My first book event

 

I have my first book event happening in a couple of weeks. If you are in the Beckenham area of London, please come along and say hello, buy a book or two or three, take part in the prizes and chat with us authors. We don't bite, I can assure you. Lol. I will be selling my books at a discounted price, as I usually do at in person events. 

I hope to see people there, even if it might rain.

Want a bit of magic in your life?

 

Yes, I think we all need a bit of magic in our lives at times, especially during tough periods. I for one feel that I do a lot of the time now. It is why I haven 't been here a lot this year as I have had a lot of personal and upsetting days especially since the end of August when my mum passed away in hospital. With Christmas coming up, it will be harder still for me as it will be the first Christmas without her.

Anyway, here is a bit of magic for you to read, especially for us authors. I have a short story in this anthology 'Modern Magic' called 'The Dragon Pen' which helps an author meet her deadline. Don't we all want one of those. It is available to order as an ebook or paperback here https://books2read.com/u/mvXpQz

Have fun reading it all.

Support your local library

I had a book launch at my local community library on Saturday, and it was brilliant. The librarians are very friendly and helpful, esp the main librarian called Sue. This is why I want authors and readers to support their own local libraries, esp community ones. I have been doing events and taking part in the library's own events such as fayres over the last 5 years. They have been understanding and supportive of me and my Asperger's, and are always helping me and praising me to their customers. So, if you are an author, please think about doing events at your local library, even more if it is a community led one like mine. There are a few others libraries in my borough, but none of them have been interested in me having events there. It has just been the community led one, who support me as an indie author. I thank them each time for having me. But I made a bigger thank you to them, esp Sue, by mentioning them in the acknowledgement pages in the back of Susie and the Jiggling Jumper (available on Amazon).

So, go and find your local library and ask if you can do events there from time to time. You will be bringing in more readers to them as well as yourself. A win-win, I believe.

What is your brand?

Following my previous posts about the issue I have had (my book has now been taken off Amazon completely), I thought I'd write about what is a brand, or what I have learnt is a brand.

A brand is...You. It is not a name, a logo or your voice. It is you. So, learning this, I have decided not to brand my children's books now, but keep myself as an Aspie children's author as my brand along with what I write. So my brand is me writing magical realism and ghosts. When someone mentioned this to me on Facebook, it got me thinking. Yes, they are right. I started thinking about other authors and their brands, and came up with two that I often read who have a definite brand: Nora Roberts writing under her own name, and Jacqueline Wilson. Their style of writing, and esp with Jacqueline Wilson, the book covers are definite brands. So I am going to learn from those two about how to work on my brand as myself. I want my book covers to reflect me and what I write as my brand.

So, question for you; what is your brand like? Can you describe it, like I have for me? Go on... tell me.

Why I like doing talks

Yesterday afternoon, I gave another talk at Sydenham Community Library about ebooks. This one was about how to get discovered as an author. Only one lady turned up this time, and only because she worked as a volunteer there. But I had to persuade her to come as she was feeling down after a bad week and was thinking of putting her writing on hold. I said why and to go for it. It was saying this that made me realise that I like giving these talks. So it was just us two. While I was doing the talk, I was getting ideas on how the lady could start writing what she wanted if she didn't feel up to writing a whole novel yet. The more I talked, the more ideas I got and told her. The lady writes non-fiction about her past life. The ideas I gave her were blogging as it's free, writing letters to magazines if she read something that struck a chord with her (this is what I have done and been successful with) and finding magazines that dealt with nostalgia and travel that are connected to what she has written. I was with her an hour, talking about discoverability and how she can start writing again. By the end of it, she had found it useful and I had come away feeling that I had helped her back on track with her writing. This is what made me realise that I like helping people, esp other authors if they want ideas or that little push to get on with things.

I went to say goodbye to the other librarians. I listened to them talking. One of them was giving ideas on how they could promote my talks in the future. There was another lady there, whom I believed had something to do with a reading group there. Plus, she mentioned she was a part-time teacher. Out came my business cards and I gave her one. Another good contact made. Although whether I shall hear anything from her I don't know.

So, if you are an author, esp an indie one and new to publishing, and need that little push with ideas or help getting discovered, come along to one of my talks (listed on my website www.julieaday.co.uk). Or sign up to my newsletter at

http://forms.aweber.com/form/25/1466306025.htm where you can get tips on writing, marketing, news on my ebooks and events. Or pop along to my Aspiepreneur blog at www.hopewithjulie.wordpress.com where I will soon be adding freebies to help authors with their planning.

Coming soon from me....

A new marketing website with guides on how authors and marketers can get discovered. Here is what I have planned for it:

Writing magazine fillers - letters and tip to magazines, and how to get paid for them

How to get leads on-line; how to get reader lists for your books; autoresponders

Finding your brand

Planning and goal setting

Social media: blogs, websites, social network sites. What to do and not to do on Google

Publishing ebooks - my library talk series

My library talks

Gift shop - promoting a few items you can get from my Zazzle store

and more.

This is all that I have learnt from being an indie author and within the last year as being an affiliate marketer.

I have yet to set up the website, which will be a blog, too, so I can blog marketing tips for you all now and then.

To be one of the first to find out when it goes live, why not sign up for my newsletter at

http://forms.aweber.com/form/25/1466306025.htm