You could say it was a painter who kick-started Air Commodore John Oddie’s journey to writing Flight Command: From the farm to the frontline. Specifically, Archibald Prize-winning portrait artist Ben Quilty, sent in 2011 as ‘official war artist’ (a legit profession since World War I) to paint the men and
Andrew McMillen is a freelance journalist based in Brisbane, Australia. His first book, Talking Smack: Honest Conversations About Drugs is a pretty frank look at the plentiful world of drugs within the music industry. We caught up with him recently to talk about the book and his approach to writing. But
James Phelps, you should be locked up. You’re a sports journalist and you’ve written a non-fiction book, Australia’s Hardest Prison: Inside Long Bay. Tell us about it. Ever wondered what it would be like to go to prison? Not an American movie style prison, but the one you would really
Bambi Smyth is the author of Men on the Menu – 75 delicious affairs around the world. That title gives you plenty of clues – namely food and frolicking! But to add some filling to this dish, we went to directly to the source and asked Bambi a bunch of
Robyn Windshuttle is first-time author and graduate of our Life Writing course. She had quite the tale to tell when it came to writing her first book – all true and now all published! With the release of her book, Dancing with a Cocaine Cowboy, we threw some questions
Steve Sammartino is now relieved that he can call himself “an author”. Because it’s just a lot easier to explain than his actual life as a “projecteer” – juggling many projects at once, from organic egg farms as a child to marketing roles, advertising agencies, countless successful start-ups, blogging to
Writing a book as a business tool is a growing trend that has been spurred on by two significant developments in book publishing. First is the rapid advances in the publishing industry that have made self-publishing more accessible for small businesses. The key changes include ebooks, retail sites such as
Former-journalist Nikki Parkinson began her blog Styling You in 2008. In a nutshell it’s an advice-driven fashion, beauty and lifestyle site – and, most importantly, it has a highly engaged readership, who are motivated to buy featured products and services. The blog did so well that she wrote an ebook.
When Heather Smith graduated from the Australian Writers Centre’s online course in Magazine and Newspaper Writing in 2010, little did she realise that she would become one of our most published graduates. She is now an author of six books and has been on the business bestseller list for several weeks.
Question:
I can’t figure out the best way to structure my non-fiction book. Where do I start?
Answer:
When you are writing a book – whether it’s fiction or non-fiction – it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Where do you start? How do you know it’s going to be engaging? How in the world would you ever reach 60,000 words (or whatever word count you’re trying to achieve)? The following advice is specifically for non-fiction books and is ideal for business books.
Getting your first big break in writing can take a lot of hard work, determination, and maybe just a little bit of luck.
This is the tale of travel writer Brian Thacker, successful author of seven travel books including Rule number 5: No sex on the bus and The Naked Man Festival. His former life was as an advertising art director, and when you lose an account in advertising, many people lose their jobs. His was one of those jobs.
So he decided to do something different. “I saw an ad in a paper for tour leaders in Europe and winter work,” he recalls. “So, I got this big silly dream. I went over and got a job as a ski guide in Switzerland. And, in the summer I was taking tours around Europe, busloads of drunk Aussies and Kiwis around Europe.”
What’s it like to be a ghostwriter? Here, Libby Harkness – author of both credited and uncredited memoirs on various subjects – spills the beans on her life as a ‘writer for hire’.
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