E L James did it and look where she got to. Mind you, she does seem to be a bit stuck for ideas now. Her fourth book is more of the same, in fact the very same story told by Mr Grey this time. Yawn. Am I alone in finding the first three books remarkably un-sexy, despite endless, graphic, inch-by-inch descriptions of remarkably kinky goings-on? I was reminded of how uninteresting and totally unstimulating the naked body of either gender becomes when there are dozens of them around, as in a sauna or nudist beach.

Anyway, I'm not really talking about the content of her books. I'm interested in her method of getting them out there and read by the public. She famously sidestepped the scrum of submissions, slush piles, rejections and editors 'killing our darlings' by publishing her first '50 shades' book online, in instalments. It went viral, as they say, and the rest is history.

But what about copyright? Isn't this just giving your work away for nothing? How will you know if anyone has plagiarised it? (Same way as you know if they've plagiarised your printed work, I guess - if you catch them). 

Sure it's a risk but I feel like living dangerously. So, I'll be starting to upload my third, as-yet-unpublished novel, on Saturday 5th Sept. It's called 'Eleanor's Journey' and it's a story of friendship under fire and what happens when parallel tracks in our lives collide. More gen on the 'Eleanor's Journey' page: