Finding the time :/

One of my greatest issues lately is finding the time to continue writing. I have made great progress with my second book, but I am finding it difficult to dedicate any quality time due to having to market and self promote my first book. Maybe I should look at enlisting some help with the marketing and promotion side.

Anyway it's the start of a new week and a busy one it will be with one of my babies turning 18 on Friday!! My goal is to write around 2000 / 2500 words a day as I have set myself a target release date of 31.03.16 for the next instalment.

Wish me luck!! :)

Addition of Shopify Buy Button

One of the ways suggested to me was to create myself a shop that I could sell my debut novel (and all future novels). Searching the net I found Shopify.

Thinking I had nothing to lose I signed up for the 14 day free trial to see how it goes. I have even managed to attach a buy now button to my blog page.  :)

Author Review - Nicole Williams - The Crash Trilogy

I don't know about anyone else, but I am a sucker for free books......the only problem with that is you get hooked and have to purchase the next book to see where it leads.

This is how I found Nicole Williams. I came across another series of hers but it was a series called 'The Crash Trilogy' that grabbed my attention. Intrigued I purchased it and started reading.

Have you ever had a book where you avoid everything else if possible just to finish it? Well that was me with this series. I even sat up once everyone else had gone to bed just to keep going. I finished all three books over a three day period. I loved it.

It was an emotionally charged book that had you immersed in Lucy and Jude's story. I felt their pain, their happiness and their frustrations. Up until that point, I had never met an author who could write with such passion. It was an amazing story and one I would thoroughly recommend.

http://www.amazon.com.au/Crash-Trilogy-Clash-Crush-ebook/dp/B00H5SDPGQ/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1454715790&sr=1-7

The highlight of my day!!

That moment when you get a flower delivery at work from your hubby, congratulating you on the release of your book!! Gotta love him :)

My Marketing Strategy...

 Sooo... since I am being left in charge of my own marketing and promotion, I thought I would venture out and see who I could enlist to help me.. I am currently still a little nervous about approaching the book bloggers on Facebook, but my following on Twitter has grown quickly (much appreciated you lovely people :) ).

Anyways I have enlisted the help of CT Cover Designs to create some teasers and banners for me. These I can plaster all of my social media pages in the hope that it will hopefully generate interest.

Every day sees me venturing out of my comfort zone just that little bit more. I never envisioned myself being like this, but I love getting out there and expressing myself.

Clarise has created some amazing covers, teasers, website and facebook banners and possibly so much more and I am excited to have her give me some much needed assistance.

Stacey xx


http://www.ctcovercreations.com/

Works in progress... :)

I may still be waiting for my website to be finalised with all the changes I have asked for, but the draft of my press release was sent to me this morning for approval....

I was actually pretty impressed but was stumped when asked to choose my 10 preferred cities that I wanted the my press release distributed. Obviously, I chose Perth, Western Australia because that is where I am from, but what other cities do you target??

I ended up going with the following (It's really sad that I had to use Google to find some of these!!)

Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Hong Kong, Toronto, California, New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham and Manchester....

So over the next month Xlibris will start launching my books press release in those cities for me.

The journey to date..........

I have been documenting my journey as I have been going along, creating many different author links to try and increase my exposure out into the world.. I now have an author page on Facebook, an author page on Twitter and by the end of this week my own personal author website will be up and running. I try to come on to each of my social media sites daily to update or share news and to just post whatever comes through this weird little head of mine. It's not always an easy process, trying to find things to write about every day, but I try.
I have also been in the process of working on my next instalment which I hope to have finished by the end of March. My next book will focus on Sherlyn and Stephen, characters from the first book, but with stories of their own.
I have loved writing this one so far, I have learnt a lot from the first book, things not to do and even changing up my writing style. I think with each new book you create you learn something new and the evolution is continuous.

I have had my frustrations along the way, things that have not progressed as easily as I had hoped. Things that I assumed would have been done, but weren't. I guess that is part of the learning process. You cannot always just assume that things will happen and that you need to pay special attention instead of getting caught up in all the excitement.
These are things I will know for next time and will be prepared for.

Has it dampened my excitement of releasing my first novel? No, but I will just be more aware of the whole publishing process next time and will take note of what to look for.

Do I believe the little things like formatting etc will affect my customer reviews? Maybe a little, but I will aim for a better review system next time.
I have been researching alternatives and am more aware of what is out there on offer now.

Am I grateful? Extremely!!  Without the work that my publishing company has put into making this a reality for me, I would never have gotten as far as I have today.

As of today, my book is available in paperbook from the Xlibris website and Barnes and Noble (So far) and available in Ebook form on all platforms.

I know that there are lots of people who are writing and have written books for publishing. I am but a small fish in a really big pond trying to find my way. I do hope that I find some success in what I am doing, if not for any other reason than to say I was able to live one of my dreams..... the one of becoming a published author...................