Month: September 2014

Build your profile and promote your book
Dean Koorey

Booktopia’s John Purcell shares 3 ways to sell more books

The rise of online shopping has revolutionised the way that we buy books. From a bookseller’s point of view, the playing field has been significantly levelled – with every book just a search and a click away. And from an author’s point of view, this makes marketing your book more important than ever.

One man who knows all about this is John Purcell, chief book buyer and head of marketing at Booktopia – Australia’s fastest-growing online bookstore. Not only does he decide which books to stock, but he’s also been a published author himself, seeing first-hand the effect good marketing can have on sales.

Clearly if you self-publish, by definition you do the sales legwork yourself. But when it comes to being traditionally published, don’t assume someone else will do it all. Finding success with a publishing house is definitely impressive (congratulations!), but this is no time to put your feet up and wait for the cheques to start flying through the door. Back in episode 5 of our top-rating podcast So you want to be a writer, we chatted with John Purcell and here are his 3 top tips for ensuring your book meets its marketing potential.

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Business writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Are you guilty of these top 10 business writing mistakes?

Writing business documents – an article, report, blog, letter or email – is quite a different proposition to writing a novel. (For starters, there are usually far fewer unicorns or troubled detectives.)

Perhaps you’re writing for your own company, or maybe you’re looking to do more corporate writing for organisations. Whatever the case, cast your eye over our collection of top 10 common errors … and how to avoid them.

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Grammar and Punctuation
Dean Koorey

Q&A: Plurals, possession and apostrophes

Each week, we take a look at a common confusions and ambiguities in the English language (that gives us about a century’s worth of material!) – making things easier through the power of friendly conversation. This week, a word or two about possession… Q: Hello. Every May and September I

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Uncategorized
Australian Writers' Centre Team

National Young Writers’ Festival Lineup Announced!

If I were to say Newcastle to you in some kind of abstract word-association game, what would come to mind? If replied aloud to your screen “The National Young Writers’ Festival, of course” you receive bonus points because you read the title of this post.

Not only is the National Young Writers’ Festival in it’s 17th year, but they’re celebrating with a giant party across Newcastle with guests from all over the country.

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Competitions and Opportunities
Dean Koorey

Read the book, solve the puzzle, win millions!

There are millions of fiction books in the world, all different in some way, and yet all with one thing in common – they’re one-sided conversations. You begin reading, then the author tells you things until you’re finished reading. Next.

But what happens when the conversation becomes two-way? In this world of ebooks and global audiences, Sydney writer James Evangelidis has chosen an intriguing device to engage readers. With his debut book, Maze of Keys (being released online on 17 September), he doesn’t just ask you to read the book, he wants you to solve it too – and win big!

Okay, interest piqued. We hunted him down and asked a few questions.

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Memoir writing
Australian Writers' Centre Team

Dad blogger on going from BLOG to BOOK

We hear a lot about the “mummy blogger”, but to (belatedly) celebrate Father’s Day, we thought we’d give a shout out to stay-at-home dad Clint Greagen – whose blog Reservoir Dad won Best Australian Blog 2013 in the Personal and Parenting category. Clint lives in Reservoir, Victoria (hence the name, although he admits the Tarantino connection is nice too) with his wife and four boys aged between two and nine.

His blog win turned heads at publisher Random House, who approached Clint to ask if he was interested in writing a book. His reply was easy: he would love to. And a year later, his “fifth child” was born – this time made of paper and given the same name as the blog that made it happen – Reservoir Dad.

For Clint, who began his blog back in 2008 when he started his stay-at-home duties, it felt good to receive validation for his efforts. “Yeah, it was just a great pat on the back and it’s sort of like, ‘Keep going, man, you can do it. You’re doing it right.’ Validation that I’ve got something to offer.”

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Our famous Q&As!
Dean Koorey

Q&A: Or maybe it’s “Q & An”?

Each week, we take a look at a common confusions and ambiguities in the English language (that gives us about a century’s worth of material!) – making things easier through the power of friendly conversation… This week, is it “a” or “an”? Q: Woooo, hi there guys, I just got in from

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Competitions and Opportunities
Dean Koorey

It’s awards season! 6 writing competitions to enter.

Recently we were excited to learn that an Australian Writers’ Centre graduate had taken out the top prize in a local writing competition, pocketing herself a cool $1000 for what was only the second story she’d ever written! It’s pretty inspirational stuff, and brings up a great point about writing.

It can be easy to focus your energy on the big goal – a published novel, or perhaps a byline in your favourite magazine. But while you’re working towards that, entering a writing competition is an excellent way to hone your craft, and could give you some cash and recognition as well.

Here’s a selection of writing competitions currently out there – good luck!

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