A Landlord's Guide to Letting

We have a new title available, currently just for Kindle: A Landlord's Guide to Letting, written by Steven Miscandlon.

Regardless of whether you are an experienced landlord or taking your first steps in the world of UK property letting, it can be a complicated business. It’s important to understand your rights and obligations, how to manage the financial side of letting, and the finer points of maintaining a let property and dealing with tenants.

A Landlord’s Guide to Letting provides a concise but informative guide to the things you’ll need to know and understand; finding a property, Buy to Let mortgages, tenancy agreements, deposit schemes, dealing with problem tenants and more. You’ll find it all in this guide, plus helpful hints and tips relating to many different aspects of buying a property and letting it out.

The book consists of a number of guides and articles that were written at the end of 2011 for publication online. Part One is intended as an overall guide and summary of the main things you need to know about letting a property in England and Wales, while Part Two comprises a series of individual articles on a variety of letting-related topics. There may be some elements of overlap between the two parts of the book, but you can be assured that all the information contained in this publication will help make your time as a landlord easier and more rewarding.

Subjects covered include:

1. Buy to Let mortgages — considering the costs
2. Understanding your responsibilities and rights as a landlord
3. Paying tax on your rental income
4. Keeping financial records
5. Using a letting agent
6. Get your property ready to let
7. Tenancy deposit protection schemes
8. Dealing with problem tenants
9. A quick guide to letting for new landlords
10. Top tips for buying a property at auction
11. Property auctions — arranging finance
12. Understanding tenancy agreements
13. Preparing a property inventory
14. The National Landlords Association
15. The Residential Landlords Association
16. Choosing a letting agent
17. Money protection schemes — ARLA
18. Money protection schemes — SAFEagent
19. Tenant referencing and credit checks
20. What is Tenancy Deposit Protection?
21. The three deposit schemes in England and Wales
22. Failing to protect a tenancy deposit
23. Dealing with damp, condensation and mould
24. Landlord’s right of access to a rental property
25. Fair wear and tear
26. Who pays for putting damage right?
27. Damage by tenants — points to prove
28. ADR — Alternative Dispute Resolution
29. Dealing with property tenants leave behind
30. The Financial Ombudsman Service

A Landlord's Guide to Letting costs just £1.02 from Amazon in the UK.

Twelve months, five books, two websites

A year ago today I wrote a post about my conversion to e-books. I think it’s fair to say that in the intervening twelve months, a great deal has happened.

First, I published Gone Bad, a collection of short crime fiction. It has had some great reviews and appeared in Grift Magazine's Reader survey: best books of 2011. It’s also currently on a Goodreads Best Noir of the 21st Century list. Not too shabby a start.

Next up was debut novel Convictions, which also got a mention at Grift (see above) and appeared on a number of end of year favourites lists over at Guilty Conscience (see December 2011 in the archives), as well as being one of Crime Fiction Lover’s top 5 books of 2011.

After that came Heartbreaker, my second novel and a raucous tale of rock ‘n’ roll. Once more, reviews have been very encouraging.

Another collection of short stories, The Writing on the Wall, followed. This time rather than crime, the genre was horror/weird fiction, and again, the reviews have been positive.

Finally, just before Christmas last year, Show No Mercy, a second collection of short crime stories, was published. With this one, I tried a new Amazon programme — KDP Select. With that, you commit to publishing your book in digital format exclusively with Amazon for a period of 90 days. When the time is up, you can opt in for another 90 days, or not, as you please. (There’s more to it than just that and there are definite pros and cons. Many people hold an opinion as to whether it’s a good idea. Google it if you want to know more.) I’m sufficiently encouraged to want to try the programme with a novel, as opposed to a collection of short crime fiction. Consequently I have unpublished Convictions at Smashwords — my gateway to wider digital distibution — and am now waiting for it to be removed from sale in the various stores where it can currently be bought.

As you can imagine, Steven and I have learned a great deal about e-books over the course of the year. We were already working as freelance writers, editors and proofreaders, but we have now added e-book formatting and — in Steven’s case — e-book cover design to our skills. And now that we have three of the books in print with Lulu as well, print-book formatting and wrap around cover design. Those are services that we now offer to authors through our writing services website, which was also developed during the last twelve months.

Another major development this year was the creation of my author website. This is Steven’s hard work and I think he has done a fantastic job.

All in all, it’s been quite a year. Not that we’re resting on our laurels.

The two non-fiction titles I mentioned last year have had to fight hard for their share of the time we have available to work on such things, but each is now fully drafted and in the process of being edited and proofread. We have plans to produce more titles in the series. Another novel will shortly be published, and the first in a planned trilogy will be next to be worked on after that.

Of course, this all has to be fitted in around work for paying clients and we really are being kept busy there, too. If you’re interested in knowing more about any of the services we offer, feel free to get in touch via the website.

Here's to another great year for all of us. I hope it's as eventful and productive as the last one has been!

Moving into print ...

I'm delighted to say that I've ventured into print! Just Convictions so far, but more titles are planned. Get the skinny here. Meanwhile, here's the new print version front cover. I think it looks pretty good!

Fiction news round up

Last week saw publication of new short crime collection Show No Mercy, which is also my first experience with Amazon's new KDP Select programme. Be interesting to see what happens. I also think that this may be Steven's best cover yet - I love it!

Convictions has shown up on a number of 'Top 5 books of 2011' lists over at Guilty Conscience. In appreciation of that, I have dropped the price at Amazon to 86p/99c until the new year.

Finally, Off The Record, edited by Luca Veste, is a collection of 38 short stories from 38 writers. It's close to my heart for a number of reasons, including that I have a story included and Steven designed the cover. Even better, all profits go to children's literacy charities, in the UK, the National Literacy Trust (http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/) and in the US, the Children's Literacy Initiative (http://www.cliontheweb.org/). For the next week, Off The Record is available for just 86p/99c.  Download from Amazon in the UK and in the US.

That's it for now - there'll be more book news in 2012.

Power crazy

I'm busy proofreading a business book entitled Getting Things Done in Business. (I plan to publish it shortly as an e-book, along with Putting it Across, about business communication. They'll be the first in my new series of business e-books.) Earlier I was reading through some information on power and it struck me how often I use power in my fiction writing — coupled, of course, with conflict, which is the next topic covered in the book. Anyway, I thought some of you might find it interesting, so here it is:

Power
We tend not to think about it — or even to like to think about it — but all relationships are power-based. Good relationships arguably have power in balance, and we operate most of the time from a standpoint of equality or neutrality. When something happens to upset the status quo, however, power is likely to surface as an issue and be used as a lever.

Types of power
Working in the 1950s, the research of sociologists French and Raven identified five bases of power:

Reward power: the ability to reward or offer benefit to someone in exchange for the desired behaviour;

Coercive power: the ability to punish unacceptable behaviour;

Legitimate power: the right to demand that certain behaviours be either demonstrated or avoided based on legitimate authority (a variation is information power, based on a person's ability to control availability and accuracy of information);

Referent power: power awarded by admirers; and,

Expert power: power awarded on the basis of recognised expertise or specialist knowledge.

Most relationships have more than one type of power. Your boss has legitimate power by virtue of his position. He has reward power and coercive power, which he can use in a 'carrot and stick' way to influence behaviour. He may also be awarded expert and/or referent power, but so might a member of your staff, as these aren't dependent upon hierarchical position.

Interesting stuff — or at least I think so, anyway!

Blasted Heath: a new name in digital publishing

New kids on the block Blasted Heath launched today, and they've got off to a cracking start. Some great books by some great writers, and the guys behind the venture - Allan Guthrie and Kyle MacRae - certainly seem to have some innovative ideas. Read more about BH in the Daily Record. And check out the website - there are some brilliant launch bargains to be had.

What are you waiting for? Away you go to the Blasted Heath!

New titles and a new look for the blog

Okay, so the blog doesn't look hugely different, but I changed the title text and put monkey up there in the header, too. That photograph was a spin-off from a photographic project I did a few years back. Bought a bag of jelly letters and there wasn't a single 'E'. Went back and persuaded the nice woman in the sweet shop to pick some out for me.

'We're not supposed to,' she said.

'Oh go on,' I said, 'just a few Es ...'

And she did. But that was after I took this pic.

New titles: my second novel, Heartbreaker, was published on 7/10 and my second collection of short stories, The Writing on the Wall, on the 13/10. Well, it's actually a bunch of short stories and a novelette. When I started writing the title story, I figured it would come in at around four thousand words, but then it took on a life of its own, as they sometimes do. So I ran with it, and I love how it turned out. (Badly, natch!) Also in that book is a bonus story, Steven Miscandlon's Frigid Air, a tasty little tale that will have you holding your breath when you open your fridge door. Steven is responsible for the photography and graphic design work for the covers, too. I think he did a fantastic job.

Links in the sidebar for anyone who's interested, and all books are 86p/99c each throughout October. (Use the code YT56E at the checkout to get Convictions for that price at Smashwords.)