authors

Pay it forward.

/ lizziechantree / 8 Comments

Today is Rave Reviews Book Club’s Pay It Forward day (#PIF). It’s my pleasure to introduce you to an author who is so supportive of others and I’d love to help you discover her work.

D.l. Finn

D.L Finn

Author D.L. Finn is an independent California local, who encourages everyone to embrace their inner child. She was born and raised in the foggy Bay Area, but in 1990 relocated with her husband, kids, dogs and cats to the Sierra foothills in Nevada City, CA. She immersed herself in reading all types of books, but especially loved romance, horror and fantasy. She always treasured creating her own reality on paper. Finally, being surrounded by towering pines, oaks and cedars, her creativity was cradled until it bloomed. Her creations vary from children’s books, young adult fantasy, adult paranormal romance to an autobiography with poetry. She continues on her adventure with an open invitation to her readers to join her.

Click the book covers to buy your own copy and start reading!

Review for No Fairy Tale:

No Fairy Tale takes a look at the author’s life from childhood to adulthood and the struggles inherent along the way. What makes this memoir unique is that the author chooses to tell it in third person substituting a “princess” for herself throughout the narrative.

I was initially wary of reading this, knowing it would touch on issues of abuse, something I have a hard time reading about. But the narrative is so strong and heartfelt, it’s impossible not to be caught up in the writing. The journey is rewarding, especially seeing how the author grows and is able to find peace, not only in her life, but with those around her.

The second half of the book is devoted to poetry. Reading through these, the mood often conveys what the writer was experiencing in her life at that point. Some are beautiful, others sad and dark. My favorites are Meadow, Valentine Kittens and Get Old.

Well written, No Fairy Tale, has the capability of aiding others in similar situations to rise above circumstance.

This Second Chance by [Finn, D.L.]
Book blurb for This Second Chance:
D.L. Finn’s first adult fiction, which has just been released!
Newly married Rachael Battaglia finally had it all. The only detail that stained Rachael’s perfect wedding was a gift she received. It was the exact present that her late ex-husband had given her on their wedding day — a snow globe. That marriage was not what she had envisioned, and she endured years of his abuse and charm until one night she escaped with two kids and one on the way.
Now Rachael was headed to Hawaii with an amazing man and her chance at happiness. Unbeknownst to Rachael, she had an Angel on her side, although this Angel might not be able to save Rachael and her family from the evil that surrounded them. This is a tale of love, past relationships, things unseen, and redemption. Will Rachael find her happy ending, or will this evil thing get its way?
More books by D.L.Finn
An Unusual Island by [Finn, D.L.]   Elizabeth's War by [Finn, D.L.]   Things on a Tree by [Finn, D.L.]
You can find D.L. Finn on Twitter: @dlfinnauthor 

Team Building.

/ lizziechantree / 17 Comments

Lizzie Chantree Monday Marketing2

Happy new week everyone! Today’s Marketing Tips and are about team building. Being a writer can be quite isolating and I’ve found that networking and talking to others really helps me to be inspired and more confident. Here are some tips to gather your own team of confidants, creatives or co-workers to share your working life with. Some might even become good friends!

Networking: Networking is now big business, but the fundamentals remain the same. Networking isn’t always about furthering your career, it can be a great way to meet friends and share creative ideas. There are groups on most social media sites and they usually have a topic name. I run a networking hour on twitter called #CreativeBizHour and it’s for anyone who enjoys creativity and likes to meet other people and have a friendly chat. To join these chats, just add the hashtags to your tweets, but it has to be during the networking session times.

There are networking hours for so many industries or interests from working mums and dads to food lovers, fashionistas to people in specific areas of the world and the list is endless!

You can usually find networking groups locally by doing an internet search. These can be great fun and give you contacts with others who live in the same region as you and have similar interests.

Group Chats: Facebook is a great place to find groups of people with similar interests to you. If you love books, just type book groups into the search bar and lots of variations of book group will appear. See which ones interest you and ask to join. The page admins will then have a chance to check out your application, make sure the topic is a genuine interest to you and add you to the group.

Local hobby groups: Most small towns, villages and cities have local hobby groups. An internet search will usually find them. This is a place to meet people in your area with the same hobbies as you and a great way to network in person and make friends who enjoy the things you do.

 

 

Monday Marketing. #3QuickTips

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Lizzie Chantree Monday Marketing2

Welcome to today’s Monday Marketing and #3QuickTips. These tips are about looking after yourself as a writer.

1.  If you work in a distracting environment, like an open plan office, you might need to work out a few strategies to be able to concentrate enough to get some work done. A good idea is to make some mental distance and create a detached view of your working space. This technique is known as self-distancing and helps you to focus on the work in front of you and not the irritation of any distractions around you.

2.  Know when you’re done. Once you have planned, written, rewritten, edited and polished your work, be mindful of pondering. At some point you have to stop over analysing and just go with it. Be thoroughly prepared, but objective. Don’t miss out on moving forward because you can’t finish the last project.

3.  Take care of your body and mind. As writers, we often forget time and space and days can whizz by without us remembering to look up from a manuscript. You will be much more alert if you take regular breaks and eat and exercise properly. It gets your blood flowing and wakes up your mind.

 

 

Grab a new Summer read!

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Tips for writers.

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Lizzie Chantree Monday Marketing2

Today’s Monday Marketing and 3 tips that are quick and easy to read are about writing. The tips can be used in any writing, including emails, novels, blog posts and more.

1.  Focus on how your reader can really jump in and enjoy your work. Will your reader understand the terminology you use? You don’t have to avoid technical jargon, but be aware that your reader’s knowledge might be different from your own. Choose words or phrases that most people will understand, unless you are aiming for a more limited audience.

2.  Create a compelling opening to your work. The first paragraph is all important. This is true of books, emails, marketing campaigns, blogs etc. If you fill the first few sentences with information, you might send your readers to sleep! Use catchy tagline for emails and try and use the name of the person you are sending to in the address. Most people ignore email addressed to an email address and not a person’s name.

3.  Be confident in what you are telling people. Keep your work to the point and don’t fill it with flowery words that are unnecessary. If you show your work in short manageable paragraphs, it helps the reader to stay with you. This is especially helpful in newsletters where you have to grab someones attention quickly and keep them interested in your topic.

Lizzie_Chantree twitter header 2017

Your vibe.

/ lizziechantree / 16 Comments

Your vibe attracts your tribe. This made me smile. I think my tribe would be full of slightly zany creatives, or people who enjoy creativity and unusual books!

Lizzie Chantree blog 2

The vibe you give off and the person that you are, attracts like minded people. You can often tell what a person is like by those around them. Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and enjoy your individuality. Most of my family and friends think I’m a bit eccentric, but they encourage me anyway. Thank goodness for that!

#BeYou 

Monday Marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 8 Comments

This week I’m going to tell you about visibility and loading times for a WordPress website. Most of my Monday Marketing tips are ones I’ve discovered on my journey as an author, but I have been in the retail and wholesale business for over 20 years and studied design, marketing and advertising at college and university, so the #3QuickTips may be helpful to other businesses too.

Lizzie Chantree blog. WordPress

 

1.  Some wordpress themes contain code that slows them down. Some of the content you add can also slow the site down. By visiting a site called GTMetrix.com and typing in your site address, you will be shown a report on how well your site is loading for users.  Ideally you want an A or B rating.

2.  You will be shown Page speed, YSlow, Timeline and History tabs. Click on these to be shown elements of your site and how they preform. Here you can check if the theme of your site is slowing it down. If the theme is causing problems, then you might want to think about changing the theme.

3. Creating fresh content for your blog or website is a great way to make it load quicker. If text is copied from the internet, it can have hidden links and code inside from the originator which shows search engines that it’s not new and should be ignored.

 

Writing news!

/ lizziechantree / 26 Comments

I have some great news to share with you all. I have just signed my first book contract! I am thrilled to join the team at Crooked Cat Publishers and can’t wait to see my latest book, Ninja School Mum, in print in early 2018.

newspaper-Lizzie Chantree

I am very lucky to have been offered other book contracts over the years, from wonderful publishers, but this is the right one for me. As soon as I have more news about the exact date of my new book release, I will let you all know. Thank you for your continuing support of my writing journey and for popping by, as it’s very much appreciated. Writing can be an isolating process, but with all of the fabulous authors and readers I have met since I wrote my first book, Babe Driven, it feels like there is such a wealth of support out there. #Total #Stars 

Monday marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 21 Comments

Today’s marketing tips are about finding new categories to place your books in if the current ones aren’t working for you.

Lizzie Chantree blog 3

1.   Go to Amazon.com and type Kindle store into the search box.

Click on the Kindle Ebook tab under the search bar.

Click on the genre for your book (for example Romance) and look at the sub categories.

Click on a sub genre for your book (for example Contemporary).

Underneath are sections to refine by. If you choose one from the top and one from the bottom section, or two from a section, it will tell you along the top how many books are in this category. The lower the number, the less books there are in that category to compete with. For example in Contemporary Romance, with sub categories Wealthy and Beaches, there are 898 other books. If your chosen category for your book was Contemporary Romance, you could use the keywords, Wealthy and Beaches for a romantic book about an exotic wedding on a beach with gorgeous men. Alternatively, for the same book, Wealthy and Wedding as keywords would result in 1,450 competing titles.

Try lots of combinations and see which are the best selection of keywords for your work.

If you chose Cowboys and Amnesia in this genre, you would only have 38 competing titles! Remember you need a strong main category or no one will find you anyway, unless you are well promoted or well known. Don’t pick random categories, as they must fit within the context of your book.

2.  Pick your two book categories very carefully, but if they don’t work, change them!

3.  You have up to seven optional extra keywords. These keywords can be more than one word. For a book about Book marketing, you could use: Books on marketing, Marketing & Promotion, Making more sales, PR & sales, How to sell books, Books on marketing, Publishing success. These would be one keyword each. Check out possible combinations first and see how many competing titles there are. 

I’ve just changed all of the categories for my own books, so I’ll let you know how I get on in the coming months.

 

 

Believe in yourself. Be you.

/ lizziechantree / 18 Comments

believe in yourself

I love this photo. It can be easy to doubt yourself as a writer, but learning to believe in yourself and be who you are, can help tremendously. Here are a few ideas to bring inner confidence.

Do something that you love.

If you can find small pockets of time during the week to do something that you love, this will bring more confidence, as you will feel happier on the inside.

 

Stop procrastinating.

Don’t keep putting off getting things done. Task left unfinished will just drag your mood down.

 

Put on a happy face.

Research has shown that smiling makes us feel happier, even if we don’t fully commit to it. Try smiling a few times during the day when you wouldn’t normally and see if it lifts your mood.

 

Celebrate your achievements.

Pat yourself on the back for even the smallest achievement. If you did something well, feel proud of what you have done.

 

Be kind to others.

This is something that makes everyone feel good. Kindness to others is not something everyone can achieve.

 

Getting active.

Moving your muscles every so often increases oxygen flow to the body and helps your mind to focus. You won’t have time to doubt yourself when you are on the move.

 

Throw away any negative thoughts.

You don’t need them. Bin them!

 

Be you 🙂 

Relaxing view