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Posts Tagged ‘promotion’

What I’ve been up to lately

Posted in A writer's life, Australian author, tagged , , , on May 31, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Time really speeds up when you’re are busy with life. It’s been a bit of this and that.

On the writing front I went to the ARRA awards in Sydney and it was great to catch up with people and feel like a writer again. I got all inspired and borrowed ideas for ways to promote me and my books at places like Gammacon in Canberra in July and Geek Markets later in the year and the ARRA signing in February in Sydney and Melbourne.

I’ve also been working on getting books out. I have the edit back of The Changeling Curse (that’s under the Dani Kristoff name) and I’ve got comments on Awakenings so that’s next in the chute for edit. I did manage to sneak away for a few days to write. I started the first chapter of Lightning Strike, which is a sequel to The Changeling Curse. Let’s hope that doesn’t take years! And I started a short SF story. However, since being back there’s just too much going on at home.

I’ve finally put in an order for a pull up banner and a banner for the back part of my table. I’m just in the middle of trying to get a table runner set up too. Meanwhile I’m getting these custom book marks made (Thanks Keri) as well. This means that my table and books will be presented at least.

There has been a change of government here in Australia, with a few more independents, which will make things interesting. There’s still heaps of Covid around and a war in the Ukraine.

On the weekend though we went to Sydney and to Luna Park. I tried the new Big Dipper. I went twice but you know I didn’t want to have a stroke so I didn’t go a third time. Also, the girl who looks you in said “Back again?” possibly because I’m old! Lol. We were so luck to have such a great day sandwiched between two rainy days. I also got to try out Sydney’s public transport, buses, trains, light rail and ferries. We stayed on Coogee Beach at the Coogee Sands and I highly recommend it. They had free parking and it was just a step outside to the promenade. Anyway, here are some shots.

As you can see great day
Great view under the bridge from Milsons Point
Through the bus stop windows
Caught the sea gull taking off
From the roof of the Coogee Bay Sands

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Newsletter

Posted in Bookbub, Hybrid Publishing, Newsletters, self publishing, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2017| 2 Comments »

I am taking the writing gig seriously and this year you’ll see a lot of output from me (I expect five books out by June). So I want to put together a newsletter mailing list.

I’ve signed up with Mailchimp and I have a very basic sign up form.

I was hoping some of you lovely people would test it out for me and also that some of you would be interested in being on the list.

The mailing list URL is here. Feel free to tell me if it doesn’t work.

Also feel free to tell me what topics you want to hear about.

There’s

  • the PhD study
  • Writing advice
  • Self-publishing tips (as I learn them!)
  • Retro romance reading
  • General stuff.

Also, today took a serious turn. I’ve book a proofreader for the books coming up. This saves me a world of angst and time. I can proofread, but it is hard to do your own books and it takes me several run throughs to reduce errors. So booking a proofreader is worth the cost and has been added to the book budget.

I expect two edits to come in around the same time. Egad! Not planned that way.

And I put my toe in the water folks. I submitted a request for a Bookbub promotion. I’ll let you know how that pans out. But I expect it will take a few goes.

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Argenterra on promotion

Posted in epic fantasy, fantasy, Promotion, science fiction, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

My indie published Argenterra, Silverlands book 1, is on promotion this weekend for 99 cents.

Argenterra is an epic fantasy novel, interweaving three romances over the three books. The story starts with Sophy and Aria and then joins up with Rae’s when Sophy and Aria are whipped into the world of Argenterra a land where everyone can use magic except Sophy. The story is YA appropriate.

Argenterra with subtitle

Argenterra is featured among around 100 books, from SF through to Fantasy so here is your chance to do some exploring. There are some very interesting books here for 99 cents.promo-jan

The link to the promo is here and you can select via your favourite retailer. For example, click on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo etc and you will see the books that are featured for 99 cents with that retailer. Links are also geocoded in understand.

Many thanks to Patty Jansen for allowing me to participate in her promo weekend.

Oathbound, Silverlands book two is still with the editor but I hope to get that our in the next few months. The Ungiven Land is close behind that.

Ciao!

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Free books!

Posted in fantasy, Free book, Promotion, Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I’ve joined Patty Jansen’s free book promo for first in a series. There are 66 books up there for free in the SF and F genres. Shatterwing is up there too.

book promo

Dragonwine

Dragon Wine Series

I’ll be back with a review post of the Ai Weiwei/Warhol exhibition!

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It’s the New Year!

Posted in Audible, Craft, Dark fantasy, Dragon fantasy, Dragon Wine, Dweebette, epic fantasy, feminism, Free book, General excitment, Grim dark fantasy, Happy New Year, Koala, Millinery, post-apocalyptic, Promotion, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2016| 1 Comment »

Happy New year! 2015 is done and 2016 is here. Yipee!

2015 was a tough year for me on many fronts. My mother passed away on the 4th of January and then my health was a bit up and down. (Looks like it’s thyroid issues). Work became a bit of struggle and then I injured myself, resulting in a diagnosis of some thoracic disc protrusions. That diagnosis sent me on a downer. Not only was it (is it) painful it curtailed my writing in a big way. The bigger thing that diagnosis it did was make me look at my life at what I was doing with my work and what I wanted to do with my productive time. You see, I can only see this arthritic spine of mine getting worse over time and so doing things like craft, writing  etc becomes more precious to me. I love making things. It’s my life blood.

I lost my friend Sonia to scleroderma and other close friends have had some health scares. My eldest son moved to China for work. He loves it. I miss him.

On the bright side, and there is one (or many), I’m generally healthy, so is my partner, Matthew, my children and my grandchildren.

2015 me and dweeb

Me (the Dweebette) and Matthew (the Dweeb!)

So apart from some chronic pain I’m really happy on in the inside. That makes a big difference. We love our house. Our deck got built and it’s amazing.

deck 2015

The long awaited deck and a peak at the views.

I also got to see some Koalas when I took some visiting Indonesians out to Tidbinbilla.

2015 koala

As I wasn’t able to write, I had to do other things to keep me sane so I did some craft-weaving, sewing and millinery. I try to use a timer to alternate through different things so I don’t injure myself. Millinery can be done standing up. I also discovered Audible and have been listening to some fab books. I’m going to continue that.

I also did a few cakes. Like this one for my daughter. Totero and this one for my boss’s farewell, a vintage Kombi.

So what is in store for me in 2016? As previously mentioned on this blog, I am commencing candidature for a higher research degree (PHD). That starts in February. I have lots of reading to do and some papers to write. The topic is Feminism in Popular Romance.

I’ve got a bit of organising to do to get ready for that. I need to clear the decks of some writing tasks. The reason I’ve taken January off work. I also need to do some practical things like reorganise my office in readiness for study. I wouldn’t call it organised now…but that needs to be improved. I had a message from my daughter. Mum: junk attracts junk. I get the message.

I’m hoping some books will also come out in 2016. I may experiment with self-publishing. Sometimes it can take too long to flog a book and it gets dated. In that case, I may as well get it out there and experiment.

Appearances wise, I’m hoping to get to Contact in Brisbane over Easter and to the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Adelaide later in the year. I’m very tempted by Supanova!

With regards to hats, I’m working on doing more of those and setting up a website to sell them. Bring on the steampunk hats!

I’ll be finishing up on the day job in the first part of the year. Losing the good income is a scary prospect, but you know I’m going to take the leap and see where it gets me.

Happy New year! Hopefully you will pop back again.

2015 hat by cat

Me in one of my hats. Photo by Cat Sparks.

Oh and Dragon Wine Part 1 is on promotion. It’s free in ebook. I’m also doing a blog tour and a give away of a hard copy. To be in the draw to win a print copy of Shatterwing leave a comment.

Dragonwine

Dragon Wine Series

Blurb

Dragon wine could save them. Or bring about their destruction.

Since the moon shattered, the once peaceful and plentiful world has become a desolate wasteland. Factions fight for ownership of the remaining resources as pieces of the broken moon rain down, bringing chaos, destruction and death.

The most precious of these resources is dragon wine – a life-giving drink made from the essence of dragons. But the making of the wine is perilous and so is undertaken by prisoners. Perhaps even more dangerous than the wine production is the Inspector, the sadistic ruler of the prison vineyard who plans to use the precious drink to rule the world.

There are only two people that stand in his way. Brill, a young royal rebel who seeks to bring about revolution, and Salinda, the prison’s best vintner and possessor of a powerful and ancient gift that she is only beginning to understand. To stop the Inspector, Salinda must learn to harness her power so that she and Brill can escape, and stop the dragon wine from falling into the wrong hands.

Dragon Wine Book 2 :Skywatcher, the follow on book is also available in ebook and print.

http://momentumbooks.com.au/books/shatterwing-dragon-wine-1/

 

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It’s a killer!

Posted in A writer's life, Ancient Edifices, Australian author, Promotion, Social media, tagged , , , on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Being a writer isn’t only about the writing of books and stories. There is this thing called “PROMOTION” which has to be done.  Except it’s not promotion per se, it is letting people know you exist and then maybe that you write as well. Sometimes that is fun and sometimes it’s hard work. Sometimes you don’t even know if it’s doing you any good.

I love Twitter! Thank God for that. It makes my promotion life easier, but I just like hanging and keeping up to date. I’m probably a wee bit, just a teeny eensy bit over stimulated, particularly for my age group. My grown up kids don’t use Twitter like I do and definitely don’t get it.

Facebook is cool too because it’s so useful to keep in touch with people and extended family and it has some fab tools, like pages. Of course, playing around on Facebook is time consuming too. I’m probably lucky that I can justify the time spent on their as promotion, when is just another form of procrastination.

Blog posts (like this one) take time to write. Not only do I need to maintain this blog, but I should do guest blogs and interviews to get my name out there. This are great but boy can they be hard work. Interviews are pretty easy really except where there are hard questions. The hard part of these is not letting on you’re an idiot. Okay, okay.  I mean sounding like an idiot. Also, you want to let some of your personality through, preferably not all of it. Not the I had ‘one margarita too many’ personality that only your dearest friends have seen and have refrained from putting the footage of such incidents on Youtube. Then there are topic based blog posts for other people’s blogs. I think I spend as much time staring at the screen thinking up what I will talk about as I do writing the post.

Then we come to what do I write on my blog to keep it active, so people know I’m alive and also I’m not writing posts that say ‘buy my book, buy  it now’ every day. To help with that I do interviews on various topics. Usually these are related to the craft of writing and it gives other authors an opportunity to promote their work as well as sharing their writing titbits. I suppose some smart and hyper-intelligent person is thinking, why are they doing this? In the good ol’ days writers didn’t do this. They just wrote.

I’m sure many a writer has thought the same and doesn’t bother. Unfortunately, these aren’t the good ol’ days anymore (that’s why the are called the good ol’ days). We are a very connected society. There’s the Internet and there’s Internet shopping. There is also fewer physical bookstores to put books in for people to buy by walking past it on the shelf. That does go on still, but not in a big way.

Then there’s ebooks! They aren’t on physical book shelves. They are on the Internet so the Internet is where you need to market those. Discoverability is the new challenge. It’s always been a challenge I believe, it’s just harder these days. There are a lot of writers out there. Writers are in competition with games, dvds, social media and other forms of entertainment.

Speaking of YouTube, I have not got very far with that. There could be live blogs, interviews, panel discussions, book trailers, pictures of me sunbathing and other things that I can’t think of right now. Working full time with my day job leaves me with plenty of imagination but little time to invest in putting ideas into action.

Now we come to the point of this blog post. You have probably been wondering that.

Doing this for two is a killer. I have two of me!

There’s me and there’s the other me. That’s two lots of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and guest blogging to maintain. It’s like having your brain ripped out through your nose. Okay that’s mummification! But you know it’s painful. I have to think stuff up twice! TWICE!

I shouldn’t complain. I mean I decided to have two of me, writing completely different stuff so I should have to wear it.

Why am I telling you this? If you think I’m not doing a good job keeping my blogs up to date, then this is my letter to the teacher.

PS I tell a lie. Rayessa and the Space Pirates also has a social media presence. That’s three.

The non-official photo of me

The non-official photo of me

Photo by Taamati Terata

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