Our Lives in Books , compiled and edited by Bob Stone, should be available on Amazon by Thursday July 23rd. One of my non-fiction peices, Reading is a Journey , is included in its pages, and I'm really looking forward to reading what everyone else has to say about their favourite novels. Here's the contents list: Click on the image to view it larger

 

  In recent weeks, I've been busy creating new book covers as I have almost finished writing the first draft of the 5th Artisan-Sorcerer novel. It's been tricky ensuring the details on the covers are right, that the figures look exactly like the characters in the story in my head, and that the covers, when viewed together, present a clear visual theme to prospective readers. I'm not ready to reveal the covers just yet. I need to sit with the designs for a while, waiting to make sure they're right. The image above is an older "explainer" graphic, which I will need to update to match the new, improved covers. I've now pinned-up print-outs of the covers so I can patiently study them over the next week or so. There is so much to consider, such as text size, visual language, creating a visual hook, and so on. Back in my art school days I took Design, and Critical Studies, amongst other subjects. The courses didn't touch on book cover design, unfortunately, ...

Following in the footsteps of my recent blog post about scammers, a new attempt came my way today. This time, instead of someone offering to launch my writing into a glittering stratosphere of fame and fortune, it's my YouTube channel which has attracted the attentions of a cyber-grifter.  Their email reads:  "Hi Art & Fiction by Adele Cosgrove-Bray, I just checked out your YouTube video about Urban Gardening in April, and Ooops I Wrecked The Shed! and thought I had to reach out.  "I’m actually sending this on behalf of fellow creator XXXX, we have a few million followers on multiple platforms and our founder Haris now helps other creators along with our team.  "We're very confident we could help make you additional revenue consistently by launching or scaling your online community or coaching program AND increasing your audience by 15 - 35k new people. (I know it’s a bold claim but we have a ton of results - we’ve got millions of followers and made over 7 f...