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Ray's Blog: July 2010

Do Recycled Articles Increase Traffic To Website?

Is your blog green? In an era when we’re being urged to recycle – well, pretty well anything, really – how do you recycle your blog articles? Do you, in fact, do so? Or are they, once you’ve written them, the equivalent of being un-biodegradable, as far as you’re concerned?

RECYCLED ARTICLES HAMMER HOME YOUR...

Posted at 15:19pm on 30th July 2010

Review Of The Torn Veil By Gulshen Esther For July Book Club Meeting

I was asked if I would take this book on for Readers’ Group, and I have to say that, although I agreed, I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic. How wrong can you be! It was what someone once dubbed one of my earliest books: a one-bath-book. You don’t notice that the water’s getting cold because you...

Posted at 16:47pm on 29th July 2010

Why My Marriage Bucks The One In Four Trend For Divorce

I’m sitting in the lounge after lunch, about to resume writing my new book, when I hear Paul coming down the stairs.

“Could you let me have my bank card back, please,” I call out.

He has borrowed it to take to the Post Office, because the Sub Postmaster forgot to write my number on...

Posted at 20:05pm on 24th July 2010

Tips For Aspiring Authors On Writing A Submission Proposal

Dear Mel,

I am a writer and I basically have no clue what to do in order to get published. I am writing in response to the post I saw at : http://www.melmenzies.co.uk/blog/2009/01/manuscript_formatting

Now, I am currently working on my final copy of my book, but what do I do in order to submit it...

Posted at 12:13pm on 19th July 2010

Misery Memoir Genre: Do Grim Novels Dominate Book Market?

As an author I am, naturally, interested in the book market. Consequently, when I was shown a newspaper article a few months ago by a friend, about the continuing proliferation of misery memoir metamorphosing into a novel, I read it, avidly.

MISERY MEMOIR: WHAT IS IT?

The misery memoir genre came to prominence in the...

Posted at 15:41pm on 14th July 2010

Guest Book Review: Picture Perfect By Jodi Picoult

When I heard that Yvonne North (wife of author, Anthony North) was reading a book about domestic abuse I thought I must ask her if she would write a book review. I'm delighted to say that she agreed, and submitted the excellent appraisal that follows.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Jodi Picoult, as usual, has written an informative...

Posted at 21:10pm on 11th July 2010

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How Key Personality Traits Affect The Writing Process

If you are a book author and you’re writing non-fiction, how do you decide what material to put in and what to leave out? How, in fact, do you organise the content of your book?

WRITING AND PUBLISHING A BOOK

Chances are that if you’re an aspiring author and you haven’t yet approached a publisher, your...

Posted at 11:39am on 8th July 2010

Uv Readers' Group & Online Book Club July 2010

NEXT MEETING:

Thursday 29th July, 2010
At 7.30pm

BOOK:

The Torn Veil
By Gulshan Esther

VENUE:

At my house.

Posted at 19:26pm on 5th July 2010

Guest Blog For Uk Christian Bookshops

An invitation to write a guest blog for the UK Christian Bookshop website is not to be sneezed at! So I was delighted when Phil Groom asked me to do just that.

AUTHOR & SPEAKER

Just say who you are and what you do, he suggested. It got me thinking! Can who I am be...

Posted at 19:09pm on 5th July 2010

Wise Writing Words

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS

Asked what advice I would give aspiring authors in an interview I was recently asked to do, I parodied Winston Churchill's famous Fight Them On The Beaches speech. Writing, in other words, requires hard labour and endurance!

I also shared how I nearly turned down a commission from a major publisher for...

Posted at 21:20pm on 4th July 2010

Writers' Interview

As the published author of a number of books, I'm often targeted with mail wanting me to subscribe to all sorts of things. Most of them end up in my Spam box or Recycling Bin.

But a couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail asking me if I was willing to be interviewed...

Posted at 21:09pm on 4th July 2010