Design & presentation

This is a huge topic and I’m barely scratching a surface with these article and videos, but below you’ll find guides to using media on Substack, creating paperbacks and designing covers.

Substack for Beginners

How to add images, videos and audio to your newsletter

How to add images, videos and audio to your newsletter

I know, I know. This does not sound like the most exciting video I’ve ever made.

Transforming a serial story into a book

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June 24, 2024
Transforming a serial story into a book

I’m generally a one project-at-a-time person. It’s the only way I can make progress on anything. Hence, this newsletter and my ongoing fiction serial.

Content warnings & age ratings

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January 30, 2023
Content warnings & age ratings

There’s been a lot of interesting chatter on Fiction Substack in the last week. Elle Griffin posed an interesting question:

Preparing a book for publication

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November 21, 2022
Preparing a book for publication

I wrote this post over the weekend and it was essentially an announcement that my book No Adults Allowed is available for pre-order. That didn’t quite feel right, though: it was a bit too much of a marketing piece, without any real benefit to all of you who read this newsletter.

Relinquishing control to a publisher

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August 15, 2022
Relinquishing control to a publisher

Two of my older books have been taken into Wattpad’s ‘paid stories’ programme. This marks the first time that a publisher has taken on the publishing and promotion of my work and it’s been an intriguing experience thus far.

Anatomy of a cover

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February 21, 2022
Anatomy of a cover

I’m not a designer, but in some ways I thought that might make this more useful to other indie authors - especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have massive budgets to splash on covers.