Seeking bookaholics looking for a freebie....

This week my seven actions for...

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming A Successful Author

...are dealing with the fall out of releasing Solomon's Secrets...

My first action was to shout about it all over social media. 

I've scheduled in lots of updates etc. 

I'm conscious that I don't want to be one of those people who just tries to sells everyone their stuff on Twitter so I've scheduled in announcements in intervals with other content in amongst my usual tips and content sharing.

There's an 80/20 rule with Social Media:

80% is sharing content 
20% is promotion

My next action is to offer the eBook for free to anyone willing to review it.

Calling all bookaholics - Would you like a free eBook in exchange for a review?

If you're looking for something new to read and would like to help an indie author out, email me: amy@tomcatdesigns.co.uk

This offer expires 31st October 2014 - so hurry!

My third action has been to follow up all of the people who pledged to the crowdfund and send out book and eBooks. I set my husband the mission of converting the books into an eBook format that I could email out to people. He had a battle with it but got there in the end. 

Getting in touch with them all individually and responding to them is taking a lot of time this week - Can I count that as a few actions? I've not had time to do much else this week!

...why not...

My last few actions this week have been to; post a student placement vacancy on Missionly. 

Their site was down at the time of writing this so I can't share the link to my advert, but here's the general one: www.missionly.co.uk


Fingers crossed there is a student in the Bristol area looking for a Publicist Placement who'd be up for helping me out - I could do with an extra pair of hands!

An action that came out of the Books Are My Bag event with Southville Writers and Bristol Women writers is that I've started working on a guest blog on for an online Bristol Lifestyle blog. If it gets accepted I'll share it with you. 


Another action is that I have been editing the short story 'I met someone'.

It's a conversation between the heroine of my books, Sasha Blake, and her grief counsellor, Lucy. It's set in 2004 and picks up from the scene in The Bronze Box where Sasha first meets Tom Sheridan in a seemingly chance encounter at The British Museum. They have a brief affair, before going their separate ways and not meeting again until 2013.

A follow up action is to take it to our Southville Writers critique group this week and get some feedback from the others.

When I'm happy with it I'll post it here.

I've just counted back...result... that's seven actions - I've done more than I thought this week!

What marketing actions have you got planned for this week?




 

 



 

Super Exciting Announcement and Hanging Out at the Post Office

This week my seven actions for...
 

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming  A Successful Author

...are all about Solomon's Secrets

It's here! It's landed and available now on Amazon.

Hoorah!

My first action was receiving a lovely big box of shiny new books in the post, ready to send out to everyone who pledged to the crowdfund.

My books! A beautiful thing...

My second action was to post an update on the Fundsurfer page telling everyone what to expect next:

https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/independently-publishing-solomons-secrets/update/and-were-done

 

The third action, following the announcement on the crowdfund page, was to start contacting all of my backers individually and finding out what they'd like me to write inside their books and where I should post them.

 
My fourth action was to get some thank you leaflets printed so that I could write a note to each of my backers to send out with their parcels.

I used Brunel One printers who's roof I can see from my back bedroom, they are that local!

I was really happy with the quick turnaround and good value for these leaflets and will definitely use them again.

Once I received responses from my backers, the next step was to pack the books up and take them to the post office.

Here's my first pile of books ready to post. 

I was queuing outside the local post office at 8:30am.


My fifth action has been to reduce the price of the Kindle version of my first book, The Bronze Box. 

It's now £1.99 on Amazon. Hopefully people who've been drawn to Solomon's Secrets will get the first book as well.

My last two actions are unrelated to the launch of Solomon's Secrets:

Firstly, my sixth action was to publish a really awesome guest blog by Anita MacCallum on personal branding.

Read it here:

http://ideaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/know-yourself-know-your-brand-who-is.html

Anita's creativity is infectious and her blog post gave me an idea - I've set up a 'vision board' on my Pinterest. I asked myself;

What's my 'brand' as an author? I write under different names so why not have another identity? How does Amy C Fitzjohn, Author present herself....? 

Here's what I've been pinning: http://www.pinterest.com/amymorse184/amy-c-fitzjohn-author-vision-board/ 

My seventh action is to report back on the Books are my Bag event hosted by Southville Writers and Bristol Women Writers at Foyles on Saturday.

The fact that between us we managed to collect lots of local writers in one place was in itself an achievement, organising writers is a bit like herding cats!

It was a really good event in the end with writers reading out their work in a series of categories, including; fiction, poetry, non-fiction and flash fiction.

Here is the table of books for all the writers involved:

Because I'm published by Amazon I was banned from selling my books at the event :( so my job was to be the MC - Here I am on the stage with a microphone, conducting proceedings:

Have you been to any good readers/writers events recently?

Where in the world is Wiveliscombe, and other marketing stories

This week for my

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming  A successful Author

I've been out and about in my home county of Somerset.

My first action was being invited to be interviewed on 10 Radio - A community Radio station in the village of Wiveliscombe in Somerset, just a couple of miles form the small town of Wellington in Somerset, where I grew up.

Suzie Grogan contacted me through Facebook and we set it up. Suzi is a fellow writer, here's her blog: http://nowrigglingoutofwriting.wordpress.com/

She writes non-fiction and has a new book coming out late this year. Shell Shocked Britain; exploring the issues around mental health and the First World War, more details here: http://www.suziegrogan.co.uk/.

A future action will be to write a guest blog for her No More Wriggling out of Writing blog.

While I was in the area, my next action was to put some mini manuscripts and some postcards about Solomon's Secrets around Wiveliscombe and in a few other places on my journey back up to Bristol

Another action is that Suzie is going to write a review of the second edition of The Bronze Box on her blog and I've offered to review her book too when it comes out.

Suzie has also invited me to the launch in Bristol which is in my diary. I'll look forward to seeing her again at that event. 

Speaking of The Bronze Box, another action this week was that I finished proofreading the paperback version and relaunched the 2nd edition. The first edition is now out of print, so anyone lucky enough to have picked up the first edition (in all it's rawness!), hang on to it - when I'm the next JK Rowling it may be worth some money! 



Another action was to get some postcards printed. 
  
I used a local printer in Bristol, Sebright. They were good value, I could go and speak to a human and support a local business. The problem with some of the online printers is, although initially they seem cheap, once you start adding your own images and including postage and packing the cost soon increases and then you get daily spam emails trying to sell you more products.

I always enjoy connecting and supporting other writers and in October Southville Writers are hosting a Books Are My Bag event with Bristol Women Writers at Foyles. 

 
Another action this week as to produce a special newsletter calling for writers in the network to get involved.













Another action is that I wrote an Amazon review for a fellow writer and friend of mine, Nicola Sellars, who's debut novel, Colour Me In came out earlier this year.

Nicki and I meet regularly for lunch and I think of it as an opportunity for us to mentor each other. We bounce ideas off each other and share some inspiration. This kind of informal arrangement with someone like minded is a really useful way to stay motivated and fresh.

Bonus 8th action this week.

I like to engage in conversations with people on twitter and connected with Jono Young. I asked what tip he would offer for marketing what you do and here was his response:

 

Thanks for contributing, Jono.

Have you got a marketing tip you'd like to offer to other creatives?

 

Crowdfunding, Spreadsheets, Videos and Golden Gifts

I'm struggling to identify seven individual actions this week for

Operation Author: 365 Actions to Succeed as an Author

I've been putting lots of time and energy into my crowd funding pitch so most of my actions are related to that.

I've made enquiries with Silverwood Books who are a publisher in Bristol that work with authors to self publish. If I publish Solomon's Secrets with them, their package would give me more scope and support than going it alone, but I would also have to sell around double the number of copies of Solomon's than I have of The Bronze Box to get my money back and start making a profit. I would like to support them, my Fundsurfer pitch is all about supporting Bristol businesses after all!

I need to give it some thought. When I launch the Fundsurfer pitch, I think I'll see how well it does and see what budget I'll have.

I've been sketching images of characters, I never ended up using them in the pitch but here's one of Jon Solomon:

I put together a spreadsheet of all the rewards for pledging. 

The idea of crowd funding is that you pledge an amount and get a reward in exchange. 

My rewards start with £1 for a thank you, signed copies of books, being mentioned in the acknowledgements right up to being the guest of honour at the launch event.

I've spent hours uploading my list of rewards and creating appropriate images for them. One of the rewards is two eBooks and here's the image for it

I've enlisted the help of my long suffering and very lovely husband Graham with editing the video for the pitch and here's what we've come up with so far

Watch the video pitch here: http://bit.ly/1pzz4X3

I've been industriously adding progress updates to my Facebook Author Page, including the video: https://www.facebook.com/AmyCFitzjohn

The only actions this week not related to my crowd finding pitch have been going to a couple of business events.

I went to a 'Start Up Scale Up' event. I was there on one of my non working days as, Amy Morse Freelance Writer, but within seconds I became Amy from Outset Bristol when I got caught up chatting to clients and connections from work, I'm too well known in the Bristol Business Community for Outset and I'm struggling to break down that barrier that I'm also a Freelance Writer.

Help! Any advice?

I did some networking at an event at M Shed,  'An Evening with Deborah Meaden' in aid of Above and Beyond Golden Gift Appeal.

Deborah was brilliant, really inspiring and engaging and the charity is such a great cause.

Above and Beyond, go 'above and beyond' what the NHS is able to fund in Bristol's hospitals, by improving the care environment for patients and their families. With the NHS's limited funds, they understandably have to priroitise clinical care, but the path to recovery is more than just the right medicine and equipment, it's also important to be in a comfortable and healing environment - hospital's don't have to be depressing places that stink of chemicals.

I'd like to support the charity in the future and I'm already thinking about an event, perhaps involving Southville Writers.
 
I'm must be a crazy person, I'm in the middle of one project and already thinking about the next one!

How do you manage and prioritise your projects?

Final chapters, wine, an awards ceremony and a call for writers

There's something very civilised about travelling through the countryside on a train with a fellow writer and chatting about writing, books and exchanging stories.

I'm a day late this week updating my Operation Author: 365 Actions to Succeed as an Author because of our excursion.

My friend and fellow writer Heather Reed was shortlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize for her brilliant crime novel, with a working title of 'Puff of Madness' and I went along to the awards ceremony with her for moral support - and as drinking / shopping / eating partner.

Although she didn't win the overall prize she had a special mention from Literary Agent, Broo Doherty and that made her day.

We celebrated with plenty of wine, we both have a weakness for Rioja!

We did some networking with fellow writers and are going to make connections with Exeter Writers through our own network, Southville Writers. So that's another action from the week.

Heather and I have been in a race to finish our manuscripts this week, and she's beaten me - I still have have half a chapter to go on Solomon's Secrets. So most of my actions this week have been ticking off the chapters. I aim to finish the first draft next week.

We are going to critique and edit each others work, so agreeing how we will do that is another action.

I've drafted a simple cover for the book so that when it's ready I can get a couple of proof copies print on demand for editing - so that's another action.
 

I still need two more writers to be involved in a blog tour. So my next action is to put a shout out:

Calling all writers and bloggers - 

Would you like to take part in a blog tour?

Email me: amy@tomcatdesigns.co.uk for details.

Basically; I put a shout out, links and profiles for three writers on my blog and those writers then put a shout out for me then link to three other writers. The idea is to link up and support other writers and also to help readers to discover new writers.

The deadline for my leg of the blog tour is Saturday 29th March, ready for my post w/c: 31th March

My final action this week was to submit a guest post for a fellow writers blog, a prolific and talented writer of psychological thrillers, Maggie James. My article on not judging a book by its movie is on her brilliant blog:  http://www.maggiejamesfiction.com/2/post/2014/03/dont-judge-a-book-by-its-movie.html

Back to writing Solomon's Secrets. 

I've set up a Pinterest board of images of actors that I imagine when I picture and 'hear' my characters in my head. I look like some kind of Clive Owen, Kate Winslet and Tom Hiddleston celebrity stalker but I find it genuinely useful to have the board up on one of my screens while I'm writing.  

I spent far too long updating it last night: http://www.pinterest.com/amymorse184/solomons-secrets-my-characters/

And finally, here's another snippet from the book for your reading pleasure, enjoy...