Richard Wilson's blog

I set up this blog at the prompting of Lee Henshaw at the Independent Book Alliance author’s webday…

Up until now I’d not seen the benefit in creating a separate author’s blog in my own name, partly because I think you need to publish at least two books before you can really call yourself an “author”, and partly because it seems so easy to get it wrong… But I’ve now been inspired by the example of Seth Godin, as eloquently presented in this morning’s presentation by Douglas Smith.

My first book, Titanic Express, already has its own blog, while my second, Don’t Get Fooled Again, will be published by Icon in September this year.

One of the most useful suggestions was that a blog might be a good way of giving exposure to some of the notes, discussions and bits of research that never made it into the final draft of the book. When I was writing Don’t Get Fooled Again I spent hours making notes and digging out obscure facts from old books and internet pages that, many of which for one reason or another, I didn’t end up including. Then there are all the odd bits of old film and audio that I stumbled on when writing the book, such as this extraordinary 1950s information film on “How to spot propaganda”: