Author: mel

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IAM15 Interview…Vanessa Morgan

IAM 2015 - TopperToday’s guest is author Vanessa Morgan. A lady of many talents, she is an author, screenwriter, and blogger. Two of her works, The Strangers Outside and A Good Man, have been turned into films. Her short film script Next to Her is currently in pre-production. When she’s not working on her latest book, you can find her reading, watching horror movies, digging through flea markets, or photographing felines for her blog Traveling Cats (http://travelling-cats.blogspot.com). Avalon (the cat) has appeared in several of her books and films.

We’re pleased to be interviewing Vanessa today for Indie Author Month – so let’s find out more about her and her work!

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What is you favorite way to spend a rainy day? In bed, with a cup of hot tea, a cat, a blanket, and a scented candle.

 

What is something people would be surprised to know about you? Most people see me as someone confident who knows what she’s doing. They would be surprised to see that I’m actually insecure and shy.

 

You’ve found a time machine on your driveway this morning – where are you going to go in it? I’d go a few years back in time to be with Avalon my cat who passed away in July 2013.

 

If you could have any superpower, what would you choose? I’d like to cure sick animals and bring the deceased ones back to life.

 

Night owl or early bird? I’m an early bird. I need a fixed schedule to be able to work and write effectively, and the best times to concentrate are during the day.

 

One food you would never eat? Meat.

 

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book. Because cat lovers will laugh and cry, and they will love their cats even more after reading Avalon.

 

What are you working on at the moment – do you have any other books in the works? I’m currently editing a book on animal attack movies. It’s a project for which different movie aficionados from all over the world will write an essay about their favorite film in this sub-genre. The writers are a mix between film historians, bloggers, horror fiction writers, authors of movie reference guides, film festival organizers, film critics, actors, screenwriters, and directors. The book will be released later this year.

 

What inspired you to want to become a writer? Seeing As I Lay Dying on stage in London. I wouldn’t be an author without it.

 

Is there a song you could list as the theme song for your book? Kenji Kawai’s theme song from the movie Avalon.

 

If a movie was made about your life, who would you want to play the lead role and why? I asked my friends and everyone agreed on Naomi Watts.

 

Cats or Dogs? I can appreciate any type of animal, but I like the quiet attitude of cats.

 

Facebook or Twitter? Right now, I’m more into Twitter, because my posts reach a wider audience than on Facebook and it’s also easier to share books from fellow authors.

 

Truth or Dare? Truth.

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avalonSome cats need nine lives to make a difference. Avalon only needed one.

From Amazon bestselling author Vanessa Morgan, Avalon is the heartwarming and once-in-a-lifetime love story of a girl and her neurotic Turkish Van cat.

With humor, the author details how Avalon made other creatures cringe in distress whenever he was around, how he threw her dates out by means of special techniques, and how he rendered it almost impossible for her to leave the house. Avalon was so incorrigible that even her landlord ordered her to get rid of him. But beneath Avalon’s demonic boisterousness, Vanessa recognized her own flaws and insecurities, and she understood that abandoning Avalon would be the worst she could do to him. Thanks to her unswerving loyalty, Avalon transformed into a tender feline, and even landed a major role in a horror movie. In turn, Avalon made it his mission to be there for his human companion.

By turns jubilant and deeply moving, Avalon is a memoir for anyone who has ever been obsessively in love with a pet.

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Morgan/50159391888

Twitter: http://twitter.com/eeriestories

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/follow/eeriestories

Google+: https://plus.google.com/111498119214855356614/posts

Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/vanessa-morgan-4135473

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Vanessa-Morgan/

Blog: http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2890032.Vanessa_Morgan

 

Purchase links for ‘Avalon’

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/1FTC8Ep

Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/1ImdPRo

Amazon.fr: http://amzn.to/1JTGIF2

 

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IAM15 Guest Post…Writing Problem Characters

IAM 2015 - TopperAnyone who has been around Aside from Writing before may well recognise today’s guest author – Hazel West – from her visits to the blog in previous Indie Author Month events, or from our review of her novel On a Foreign Field (you can link to Hazel’s other features on the blog here).

So, we’re very happy to welcome back our regular visitor and see what she has to share about writing ‘problem’ characters. A little bit of Writing 101 for you today, along with meeting a lovely author.

Plus, as it’s the fourth of July, we thought it only proper that an American author take the centre stage today 🙂

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Writing Problem Characters

If you have not encountered a character who has given you problems at least once, then chances are you aren’t actually a writer. Something I always tell writers who are starting out is that characters are people too. This helps to form realistic characters but it also means they can take on a life of their own, and usually to the chagrin of the writer. These problems can either manifest as characters being unwilling to cooperate with you, refusing to do what you want them to, or even becoming completely different characters all together. I’ve had villains decide they were more anti-heroes by the time I get to the end of a first draft and have to go back and rewrite everything to accommodate their newfound generosity. It can definitely be troubling, but here are some tips to make dealing with problem characters easier.

First off, another thing I tell new writers is to just listen to your characters, because, yes, they do talk to you; no, you aren’t going crazy even though you hear those voices in your head when you’re trying to sleep at night. Usually if you just listen to your characters and let them run the story, even if it’s not anything like how you imagined it starting out, things should go smoothly. You can’t write characters out of character and expect your process to go well.

Sometimes it’s a little more complicated than that. If your character has decided they are not going to be the person you thought they were, they you may have quite a bit of decision making to do and things to figure out. In this case, you may—and likely will—have to change parts of the story itself to fit their new personality. If you haven’t realized it yet, characters are divas, and you do have to cater to them if you want your story to go well. Otherwise, they have a way of sabotaging stories if they don’t get their way. If your baddie decides to go good, you might have to create another villain to keep the story going, otherwise your readers will feel cheated and all thanks to your ex-baddie’s change of heart. Villains seem to be some of the most problematic characters to write. If they’re not leaving the dark side, they refuse to tell you their plans and why they are doing what they’re doing, which makes fun many long frustrating hours of trying to squeeze information from them all while attempting to construct a plot without any real reason behind it. Infuriating. Unfortunately, this is just one of those things that has to be worked out in time. There are really no good ways to get your villain to talk, although you can always try torture if you wish.

I have also found names to be a huge factor in character personalities. If it turns out a name really doesn’t fit the character, you may have a very hard time writing them and getting their voice correct. I usually play with names and spellings a long time before I start writing a book. I know there were certain times where I have had a hard time writing a character but after changing their name, it was super easy. Just another one of those weird tips that writers pick up.

Everyone has problem characters, it’s impossible not to, but don’t let it stop your writing process! I hope these tips might help a bit, or you might find other things that will help you more. Let me know some of your tips for wrangling those characters who just don’t want to cooperate.

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bloodtiescover copy In an Ireland that mixes high kings, faeries, and modern warriors who drive fast cars, Ciran, a descendant from the famous warrior Fionn Mac Cool, bands together with a company of young warriors to go on a quest to recover their missing family members who were captured on patrol by the Goblins during a shaky peace between the two kingdoms. Ciran and his companions must figure out not only how they are going to rescue the prisoners, but how they are going to complete their mission without killing each other. This first book in the new urban fantasy series by Hazel West is a story of brotherhood and friendship against all odds, that mixes the ancient Irish legends with a modern setting for an action-packed read.

(Coming Fall 2015)

Want to know more? Check out the links!

Hazel West lives in Florida and took up writing mostly as an excuse to stay out of the heat. Apart from being an Indie author, she also enjoys reading, drawing, drinking coffee, and knitting and crochet. Hazel is also a lover of all this historical and a good deal of folklore and mythology and enjoys seeing how those things can be written into stories. She currently shares her living space with a hedgehog named Horatio.

Hazel B West

Hazel B West

Blog: http://hazelwest.blogspot.com

Tales From a Modern Bard (short stories/fiction): http://talesfromamodernbard.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/artfulscribbler

Pintrest: http://www.pinterest.com/artfulscribbler/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5289626.Hazel_B_West

You can find all my books here: http://hazelwest.blogspot.com/2013/03/purchase-links.html

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IAM 15 Guest Post…Geoffrey Saign

IAM 2015 - TopperHello! Welcome to day three of Indie Author Month, we hope you’ve enjoyed the first couple of days and features…there’s a lot more to come with a new visitor each day.

Today we’re joined by author Geoffrey Saign, sharing his writing journey (so far) with Aside from Writing. Let’s see how he found himself becoming an Indie Author…

 

Geoffrey Saign  WhipEye has won the 2015 International Book Awards for Children’s Fiction, but I’m not an overnight success.

In fact, if I didn’t love writing, I would have quit at rejection 599, or thereabouts. Over several decades, I had 6 NY agents, some of the best, in several genres—though most of my books had elements of fantasy—my favorite genre. The last agent told me we’d have 50K in thirty days (he’d just sold a $20 million screenplay), but it didn’t happen.

Fast forward to a year ago, and the small publisher that had picked up WhipEye ran into financial problems, and informed me I’d only get 3 cents/book. I decided to form KiraKu press and publish it myself.

A year later, WhipEye won a number of accolades, including a Top Pick on LitPick, the number one site for kids reviewing books. To have kids reviewing your book, and loving it, is a great thing. WhipEye was also awarded a Notable in Shelf Unbound, and came in as a bronze finalist in eLit Book Awards.

Most of my writing includes my passions for nature, wildlife, water, and adventure. I’ve sailed all over the South Pacific and Caribbean, and was lost at sea for 3 days on my first charter out of Key West. That was pretty funny—and another story. I live by intuition, another element in WhipEye. I teach in special education, and work hard to build self-esteem and get students to trust themselves. I was able to include those aspects in WhipEye naturally, so the reader isn’t hit over the head with those themes. WhipEye is still a fast-paced ride that reluctant young readers love. I’m proud to say that adults love WhipEye too—it’s a great to please so many readers of varying ages with a story.

Since age 15 I’ve cared deeply about the planet (nature and wildlife). Thus, I mention 100 different species of wild animals in WhipEye. It’s my way of educating young readers without their knowing it. I wanted to create a protagonist who is an animal nerd, Samantha, so the reader sees the world through the eyes of someone in love with wildlife, and nature, and isn’t attached to electronics. I try to get my students into nature and the outdoors every chance I get, and hope they will do more on their own. There are also themes of love in the story, and what that means when we’re faced with a choice of helping others or doing what is right.

My vision of life is that we all suffer and go through pain, but at the end of the day we learn and grow and become happier for it. In WhipEye, Samantha, the main character, and her side-kick, Jake, are grieving losses, but they come out better for it. I also like to joke around with my students, so it’s important to me to have humor in my writing. Charlie, the wise-cracking thousand-year-old parrot in WhipEye, keeps the story from being too dark when things are tough for Sam and Jake.

I’m currently finishing up Book 2, Gorgon, WhipEye Chronicles, which should be out Sept. 1, 2015. My goal is a movie for WhipEye. I don’t know where all this will lead, but intuition is guiding it, and as long as it’s a blast to write, I’ll keep at it. Right now I have an environmental book proposal with a publisher, a non-fiction book I just finished, and a YA epic fantasy series that I’m ready to put out. It’s all exciting, and I’m glad I’m off summers from education so I can write. A fun day for me is writing, swimming, seeing friends, and sharing great food. It’s a great life.

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WhipEye Cover

A thousand-year-old wise-cracking parrot convinces animal nerd Samantha and her spunky side-kick Jake to save him and two worlds. The two children are hunted by magical Great Ones, and have twenty-four hours to decipher the supernatural staff, WhipEye, and find the courage to stop a traitorous guardian and his enslaved monstrous animals.

   …a story about love, nature, wildlife, intuition, and trusting yourself…

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Geoffrey Saign can often be found looking for interesting critters, and magic, while swimming, snorkeling, sailing, or hiking in the woods. His passion for nature and wildlife inspired his series, WhipEye Chronicles, and led to his nationally endorsed book, Green Essentials: What You Need to Know About the Environment, as well as African Cats and Great Apes. He has a background in biology, assisted in field research with hummingbirds and humpback whales, and sailed as far away as Australia. With more than twenty years of experience working in special education, he has taught adults and children everything from sailing to self-awareness and novel writing. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Website: http://www.geoffreysaign.net

You Tube Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQQt4_0PIO0

Personal: https://www.facebook.com/geoffrey.saign

Pinterest:  http://www.pinterest.com/geoffreysaign/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20508452-whipeye

Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffreysaign

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreysaign

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/WhipEye-Chronicles-Volume-1/dp/0990401308

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/whipeye?store=allproducts&keyword=whipeye

iBooks; https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/whipeye/id926521924?mt=11

Smashwords;  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/498116

Kobo; https://store.kobobooks.com/search?Query=whipeye

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IAM15 Guest Post…Marie Landry

IAM 2015 - Topper Today’s guest author for the second day of Indie Month 2015 is our lovely friend Marie Landry! Over the last few years since we started the blog in 2012 Marie has featured with us many times, sharing her writing and blogging experiences as well as her books. (You can check out previous features here).

Today she joins us sharing her thoughts on how she became an Indie Author.

Marie-Landry-AuthorHow I Became an Indie Author

I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. I’ve had a vivid imagination my whole life, and I’ve been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. Even when my path went in various different directions during and after college, I always kept writing and hoped to be published someday. I always assumed it would be traditional publishing, because that’s all there was. I was willing to query agents, have my books sit in slush piles, and persevere until my work was out there for the world to read.

Several years ago, I began writing with a partner. We started out with fan fiction (my lips are sealed about which fandom!) and short stories, and eventually wrote a novel together that we hoped to have published. Self-publishing was quite new at the time, and after a bit of research, we knew it wasn’t the path for us. It had a horrible reputation at the time – the general consensus was that only people who could never get published traditionally were self-publishing. We sent out query after query with no success, but we kept writing.

When we parted ways as writing partners, a friend encouraged me to pull out a story I’d written after college and polish it. I spent months rewriting it while researching publishing options. This was around the time Amanda Hocking was blowing up the indie scene. I read countless articles and blog posts, and realized self-publishing was a viable option. It wasn’t that I wanted to rush the process, but I liked the idea of having complete control over editing decisions, cover, distribution, etc. I also really just wanted people to read my books and I knew with self-publishing it would be a matter of months rather than the years it can take to get published by a publisher, even once your manuscript has been sold.

I published my debut novel, Blue Sky Days, in January 2012. Over the next three years, I published five more books, and I’m currently working on my next novel, which I hope to release late this summer or early autumn. I haven’t regretted my decision to self-publish for a minute. Would it be nice to have someone else do the marketing for me? Yes. Would it be nice to have an advance or have a decent budget for marketing? Heck yeah! But does that outweigh the freedom of being my own boss and being able to get my books into the hands of people who love to read? No. Is self-publishing for everyone? No. But it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

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Take-Them-by-Storm-Marie-Landry  Sadie Fitzgerald has always been different, and not just because she makes her own clothes and would rather stay home watching Doctor Who than party with kids her age. When it’s time to leave Angel Island for college, Sadie is eager to put her old life behind her. Small-minded people and rumors have plagued her for years, but with the love of her adoptive family, the O’Dells, Sadie has learned to embrace who she is. Now she’s not afraid to admit the rumors about her are true: she’s gay.
For the first time in her life, Sadie feels free to be herself. She dives into college life and begins volunteering at the local LGBT center, where she discovers her small-town upbringing left holes in her education about life outside Angel Island.
The world is a bigger and more accepting place than Sadie ever imagined. She’s finally found where she belongs, but with the reappearance of someone from her past, an unexpected new friendship, and a chance at love, Sadie soon realizes she still has a lot to learn about life, friendship, and love.

 

Want to know more? Check out the links!

Marie has the best job in the world—one where she gets to make stuff up for a living and shamelessly eavesdrop on everyone around her. She writes happily ever afters while dreaming about the day she’ll have her own epic love story to tell. Most days you can find her writing, reading, fantasizing about traveling the world, listening to U2, watching copious amounts of TV on DVD, or having grand adventures with her nephews and niece.

For more on Marie and her books please visit http://sweetmarie-83.blogspot.ca. She also loves to chat with fellow book lovers, so feel free to tweet her @SweetMarie83 any time!

 

Blog: http://sweetmarie-83.blogspot.ca

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarieLandryAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SweetMarie83

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Take-Them-Storm-Angel-Island-ebook/dp/B00PBA7KNE/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/take-them-by-storm-marie-landry/1120852304?ean=2940046432121

 

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IAM15 Guest Post…My Writing Journey

IAM 2015 - Topper    My second post of the day as ‘guest author’ – I can’t talk about myself in the third person too much on this blog as it leads me to feeling slightly unhinged 🙂 Anyway, as a guest of myself, I thought I’d use my post this year to talk about my writing journey, like some of our other guests are doing. These are always some of my favourite posts to read because everyone has a different tale and experience to share. It has been quite a while since I last did a ‘writing journey’ post – around this time of year in 2012 to be exact – and so there was a lot for me to take in when I came to writing one this time.

(The two previous posts can be found on my author website [here] and on Ramblings of a Daydreamer blog [here], if you are interested in how my journey started).

The main difference between then and now is time (obviously!) and practice. Back in 2012, I was new to the whole promotion, Goodreads, blogging, social media cycle, side of things with writing and releasing a book. Before then, it had been me and a laptop, my scraps of paper and notebooks and my story – I was writing what I wanted, when and how I could manage it and more than anything, I was just writing stories for myself very occasionally sending them off to an agent or publisher, but not really thinking about publishing what I was doing.

When I got the time to finish the book in late 2011, was when self-publishing was starting to become a ‘thing’. I had my precious Kindle and had picked up some Indie books and when I saw what was being done, I just figured ‘why can’t I do that’? I was never organised enough for repeatedly ploughing through the Writers and Artists Yearbook, marking all the agents and publishers that might accept an approach for my book and then seeing it through to sending the required synopsis, excerpt manuscript, cover letter… I did it a few times for some children’s books I’d written and each time changed my approached or went away and did months of re-writes and adjustments when I got a response back. To say that the traditional process was slow, was an understatement: up to 12 weeks to wait for a reply each time you submitted, only submitting to one at a time (which is professional courtesy) and then whatever I did after that.

So, for Hope’s Daughter, I researched some companies and looked at how Amazon were doing things at the time. The formatting for submissions wasn’t as easy as it is today – now that they are well on top of their game – and so I went via BookBaby, who was also just getting started and did all the conversion to various formats, collected your royalties with removing commission and made it very easy to put the book out there. It was only after I’d released the book and I’d promoted to friends and family, I realised that I wasn’t about to set the Top Ten book charts on fire with such a small readership.

So, as with any new project, I went off to learn about how I could market my book. Early days I shared excerpts on sites like Scribd and then discovered Goodreads and reader blogs… Two things I had never even heard of before, but which have become central to how I look at the writing – reading – publishing triangle these days.

From here, I went into the promotion side of things wholeheartedly setting up the various accounts, starting my blogs, including this one, as I found myself enjoying engaging with other authors as much as readers. I also spent that much time on Goodreads I became a Mod for quite a large group, as well as trying to get reviews for Hope’s Daughter and some promotion via blogs. I also took up reading again, cramming a  huge 52 books into the year, alongside trying to write more and promote as well (did I mention I have a full time job?) all in the interest of networking with readers and bloggers.

2012 was a crazy merry-go-round if you like, one focused on all the new stuff I was learning about being an author. By the end of the year, I realised I’d done very little writing, just promotion of one book and ALOT of blogging about books. So, for 2o13 I set myself the target of completing book 2 and cut back on blogging and reviewing for others. I did the same in 2014 and have been trying to do the same this year, to get more writing time in, because if I don’t write any books, it doesn’t matter if I  can find people to read them 😉

It is hard to find the balance, although three and a bit years in to the indie publishing scene I think I am getting there. At the moment, I’m getting up earlier each day to squeeze in an hour of writing, editing or blogging, with the idea of little and often keeping things moving on. The drafting and editing side of things also gets easier as you become more practiced at it, so overall, I’m hoping to get more productive as I go along…well, that’s the plan anyway 🙂

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IAM15 Interview…with Mel Cusick-Jones

IAM 2015 - TopperHello! Welcome to our fourth annual Indie Author Month on Aside from Writing – I hope you enjoy what we have coming up over the next few weeks in July and get to meet some great new authors, seeing their thoughts and experiences on what it is like to be an indie writer these days.

As you’ll probably know, I’m one of the main bloggers for the site, along with my author buddy Tony Talbot. This year, we decided that one of us would open the event as the ‘author of the day’, with the other closing the event at the end of the month.

One thing I realised we’d never done on here, was actually interview ourselves. We’ve interviewed loads of authors over the last few years, particularly during the Indie Author event months, but neither Tony nor I had ever featured in a ‘proper’ interview on the blog. So, for my first feature of the day, I’m doing a snapshot interview with myself 🙂 It’s a lot more normal than it sounds and not at all Taxi Driver scary. Promise.

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A genie grants you three writing-related wishes: what would you wish for and why?

Firstly, I would wish for the little writing cave of my dreams…a cosy little room, with the walls all lined with bookshelves. There would be a nice, comfy couch for my dog to lie on and snooze the hours away as I work. There are some french windows in the room that lead to a garden outside and my desk in next to it… silly items and knick-knacks from my current mini-cave would be on the wall above my desk, to keep inspiring me as I day dream looking out of the window.

My second ‘big’ wish would be, that when I talk through scenes and dialogue in my head, that they magically appear in a notebook ready to use. I can’t count how many good things I’ve thought of and not remembered because I couldn’t write them down at the time. I’ve tried using a dictaphone, but something goes wrong between my head and my mouth and what gets recorded is just a terrible, flat version of what I was thinking of originally!

Final wish would be for an editing fairy…someone else that perfectly edits and finalises my finished work! That’s always the longest part of the project for me.

How do you react to a bad review?

It’s feedback, so generally I try to take any learning points from what’s said and apply that to my work. There’s several improvements (I think) I’ve made to my writing style and editing over the last few years since I started getting reviews of my books. Without the feedback, which wasn’t always given in the nicest of ways, I might not have seen the issue and improved. If you get a ranty review, you might not get anything that useful from it for improving your work, and in those cases I just kind of shrug and get on with something else. Everyone likes different things and I’ve had my share of DNF books that I’ve not enjoyed, so I can understand it from the reader side of things too.

Cirque de la Nuit coverWhat are you working on at the moment – do you have any other books in the works?

My current project is outside the ‘Ambrosia Sequence’ series, which I’ve been working on for the last few years and released the first two books so far – although I am about two-thirds of the way through the third book ‘Outlanders’ and I need to get back to working on it at some point! At the moment, I’m focusing on writing a stand-alone YA paranormal mystery ‘Cirque de la Nuit’ about a uni student who finds herself in the middle of supernatural gang warfare, after a visit to the mysterious Cirque de la Nuit. A bit of change from sci-fi related dystopian, but hopefully people will enjoy it when it’s ready to release.

What inspired you to want to become a writer?

The main inspiration is that I’ve always loved reading and disappearing off into other people’s stories. Because of that, I’ve always dabbled with writing: short stories, couple of plays (don’t ask!) and then when I finished studying English at uni, I started writing as a hobby. The first few things I wrote were really terrible and it took a lot of practice to actually write a full book with beginning, middle, end…sounds daft, but ask most authors and they’ll tell you that they didn’t just sit down and run off a perfect first draft. The first few books I wrote still sit in my laptop and may (with lots of revision) some day be worthy of release…

Who is your favourite character from Cirque de la Nuit and why?

At the moment, my favourite character is Alexander – the vampire ringmaster who gets Beth (the main character whose POV we read the story in) involved in the first place. He is probably the character, aside from Beth, who changes the most during the story. That said, I really like Mikhail, especially when you get him and Beth sparring off one another – I love sarcastic banter!

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Mel Cusick-JonesWant to know more? Check out the links!

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melanie-Cusick-Jones/214124072009513

Twitter @melabupa     Author Blog http://melcj.com/

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5395324.Melanie_Cusick_Jones

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IAM15…It’s here!

IAM 2015 - Topper

Indie Author Month 2015 is finally here! Thirty-one days, thirty-one indie authors for you to meet, sharing the best of what it is to be an indie author from their own experiences…

So, welcome to the first day of our Indie Author Month – now in its fourth year, we’re excited to be hosting more fantastic indie authors during the event, which will run throughout July.

As in previous years, the event aims to bring indie authors into the spotlight, helping them find new readers, as well as letting them share their experiences of writing and publishing as an indie author. There are highs and lows to this creative life and everyone’s experience and approach is slightly different…

This year specifically, we have opened up the event to authors of every genre – variety is the spice of life! The only thing we’ve asked from each of them is to tell us about their experiences as an indie writer…from their personal writing journey, to the things they’ve learned about self-publishing, you’ll find it all here this month.

We hope you’ll keep coming back each day through the event, to meet the authors and chat with them about their writing.

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Sunday Write-Up – June 2015

Sunday Write Up Header

Thanks for joining us for our second Sunday Write-Up feature! Today’s words are at the bottom of the post – take them away, do something with them and then come back and link your post back to us here, so that people can come visit you and check out your piece.

As before, don’t worry about it being long, short, perfectly edited…the idea is to just let your imagination run wild on something you’ve never even thought about writing before, blast out a piece in however much time you have on your Sunday (or the few days afterwards).

So, here’s today’s prompts – include all five in your piece and see what you come up with. I’ll be back to link up my post soon 🙂

Today’s five words are:

alone     growing     slowly     life     beautiful

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Pitching Yourself to Book Festivals…

Found a post on promoting/pitching yourself to book festivals – some great insider information and ideas for authors to consider.

mel's avatarMel Cusick-Jones

It doesn't matter what others are doing

This isn’t really something I’d thought about before, or looked into, but this is a great blog post on how you can go about pitching yourself to book festivals, if it’s something you fancy trying.

The post leans towards a focus on children’s book festivals, but the tips and advice would cover for the majority I feel and there is some good information on ways that you can get involved – even as an indie author – to get a better idea of whether an event is for you or not.

Certainly worth a look 🙂

http://www.sarahwebb.info/blog/how-to-pitch-yourself-to-book-festivals-by-sarah-webb/

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Sunday Write-Up – May 2015

Sunday Write Up Header

Thanks for joining us for the first Sunday Write-Up feature, I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with the prompts today 🙂 Don’t forget to come back and link your post back to us here, so that people can come visit you and check out your piece.

And don’t worry about it being long, short, perfectly edited or any of those things. The idea is to just let your imagination run wild on something you’ve never even thought about writing before, blast out a piece in however much time you have on your Sunday (or the few days afterwards).

So, here’s the prompts – random words picked up from adverts that have just been on TV – include all five in your piece and see what you come up with. I’ll be back to link up my post soon 🙂

Today’s five words are:

follow     missed     bird     delivery     eye