5 ways that Readers can help Authors like me

5 ways readers can help authors

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been asked the same question by a friend and a couple of readers. All three of them have read my debut fantasy novel Haven Wakes and left glowing reviews, but they wanted to know what else they could do to make my life easier.

After a think, this is what I told them.

Recommend my books

Here’s what I mean:

  • You’re twittering with the best of them and you come across a reader asking for YA fantasy and sci fi book recommendations. Why not tell them about Haven Wakes?
  • Your book club is on the look-out for a speculative fiction book to read. Suggest Haven Wakes.
  • Your friend’s cousin’s daughter’s friend wants a new fantasy series to read. You guessed it! Point them to Haven Wakes.

Whenever you comes across a chance, please recommend my books.

Share my social media posts

With any luck you’ve already connected with me on at least one of my social media channels:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Pinterest

If you come across my social media posts, especially ones pointing to my newsletter or book sales page, it would be really helpful if you could widen my reach by sharing my post with your connections.

Blog about my books

If you run a book blog, whether that’s as a writer or a reader, it would be really appreciated if you could drop me and my books a mention.

If you need content for your blog, let me know and I’m more than happy to answer your questions for an author interview, pen a blog post on writing-craft, or write a piece on some other suitable topic.

Even better, sign up to be an ARC reader and blog as part of my next book launch.

In return for a mention on your blog, I’ll happily share it on my social media channels. It’s a win-win for us both.

Request my books

If you want to buy my book in paperback from your local bookstore but they don’t stock it, why not ask them to order it in? With any luck, they’ll buy in more than one copy so some other reader can get their hands on it. You could even take a shot of my book on their bookshelves and post it on social media (don’t forget to tag me though).

I know that not everyone can afford to buy my book. The next best thing is to borrow a copy from the local library. If this is you but they don’t have a copy, it would be really appreciated if you could ask them to order it in. I dropped off a copy to my local library for just this reason.

Sign up to my mailing list and share my Author News

Social media is an absolute boon for authors to get the news out about their latest books, but it’s reliant on algorithms and readers being online at the right time to see our posts. A mailing list doesn’t have either of these restraints and is the best way to keep up-to-date with an author and their latest news.

Sign up to my mailing list and receive:

  • a free short story set in the same world as Haven Wakes
  • my monthly goings-on and writing progress
  • my book news, including the chance to be a beta or ARC reader
  • a book recommendation that I love and hope you will too (and not a book I’ve written)

And if you have friends who you think might appreciate reading my Author News too, why not forward my newsletter on to them.

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While buying our books and leaving book reviews will always be the best way to help us authors, lovely readers like you can make us smile in so many other ways too.

Progress? What I’ve been up to in March

March progress

I’ve been so head down in editing Book 2 of the Haven Chronicles that I completely forgot about writing a blog post until today, which unfortunately (or fortunately, in my case) coincided with me taking two hours out of my working day to get my hair done for the first time since Autumn 2020.

Now, I’m back at my desk freshly coiff-ed and raring to go. Except…

I haven’t thought up an inspirational, amusing, or informative blog post to write, so instead I’ll share with you two guest blog posts of mine that were out in March.

3 Ways To Step Out of Isolation

The lovely Lily Lawson was kind enough to let me appear on her writing blog at the beginning of March.

With the end of lockdown here in Wales on the horizon, and seeing reactions from friends, neighbours, and loved ones that ranged from outright fear to the need to get out there and celebrate, this blog post was my personal slant on how we should embrace our new normal.

You can find it here.

Fantasy With a Touch of Science

A little later in March, I featured on Clare Rhoden’s blog, talking about my love of fantasy and science, and how those two things shaped my debut novel, Haven Wakes.

I talk robots – from Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet to the Astrobees on the International Space Station – and you’ll also find an extract from Haven Wakes which shows some of the ways my love of futuristic tech and scientific development played a role in the novel’s world-building.

You can find that blog post here.

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As for the editing of Book 2, well, it’s coming along nicely. There’s more robots, more fantastical places to visit, and many more faces – both good and bad – and as usual, Steve is in for a bumpy ride.

More help for self-isolating readers

more help for self-isolating readers

Back in March last year, when most people had just entered the Covid-19 lockdown, I posted about where readers could find extra things to read if they couldn’t afford to buy lots of new books in Help for Self-Isolating Readers.

By the beginning of this year, I was all too familiar with a completely different problem that readers  in lockdown were having. Not a lack of money to buy books, not a lack of time either. No, this problem was altogether different – a lack of motivation.

It wasn’t that people didn’t want to read, far from it, but more and more I heard readers – some people I knew and others in online book clubs – bemoan the fact that they just couldn’t settle down to read during 2020. Whether it was worry over the pandemic, anxiety caused by money problems, or just a vague air of unease that hung over them, many readers increasingly found it difficult to concentrate on a book, however cherished or lovingly anticipated.

And it’s a problem that I hear from readers in 2021 too. That’s why I decided to write this post, with more help for self-isolating readers but this time on how to switch off so that you can get back to reading on a regular basis.

Commit to reading time

This might seem like a silly thing to suggest. If you’re sitting down to read a book, then of course you’re committed to reading it. Hang on though, hear me out.

Your mind might be on tomorrow’s Zoom meeting, or the pile of ironing that is threatening to engulf your home workspace. You might sit down and fall into a daydream of a night out at your favourite restaurant/cinema/anywhere you haven’t been because of lockdown. You may begin to read, but stop, then start, then drift off again as your mind niggles at you to do something else instead.

The answer? Why not make an appointment with yourself to read? You make appointments to go to the dentist. No, hang on, that was 2019. Okay, well, you make appointments to have Zoom work meetings or home-school your children. Why not make an appointment, with yourself, to switch off and lose yourself in a book?

Set it on your mobile phone or write it on the calendar. You could even leave yourself a sticky note on your computer screen.

Indicate to your mind that this is booked time for you and no-one else. You’re busy, curled up in a chair or bed, possibly with a cup of tea, giving all your attention to your read of choice.

Switch off distractions

You’ve settled down with a brand new book, all comfy and ready to escape to another world, and then your phone rings or pings or vibrates. Whatever it’s doing, it drags you from your read.

Or it might be that,

  • you try to read in the lounge while your children watch TV
  • you’re reading an ebook on your tablet, but notifications keep popping up on the screen
  • your laptop is within reach and you can’t help but notice every time an email drops into your inbox

Switch it all off. Turn off the mobile phone or put it on airplane mode. Mute or turn off the notifications on your tablet for now. Put your laptop in another room or turn it off (you’ll be saving power, whether battery or electric).

It’s just another way to commit to yourself and your lovely book.

Settle somewhere you won’t be disturbed

Picture this. You’re nose down in a book, rivetted by the storyline, and then your partner pipes up that they just want five minutes of your time – promise.

Here’s another one. You’ve sat down at the kitchen table to read with a drink, then your teenager announces that they need the space so they can do classwork on their laptop.

There’s two parts to this. Firstly, if you want to have time to read, tell your family members (or anyone who might try to get your attention) that for the next twenty minutes, an hour, two hours, you will be reading and you don’t want to be disturbed. Once you’ve told them, they have no excuse short of an emergency – Timmy has fallen down a well, the cat is choking on the goldfish, or the house is burning down.

The second part is choosing a place to settle where disturbances are reduced as much as possible. That might be your bedroom, a quiet corner of the garden, or any room that the rest of the family are unlikely to need during your slot.

It might take a while to train your family, possibly with the use of ‘Do Not Disturb’ sticky notes, but they’ll get the message eventually.

Make yourself comfortable

There’s nothing worse than settling down to read and realising that your feet are chilly, or the slightly ajar door is casting a chill on your bones, or you really need the loo.

Equally, don’t settle down anywhere you can’t remain for longer than half an hour. Those dining chairs may look fabulous in your Instagram shots but can you honestly relax on one for any lengthy amount of time?

Comfort isn’t just about temperature, posture, and support. What about your eyes? Is there sufficient light in a room to allow for relaxed reading?

Finally, is it a quiet space? Some people can cope with a level of noise while they read. Others need sound-cancelling headphones. Make sure that your reading spot is as quiet as you need it to be to relax into your book.

Get back into the habit

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but apparently it takes an average of 66 days for a behaviour to become a habit. That’s about two months to get back into a book-reading routine, two months to be able to comfortably settle down and read without distraction on a regular basis.

Two months is just about the right time to train your family too, two months for them to come to the conclusion that you will not be disturbed and that you deserve your regular reading slot.

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What about you? Have you had trouble reading over the last year? Or do you still have a healthy, bookish habit?

What you can expect from me in 2021

what you can expect from me in 2021

I meant to write this blog post at the beginning of January but time got away with me. In fact, I think that’s a sign of what the rest of my year is going to be like – busy, busy, busy.

While much of the world was on hold in 2020, it feels like 2021 is the year when we pick ourselves up and ask, ‘what’s the best way to cope now that we know what a pandemic looks like?’. That’s how I’m tackling it.

So where will the Life of Fi go in 2021?

Book Two of the Haven Chronicles

The still unnamed (I know, I know) second book in my fantasy series is with my publisher for edits. I’m doing my best to stay calm and button-lipped while I wait, but I’m honestly excited to see what they think and how they feel my baby (sorry, manuscript) could be improved.

The plan is to release Book Two later in 2021. So, as they (someone?) say, watch this space.

I wrote about my editing process back in 2019, in Once upon an edit.

Book Three of the Haven Chronicles

One of the challenges of writing a series of books is ‘shiny object syndrome’. I’m happily working on book two and my mind wanders off to all the things I could do in book three, four and five.

So while my current focus is on getting Book Two out into the big, wide world, I have a brimming notepad filled with ideas on how the series will unfold. In fact, I may soon be moving onto a second notepad.

Once Book Two is polished to its final version, I’ll be getting on with writing Book Three. I already know exactly how it starts. Steve and the darkling are still in hot water and it’s only going to get worse.

2020 Together and 2021 Still Together

Along with all the other contributors, I’m still doing my best to promote two anthologies of shorts created to raise money for the NHS Charities Together Covid-19 appeal. To date, we’ve raised over a thousand pounds for the NHS appeal.

By the way, none of the contributors make any money from 2020 Together and 2021 Still Together. All profits go to the NHS.

Find both anthologies here.

My Other Book

I’m also working on something else, a book that will bring together both my experience as an author and as a copywriter too. It’s a non fiction book for a group of people that I love to support.

Writing it is a completely different experience to penning a novel, but I’m enjoying the process immensely.

More about that later this year.

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So there you have it – my focus for 2021. Oh, and just in case you’ve assigned yourself a word for the year, here’s mine,

progress

What have you got planned for 2021 and what’s your word for the year?

Image by iXimus from Pixabay

A Little Festive Magic

a little festive magic

Christmas may be the big star of the month but today is one of my favourite days of the year – the Winter Solstice.

You might know it as Yule, or Yuletide. It’s the day towards the end of the year in the Northern Hemisphere when the daylight hours are at their shortest. It marks the beginning of Winter when the darkness is greatest, and when light of any kind is to be cherished and celebrated.

Where Christmas is a nod to Christian values, the Winter Solstice is a quieter, less materialistic festival that looks back to the old ways.

My dad came from a mixed background when it came to religion and faith. His mother was a devout Episcopalian Christian and she held her faith dear to her heart. My grandfather had a more casual link to Christianity. He joined my grandmother’s church simply to please her, but he was much closer to the land, to nature, and to the old ways.

My dad had much the same attitude as his father to the church, while my mum saw attending services, having her child – me – christened, and being wed in church as the right thing to do. Where my dad would see Christmas Eve as a time for family to spend some quiet time together, my mum preferred to attend the midnight church service.

Even in the depths of winter, my dad would be found in the garden, not necessarily tending to the plants but just taking time to think, breathe, and appreciate his life. He found a peaceful happiness in watching the land change with the seasons.

I’m a lot like my dad. Some of my best moments are those spent amongst nature – walking the dog on a morning or going on a park-trek with my family.

On the Winter Solstice, when nature appears to recede and pause, I take the day to do the same. I put aside all the preparation and busy thoughts of Christmas to just be.

I think of the magic of this point in time, and all the threads that have led me here:

  • the colour of Christmas Day as a child, with my mum clattering around the kitchen making lunch while my dad kept me amused with toys and books,
  • the wonderful mistakes I’ve made in my life that put me on the path to meet my husband,
  • and the people I’ve met along the way who have added sparkle to my life.

In a few days’ time, I’ll be in the noisy, joyous midst of Christmas Day with its own vibrant magic. Today, I’ll enjoy the more subtle magic of the beginning of winter.

All the best for a peaceful Winter Solstice.

What to give Writers for Christmas?

what to give writers for Christmas

First question: Do you have friends and family who are writers? It doesn’t matter if they’re published or not. If they write, they’re writers.

Second question: Do you know what to get them for Christmas and how to help them enjoy the festive season?

If the answer to the first question is ‘yes’ but you’re veering towards a ‘no’ for the second, I may be able to help.

Stationery

No, no, it isn’t boring. Most writers are stationery addicts – pens, pencils, notepads, journals, post-it notes, erasers, pencil sharpeners, pencil cases, rulers… The list is endless.

Delight a writer by gifting them a stationery bundle. It doesn’t have to be fancy stuff but if you want to make it extra special, customise a notepad or a pen or a pencil case with their name or some writerly term like, well, ‘writer’.

Books and Magazines on Writing

There are so many wonderful books out there by writers for writers. A personal favourite is Stephen King’s On Writing, but your writerly friend might also like:

The Writers and Artists’ Yearbook is my personal bible, providing up to date information on publishers, agents and excellent advice from the industry.

There are various writing related magazines. A good choice for all writers is the aptly named Writing Magazine which incorporates Writers News. A similar publication is Writers Forum. For women writers, there’s also Mslexia.

You could even buy a subscription to one of the writing magazines for your writerly loved one.

Writerly Accessories and House Goods

What do I mean by house-goods? Well, it could be something as small as a fridge magnet, or as luxurious as a cushion.

Nothing makes a writer happier than supping their coffee from a writer-themed mug or donning their writing-gloves.

Space Online

What I mean by this is a blog. Now, I know what you’re thinking – I don’t have that kind of money to spend – but not every online presence has to cost a fortune.

Blogger provides a free blog service with a variety of designs that you can personalise to your loved one’s taste. There’s Tumblr too.

Why not set up a blog for them to share their writing?

Buy Their Books and Post a Review

If your writerly loved one has a book, or books, out there in the big, wide world and you haven’t yet purchased a copy, why not show your support by buying one and then posting a lovely review on Amazon or GoodReads?

After all, one of the best ways to support a writer is to not only buy their books but also shout out to the world just how wonderful their writing is.

Time

Any writer’s internal editor offers more than enough excuses to put off their writing. Add that to the daily grind and it can often seem that there just isn’t enough time in the day to get any writing done.

If your partner is a writer, then giving them an hour a day when you won’t disturb them or expect them to do anything but write can be a wonderful gift.

If your writer friend is a parent, why not offer to take their children to the park or soft-play for an hour so they can get on with some writing.

Time can be difficult for any of us to find but is the most special of gifts for a writer.

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So there you have it – some lovely ways to give to your writerly friends in the festive season, ranging from as much money as you want to spend to simply your time, love and patience.

Looking Back Over 2020

looking back over 2020

I normally take a moment in December to look back over the year that is almost at an end, but 2020 has hardly been a ‘normal’ year. So I’m taking that moment in November instead.

The Elephant in the World’s Front Room

Whether you’re writing a novel based in the here and now, reporting the news, or penning a blog post, there is no getting away from the fact that Covid-19 is here and taking a large slice of our ongoing consciousness.

I’ve heard 2020 referred to as ‘the year we all stayed in’ and ‘the year that didn’t happen’. To me, 2020 was the year that most of us realised what and who were important to us.

Friendships and family contact went online for many of us. I haven’t met up with my in-laws since before the lockdown began. Instead, we have Sunday video-calls, complete with our dogs barking to each other excitedly. I’ve met up with one local friend, twice, this year. The restrictions of the pandemic have forced the rest of my friendship conversations online and over the phone. Chats with our neighbours are done at a distance, often from the other side of the road, but we’re still there for each other.

Both of my children turned ‘adult’ this year. My son is now 16 (the first step to being a grown-up) and my daughter is 18. Neither birthday was marked with a party or expensive celebration. Instead, they were quiet family occasions, just the four of us, with a takeaway in the back garden over the summer for my son’s birthday, and then a quick, masked-up trip to Pizza Hut for my daughter’s eighteenth in the autumn.

Of course, we’re now on the verge of not just one but possibly three Covid-19 vaccines. Fingers crossed that they are healthy and effective and mean that 2021 isn’t a repeat of this year.

Guest Blogging

The writerly blogging community rallied around each other during the pandemic, reaching out to make sure that none of us went unheard or were left feeling isolated. As a result, I featured on several of their lovely websites in 2020:

A big, warm, thank you to all you for allowing me to introduce myself to your readers.

Writing

One benefit of having extra time on my hands was that I made good progress on the second book in the Haven Chronicles series. By the end of the summer, Burning Chair offered me a publishing deal for it – phew!

The lovely Si from Burning Chair will be getting his editing mitts on my manuscript in December, and Book 2 (with whatever title we decide on) will be published early 2021.

I also contributed a few pieces to 2020 Together: An Anthology of Shorts. All profits go to NHS Charities Together Covid-19 Appeal. So far, 2020 Together has raised over £600 for the charity.

A follow-up collection of shorts, 2021: Still Together will continue the good work when it is released at the end of this month. I’ve got a couple of pieces in that too.

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So there you have it. That was my 2020 so far – weird, mostly in-doors, and spent with the people I love. It’s not the year I envisioned on the first day of January and it has certainly been a challenge. Still, there have been plenty of gems amongst the pebbles.

How about you? How has your 2020 turned out?

5 Scary Reads for the Halloween season

5 scary reads for Halloween

If you want to get into the mood for the Halloween season, nothing tops a scary read, or two.

Whether your preferred scares are ghosts, vampires, re-animated corpses, demonic, or psychological, I have a book to suit.

The Graveyard Book

the graveyard book by neil gaiman

The Graveyard Book is aimed at a 12+ readership but, in my opinion, readers of any age over 12 would appreciate this story of how a boy finds family in the most unexpected of places.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts.

There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod’s family.

Neil Gaiman weaves his usual wit and magic in this wonderful, spooky read.

Haunted

As you can probably tell from the title, this is a ghost story, told wonderfully by the author James Herbert.

David Ash, a psychic investigator, is invited to Edbrook, a remote country house, where an alleged ‘haunting’ is taking place. There he meets the Mariell family – two brothers, Robert and Simon, their younger sister, Christina, and their aunt, Nanny Tess.

Ash is renowned for his dismissal of all things supernatural, having exposed many fake mediums in the past as well as invariably finding natural causes for so-called psychic phenomena. He has a deep psychological reason for refuting such unearthly occurrences.

But at Edbrook there is a mystery which cannot easily be explained.

If you want an old-fashioned, creep-up-on-you-slowly ghost story, Haunted is the read for you. There are even two follow-up novels, The Ghosts of Sleath and Ash.

Frankenstein

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of my favourite books of all time.

Most of us are familiar with the Frankenstein trope in some form or another, whether it’s Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster or Herman Munster. The actual novel, however, is a well-penned tale of one man’s arrogance and the consequences he faces, the struggle and abandonment faced by the monster, vengeance and gut-wrenching heart-break.

And if you were in any doubt, I’m on the monster’s side.

Rosemary’s Baby

I came across a battered copy of this novel when I had a Saturday job in a local shoe shop. We had a small cupboard of a staff room that overlooked the busy, shopping street below. I found Rosemary’s Baby stuffed under the window-seat. When I asked the other staff members, none of them said it was there’s so it became my lunchtime read.

Rosemary and her husband Guy move into an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents.

Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them; despite Rosemary’s reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare.

As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets’ circle is not what it seems.

Rosemary’s Baby is a short read but a good one.

Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, I know that isn’t a book title, but there are so many Halloween-worthy reads by this author. Look out for:

  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
  • The Pit and the Pendulum
  • The Masque of the Red Death
  • The Tell-Tale Heart
  • The Raven
  • Hop-Frog

Those are only six scary Poe reads but there are so many more.

So there you have it – five (or more) scary reads for this Halloween season.

Have a thoroughly spooky time.

Book 2 of the Haven Chronicles is on the way

book 2 of the haven chronicles is on the way

I can officially announce that Burning Chair Publishing have offered me a publishing contract for the second book in my YA fantasy series.

On 14th September, I happily emailed my signed publishing contract back to Burning Chair and began the process of editing my manuscript after receiving feedback from Pete and Si.

So what’s the process and the plan for Book 2 from here?

  • What I’m doing at the moment is editing my novel in response to Pete and Si’s feedback. Once finished, I’ll email that off to Burning Chair (version 2).
  • As you can see, my novel is still known as Book 2. I need to come up with a book title.
  • Burning Chair will create a developmental edit document and email it back to me.
  • I’ll then edit my manuscript and email it back to them (version 3).
  • Burning Chair will carry out a copy edit to check for inconsistencies.
  • More editing on my part, then back to Burning Chair (version 4).
  • In discussion with Burning Chair, the book cover design process will begin.
  • Once the content of the manuscript is agreed on and we have a book cover, Book 2 will be sent out to beta readers.
  • With the feedback from the beta readers, I’ll make final changes to my novel (version 5).

The plan is to publish Book 2 at the start of 2021, unless we can get through the whole process above in time for publication in mid November (who knows?).

What can you expect from Book 2?

Steve and his friends will be forced to face the consequences of their actions in Haven Wakes. The world of the Haven Chronicles series – both magical and work-a-day – will be expanded beyond the city of Caercester. A new threat will raise its head, dragging Steve and the others back into danger.

If you want to know the inspiration behind the first book in the series, have a look at this article from last year.

Follow my writing journey of Book 2 on my Twitter account.