this year myself and it will continue to play a big part in the writing life.
What will be interesting for what remains of 2020 is how we continue to adapt to use online apps for sharing stories and promotional work. Will there be Zoom fatigue? I hope not.
The biggest advantage is that it does give readers a chance to interact with authors and for writers to interact with potential readers. Books are still being celebrated and sold. As for the 600 being published in one swoop recently, I guess that was the publishing houses playing catch up. Everyone but everyone wants the Christmas market and yes it starts now.
But I do think, for the longer term, that authors who actively engage are more likely to do well than those who do not and learning to adapt to the new way of doing things is going to be crucial to this.
Related Posts:
Local Author News – Allison Symes – Podcast Interview by Wendy H. Jones
Books On The Radio – Local Author News – Richard Hardie/Allison Symes
Reading Aloud Allowed (and Local Author News: Allison Symes)
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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Congratulations with the publications and best of luck with the proposed author event. Er, perhaps I should not, following the superstition, wish best of luck, but preferring not to say ‘break a leg’, I will follow the French theatrical superstition and say ‘Merde alors.
Thanks, David! Much appreciated.
What a fabulous, rich and inspiring website! An eye opener and a very pleasant surprise! Well done Alison! God bless you.