Author: Cathy Speight

Reviewer Cathy Speight is British and lives in England. The Kindle revived her passion for reading and after stumbling on a Facebook group of independent authors, she now does her best to encourage and assist indies as much as possible. Books by indie author form the majority of her collection. Cathy shares her views on the books she has read on her blog.

(Belated) Happy New Year…and some author resolutions

ResolutionsHappy New Year to all you readers and writers! Yes, I know we’re three weeks into 2015, but it’s still the start of the year, and I haven’t been able to wish you all the best until now.

So, let’s talk resolutions (Lynne Cantwell made a few here). Do you make them? How did you do last year? Did you lose those unwanted pounds, find that new job, redecorate the house, read more books…write more books? Umm, more to the point, are you going to admit if those resolutions fell by the wayside in…er…February? Continue reading “(Belated) Happy New Year…and some author resolutions”

Participle Phrases

housewife-23868_1280Mrs Grumpy here again.

Another little bad habit creeps into a lot of writing, I’ve discovered.  And I always feel a trickle of irritation when I read it.  Those pesky -ing phrases.  You know the ones I mean? Continue reading “Participle Phrases”

BookDigits…is it a ‘smarter way to explore books’?

BookDigits imageDedicated book reviewers sit down after they’ve read a book and compose an honest (hopefully!) review which they then plonk onto their reviewing blog site and, possibly or probably, on Amazon. The content of said review, generally, will be mostly about how much the reviewer liked or disliked the book. Some will be kind, favourable and constructive. Others will not. And the reviews will vary in length from a few sentences to a few paragraphs.

Is there any other way to review a book? There is, says BookDigits. In fact, they declare, it’s a “a smarter way to explore books” and “At BookDigits, we want to change the way you read and help you find your next favorite book. Traditional genres are too broad and vague to be useful, so BookDigits uses themes and special metrics instead.” Continue reading “BookDigits…is it a ‘smarter way to explore books’?”

Here we go again…indies and their editing (or not)

thumb-440352_1280There are many, many topics to talk about in the writing world. There’s lots of advice to be asked and given. Some issues just keep on turning up like bad pennies. For example, authors behaving badly has turned up more than once in IU posts. A few authors behave badly, it seems. But another topic that keeps rearing its ugly head is…*lowers voice and mouths exaggeratedly*…e-d-i-t-i-n-g. Just when you thought you’d said your bit on the subject, along comes another shambles of an unedited book, so off we go again… Continue reading “Here we go again…indies and their editing (or not)”