Why I love being an indie author

 I am sorry I haven't been on here these past few months, but if you know me on Facebook you will know why. For those who aren't, then the short story is that my health took a bad turn and I had to go into hospital. I had to have major heart surgery to replace a heart valve and a pacemaker fitted. I was in for nearly 8 weeks. I came home to an empty house because while I was in hospital, my mum had a fall and ended up in another hospital herself. She is back home now but bed bound with carers coming in to do her personal care and meals four times a day. I am still recovering but back to writing as an indie author. One of the reasons I love being an indie author is you are only accountable to yourself and when something happens like the above and you can't write, then it is a relief. 

Apart from a couple of ideas for short stories I jotted down pre-surgery, I didn't do any writing. I couldn't. It took so much effort to recover and get moving by myself again. It was only when I was home and after a couple of weeks when I read writing magazines that I thought about writing. Before I went into hospital I was half way through writing a cozy mystery but I didn't fancy writing that. I started reading children's books and decided that I wanted to write something new like that. I already had a few ideas jotted down. One came to me but it was all muddled in my mind. Then I saw a second idea and it jumped out at me. This is what I am now writing. A new series for 7-9s. I am enjoying writing again.

A reason I love being an indie author, you can write what you want and when. Imagine what might have happened if I was under a traditional publisher and writing that book... I will go back to working on the mystery some time but I am having fun writing for children, esp when the characters have Asperger's. It is under my 'autism meets magical realism' brand and 'learn about autism' umbrella.

Enjoy what you are writing and have fun with it.

Being proactive in promotional sales

One of my main writing goals this year was to promote my adult magical realism ebooks more, and I have been doing this and will be doing so again next month. The way forward is to find ways to do this that are free and can reach as many readers as you want. This is why I am taking part in the ebook distributor Smashwords' promo sale next month. I also took part in their last sale period. Did I get any sales? One, but it was one more than I had before I took part. I also had a few free purchases, which could turn into readers for me, who knows. It is why I have already set up to take part next month. I have put one of my magical realism series at a discounted price with the first ebook as free and the rest cheaper. To find out which series it is and what I have done, why not sign up for my book newsletter at  http://eepurl.com/b3zDYv

This is one of the reasons I decided to go wide with all my ebooks, and not be exclusive with Amazon. I wanted to reach as many readers as possible. It is also why I think other indie authors who are on Smashwords too, should take part in this promo sale period. Smashwords also has their own ebook store and share that on their home page.

So, if you are an indie author who has gone wide with their ebooks. Come and join the sale.

New writing goals

Happy new year. Yes, I know it's a bit late but have been busy with personal things going on. So, it's a new year, and I have more writing goals with one main one to focus on from this year on. I am going to concentrate on being an indie author and writing and publishing my ebooks/books for adults and children. I might think about sending an idea to a magazine that published a story of mine last year, but not sure. I have to go through any ghost stories I have already written and printed, see if they are suitable then write a blurb for it.

So here are my main writing goals:

1. Publish 'The Valentine's Card' in February. It is out for editing at the moment, and I am sorting out the cover for it. So this should happen.

2. Publish 'Qessa and the Bouncing Blazer'. Edits have been done and I just need to do minor checks on some repetition my editor pointed out.

3. Publish 'The Friend' short story. Will be later in the year as I haven't finished writing it yet. I know what the cover will look like.

4. Either send a ghost story to a magazine or work on ghost stories for a short story collection of my own I have in mind.

5. Get 'The Rainbow School Guide to Anxiety' ready for publication. Nearly finished this. Want to add illustrations to this and work out the cover.

The first three I will definitely do this year. Hopefully the other two, too.

Well, they are my goals for this year as a proper indie author. Good luck with yours.

I am a hybrid author

Keep meaning to write this post but so busy with home things going on and writing my books. Am here now.

I believe now that I am a hybrid author. For those not in the know, a hybrid author is someone who writes for both mainstream/traditional publishers and is self-published. I always thought of myself as just an indie author until last year that is. I read a blog post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (do read it if you are an author) last year, and she wrote that she is a hybrid author. She wrote that as well as self-publishing her books, she also writes short stories for magazines. It got me thinking - what have I had published in mainstream magazines? Fillers. Lots of them over the years. So I have been published traditionally too. This makes me a hybrid author. I am quite pleased with that title. I will be having a short story published in a magazine in July, so that definitely will make me a hybrid author.

So, if you think you are just an indie author, think about what else you might have published? Esp in magazines. You could be surprised like I was.

What is diversity in books

I always thought it meant different races and cultures eg Asian, Chinese etc and not just white characters written about. But since I've started writing about autistic children, I now know there is more to it. It can mean disabled children in books, not just physically disabled but hidden and invisible ones, too. Eg autistic children might look normal but they are not inside. Also, deafness and heart problems. They all affect people and are not visible, unless someone is wearing hearing aids.

There is another way to help diversity in writing, especially if you are an indie author like me. As well as writing about these different characters, you can choose which font to print in and how much space to have on the page, to make it easier for children with learning difficulties to read. My current children's books (The Rainbow School) has large font because I was told that was best for that age range (7-9s). When I published via Createspace, I found there were big spaces between some pages (where I had written long paragraphs which didn't fit on 1 page). I wasn't happy but then I got thinking. At the retreat in May, I sold a copy of Billy to a new friend, who bought it for her friend's daughter who was older than the target age but had learning difficulties. She liked the book. So, now I feel that even thought it wasn't intentional to have those gaps, it is a good thing to have, because it makes the books more accessible and available for a wider audience than I intended. I shall try to keep this in mind for the further children's books.

What does diversity mean to you with books?

Writing short stories for womags - My journey so far

As well as wanting to be known as an indie children's author, I want to become a short story womag (women's magazine) writer. It is not as easy as some might think. For the last year I have bought the magazines and read the stories, but have only slightly taken in what they are really about and what the magazines like to publish. I continued this way until a couple of months ago when I posted one of my stories on the Strictly blog for comments. Boy, did I get comments or what. A couple of the writers, who have been successful at womag writing, said that I should take the time out to study the stories properly. So, that is what I started doing, one magazine at a time. I have started with Take a Break's Fiction Feast as that is the magazine that most of my stories I have been writing seem to go to eg quirky or spooky, stories that TaBFF publish a lot of. The only magazine that publish those sort of stories. I have been writing the studies in a nice pink book. I will study more later today. I have already sent 2 stories to this magazine; one in December and one last week.

Other things I have found out about writing short stories for womags, the main character has to relate to the reader, and the story has to flow. More linear. I tried one with flashbacks, but now thinking about it, it did take the reader away from the story a bit. It is now more linear, going from day to day.

The next magazine I will study I think will be Yours. They have one story in the magazine every issue, which is fortnightly. I do know they are stories that have families in, esp grandparents and nostalgia. I usually study stories written by regulars (writers who have had more than 1 published) first then the rest of the stories.

Will be back in a couple of weeks to let you know how I am getting on.

The goal posts have changed

Remember in the new year I said that one of my goals was to write Pocket Novels? Well, that goal has now changed. I am still writing the current one, which I plan to send to the New Writers' Scheme of the RNA, but after that...I have other plans to work on now.

Over the last year I have been giving talks at a local library about ebook publishing and being an indie author. I have really enjoyed doing these, realising that I like helping and inspiring people to get writing and marketing and being discovered. Then earlier this year, I gave one talk to one woman who was very inspired by what I told her, and I hope that she got back to writing after I talked to her. This got me thinking. I already have a website to help new authors, esp indies, get writing and discovered, www.hopewithjulie.wordpress.com, I thought I'd like to take this further. I'd like to help authors personally, maybe with 1:1s. Last year I met a new author who wanted someone to help him get his story made into an ebook. At the time I wasn't keen and was busy with other things going on, and I said no. But this year, he is still wanting help as he is a novice and he is now my first client.

So, my new plan is building up a service of 1:1 mentoring for new authors, and helping other authors get back to writing, with a charge, of course. I have already chosen to use Wednesdays and Saturdays as my biz days, with the rest of the week writing ebooks and short stories.

So, if you are a new author, esp thinking of becoming an indie one, then check out my website link above. There is a contact page on there. You can also message me on Facebook if you are interested. I have 2 friends I am going to help on Saturday, and another two people possibly contacting me from people I have met at the library; my client and one of the librarians.

Now 'A Friend in Need' is published, I am back to tell you how to reach as many readers you can as an indie author of ebooks – this is the way I do. In my next library talk I will be mentioning ebook platforms, and this is the way to get to as many readers as you can – publish on as many digital platforms you can. I know that some indie authors have had great success with publishing exclusively on Amazon, esp with their Select programme, but for me, I want to reach as many readers as I can, to let them know what I like writing about: mainly hope and second chances. Ever since I became an indie author in 2011, I have published widely. Although, when I published ‘Snakeskin Boots’ I did put it in Select as an experiment to see what results I got – no sales. When the 90 days were up, I published it widely.  I will continue to publish on as many channels as I can. So, when ‘A Friend’ came out last week, I published it on Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords for its own store and the US libraries and subscription services eg Oyster, and Draft2Digital for Apple and their new channel, Tolino. Now that D2D have this new channel, I am going to put the rest of my ebooks that aren’t on there, on there. I started today by putting ‘More Fish in the Sea’ on there. I have now put all of my ebooks on there. I have also checked Goodreads, and they are all on there, too. My next task is to update my website so that they are all on there, too, plus reorganise the pages for my children's ebooks. I also need to put them all on ALLi's website for discoverability.

So, that’s how to reach as many readers you want to – publish your ebook on all platforms you can find. If D2D add more channels, I will add them there, too.

Are you an indie author? If so, do you believe in being exclusive to one etailer or do you publish widely? Let me know.

A major writing decision

I have previously posted that I want to stay as an indie author, publishing my own ebooks, and still get to be a full member of the Romantic Novelists' Association. To be a full member, you need to have had a contract from a publisher for a novel of 35,000 words. I still want to do this but have now come to a big decision on how to go about this. Here is my decision:

1. I want to continue being an indie author for both adult and children's ebooks, so I am going to carry on doing this as I love having the control and freedom to writing what I want, deciding my own cover, my own pricing and when I want to publish.

2. To get into the RNA as a full member, I am not going to try to have a novel published by a traditional publisher as I believe that method of publishing is getting more and more broken. Also, I feel that with most print publishers, contracts wouldn't allow for authors to self-publish other books, which is not what I want. So here is what I plan to do. I want to get published with My Weekly Pocket Novels instead. I see this is a way still to be traditionally published as they come out fortnightly in print, and after that is published you can try to get it into large print with a large print publisher. So, once I have finished the short story I am working on and sent it to Woman's Weekly magazine, I am going to work on revisions of a novel, and that will be sent as a pocket novel.

3. As pocket novels are up to 50,000 words, any novels that I write that go over that amount I will publish as an ebook myself, or any novels that I believe don't match with My Weekly's subjects, such as romantic suspense, then I will also publish as an ebook myself.

So there you have my new major decision about writing. I have been reading ebooks about being an indie author, and the more I read about being one, the more I am certain that is the path I want to stick to.

Why I'm still happy being an indie author

Last Saturday 2 August, I went to an RNA (Romantic Novelists' Association) meeting and we had an open chat about all things writing and publishing. One lady asked a lot of the questions and the answers she got made me think, 'Yes, I'm happy to be an indie author and stay that way.' What were her questions? I can't remember exactly but can remember most of the replies she got.

The lady asked about Mills and Boon, saying she had queried them at the conference in July with her ms. She wanted to know more about them. The answer she got was: they require their authors to write two books a year to start with, then four a year. That's four books of say 60,000 words a year. I goggled at this. At one time I thought about writing for them, but realised I couldn't write to their formula. Now I know I can't write for them. There is no way I could write that amount of books in a year, not with all my health problems and appointments.

The lady also asked which publisher it is best to go with and what do they expect of you. Well, the answer was most of them would expect their authors to write in one genre so you could brand yourself. This was another thing that made me think, Yes, I still want to be an indie author. I want to be able to write what I like, and in different genres, like I am doing now.

The other thing that made me think about still being an indie author happened after the talk. I got to talking to a friend who has had one book published by a small publisher. She signed a contract to get her book in print and in digital, which it is. I had heard things happening about this publisher and asked her what was going on. She told me that the last she'd heard of them, they had changed to digital publishing only and moved to another country. I didn't think this was good news, but didn't tell her so. This got me thinking, that being an indie author, you only have to worry about yourself and not about what a publisher is doing. Third reason why I am glad to be an indie author and want to keep being one.

The fourth reason is similar to number two. On an email group a while ago, one author said that she had broken her contract with her publisher (a small well-known one) because they wanted her to write just for her, but she wanted to write another genre. Again, I want to write in different genres like I am doing now. I write MG (9-12 year-olds), teen/YA and adult, and want to continue doing this because I have so many ideas.

There is one reason I would like to get a contract, maybe for just one book, and that is so that I can become a full member of the RNA. I might see if I could get signed for one book, then carry on being an indie author, it depends on the publisher, though. We shall see.

The London Book Fair - Part 2

So after I had lunch at the busy café, I went back to the Kobo stand where I knew the next talk would be - Opening up to Indies by ALLi. I managed to find a seat so I didn't have to stand or sit on the floor. While the audio was being set up, I chatted to the two older ladies sitting next to me about writing ebooks and we swapped cards. I also had said hello to Lorna Ferguson, (Hi, Lorna). Then the talk happened by Debbie Young and Dan Holloway, who told us in their own ways how they came to write the book. I laughed at the image of Debbie being a teacher and being chased by young girls because she had told both groups they were sorry. The book  is all about helping other bodies like libraries, agents and publishers etc to open up to indie authors and help them be discovered. Then it was time to mingle again. I chatted to and listened to Debbie talk to Denise Barnes, then another author, putting my points across when I could.

After that I decided I'd go to find the publisher in the other court. With my map, I found the stall, but was disappointed that it wasn't as I expected it to be - a stand with book samples and no publisher. I then went to the restaurant, but it was too noisy still so after several minutes I left and went to find the pub in the Strand for the social later on.

So that was my LBF this year. I doubt it I'll go next year as it is moving to Olympia, a bit further away.

Another goal for this year and an update on current ones

I have decided to have another goal for this year, but will give you an update on my current ones.

1. Still getting there with my 7+ children's book. Decided to change a scene and put in one that goes with the rest of the book.

2. Still getting there with my next Angel ebook, and should finish current draft by next goal-setting brunch end of this month.

3. Bird articles - have found a few children's magazines in the US that I can submit to. Have one already to post next week.  I have decided to expand my freelance writing and write about famous people with disabilities and submit to those magazines, too, and write about places in London as travel pieces. We shall see how it goes.

Now for my new goal. I was going to stay as an indie author, but after a friend of mine recently got her first book published by a publisher and going to the RNA workshop last weekend, I have now decided to be a hybrid author. I want to try and get published in adult romance with either a trad publisher (not one of the big 6) but a smaller one or a digital publisher like my friend. When I have finished Charlie, the 7+ book, I will then work on a story to send to Woman's Weekly, then I will start rewriting a novel I sent to the NWS a few years ago and make it more romantic, concentrating on the relationship between the girl and boy. I shall either send it to the NWS or straight to a publisher, depending on when I finish it as the NWS closes end of August. I still have lots of indie projects to work on. The rest of the Angel series, the last 2 Geraldine stories, 2 more mermaid stories, and the rest of the Secrets of Singleton village short stories, which should take me into next year.

So, there you have it. My goals and how they are doing, and my new one to work towards. How are you getting on?

If you want help with goal-setting and keeping them, I now have a template for goal-setting, much like the SCBWI Brunch one I get. Let me know if you want one in the comments below, and I can email it to you.