Yesterday, I wrote a post called Missionary Position, a post about a writer’s aims, which was introduced to the world of the writer by acclaimed commentator Joanna Penn. It occurred to me that the questions Joanna asked were perfect for the Big Red Chair which hasn’t appeared on the blog for quite some time …. being re-upholstered as it were.
Over the weekend, I conducted a HUGE promotion of three of my five novels – two hist fantasies and one hist.fict. They have had the time of their lives breaking into the German, French and Canadian markets significantly and partying madly in the UK and USA.
This Friday, 10th August, and Saturday, 11th August, one of the five fantasy finalists from the 2012 Readers’ Favourite Book Awards (announced in September) will be offered free for Kindles as part of the KDP Select promotion on Amazon.
Those of you who know me will know that Gisborne: Book of Pawns had its first ever free promotion last weekend.
So what, you might say?
Indeed, so what?
It was an enormous thing for me to do as an independent author. The KDP Select programme is a scheme devised by Amazon to potentially give a book high visibility – a chance to advance in the ratings. For the writer, (more so for me because I am essentially an anxious individual) it is quite nerve-wracking because one worries if anybody will download the book to their Kindle. Or if one will have any sort of ranking. Or if any sales will follow-on to other books.
Oh, I WISH!!!
Cosmopolitan Magazine offer a cover-generator which is the best fun I’ve had in a week – the last being whale watching in the Southern Ocean 1400 kms off the Ross Ice Shelf last weekend. This weekend I decided I really must make my own headlines for a book that I adored writing.
Melissa Smith’s story sent shivers down my spine. Grief is the most profound emotion. It often features in my novels in various ways and I dig into my soul and recall the feelings I had when Dad died. I think you should just read on and see what she has to say…
I’d had a good morning. Dressed in my city jeans, city shirt and city shoes (favourite camel JP Tods bought from the USA), city perfume, city makeup, jewelry, clean hair … you know, the sort of thing you do when you are going shopping. Not dressed up to the nines but a damn sight better than the last five months of aged shorts or farm jeans.
Bells ring when I read Michelle Muto’s story of how she came to be published. I often say of my books, when I see a wonderful spike upward 
in their sales, that they remind me of the little engine that could, puffing up the hill and saying ‘I think I can, I think can.’
Moving around the world can do one of two things, it seems to me. It can inspire or it can pull you apart with sadness, longing for the place you call home. Julia Crane managed to make moving work for her. It gave her the time and space she needed to create the book she had always wanted to write. Julia is an Indie Chick, another of that group of women who have not taken setbacks lightly in order to further their careers as writers. Read on…
Wise words. If we all gave up at the first sign of a struggle, deciding it was all to hard, then we’d be doing ourselves and our dreams no favours. Christine Kersey never gave up, she moved herself forward, writing all the time – mainstream published and then choosing to go the indie route. She’s happy with her choices and explains why…
