Bookworm

First Draft. #AmWriting

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Lizzie Chantree blog 6

I’m currently working on the first draft of my new novel, which is about two women who are both completely misunderstood by their families. It’s great fun to write, but I as I have now signed a publishing deal, which could possibly include a sequel to the book they are publishing, I need to make my workflow easier.

I’m not very good at writing lists, as I often forget where they are. This is what should be on my list during the time my publisher is editing my upcoming novel.

Marketing schedule for new book.

Complete 20,000 words for current manuscript.

Edit/proof current work.

Cover design ideas.

Book blurb.

Keep up with social media commitments, including hosting #CreativeBizHour on Twitter.

Start sequel for soon to be published book.

Write 2 blog posts a week.

Newsletters.

Obviously this includes family commitments and household chores. But by this time I’m scared of my list and have hidden it somewhere I will never look again. A good idea today seemed to be under the dog’s bed!

As with most jobs, we all have to multi-task and the kitchen timer on my writing desk does beep and tell me to get on with it, but as a bit of a dreamer (which helps with my job), it means better planning needs to creep into my day and the usual ‘make it up as I go along’ vibe might have to take a back seat for a while.

I’ll let you know how I get on:)

Pepper

 

Monday Marketing #3QuickTips

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Happy Monday everyone!

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My latest marketing tips are from an author marketing meeting I went to a few weeks ago. They are based around free giveaways. I have been looking in to ways to promote my new romance novel, which is out early next year and this seemed like great advice. Let me know what you think.

1.  If you are doing a free giveaway for your book, don’t give away your book! This sounds strange, but it does make sense. By doing a giveaway, you are trying to encourage readers to enjoy your work and buy your books. If you give the book away, you negate the possibility of the winners downloading/purchasing your work because they actually want to read it, not because they have been given it and might read it at a later date. A good way around this, would be to gift items related to your book genre and maybe a few chapters of your novel to tell them about the story. If they enjoy your style of writing, they might become a lifelong fan.

2.  If you are giving away your book, this can work best if it is part of a series. You gift the first book  in the series, then the reader may buy other books in the series if they love the characters and style.

3.  If you are running a giveaway, it can work to get together with other authors and make one huge giveaway. This way your promotion would be shouted out across the social media platforms of the combined authors and gain more exposure for your work.

 

 

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

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

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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

 

Monday marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 18 Comments

Working together.

Finding Gina. Twitter Ad 10

A powerful marketing tool is YOU! You are the best voice for your writing, but working together with other authors can help ease the pressures of constant marketing and it can also be great fun! Here are 3 top tips to help raise your book’s influence.

1. Share the work load: Work on joint promotions. Assign different jobs to each author in a clear and concise manor, explaining in full how you will all benefit from each task.

2. Combine talents: Think about finding other authors who bring something different into the mix. One may have a great Facebook page, one a fantastic Twitter following, one may have contacts in the press and another might have a key relationship with wonderful book bloggers.

3. Participation: Don’t just sit back and let others in the group do all the work. Contribute and network. Many best selling authors run promotions together and they often work in the same market, not opposing ones. Although they are trying to attract the similar readers, they are helping to broaden their market by having a further reach.

Monday marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 5 Comments

Here are today’s 3 quick marketing tips for authors.

 

Babe Driven Twitter Ad

 

Most authors struggle to find high numbers of reviews for their work, but things always seemed a little easier to me when you can gift a book to a reviewer in America, but this is not yet available in the UK via Amazon. This is what I’ve discovered about gifting books:

1. When you gift someone a book, they might not download it. They can use the price of the book to buy something else.

2. Most authors drop the price of their book before gifting it, so that the gifting process costs them less.

3. You can’t gift a book during a freebie run. There would be no point anyway, as the reviewer could download it for nothing as long as you had the book free in every country. Free book promotions are often planned months ahead so you would have to plan both events together.

 

Guest post by E. Rachel Hardcastle.

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I have started inviting guest posts to my blog and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to author E. Rachel Hardcastle. Here she shares details of her latest work and I hope that if you live nearby, that you manage to visit her book signing event to find out more about her writing.

MEET THE AUTHOR!(1)

Book Signing Event with Bradford Author E. Rachael Hardcastle.

Date – July 1st 2017

Time – 1100-1430 hours

Location – Wrose Library, Wrose Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, UK, BD181HX

 

In November 2016, local Bradford author E. Rachael Hardcastle visited Low Ash Primary School in Wrose, Shipley to deliver a creative writing workshop to their Year 6 pupils. At no charge to the school, E. Rachael Hardcastle ran several hours of idea-generating activities tailored to their topic of study, which resulted in the children writing short stories of their own.

Later that month having received and compiled the children’s finished work, two independently published books titled ‘Children of War’ were published and delivered for the school’s library, creating over 50 young authors in less than eight weeks.

At the end of January 2017, E. Rachael Hardcastle returned to the school with further copies of ‘Children Of War’ for the children to take home. It wasn’t long before their story was picked up by a local television station, Made In Leeds, who interviewed E. Rachael Hardcastle and the children on The Lowdown Leeds show in February 2017.

To meet her local readers and aspiring writers, E. Rachael Hardcastle recently contacted Wrose Library, Wrose, Shipley to arrange a book signing event. She hopes to encourage the community to visit the library more often and to meet the hard-working volunteers there.

The event will take place on July 1st 2017 between 1100-1430 hours to celebrate both Wrose Carnival and Bradford Literary Festival. E. Rachael Hardcastle will be taking along copies of her brand new high fantasy release ‘Finding Pandora’ and her post-apocalyptic novel ‘Aeon Infinitum: Run For Your Life’ to personalise and sign for her guests.

Entry to this events will be free of charge. For more information about E. Rachael Hardcastle, her books and her workshops, please visit www.erachaelhardcastle.com.

Social Media:

www.facebook.com/ERHInspired

www.twitter.com/ERHardcastle

Library Website:

www.wroseparishcouncil.gov.uk/wrose-library.html