Launch day!

It’s launch day! Today I am so excited to be visiting popular book blog Brook Cottage Books Brook Cottage Books are also hosting a book tour for me in March. Ninja School Mum is now available to download to your kindle, computer, ipad or phone. You can grab your copy here: Ninja School Mum

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I want to give a huge thank you to all of the wonderful people who have supported this tour and my first published book. You are amazing and I appreciate each and every one of you. Don’t forget to join my online Facebook party tonight at 7-9pm GMT. Just click this link to join in with the fun: Ninja School Mum Online Party. There are some amazing prizes of signed copies of Ninja School Mum, book swag, Swarovski crystal bookmarks, dream catchers and £110 of jewellery and my big prize, a £146.00 family day out voucher to Rope Runners. 

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Ninja Tour.

Today I am visiting the website and blog of wonderful author and super supportive member of #RRBC book club, Karen Ingalls. Pop by and check out Karen’s website, as it’s packed full of bookish news and has details on her own writing and pictures of her beautiful book covers.

It’s my ebook launch day tomorrow, so I’m super excited and can’t wait for Ninja School Mum to finally be available to download. Let me now what you think if you have a copy:)

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Marketing merchandise.

Happy new week everyone. This week I’ve been working on some new merchandise for my blog tour and launch. I had this brilliant photo taken for me and it’s a wonderful way to spread the word for my work and make people smile. I have also made promotional keyrings and had posters printed. The theme of my book content and colour scheme follows through all of it, so that it is easily recognisable. This is a good idea, as it refers to your work and hopefully encourages people to pick up your book and give it a try. You never know who you might meet whilst wandering round, as my promotional photo shows, so take every opportunity and make the marketing fun for you and your readers.

 

When you bump into Batman and he’s reading your book! 🙂

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Book Giveaway Competition.

Hello everyone. I’m holding a Goodreads Giveaway. It’s the first giveaway I have ever organised and if you enter, there is a chance to win one of four signed paperback copies of Ninja School Mum. To enter the prize draw, simply click the book giveaway link below and follow the instructions. Good luck!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Ninja School Mum by Lizzie Chantree

Ninja School Mum

by Lizzie Chantree

Giveaway ends February 12, 2018.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

 

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Book blurb: 

Obsessive-compulsive school mum, Skye, is a lonely elite spy, who is running from her past whilst trying to protect the future of her child. She tries hard to fit in with the other parents at her son’s new school, but the only person who accepts her unconventional way of life is new mother, Thea.

Thea is feeling harassed by her sister and bored with her life, but she suspects that there is something strange about the new school mum, Skye. Thea has secrets of her own and, although the two become unlikely friends, she hesitates to tell Skye about the father of her own child.

Zack’s new business is growing faster than he could have dreamed but, suddenly, he finds himself the owner of a crumbling estate on the edge of a pretty village, and a single parent to a very demanding child. Could he make a go of things and give his daughter the life she deserved?

When three lives collide, it appears that only one of them is who they seem to be, and you never know who the person next to you in the school playground really is.

Making a book trailer.

Hello everyone. Today’s Marketing post is about book trailers.

Here is the latest trailer I have made for my latest book Ninja School Mum.

 

The problem I came across when creating this video, is that I work from a Mac computer.  This threw up all sorts of issues when I tried to save the file as a movie to publish on Youtube. Transitions were lost and the music disappeared. I searched the internet and there are not many solutions unless you download new programs onto your computer. I managed to get around the problem this way:

  1. I designed my sides and added transitions.
  2. I added music. This must be WAV and not MP3, as MP3 will not register on Youtube correctly.
  3. I also checked that the music was added to each slide by clicking the transitions tab, then clicking the sound tab, this is found under the duration tab. On the sound tab, scroll down until you find your uploaded music file and click to add.
  4. Make sure your timings and music match. If they don’t you can click the format audio tab and select ‘loop until stopped,’ on the playback tab.
  5. Next you need to convert the file.
  6. I downloaded a free version of Quick Time Player.
  7. Keeping your powerpoint presentation open to the slideshow tab, click on your Quick Time file tab and go to ‘New screen recording. A small recording icon appears in the window.
  8. Selected the tiny arrow next to  the red record button and add your sound. This is the third option.
  9. Click the red record button.
  10.  A box appears to tell you to click the screen to record. As soon as you click the play button on Powerpoint presentation, Quick Time Player records it.
  11. Play your whole book trailer.
  12. Click exit at the end, as you would to end the slideshow.
  13. Click on Quick Time Player and it will ask you to save the file.
  14. On Quick Time Player, open recent file and find your new file.
  15. You can trim the beginning and end of your video here. Click ‘edit and ‘trim’.
  16. You will be shown the video in still form.
  17. Drag the slider at the bottom across the video and click trim to take out the bits you don’t need at the start or end.
  18. Save your video and upload to Youtube.
  19. You will lose some fluidity, but this is the best result I had from the different practices I tried. I hope it helps!

 

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Ninja School Mum Book buy link: Click here.

Are you a master of time management?

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I’ve been pondering on the thought of how hard we all push ourselves to be creative and get our work done. This month I’ve taken on a lot, with #NaNoWriMo which I have only written a few thousand words for and my latest book launch. I also have a new book to edit. Last week I began to have raised stress levels. No one put this pressure on me, other than myself. I keep piling more jobs onto my ‘to do’ list before I have completed the last one, as many of the jobs interlink.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I am doing is good enough and that panicking or overdoing things is not going to work for me. My priority is to get all of my book launch information to my tour hosts, which is gradually happening. Next will be marketing for my new book. Further on the list is getting some new words onto paper for #NaNoWriMo and finally to edit book 5. All of these jobs are important, but if my head feels like it is packed full of too many tasks, I will feel counter-productive and start procrastinating.

If I happen to manage task one and two quicker than planned, then the other items on my list can swoop in and take over. This week has begun far more efficiently with jobs being ticked off of the list at a fast pace. The key for me is to do one job and do it well, then move on to the next, rather than half completing it and starting something else. I’ll let you know how much I get done in November. It’s exciting and the possibilities are endless, I just have to curb how many ideas I write down on that list and how many I add to a different notebook and store until a later date.

Do you push yourself to hard at work, or are you a master of time management?

3 time management tips (I’ll be using these too!):

  1. Do the most important job first.
  2. Don’t let unimportant tasks drag you down. Sideline them.
  3. Say ‘no’ to some things. If you are busy, it’s ok to decline social or work offers. Only take on commitments you have time for.

 

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Buy your copy of Ninja School Mum today!

Have your own Twitter ad designed. Click here.

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Just before a book goes live…

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It’s exciting times here, as my latest novel is being published by Crooked Cat Books in Jan 2018 and it has just gone on pre-order. I have never had a book with pre-orders before, so it’s another learning curve for me. Seeing the book available makes me jump around the room, but I have had to send many responses to people who have not bought a book this way before and don’t realise that it still means the book is delivered on the release date, wirelessly for an ebook, or through the post for a paperback.

What has astounded me, is how nerve-racking it is to have a book on pre-order. The book still has Amazon rankings and you are on the edge of your seat to see if anyone likes the book blurb enough, to give a new story a try and then hopefully leave a review at the end for others to discover the book. I’ve said this before, but leaving a review for a book you’ve enjoyed is like handing an author a rainbow. Novels can take months or years to write and a few words of kindness in return can send authors dancing in the street and hugging strangers! Maybe that’s just me?

I’d love to hear how you all found having books up for pre-order. Was it great fun, or a whole heap of stress?

Here is the blurb for my new book Ninja School Mum. Let me know what you think. The story is about a single mum who has forgotten how strong she is, but she’s never come up against anything as tough as playground gossip at her son’s school and the hierarchy of the other school mums!

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Book blurb: 

Obsessive-compulsive school mum, Skye, is a lonely elite spy, who is running from her past whilst trying to protect the future of her child. She tries hard to fit in with the other parents at her son’s new school, but the only person who accepts her unconventional way of life is new mother, Thea.

Thea is feeling harassed by her sister and bored with her life, but she suspects that there is something strange about the new school mum, Skye. Thea has secrets of her own and, although the two become unlikely friends, she hesitates to tell Skye about the father of her own child.

Zack’s new business is growing faster than he could have dreamed but, suddenly, he finds himself the owner of a crumbling estate on the edge of a pretty village, and a single parent to a very demanding child. Could he make a go of things and give his daughter the life she deserved?

When three lives collide, it appears that only one of them is who they seem to be, and you never know who the person next to you in the school playground really is.

Book link: Click here:)

 

 

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SEO tips for your website.

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Welcome to my blog. Today I thought I’d share 3 quick ideas about how you can improve the SEO on your website or blog. SEO is important as in ensures the visibility of your website and helps your content discoverability by search engines. This means that if someone puts a word in the search engine to find a topic, that your page is higher on the list than other peoples pages.

1.  You need SEO to provide clear navigation for the search engines to find your site. Make your articles relevant to your page and don’t veer too far off of subject. Too many terms on one site become confusing and don’t rank your site.

2 .  Write content that will keep visitors on your page and use internal links to interest them enough to stay on your site for longer. If they enjoy one article, they may like another you have written.

3.  Don’t load too many photos onto one page or have too much content. If a page is slow to load, people will rapidly click off of the page and find another website with quick loading times. Always name photos what they are and not pic 1,2,3,5, or 5! The picture for this article is called Lizzie Chantree SEO tips.

 

View Lizzie’s Books Here: Click link.

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Book launch tips.

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Happy new week everyone! Today’s Monday Marketing is about book launches. I’m currently working on my own new book launch for Ninja School Mum and thought i’d share some of the tips i’d learnt with you.

1.  Set up a blog tour team three months before your launch date. This is a great way to find people who want to support your launch and keeps them updated on the progress of your plans.

2.  Set up a document with all of the information you will need to send to the launch team. This should include blog posts, Q&A’s, promo information, book cover art, book blurb, author photo etc. Make the document easily accessible, so that the tour hosts can grab the details they need, with minimal fuss or extra work.

3.  Create a page on your blog about the blogs/websites of your tour hosts. Make a page for them on your website and add their site links. This is a great way to say thank you and to let others know about their blogs/websites.

 

If you would like to check out or join my tour team, the link is here:

Ninja School Mum Tour Team.

 

Planning a book launch.

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I have begun planning my book launch, which is in Jan next year. It seems so far away, but it will be here before I realise, probably. I’m trying to learn what to do, as i’ve never held a virtual launch before.

So far, I have set up a launch group for anyone who would like to join in with the launch and have designed a tour page, which I have put on this blog for bloggers to sign up to join my tour. It’s been a really interesting to try and find out the best way to approach this. After I had set my launch group up, I read it’s best to set it up 3 months before at the earliest …oops! I did mine a little before that. I have been posting all the tips about book launches I have learnt there to help other authors. I’ve also decided to do shout outs and posts about the bloggers who are supporting my tour across social media by way of a big thank you for their hard work.

If any of you would like to join my tour, or the Facebook tour group, here are the links:

Facebook Tour for Ninja School Mum.

Tour sign up page for Ninja School Mum.

My Twitter page for shout outs for my tour hosts.