Showing posts with label #blogging #writing #author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #blogging #writing #author. Show all posts

Saturday, 30 May 2026

Self-publishing The Neighbour on Post Office Lane

I'm in the process of giving my novel one last read through - you'd think I was sick of it by now, but I LOVE reading this book, even if it is mine. So I REALLY hope you'll love it too.
 
As it looks like I will have to self-publish it, and this is all very new to me, I want to make sure I'm getting the pricing right. 

The Neighbour on Post Office Lane is now available for pre-order... and on Amazon is a draft book cover currently, as KDP needed me to upload something.
 
I'd love to know your thoughts on the blurb, the pricing... I'd like my readers to help me on my journey. 

Take a look at what it'll look like on Amazon

And here are my working projects for the new cover... Which is your favourite? 

1

2

3 (My favourite)



Monday, 24 March 2025

Happy 18th Birthday, Kieran! Two Adult Boys In The House


That's it. I no longer have children. Both of my boys are adults, one isn't even a teenager anymore! 

Happy 18th Birthday, Kieran! 

I am always incredibly proud of you. Keep being you, only maybe a little less grumpy - ha ha.

Your birthday, last year.
You work so hard in your job and at college, and I know you'll do great at University in September, training to be a physiotherapist.



I don't have that many photos of you on your own, because unlike your brother, you don't like having your photo taken - by me, anyway. 

However, when you were younger (and cuter) you loved having your photo taken. 

Anway, you'll always be my cute, cheeky Kamikaze Kieran. 



You may have grown out of Spiderman and pirates, but I will love you always and forever, Mum x x x 




(Below is a montage of photos - some with your brother when you used to get on better! All of you when you were cute!) 


This is when I put vaseline in my hair!

This is when I was at my cutest - asleep!

I helped make these with Mum. 

Always the pirate!

Always a lover of football!

Animal Farm day out. Mum loves this photo!

Bath time :)


Monday, 29 April 2024

A Doubt In My Storytelling

I went to Telford the other weekend for a company event with UW. 

UW is a FTSE250 company and as a partner I help people save money on their bills, and it helps me earn an additional income, so I have the time freedom to write. 

I was with my friend and mentor, Sue, who introduced me to the business just under four years ago. She is also an avid and prolific reader - in that she prefers a physical book, not an eBook. Her favourite books are the Outlander series. (She was reading them before the series.) She also likes prosecco so this could be why we get on so well. 

If we're not discussing UW, we are talking books whilst sharing a bottle of prosecco! 

Anyway, she'd read Meet Me At Wisteria Cottage, then Plus One is a Lucky Number - I had gifted her a copy of my paperback in the old cover. 

She said that she found Plus One easier to get into than Maeve Binchey's Circle of Friends! After finishing Plus One she asked me which one should she read next, so I said One Fine Day

On Sunday, before the event truly started, while we perused the stalls and grabbed a coffee, she told me she'd finished One Fine Day in four days on her trip to/from Brussels. She loved it and couldn't put it down. Incidentally, she loved the other two books too, and she admitted that the romance genre wouldn't be her usual go to, but she had thoroughly enjoyed my books. 

The reason I'm sharing this is because I have been doubting my storytelling. With rejections for my latest manuscript, where I was hoping it would find a home with a bigger publisher, I've been wondering if I need to rethink my stories, even the genre I write in. 

However, on Sunday, as we were empowered and inspired by brilliant stories from ordinary people, I made the decision that I will continue with romance. I write a damn good story! I just need to find the right publisher. 

I do worry I don't write a strong enough conflict, but if truth be told, when I'm reading a story and it just feels so unbelievable, I can find myself rolling my eyes. So, I write stories that my reader can get invested in, believe, and most importantly, the hero is someone they could meet and fall in love with.

If you've read any of my books, and enjoyed them, please ensure you leave a review where you purchased the book from. This really does help the author. 

Obviously, if you hated it - and you're within your rights to feel that way, I'm not everyone's cup of tea - I'd rather not know... 

Thursday, 21 July 2022

Social Media Overwhelm Anyone?

Is anyone else feeling social media overwhelm? Or even overload? 

If you own a business you get told that you need to be on social media. Although, you're not to 'sell' but you need to be showing you, your human side, not some robot. People buy from people and all that. 

On the writer side, I'm on there to connect with readers, but find myself followed by other writers, or book reviewers offering to review my books - for a fee! A few readers connect, but I've not got to the point of being bombarded with fan mail! 

And when I think, right, let's do some social media, but there are so many social media channels... Where do I go first? 

I sit on business networking, listen to all these social media gurus that tell us what we should and shouldn't be doing. But quite honestly, I don't have the time. I'm a fairly organised woman but bloody hell, the last thing I want to do on a Sunday is schedule my social media for the bloomin' week! And it really feels like a life suck sometimes. But once upon a time social media was spontaneous... now it's scheduled... 

And it's not always positive. We're all comparing, and bitching. It's just drama. I try to keep my posts on my social media positive now, but that doesn't mean my life is all rosey. (It's not bad actually, I can't complain. UW has changed my mindset for the better, two of my books are in Prime Reads... I'm happily single... and I'm digressing...) 

It used to be about friends connecting - especially on Facebook - which I do love, because I've reconnected with so many people that I wouldn't have done otherwise. But now Facebook feels like it's an advertising platform - so I see these friends less and less. And then you're panicking if you're still actually 'friends'. 

Seriously, I Google something for research purposes, or take a look at something on Amazon, and the next minute I'm constantly seeing adverts for these things either via Instagram or Facebook. It's a good job I write romance... dread to think what my adverts would contain if I wrote horror or crime. 

I bought a phone case from a company and now all I see is this company! FFS! I've bought the phone case - how many more do I need? Or do phone's need a wardrobe of phone cases now? 

I've tried Reels. But that can frustrate the hell out of me. Take half-an-hour, or longer, just when I should be putting my phone down to go to bed, to create a reel for it to not load, or there's a typo, or it's not quite done what I wanted it to do. Or it's just fucking crashed! At midnight! FFS! 

It's taken me less time to write this blog post - but nobody will read it because it's not a video. I don't even get comments anymore... Do you remember when people left comments on blogs? God, those were the days! 

If you have read this blog post, all the way to the end, thank you! Xxxx I just needed to get that off my chest.