Books are more than objects—they’re containers of voice, structure, and intent. These posts explore the world of books from multiple angles: reading, writing, publishing, and the shifting relationship between author, text, and audience across different forms and formats.
Should independent authors load the car with books and sell them face to face, or build an audience online? Drawing on two very different author events, my own publishing choices, and years of digital promotion, I examine the costs, rewards, missed sales and long-term reach of both marketing paths today.
Should Authors Sell Books in Person or Market Them Online? Read More »
Noir is more than rain-soaked streets and dangerous women. It explores flawed people, hidden motives and choices made under pressure. In SEETHINGS, moral ambiguity turns intimate relationships into unstable territory, where pain, resentment and desire blur the line between victim and villain—and truth depends on who is telling it.
What Is Noir? Morally Questionable, Dark Choices and the Truth Beneath the Shadows Read More »
Promoting an independently published novel involves far more than posting on social media. An author’s website provides the stable centre: a controlled space where useful articles, topic clusters and internal links help search engines understand the work, attract suitable readers and quietly guide them towards discovering—and ultimately buying—the books themselves.
Promoting Novels Through Online Channels and Self-Publishing Read More »
The Australian Outback has become a powerful symbol of danger, isolation, and mystery in contemporary fiction. Yet the darkness in my novels lives elsewhere. While vast landscapes inspire many stories, I find greater tension among ordinary people, suburban streets, hidden secrets, and the summer storms rolling across Brisbane.
Why Dark Fiction Doesn’t Need the Australian Outback Read More »
Mitchell Felding appears ordinary—until the cracks show. Beneath a failing marriage and quiet routine lies something darker: control, secrecy, and a mind slipping beyond restraint. This character spotlight explores psychological tension, intimacy breakdown, and the subtle evolution of a man no one suspects—until it’s far too late.
Character Spotlight: Mitchell Felding (photographer) Read More »
It’s been a long time coming, but Forman is well on the way to becoming the latest Koontz. If you haven’t read his style of hard-hitting dark fiction, check it out now. It’s an intense, well-crafted approach to dark thriller writing. You won’t be disappointed. Title: SEETHINGSAuthor: Michael Forman SEETHINGS, a dark fiction novel penned
Transgressive Fiction Writer Makes The Most Downloaded List Read More »
As a writer, I believe that compelling, relatable characters are the core of any novel. Readers invest in stories through people they recognise, empathise with, or even love to hate. In fact, writing experts emphasise that characters and plot are the two essential ingredients of a story. As Brett Grell notes, “there are two required elements of
Character Spotlights: A Who’s Who in The Novel SEETHINGS Read More »
Writers often borrow tools from other crafts when building stories. Some use music, others painting, others architecture. When I wrote SEETHINGS, I leaned heavily on something I knew well: photography. Photography didn’t simply appear in the book as a hobby for Mitchell Felding. It became part of the storytelling framework. The way Mitchell photographs storms
The Camera and the Storm: How Photography Shaped the Storytelling in SEETHINGS Read More »
Some stories comfort the reader. Others are meant to disturb them. Dark psychological fiction belongs firmly in the second category. It does not exist to reassure, tidy up loose ends, or confirm what we already believe about human nature. Instead, it quietly dismantles those beliefs, leaving the reader staring into something far more complicated. Something
Dark Psychological Fiction and Moral Ambiguity Read More »
Some villains wear masks. Others wear suits, smile at neighbours, and wave politely across the fence. The SEETHINGS trilogy explores the uncomfortable idea that the most dangerous people rarely look dangerous at all. They move quietly through ordinary lives, blending into communities, relationships, workplaces and families. Nothing about them appears unusual—until the moment everything fractures.
SEETHINGS: A Psychological Thriller Trilogy About the Darkness Hiding in Plain Sight Read More »