Luke Neima's blog

Over the past few months ABCtales has helped turn two of its members into published authors. A third member – Jack O’Donnell (also known as Celticman) – is about halfway to publishing his Lily Poole with Unbound . This novel is a moving portrait of working class life in Scotland. It’s supernatural – but it’s much more than a simple ghost story. It's also about family, the social services, community and the way Scotland is now. If you haven’t...

A guest post by ABCtales Author Ewan Lawrie : The galloping mare that is Gibbous House 's campaign to be published is careering down the home straight. We are 87% of the way there. And to save this poor jockey from brandishing his whip, Unbound is holding a draw for Launch Party tickets: everyone who contributes from now until the target is reached is eligible. I'll buy the winner a drink too, when I meet them. Now that's an offer. Let nothing...

Ex , a novel written on ABCtales by Laurie Avadis (or lavadis), has now reached 100% funding on Unbound, and the book will soon be going to press! This is in no small part thanks to you – the ABCtales readers and writers who got behind the project from the beginning and helped make it a reality by buying a copy of the book in advance. The macabre humour, the violence and the absurd scene-setting that make this book what it is will soon be on...

Ewan Lawrie , a long-time editor on ABCtales, is two-thirds of the way to publishing his historical novel Gibbous House on Unbound. If you haven't already, have a look at the short movie and the excerpt of the book on his Unbound page . Gibbous House was written in serial form on ABCtales - and influenced by many of you. Ewan talked to us about that process, about intertextuality and the identity of the mysterious Moffat. 'Moffat is an imposter...

As many of you know by now, Laurie Avadis (better known here as lavadis ) is one of three ABC authors currently crowdfunding the publication of a novel on Unbound. Unbound works by having readers put forward the capital for the books they want to read to fund their publication - and Ex is halfway to publication. But Laurie still needs a few more pledges to put the book he wrote here on ABCtales into bookshops and onto your bookcases - so we'd...

Another week, another round of successes with ABC writers. More than a few ABC authors have books available this week - but there are two I wanted to flage up in particular. Laura Wilkinson's book Public Battles, Private Wars is on a free (!) promotion for Kindle and iTunes until the end of the month - so get a copy while you have the chance! Laura is an incredible author and the book delves into the mining strikes of the early '80s with the...

Ever since I've written I've always looked forward to the summer with longing. From a distance it looks like a long expanse of constructive dreamtime - and hopefully the majority of those can be trapped on paper. A desk in the shade of a tree, hours and hours stretching forward unassigned to duties, broken only by the scratching of a pen. But the days of July and August can so easily slide into September without achievement - the challenge, the...

This week I’m proud to announce a new collaboration between ABCtales and Unbound - the crowdfunding publisher who have already published one ABCtaler’s novel, Jennifer Pickup’s Unbelievable . Unbound offers a modern take on publishing, putting readers directly in touch with authors. Authors get a platform on Unbound to pitch their book, and if enough readers support it, the book gets published. It’s a simple way of putting the power of...

It’s one of those weeks when I’m between reads – or at least in a reading slump. I do have a book on the go, Philip Roth’s My Life As a Man , a mid-career book structured in a way that’s somewhere between ingenious and lazy: two long short stories are followed by a novella – which begins with the narrator explaining that he wrote the two preceding stories. While the stories held my attention the novella is just a touch too self-indulgent and...

Our judge at Granta, Francisco Vilhena, read and reread the submissions to this summer’s competition, 100 Years On , in search of the voices that spoke loudest to him of the conflict that changed the course of the 20th century. And it was a difficult decision, a very difficult decision. When I asked Francisco on the sixteenth for his verdict he demanded a deferral to go over his short-list a few more times. It was a very close heat. As often...