This has been one of those weeks where I worry that I’m bombarding my friends’ and readers’ social media feeds with too many announcements. But there’s been no way around it – I’ve simply had a lot to shout about! Everything is a big deal when you’re in your early days as an author, so you get a lot of moments you want to share.
Most important was announcing that my first two books – Door-To-Door Sally and Archie & The Invisible Emporium – are now available in print! (It was so tricky getting the measurements and tones on those covers just right.) There’s not much difference between the Amazon and BookVault print copies, but I would say that BookVault (via their Great British Bookshop) definitely has the edge in terms of the ‘feel’ and quality.
Then I also revealed my swanky new author photos – taken by my son George. So proud of him and so happy with the results. I also popped a couple of pics up about working in a different place a couple of days this week and then posted a congratulations message for my friend Neil on the launch of his new book!
And I’m just about to do yet another post about my website finally being live and kicking 🙂 Then that’ll be it for the week – promise!
Thanks!
As ever, I really appreciate you taking the time to read this. Whoever you are, I’d love to know more about you and how you came to be checking out this post. Please do leave a message in the comments.
personal news
On top of all the announcements above, I also put up a quick post about our 15-year-old son’s band getting tipped by local radio. They’re getting played an are in the studio there on 5th July! Another proud moment 🙂
Kids – keep following your dreams, whatever they are. It doesn’t have to be success in music, sports or films – you could invent something awesome, care for people or animals, create a new flavour, break the sail-round-the world record, discover new medicines or make people happy in a thousand other ways – anything! You might need to work out a plan, but just do it.
In other personal news, I looked back at the video I posted about the books being available in print and realised I should have tidied my hair and had a shave! Argh! Where’s a stylist when you need one?
book tip
This week, my big tip has got to go to ‘Time Travelling With A Hamster’ by Ross Welford. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but ended up completely spellbound by this tale of a boy’s mission to change his world for the better using his dad’s home-made time machine.
The twists and turns the main character encounters as he travels back and forth through time, seeing how his life (and his home!) might have ended up if events in his dad’s childhood had taken a different path are both fascinating and moving in equal measure. I loved how the author speaks through the child’s mind, the curiosity and imagination behind the ideas in the book, and the gentle, easy-to-read style.
And you really root for the protagonist as he desperately tries to make everything right, which is the most important thing of all.
writing tip
There’s a bit of a split in the writing community between people who are ‘planners’ or ‘pantsers’.
Planners work out how their book is going to go and plan the storyline, incidents, characters, chapters, etc, before they get down to writing. Pantsers like to write by the seat of their pants! Making it up as they go along, they are not sure how things are going to work out. They are on as much of a rollercoaster ride and the reader will be – except they get to go back and edit!
My advice is definitely to plan whatever it is you’re going to write. You’ll end up getting a clear idea of your characters and what they need to do to be happy, and work out all the action, the conflict, the stakes and the success before you get down to all the really hard work. You might think it takes the fun out of it, but it’s exactly the opposite – you’re free to work on the wordcraft and the subtleties of the plot without getting writer’s block or pondering how you’re going to get your characters out of one sticky situation and into another.
Planning make writing faster and more fun, in the end. But don’t feel you need to stick to your plan entirely if a new, more interesting aspect to your story pops into your head! Be flexible.
What I’m working on
This week, I’ve been mostly working on formatting the next Our Weird World book – Spring-Heeled James – for eBook and paperback, which always take longer than you expect, especially when you keep spotting tiny errors in the text you need to change. It’s so important to run your eyes over the text of a book one more time. There will always be something you missed because you focused on all the other things you spotted last time!
I also created the logo for a new upcoming series: Bug Squad!
Although, now I’m thinking the next series to get going will be ‘Jet Pet’… So, I’ll have to create a new logo for that too! It’s difficult to chose which to work on first. I wonder what you’d like to see? Let me know which name grabs you most.
upcoming events
Next week, I’ll be going along to the Marketing Meeting in Ipswich on Tuesday 4th June. It’ll be a welcome chance to touch base again with old marketing friends and share how we’re all doing. These events are always full of lovely people, and I’m really looking forward to it.
And I’m still looking forward to the Self-Publishing Show Live conference at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on June 25-26!
Until next time, have a great weekend and a good week coming up!
All the best,
Doug 🙂