Colin Mulhern

I've been playing with a budget Chromebook for the past few months and have to say, a Chromebook is a pretty good choice for writing. I'm using an Acer CB314-1H which cost me a whopping £79 (thanks to a £100 cashback deal). It has a bright, crystal clear FHD screen, a fantastic keyboard (much better than my HP laptop) and it is super lightweight. As far as the keyboard goes, on first impressions, it seems that the keyboard has no delete key or CAPS lock, but both are available with help from the ALT key. It also seems that there is no way to turn the Trackpad off. This takes about ten seconds on Google to enable debug shortcuts, but to be honest, even with the option available, I rarely use. I catch my laptop trackpad all of the time, but hardly ever on the Chromebook. The next thing to consider is software. There's Google docs. You can waste time searching the internet for alternatives, but this means enabling Linux and playing about and it's really not worth it. I man...

 It all began with a duck. Two ducks, actually. They appeared in the middle of a housing estate and were waddling about outside my front door. I went out to get a photo and they were really friendly. They were curious too. This messed with my mind a little. I mean, ducks with personalities. You can’t eat something that’s friendly. That's just not right. But the ducks flew away and I got over them. Well, kind of. But then last week, we were on holiday in Scotland with a farm right next to us. Our back garden looked out on a field full of cows. The cows had calves. They were friendly too, and curious. They kept coming over to see how we were getting on then skipping about the place exactly like cows don’t.  Suddenly, I felt a bit guilty about the huge block of minced beef I’d bought for bolognese.  The thing is, I've never had much success when I've tried going veggie before. I usually fail when it comes to ordering take-away or going into a pub for something to eat. But th...

I first decided to make writing a career when I realised that my son’s disability meant he would always need someone at home. It didn’t seem fair that my wife would never be able to return to nursing, so in 2003 we swapped roles. I became Matthew’s full time carer, wrote when he was at school and began submitting book after book. image c/o seatletimes.com It took five years and six novels to get “The Call” and when it came, I was ecstatic. This was it, the beginning of a new chapter! We’d be able to make a better life, buy a decent car, maybe even move out of our council house. A first look at our new council house. Image: Colin Mulhern Things didn’t work out quite like that. The world of traditional publishing wasn’t quite what I expected. Promotion The publisher offered a promotional package that included a London book launch, a professionally produced YouTube trailer, press releases, newspaper reviews and an ebook version – this was the early days of Kindle, the ideal time to break ...

Image c/o Dean Wesley Smith In 1947, Fantasy Press released Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction. This was a short collection of essays by various Science Fiction authors. Robert Heinlein was one of those authors, and he concluded his guide with a list of business habits, explaining that they were: “a group of practical, tested rules, which, if followed meticulously, will prove rewarding to any writer.” and became known throughout the writing community as Heinlein’s Rules. Heinlein’s Rules You must write. You must finish what you start. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order. You must put it on the market. You must keep it on the market until sold. Many writers overlook their simplicity, but consider the fact that Robert Heinlein wrote 32 novels and over 50 short stories - perhaps there is something in his method. Do the rules actually work? In 1981, Dean Wesley Smith was on the cusp of giving up on his dream to be a writer when he chanced upon Heinlein’s...

I'm a student! Bloody hell! The Young Ones. Image c/o BBC I've been toying with the idea of doing a degree in Creative Writing for years, but it would have to be distance learning and the ones that were available didn't really grab my interest. The Open University, for example, is a mish mash of modules from their humanities box with only a couple of modules dedicated to Creative Writing. What I was after was something more like a Fine Art degree, but in writing, something focused on personal development rather than simply studying others. In the summer, I found it. The degree is with Falmouth University and fits my wish list like a glove. It's more like a Fine Art degree in it seems to be all about personal development and practical tasks to help you become a better writer, and not just for novel writing. It covers everything from identity and society to creative imagery, blog posting and SEO. I barely paused to take breath and applied the same day.  It's week 5 an...

The the harsh reality of traditional publishing is this: if books don't sell, they get pulped. In the case of Buttercup, the publisher is moving distribution companies, which means the pulping decision is pushed on them a little earlier than they'd like. They sent me an email saying they were sorry that things hadn't gone better and that publishing is a bit of a gamble at the best of times, however, for the price of postage, I can have the remaining stock. Well, if nothing else, I'd have loved a full class set, or even just a group set for my low ability readers. Unfortunately, the publisher hadn't updated my email address, so the warning sat unnoticed in an old account. I only found it by chance the other day. By then, of course, it was too late. It's not necessarily the end of the road though, as they have reverted the rights which means I could take the title somewhere else. I doubt that another publisher would consider it, but I could do it myself - I'd ...

This has been a fun little project. Back in the summer, I thought this story would sit in my hard drive and go no further. I wrote the original script when I had an agent. She loved it but couldn't sell it, so I thought that was the end of the road for this little story. But during the summer, listening to a podcast called the Self Publishing Show, I heard Karen Inglis talk about her own self published children's books. Until then, I never thought self publishing was an option for children's authors. The simple reason that kids don't buy ebooks and as that it the primary income for most self published authors, it wasn't a viable business. But, there was something I didn't consider. The reason that self published authors make most of their money through ebooks is because the paperbacks are too expensive. The printing costs are high meaning the cover price has to be high in order to make any profit. Even just a 50p profit margin is enough to price yourself out of ...