AD Hartley

When I first considered seriously writing a novel, many years ago, someone in publishing told me an axiom of the industry she called the 5% Rule. I have no evidence to prove how factual it is, but it's certainly believable and if taken as a parable on how difficult it is to become a successful writer, rather than as evidence itself, then it does ring true. With a lot of paraphrasing, the rule follows that: If there are many thousands of people who think they could/should/will write a book, only 5% of them will actually sit down and begin to do so. Of those who start, only 5% will complete the book. Of those that complete it, only 5% will finish it to a good standard and try to find a publisher/agent. Of those that try to find an agent/publisher, only 5% will do so. Of those that do find one, only 5% will make any money at all from their book. Of those that do make money, only 5% will make enough money to consider writing their full time job. Of those, o...

Because writers need to make sure their self-published book is available across all possible channels, I've spent most of this morning trying to publish mine on Google Play.  And because this was a less than easy task, I've spent most of the afternoon venting my frustration into a long, unhelpful and rather dull blog tirade. Once finished I felt better about things... Then I realised that few people would care and rightly enough.  So, for those of you having problems uploading your file onto Google Play and especially anyone receiving the message  Error: Unable to sanitize epub, here is a more concise and a lot less cynical post about how I got round it. There are probably easier methods but I couldn't find any so this is just my attempt. Feel free to suggest different approaches. Unlike Amazon and Smashwords, Google require you to upload a ready formatted eBook file in epub format, rat...