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.

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.

A buzz after stress

After a few stressful days last week when my mum fainted in our utility room, went pale and blue in the face and I had to call paramedics, I had a buzz on Saturday when I gave my latest talk about publishing ebooks. (Mum is getting better day by day she tells me). Anyway, my latest talk was about platforms, pricing and royalties.

I got there early, even though there was a lot of traffic due to gas works going on locally. I had a chat with the boss of the library. I introduced myself at the desk, and the volunteer I spoke to said that she wanted to come to my talk as she is interested in writing. My talk was booked for 2pm. I found a nice cosy corner in the library, where there were sofas and chairs. I set my goodies up and sat. I was told one lady had come and was getting tea. I chatted to her for a few minutes, finding out she only lived a few roads down from me. Then I began my talk, chatting about what platforms there are for digital and print. Then the lady volunteer joined us and I recapped what I'd already said. I was asked questions about how to publish an ebook, what is needed to be done. What the platforms involve and how to get to them. My talk lasted half an hour. Then I had questions, which I did my best to answer as both the ladies wrote non-fiction with diagrams etc. Not my forte. I gave them the chance to sign up to my newsletter, which they both did. I await confirmation from Aweber for that. I also gave them a feedback questionnaire about the talk (an idea I got from an ebook by Joanna Penn). It was all good. The comments I got are 'clear, direct, well-structured' and 'simplistic'. Both said there wasn't anything that could have been done better. The one question I was keen to see answered was about attending if they had to pay a fee of 50p before hand. They both put yes. So I am now thinking I might do that.

After a stressful few days making sure my mum was going to be OK, I had a buzz at the library, esp when both ladies said they found it useful and were thinking of coming to my next one. Hurrah. For someone with Asperger's, I find that I get a buzz and enjoy sharing my knowledge of ebooks and all it entails.

My next talk is on Saturday 21 March at 2pm at the same place: Sydenham Community Library. It is going to be about discoverability as an indie author. So, if you want to find out ways on how to get readers to find you, come to my talk to find out more.

How my mermaid workshop went at Bexley

On Friday I went to Bexley Community Library to give a children's workshop based on my first mermaid ebook 'The Quest'. It didn't start off that well because whilst waiting for the train from Lewisham to Bexley I got nervous and had a stomach ache. Once I went I was OK. I got there early so I could help set up for the children to come. Whilst helping out, an older man came in and said he was looking for Julie Day. I said, 'That's me.'. He told me that he'd been looking for someone to talk to about publishing ebooks as he had written both a thriller and children's stories, and had read a magazine about epublishing and had got interested in doing that. Apparently he had already been in contact with a publisher who wanted to publish all his children's stories in one book but they would get so much royalties, the store would get more, and he would get the rest, which wasn't much. He said no to that. Thought that he could get much better money out of it if he did it himself. So, we got chatting about how to go about epublishing and writing in general. He was also a magician and showed me his disappearing 50p trick. I talked to him again a while later before the workshop started about Createspace being free. I had also mentioned to him about the ebook talk I was going to do at Sydenham in September, and gave him my card and wrote down the details of that for him, which he said he would attend. Yay. As my coach, Rebecca Woodhead, would say BOOM.

2.30pm arrived, which was when the session was due to start. One girl had come and was waiting for two others. Whilst she waited, her mum bought a copy of the book from me. At 2.45pm they were all that had come, all the others were either away or in the park. I introduced myself, told them what I had planned for the hour and started. First I read an excerpt of The Quest, which leads on to when Delta the mermaid sees a merman on the last day of the quest. I then got the children to write their own ending and read it out to us afterwards. Then they got to draw their own covers. The library provided all the arts and crafts materials for me. After that, they showed their drawings to me. I liked the one with the squid because it showed that Delta did indeed live under water. Then they asked me a couple of questions, and I sold another book, but no badges.

All in all I believe it was a success. I wouldn't mind going back there again as they were really nice people.

I got home later than I imagined because I had just missed one train, let another go because I forgot the next train stopping at Lewisham had been cancelled, and waited for the next train I could get. I got home eventually, quite happy with the way the event went.

How my library talk went in April

On 26 April I gave a talk at Sydenham Community Library to a group of adults about 'The 5 Steps to Publishing an Ebook'.  I was going to do a report on here, but Debbie Young of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) offered me a slot on their blog and I said yes. It went up last Saturday, and you can read it here http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/reaching-readers-with-library-talks/#comment-236975.

As you can read, I considered it a great success. So much so, that I plan to do it again with another library whom I've yet to approach about it, and I intend doing a follow-up about what you need to know when publishing your ebook.

If you know of any library in the SE London area that might be interested in an author giving this talk, please let me know. Am keen to do this again, as I so enjoyed it.

So watch this space for more news on more talks.

If you would like to receive a newsletter from me about my ebooks, talks and more, please let me know either on here in the comments or through messaging me on Facebook.

A publishing experiment - KDP Select

When I first started my indie publishing career with 'The Railway Angel' I told myself the best way to reach as many readers as I wanted was to publish it across all the digital platforms as possible. I have been doing this ever since, but this year, when I get to publish 'The Snakeskin Boots' I am going to experiment.  I have been hearing good and bad things about KDP Select. So I decided I shall give it a try myself to see what all the fuss is about and if it works for me. I have a while yet before 'Boot's is ready to go because I have just got the second edits back from my editor and have lots of thinking and editing to do. Then I shall send it to her again for a final edit. I plan now to publish it early August.

When I publish it on Amazon, I shall blog here. Then after say a month, I shall blog with results of what is happening. I seem to earn more from Smashwords, but it looks as though I get more downloads on Amazon. We shall see. The rest of my ebooks I will continue to publish everywhere.

Watch this space...

Let me know if you have used KDP Select, and what results you got. I will categorise Boots as urban fantasy I think.

Look forward to what others have to say about it.