• Blog

    A week of activity in a year of yes for publishing.

    5/25/2019

    The week that was in the year of saying yes

    First off I’m not going to lie- I didn’t love 2018 from an author perspective. I set some lofty goals and I fell short. There were lots of reasons for this that include the fact that even I need to sleep and as much as I love my author life it’s not worth missing out on real life to make it work. Still, I was bummed at the end of the year. 2017 was my best year in terms of sales and goals and I felt like I was gaining traction and it all slipped away in 2018.

    Fast forward to 2019 and I set new ambitious goals that included launching a book a month – I haven’t quite done that – but I will have published twelve times by the end of 2019 so we’ll take it. In order to make that happen I said yes late last year to a lot of projects.

    I said yes I’ll try and get a on board with Sweet Promise Press when they launched last year which meant I had No Time For Temptation ready to roll in January.

    I said yes to joining the Coffee Talk on the Board Walk multi-author series and yes to the Oceanic Dreams series as well. Originally that had me releasing my Oceanic Dreams book – Shut Up and Dance With Me in May and my Cinnamon Bay book with Coffee Talk in June. Then the Oceanic Dreams book got bumped to August and we added a novella to the Cinnamon Bay series.

    So that meant that the novella Love on the Boardwalk, launched this week along with the first book in the Oceanic Dreams series. That was a lot of partying and promoting for both books.

    You know what is awesome about being in a multi author series? Everyone has their own special talents that they bring to the table from graphic design, building websites, book formatting or book trailers. It’s so nice to be part of a team and not figuring all that stuff out all on my own.

    I’ll be featuring all the amazing authors here on my blog and on my Facebook page so you can see how great they are for yourselves.

    So that means we have two gorgeous book trailers which I will share over the next week. First Coffee talk on the Boardwalk and then Oceanic Dreams later this week.

    CINNAMON BAY SMALL TOWN ROMANCES from Bibliophile Productions on Vimeo.

    More yes
    Write Here Festival 2019

    Some of you may know I’ve set up a small business GetSocialWriteNow to help other authors on their path to publishing – I’ve learned a lot on my journey and I hate it when I see people struggling when there’s no need. I’ve always been happy to help people and I know most authors are very generous with their time. Building an author platform takes quite a bit of know how so I started sharing mine.

    Anyway, part of promoting this, and books as well is getting out there and talking about what I can do. As part of this strategy when I was asked to be on a panel at the WriteNow! Festival in Lake Macquarie I said yes. I had no idea it would end up being the same week that all of this was happening and I was a little overwhelmed mid-week thinking about it.

    As it turned out it was the perfect way to spend the day – surrounded by authors and aspiring writers and librarians and books. It was actually a really fun and joyous experience I’m glad I said yes to.

    So that’s my week on review. If you want to support the projects I have said yes to you can see all my books here on Amazon.

  • Blog

    A Musical Monday year in review

    12/30/2018

    Musical Monday

    2019 a year in review

    I tried to think of a song to sum up the year and it’s hard to go beyond Seasons of Love from RENT. (Also when is RENT coming back to the stage in Australia it was awesome?) After all, kind of like me the song measures the year in love and cups of coffee.

    This year has been a really mixed one for me in terms of both life and writing. It hasn’t been catastrophic, and I am well aware I lead a very fortunate life, but just like everyone some years are harder than others and this one has been a bit of a slog.

    Let’s start with the not so great writing-wise. I had some plans for some collaborative projects that I was excited by this time last year that fell through – one was a multi-author book and the other was a box set that got cancelled. I was excited by the prospect of not working alone so much, because being an indie author can be pretty lonely. In the end those projects falling through taught me a valuable lesson that I’m often better off on my own working at my own pace.

    I had a target to release a certain number of books in 2018 and I didn’t reach it. In fact I only released three books in 2018 under my name and two under a pen name. That was disappointing and the result of a tough day job that left me no time for anything creative at the end of the day. To be honest i felt out of sorts and like I was swimming through mud from about February onwards.

    So when I think about my writing goals for 2019 I think of this song.

    So moving on what went well? No one wants to dwell on the negative.

    I released the Something to Sing About, from the Jewel Sisters Series just before New Year last year and yesterday I finished the third book in that series Something to Savor so it will be out in February and the final book Something Worth Saving will be out in March.

    I released two books in the new Courtside Romance Series in July and November with two more to come in early 2019.

    Courtside Romance Banner
    The highlight of the year was definitely the release of Any Way You Like It, the final Book in the Upper Crust series. I had a great time with the unicorn themed promotions and the book was really well received. Let’s be honest completing an 8 book series is no mean feat. I did a whole playlist for the book which was fun but this Ed Sheeran song most encapsulates Dave and Tasha’s story and the whole experience of writing the book for me.

    So 2018 was also a fantastic year for me in terms of new opportunities and professional development

    I was chosen to write a book for the No Brides Club Series for Sweet Promise Press which I’m super excited about. It did give me a collaborative experience which I had been looking for. I also joined a group of authors and we established the Coffee Talk on the Boardwalk Facebook group. We’re releasing a series in 2019 and we’ve had a lot of fun with readers naming elements of the town Cinnamon Bay where the stories will be set.

    In July I was in Washington DC for my day job and I hopped over to Denver to visit a friend and meet up with fellow authors attending the RWA (Romance Writers of America). I was able to meet up with the awesome authors who were present from the ChickLItChat Facebook Group for dinner and the next night I met with Melissa Storm the Publisher from Sweet Promise Press and some awesome sweet romance authors.

    In November I was in LAs Vegas for the 20Booksto50k writers conference and I met lots of amazing and inspiring indie authors there. I made some great connections with people I plan to work with and collaborate with moving forward as well as gaining lots of knowledge on how to better market my books – now I just need to implement it all. Finally in December Laura Chapman, a fellow chicklit author was in town and we spent a glorious day talking all things books.

    And I just worked out I read in excess of 200 books in 2018 – okay even I’m blown away by that!

    So what lies ahead for 2019?

    You may not know this about me but I do love a plan. I don’t always stick to my plan but I do like to start out with one. My plan for 2019 is to release a book a month between now and September. The books include for starters a Valentine Novella, No Time For Temptation for the No Brides Club – out January 25th! The last two Jewel Sisters and Courtside Romance novels will be next and then my Cinnamon Bay novel for the Coffee Talk on the Boardwalk series.

    I’m really excited about the year ahead. I’ve quite my day job and will be looking at new things work wise in 2019. Hopefully I’ll have a little more balance and creative energy.

    I’m keen to explore dictating my books so that I can walk and write – You can’t write a book a month, work, run a family and exercise any other way – or I can’t anyway.

    I’m looking to aim high in 2019. What are your plans? Goals? Aspirations?

    We started with a show tune so I figured we’d go out with one. Happy New Year. Thanks for reading and best wishes for a fabulous 2019.