My Books
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A Place in Greece
Gabrielle buys a ramshackle property in Greece and ends up with a new life and maybe a new love...
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Getting Away
An accidental kidnapping results in unexpected adventure for our girl Nancy, who not only finds her true self, she also finds true love...
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Sand in my shoes
Join Ella and her friends on their girls' holiday to the sunny island of Crete, Greece. Returning home, the memories come flooding back of the fun they had and of Yiannis, the barmen she met there...

Lessons Learned - So Far (so Good!)

As a new Indie author, there is an incredibly huge amount of stuff to learn. I'm forever listening to podcasts and reading posts about those authors with several books under their belts - some who churn out books every couple of months. Many have thousands of followers and are making seven-figure salaries.

I must admit, my marketing skills are pretty basic and I haven’t even attempted to advertise anywhere. I haven’t got millions of followers on Instagram and I don’t really know where to start with TikTok - the latest platform for making authors into New York Times bestsellers!

So rather than become despondent about falling behind or jealous of those who seem to know it all, I decided to make myself feel better. I stopped to make a list of all the things I’ve learned since deciding to self-publish my book a couple of years ago. And here it is…

Craft & Writing

How to write dialogue 

What genres are out there

Different romance tropes

The different types of editors 

How to find an editor

How to write a blurb

How to write a short story

How to use ProWriting Aid to self-edit

What passive voice is

How to use Scrivener to plan and write my books

 

Publishing

How to set up a pen name

What publishing ‘wide’ means

How to format a book

Where to get a book cover artist

Where I can publish my book

How to open an Amazon Author account

How to publish on Amazon

How to get an ISBN

What front matter and back matter is

What KU/KDP Select is

How to find keywords

What Beta readers are

What ARCs are

 

Socials

Where to find free images

How to post on Instagram

How to create an Instagram Story or Reel

How to use Later to plan my Instagram posts

How to set up a TikTok account (only just and I only have 1 video but I did it!)

How to use Canva for social media posts

How to design my own book cover on Canva (still a lot to learn here!)

Set up my accounts on Link Tree


Marketing

What a reader magnet is

How to write a newsletter

How to set up a newsletter service on Mailerlite & MailChimp

How to set up a PO address

How to send the reader magnet to readers through Book Funnell

Who my readers are

How to set up and use Good Reads

How to add my book to Trip Fiction

How to write blog posts for my website

What are Ingram Spark, Draft 2 Digital, BookBub etc


And yes, I may not be an expert in any of these fields, but I know a helluva lot more than I did two years ago! 


So, the moral of the story (pardon the pun) is to stop comparing myself with other authors, especially those who are further down the road than me. Stop panicking about what I don’t know and take time to congratulate myself on how far I’ve come. After all, the fun is in the learning process and the little successes along the way! Here’s to the future and the next steps of my author journey!

 

 

By sharing my content you are helping me reach a wider audience - thank you!