Free audiobooks, a newsletter directory and the financial realities of publishing

Only one thing to tell you in this issue: I was a guest on the latest Home Work podcast.

My lovely chat with internet stalwarts Dave Caolo and Harry Marks (who has his own email newsletter for writers) saw me talk about:

• my garden writing shed
• my freelance content business
• Substack and paid newsletters
• compartmentalising my time
• money and publishing
• being covered in sick by 9am.

I've not had chance to listen to the show back myself yet, but I do know I felt a little rusty. It was good fun though. Check it out and have yourself a listen.

That's it. Enjoy the links below.

Links of the week

Every issue I collect and share the best advice, apps and other shenanigans that I find on my internet travels. Find something useful? Subscribe for free.

Influx Press on money and publishing

Kit Caless and Gary Budden are the founders of the brilliant Influx Press.

During lockdown here in the UK, they've been recording and letting us in on their chats about writing and the publishing industry. You can find the full playlist of Lockdown Discussions on YouTube.

Given the Publishing Paid Me conversation going on, I highly recommend you watch this one on... money. It's full of insider insights and stark realities.

I should say that Influx has always been one of the indie publishers that try to do things differently. For example, they ran a Patreon a few years ago that has since been converted into a more straightforward subscription service.

Oh, and I can also tell you that Attrib. and other stories by Eley Williams is an absolutely stunning collection of short stories.

1. Kate McKean on advances and the Publishing Paid Me hashtag – a must-read if you are or you want to be a published author
2. How To Keep A Record Of Your Reading List With Trello – I can recommend Trello for a whole load of other things too
3. 1,000 Free Audio Books – you do know about the Open Culture site, right?
4. Ten authors share their best writing advice – this is full of golden nuggets that I'm sure you know all too well
5. Sprints – simple Pomodoro timer for Mac – looks just the ticket if you're one for chunking your writing time
6. Newsletter Stack – love this brand new directory of excellent newsletters for your browsing (feel free to nominate Unslush)
7. How to Write a Synopsis – great practical advice in this piece to help you get this important part of finding an agent right
8. 5 Tips for Poets: How to Improve Your Poetry Writing Skills – not too different from any other form of writing, but useful advice here nonetheless
9. The 6 Steps of Building an Audience From Nothing – full of useful ideas and examples of other people who've been there and done it
10. Pulp do Danger Mouse – during lockdown, this guy has been impersonating famous artists covering TV theme tunes and he is excellent at it

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Tweets of the week

Tweets are but rock-hard raisins in a ageing, mould-covered fruit cake. But some of them are quite good. You can follow @iainbroome and @unslush on Twitter.

Programming notes!

Apologies for the somewhat inconsistent emails at the moment.

12 weeks of lockdown with four small children and a business to run is proving more and more challenging as time goes by. Normality will resume at some point. And even some exciting additions to the newsletter. Just bear with me for a bit.

(PS The image above is of a man in a shed who is very tired and trying to work out how to use his new camera, which he purchased to make online courses with.)

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Unslush is an email newsletter written and published by Iain Broome, freelance copywriter and author of the novel, A is for Angelica.

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