Notes From The RNA Conference, 2016 —Author Marketing: Brand, Plans And Goals

I had a great time at the RNA Conference 2016 in Lancaster last week. It was four days of networking, industry appointments, and fun. 

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting some of the notes I made on each of the sessions I attended, so follow this blog using the sign-up on the right of this page to make sure you don't miss anything!

To kick off, here are a few bullet points from the Author Marketing Session, presented by that great double act, best-selling authors Liz Fenwick and Brigid Coady. All the photographs are by John Jackson. I know my limitations behind a lens...

Brigid Coady

• Start by writing the best book you can. All your marketing efforts should take second place to that. 
• A brand is a promise. Every interaction with your readers should add value to your brand, and create an emotional attachment.
• Katie Fforde and Carole Matthews are fantastic “brands”
• What are you willing to share online? Does it fit with what you write?
• R J Ellory, the crime writer who faked his own reviews, was cited as a "damaged brand" which is taking a long time to recover.

Liz Fenwick

• Avoid politics and religion when you’re interacting online
• Keep a flow of information and interaction between you and your readers on Facebook, Twitter etc, always promoting the same values
• Find out everything you can about your target audience. If they’re Australian, make sure you’re on social media at midnight, etc. Be where they are, when they’re there. 

  

  Lancaster University Campus

• Use scheduling services  such as Tweetdeck, but take care tragic international events don’t overtake your happy tweets.
• Support local bookshops and library campaigns to get your name out there. 
• Engage your reader with everything from the cover, through blurb, bio, photo and your first page.
• Use Facebook Author page to monitor stats and help understand your audience.
• Liz and Brigid decided they spent about 3 hours writing and 1 hour on marketing, every day.

Don't forget to follow my blog by signing up at the top of this page, to make sure you don't miss the next instalment of my notes from the RNA Conference, 2016.

So You Want To Write A Book? Part Four...

1. Whatever you write, pour your heart and soul into it. If you believe in your work, then so will your readers, and you want to appeal to the widest possible audience. Read widely, join book clubs and talk to people. The more research you do into finding out what people like to read, the happier you can make them.

2. Find yourself a successful mentor, preferably by making personal contact through your membership of a good professional group, such as the Romantic Novelists' Association, or the Romance Writers Of America. You need someone you respect, who knows what they're talking about, who'll be honest about your work, and suggest ways you can improve. If you can't find any face-to-face guidance, go online and check out popular writers whose work you admire and see if they’ve produced any guides to writing that will help you.

3. Word of mouth recommendations drive the majority of book sales, so think creatively when it comes to getting your books into the hands of willing readers. If your book is good, your readers will spread the word far and wide, at no expense to you. Above all, enjoy your writing and remember—success isn’t only measured in financial terms. To have completed a book you’re proud to have written is a great achievement.

To make sure you don't miss any of my top tips, follow my blog using the sign-up form on the right hand sidebar of this page. I send out a newsletter a couple of times a year with news about my writing, country life, competitions and offers—join my mailing list here.

So You Want To Write A Book? Part Two...

1. Read as much as you can. Don't restrict yourself to the genre in which you write. Try everything, from classics to pulp, new to old, fiction, faction or non-fiction. For instance, how many of these have you read? That's this week's homework! ;)

2. Join a class in creative writing, whether ‘real’ or online. It's where I got my big break. Visit your local library (in this age of cuts to budgets, they need all the support they can get) to find out about local groups for readers and writers, and check out online sites such as http://romanceuniversity.org. 

3. Join groups such as The Romantic Novelists’ Association (http://www.rna-uk.org/) in the UK or Romance Writers of America (http://www.rwa.org/) who provide lots of useful information and contacts. The Marcher chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association has been a great help to me. The support of other writers, and the constructive criticism provided by writing workshops is invaluable.

To make sure you don't miss any of my top tips, follow my blog using the sign-up form on the right hand sidebar of this page. I send out a newsletter a couple of times a year with news about my writing, country life, competitions and offers—join my mailing list here.

So You Want To Write A Book? Three Top Tips...

1. Start with social media. There are two great reasons for this: commitment, and publicity. Talk's cheap. Anyone can say they're going to write a book. When you put the word out about your ambition on Facebook, it's there for everyone to see, for all time. You've made a commitment. Your friends can encourage you. Post extracts, and Tweet teasers to get feedback from your audience. They're potential readers for your finished book. Let them in on the ground floor of your ambition.

2. Set aside some dedicated writing time every single day. Carry a notebook with you everywhere. Keep a diary, and make quick notes about everything you see, hear and think. If you only manage a handful of words a day, that will make a sizeable haul in no time. You'll have created a source of inspiration you can draw on, all through your writing career.

3.  When you get a minute to yourself, alone, read your work aloud. You'll catch all sorts of things you don't notice when you're in the act of writing. Injecting some feeling into your precious words as you speak will make the good bits sing, and encourage you. It also shows you where you need to add punctuation, or alter your sentence structure.

To make sure you don't miss any of my top tips, follow my blog using the sign-up form on the right hand sidebar of this page. I send out a newsletter a couple of times a year with news about my writing, country life, competitions and offers—join my mailing list here.

This Writing Life—Cover Reveal for My Dream Guy...

myBook.to/MyDreamGuy 

In my summer newsletter, I held a competition for readers to choose between potential covers for my next short story, My Dream Guy. The names of everyone who voted went into a draw to win a preview copy of my next short romance, My Dream Guy, and Emma’s name was first out of the hat. Here’s the cover my subscribers chose. What do you think? 

My Dream Guy is based on a holiday OH booked as a surprise when we hadn’t been together long. I really did not want to go. I was too busy at work, the weather had been foul for weeks and wasn’t forecast to get any better, while to cap it all, this was an outdoor activity holiday. I’d much rather sit in a wood than fly through it on a zip wire, but when you’re first in love, you don't always say things like that out loud! I was all ready to be a martyr, but I got a big shock when I discovered my own dream guy had hidden depths... 

Emily gets a wake-up call too in my new story, My Dream Guy. The sparkle’s gone out of her relationship with Jack. She’s started hankering after the guy who was her first crush. Back then, Harri was a bronzed, twenty-something farmer who hardly paid any attention to the tongue-tied kid camping in his field with her family. Now Emily’s older, she’s thinks Harri the Hunk’s going to be the best thing about her dreaded holiday to a Welsh campsite, during the wettest summer on record. 

She’s in for an enormous shock—and then her boyfriend Jack springs an even bigger surprise. 

Can Emily’s holiday from hell ever have a happy ending?

There’ll be more about My Dream Guy in my autumn newsletter. That will have all sorts of news about life here at Tottering Towers, including the latest on Heart of A Hostage, the next book in my Princes Of Kharova series for The Wild Rose Press, an update on my bees and the kitchen garden harvest, together with a seasonal recipe, and a competition for subscribers only.

 My next newsletter will be out in the autumn. To get a copy, you can join my mailing list here: http://bit.ly/1eKihHg 

How Much Money Is Your Writing Making...

By Antonio Litterio

...For Other People?

It used to be almost impossible to get published. Hardly any publishers would look at unsolicited manuscripts. Unless you had an agent, you couldn't get anywhere. Agents had such a huge pool of talent to fish in, they could pick and choose whether or not they even answered your enquiry.   If you were desperate to see your work in print, the only other option was vanity publishers, who wanted a lot of money from you, then delivered very little.

The explosion of self-publishing and the huge presence of Amazon has changed all that. Getting your name on the cover of a book is practically obligatory these days, and to upload your work in the hope your blog (or ebook) goes viral costs nothing. Or does it?

I'm not talking about the cost of stationery, computers, writing courses, and subscriptions to group such as The Society Of Authors, The Romantic Novelists' Association, or the Romance Writers of America. All these are vital, practical, tax-deductible, and in the case of stationery and local group meetings, recreational. (I'm a kid in a sweetshop when it comes to browsing round anywhere like Staples.)

It's the little extras that add up to big deductions. The 2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Author Survey discovered that over three-quarters of writers earn less than £600/$1,000. If you can bear to see the painful facts, read more here. When you consider that even big publishers expect you to spend money (or at least plenty of time, which comes to the same thing in the end) on publicising your book, you'll see it's important to spend carefully.

If you go the route of conventional publishing, all the editing, production and artistic costs should be covered by the firm. Some tiny independents may ask for a sub. This doesn't necessarily mean they're a vanity outfit—they may just be keen to get some help with costs, which will secure your devotion to their cause. Get your contract checked by The Society ofAuthors or a literary attorney, to make sure.

If you decide to self-publish, join a group such as The Alliance Of Independent Authors, and do plenty of research. Spend money on getting your work professionally edited, and in hiring a good cover artist but beyond that, think carefully about whether you really need all the dozens of other lovely services on offer. Always remember, the definition of an expert is only a person who knows 3% more than you do! Keep your eyes and ears open: word of mouth is as good a way to find reliable editors and artists as it is to find good books.

And don't think that once your book is out in the public domain all you have to do is wait for your £600 to come rolling in.  Not only are there sharks circling before you publish, the virtual high seas are full of pirates. Philip Pullman put it perfectly when he said "Stealing music and books online is like picking pockets". You can read more of what he said here. It's not a happy article but as they say on the true crime programmes, "don't have nightmares". Writing's the best job there is. Look on anything you earn as a bonus (but make sure you hang onto as much of the money you get as you can!).

This Writing Life: Four (nearly!) Painless Ways To Deal With Tax

The Death of Chatterton, by Henry Wallis

Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, says the old song. Tax and money go together like glue and honey. Unless you've got both under control, they become a sticky mess.

The second you start earning money from your writing, you're in business. Like it or not, that means keeping records. Writers earn a lot less than you might think—see here for the bad news—but while your dreams of sealing a deal worth millions may have to go on hold, HMRC and the IRS wait for no author.

It's better to get a basic system of recording the amounts of money you handle well before you need it, so here are my four top tips for shrinking a painful process...

THE RULE OF HALVES

Romance writer Kate Walker gives some great advice to new writers: whatever you earn, however small the figure, put half of it straight into a separate account that's hard to access. Don't touch it. WHATEVER THE TEMPTATION. That way, you build up a fighting fund ready for the moment an envelope full of the Tax Dragon's finest drops on your doorstep.

If you're up for a challenge, you can take this one step further. From the half of your earnings you have left, put half of that into a savings account that's slightly easier to access. You can then dip into that pool of medium-term savings for sudden, unexpected bills. In other words, the "average" writer's earnings of £600/$1,000 per year becomes only £150/$250 of actual fun money. To prove I'm not completely made of stone, I'll let you do what you like with that.

All Contributions Gratefully Received http://bit.ly/1GQPIIq

ENVELOPE IT ALL

Take twelve large, plain, white business envelopes. Label one for each month of the year. Every time you buy stationery, pay your RNA or RWA dues, renew your web hosting, get an advance or some royalties, put the receipts, invoices and all other paperwork in the appropriate envelope. Take a note of any insurance premiums, your utility bills and business mileage, too. Tax planning and writing are alike in that it's better to collect too much detail to begin with, rather than not enough. If The Powers That Be want to pick and choose what they're interested in, then they can. Whether you're dealing with receipts or words, producing extra to order and at short notice is always a nightmare. Less is most definitely not more when it comes to tax planning.

INVESTIGATE...

...tax thresholds and bands long before you need to know about them.  That way you'll avoid any nasty shocks. If you have no income other than from writing, contact your local library or check on line for reputable sources of free advice, such as the Citizen's Advice Bureaux. Yes, it's possible to do your own tax returns if they're simple, but as soon as you possibly can, pay an accountant to do them for you. They spend their whole working lives keeping up to date with the latest legislation, and can pay for themselves by spotting things you might miss. If nothing else, they'll have professional liability insurance to cover any mistakes they might make. Your cousin's friend who "always does his own books and can do yours, too" isn't likely to have that. He may be setting himself (and you) up for a self-assessed disaster.

DO IT NOW!

This is the carrot. The tax office holds the stick.

Tax planning takes twice as long tomorrow, four times as long next week and...well, you get the picture. Not only will you have the threat of that horrible job hanging over you, receipts and invoices never stop mounting up. Unless you take control, the situation can only get worse. And the funny thing is, once you grit your teeth and attack the task, it doesn't take half as long as you think.  I sat down this weekend to create a spreadsheet from my twelve envelopes of paperwork. It took me no more than two hours and I rewarded myself with cake as well as a cup of tea when I'd finished. I'll deliver my spreadsheet, and all the supporting paperwork, to my accountant later today. My warm glow of smug satisfaction will last until the accountant's bill arrives—which I'll put straight into the right monthly envelope, of course. (Oh, really? Ed.)

Birth Of A Book, Part One: From Thinking To Writing...

By Antonio Litterio

Where do you get your ideas? is the question every writer gets asked, all the time. The answer is so simple, once you discover what it is you'll never believe it was so hard to find. It's in your bath. Or at the top of a tree, the bottom of a bucket, or...anywhere, and everywhere. You get the idea.

Think about the person who asked that question. They'll have channeled a million thoughts between getting up in that morning, and putting an author on the spot. Any one of those thoughts has the potential to become a funny story, a furious rant, or even a novel.

Imagine you got caught by a traffic warden, because you were five minutes late back to the parking bay. You were delayed because you couldn't catch your dog. If you wanted to write a romance, imagine a handsome guy came to help you. Your dog bit him, and...

...Or if you wanted to write a thriller, maybe your dog ran away because he got the scent of...what? Drugs? A body? An escaped tiger?

There are three or four embryo ideas developed from an everyday situation that could happen to anyone.

Coming Soon...

The only difference between someone who writes, and someone who quizzes writers is that one notes everything down to use in evidence...or at least, for inspiration. Get yourself in the right mindset, and you'll find inspiration everywhere. The internet, TV and radio are good launch pads. The lyrics of a song that make you think, a local headline that intrigues you but never makes the nationals, they're happy hunting grounds for the author.

His Majesty's Secret Passion, the first book in my current series, The Princes Of Kharova, sprang from a competition asking for the first ten pages of a romantic novel. I'd just read this article in Time Magazine about an alternative heir to the English throne. The real-life Mike Hastings wasn't remotely interested in staking his claim to Queen Elizabeth's crown, but I couldn't help wondering how unhappy he'd have been if he was forced by circumstances to take on the job. Escapist romance demands exotic locations, independent women, heroes with issues and an aspirational feel. My initial idea soon developed into an overworked career-woman forced to take a holiday for her health, who is thrown together with a dedicated doctor who had to abandoned his studies for the sake of family loyalty.

By making loads of notes, I developed my initial thoughts into the basic framework of a novel. This all happened in my spare time, before I sat down at the computer. Once there, I had to flesh out my hero and heroine. The best way of doing that is to create character sheets for each of your major characters. I'll cover that next time. Until then, keep up to date with  His Majesty's Secret Passion and the other titles in the Princes of Kharova series by visiting my Author page on Facebook, and clicking on the "like" button.

Back To The Future...RNA Conference 2014

A Small Selection...

I spent Saturday, 12th July at the Annual conference of the Romantic Novelists' Association. It was held at The Harper Adams University (how often did I almost say "Harper Collins"?) in Shropshire. Despite a day that started at 4am and a total of five hours' driving, I haven't had so much fun in a long time.

The biggest problem I had was deciding which talks to attend. In the end I settled for  Carol McGrath's "Bringing Mediaeval Women to Life", Jessica Hart/Pamela Hartshorne's "One Author, Two Genres", Alison Baverstock's "Self Publishing Trends" with Hazel Gaynor, Ian Skillicorn's "Going Solo", and a couple of symposia on the future of publishing industry. It's almost impossible to pick out individual highlights as there were so many, but discovering Jessica/Pamela is another writer who's a devotee of The Sunne In Splendour was definitely right up there with finding out how easy it is (allegedly!) to turn files on a MAC into .mobi files.

As I only had a day ticket, the worst part was coming away and leaving everyone after the last talk of the afternoon. On the other hand, the overflowing goody bag I was given definitely softened the blow. I arrived home with a teetering TBR pile, and a week's supply of chocolate (which I virtuously handed over to DD and Son No. 1) and biscuits (which I dunked and downed before they could set eyes on them).

I'm definitely going to sign up for the whole conference in 2015, when it's going to be held in London. My only worry is that if choosing which talks to attend for a one-day visit was tricky, it's going to be a lot more difficult when I have to select options for a long weekend!

If you've never attended a writers' conference before, try and get to one. Writing is such a solitary business, it's good to get out and socialise. Conference, like life, isn't just about writing.You'll learn a lot about people, too–and it's characters who drive great storytelling.

Come on, all you seasoned conference-goers! Which one do you like best, and why?

Three Top Tips For Managing Your Writing Project...

by Antonio Litterio

1. Keep all your notes. That’s easy advice for natural hoarders! You also need some way of finding exactly what you want, when you want it without being distracted by other interesting snippets along the way. WWILF (or What Was I Looking For?) is a constant danger when trawling through files, whether they're computer or paper. Mustrum Ridcully’s First Available Horizontal Surface method of filing only works until you actually want to find something. Organize your computer documents into files, give each one a memorable name and make a separate, detailed index somewhere else, to make sure you can still recall important data instantly. Sticking the word “cat” into your computer's search box will give you a list of every single document you've created where those three letters occur in that order. Make sure you have some way of narrowing down your search between Persians, catalogues, catastrophes and category romance.  For paper records, empty cardboard boxes are great for storage if you’re on a tight budget. Save old foolscap envelopes to subdivide your projects within each box.
2. Now you’ve found your notes, get writing-and make sure you do! Set yourself a target that's magnificent, yet achievable.  Be specific, and set yourself a time limit. That way, you’ve got something to work toward. You can measure your target, celebrate your successes and fine-tune your efforts. Your aim might be  “I’m going to write a 60,000 word historical romance by 31st December”. Write it down in your diary, make a note on your phone and add a sticker to your lap-top, so your target’s always in your sights. That 300 day-long task starts with one session, so break your project down into easily manageable chunks. Work out how many words you’ll need to write each day to hit your target, and aim for that. Celebrate when you reach it, or work out what to do differently if you don’t. 
3. Rise to the challenge. If you’re finding the work hard going, reduce the job into still smaller, more achievable segments. Use every trick you can think of to keep you moving forward: make a chart and colour in squares, don’t go out for that coffee until you’ve reached your goal, or set a kitchen timer for one hour, then write as much as you can before the alarm goes off. Take a tea break, then repeat. Use your competitive instinct to try and beat your previous word-count. If you’re on Twitter, join up with others for the regular  #1k1hr challenges. It always helps to know you’re not alone, and others will gain inspiration from you, too. If the words really won’t come, take a walk, have a bath, a nap or try doing some puzzles. Giving your brain a rest from the hard work of creative writing can re-boot your imagination. When the words start flowing again, finish your writing session while you’ve still got lots to give. Then you’ll be raring to go the next time you start!

I write both contemporary and historical fiction - when I’m not cooking, gardening or beekeeping. You can catch up with me on Twitter and Facebook, see a full list of my published books at http://www.christinahollis.com and get full details of my latest release, Jewel Under Siege, here.

A Writer's Life – Autumn Is Here...

That was then...

Autumn has arrived, and it came in on a blustery south-west wind. That means rain - and lots of it. Only a few weeks ago, the river level was almost down to the record low level of the famous drought year of 1976 - on the right is a snap of it as it was.

... and this is now

Now rain falling on the mountains of Wales is gradually draining into the Wye. Canoeists don’t have to  worry about grounding on gravel banks anymore. They’re too busy fighting their way through torrents and rapids. The snap on the left was taken today and shows how the small island has disappeared.

As I type this, it’s impossible to see our neighbour’s house - the rain is so heavy, clouds have filled the valley. All the water-butts around the house and greenhouses are overflowing, and they were almost empty in September. The weather this year has been as good as last year was bad. This meant a great harvest of fruit, and now autumn has set the blueberry leaves on fire.

After losing all my bees, I was lucky enough to get a replacement colony via our local beekeepers’ club. It was  late in the beekeeping season, but my new bees still managed to populate their hive. I shall have to be on my toes next spring, or their queen will think it’s time to lay a replacement and move out with a swarm of her followers. She’ll want to set up a new home somewhere else, leaving her daughter queen behind in my hive with a tiny nucleus of young bees. That means I’ll get no honey for the second year running! To avoid that happening, I’ll  try and hang onto my existing queen by persuading her to move out, but only as far as one of my spare hives. That means I’ll be spending this autumn cleaning and repairing all my spare kit, ready for next spring. Like gardening, beekeeping needs you to think ahead.

By TheMightyQuill

I’m planning to issue my next newsletter soon, and this picture has been a great inspiration! I'll be including my own recipe for Turkish delight in my newsletter, and you can sign up to be included on the mailing list here. 

Writing A Mission Statement-For Writing, Or Anything Else...

By Sandro Botticelli

A mission statement is a short, snappy way to keep your objective in focus as you work your way to success. Draw one up when you start your next big project. It will really help to keep you focussed. Make it personal - tailor it specifically to what you want to do.  Then keep it visible. Take some copies, and keep one on display in your office, beside your bed, as wallpaper on your screen - anywhere you'll see it often. 

Think up some daily incentives to encourage you - I use “half an hour watching my bees” “eat a peach” or “read for an hour”.  Choose bigger treats for when you’ve had a successful week: “soaking in the bath for an hour” “relaxing in the garden” or my own favourite, “a trip to the stationery store”. When you’ve finally completed your project, you can choose a really big treat as the ultimate prize to enhance your brilliant glow of total satisfaction. I take my OH out to dinner, although that's not much use if we're on diets! 

Of course, where there are prizes there have to be forfeits. Mine is to keep well away from my bees, but I've inserted a more popular horror below.

Here’s a basic template so you can create your own mission statement, with some ideas in italics to get you started. Substitute those words as necessary, and don’t forget to be specific. Personalising this declaration will make your project mean more to you, and that will help you to succeed.

MISSION STATEMENT

"I am going to write a novel/non-fiction book. My long term dream goal is to record my thoughts for my descendants/achieve publication/on all platforms, which I’m going to achieve by (date). 

In order to achieve my objective, I will draw up a schedule of what needs to be done each day, and set weekly targets, too. Every single time I hit my daily word-count, I’ll select one reward from my “daily” list. At the end of each week, if I complete all my tasks I’ll choose one treat from my “weekly” list.  After successfully completing my project, I’ll celebrate by spoiling myself with my ultimate prize. I will read my mission statement daily to remind me of the rewards I have planned, and my ultimate objective. If I miss any of my weekly targets without a very good excuse, my forfeit will be to stay completely offline for one whole day. If I miss my final deadline, my forfeit will be to  stay completely offline for one whole month."

Then date and sign it, to make it official.

I’ve given you a couple of ideas for rewards and forfeits. What will be going on your own list?

Three Top Tips For Getting Started...

By Antonio Litterio

...on any project...

THE BIG PICTURE - whatever you want to do, whether it’s write a book, start your own business, make money, learn to cook, or grow your own food, have one specific aim in mind. Then stick to it. Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”. Label a folder (real or virtual) with the name of your project. Gather everything into it-notes, images, charts, infographics, the lot. Once you can find exactly what you’re looking for in seconds, it’ll save a lot of time time when inspiration (or desperation) strikes. 

ZOOM IN - Put a filing system in place the second you start collecting stuff for your project. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Separate files within one on-line folder will be fine. A plastic wallet with dividers will store your so-called “dead-tree derivatives” (that’s paperwork, to you and me). A DL size envelope within this system is perfect for keeping scrappy notes, receipts and parking slips safe. Incidentally, expand that idea to twelve envelopes, each one labelled with a different month, and you’re on the fast track to filing your annual tax return without tears. All you have to do is remember to transfer the relevant receipts from the car, your pockets or purse into the right envelope. But do that as soon as you get them. 

You know why.

FOCUS - Write down your big idea. Seeing it at the top of a blank sheet, or screen, will make it real. It’s smart to set goals, and the acronym S.M.A.R.T (used by George T.Doran, Paul J. Meyer and others) can help you reach that target. There are all sorts of alternative meanings for the initial letters, but they all come down to the same thing in the end. These are the headings I use when I’m planning a new piece of work:

SPECIFIC–this is what you want to achieve. It’s your dream. Spend some time working out exactly what it is you want to do. Be positive, and distill it into one sentence such as “I will write a book.” There's no room for want here. Think positive.

MANAGEABLE–will you be able to do this in the time you have available, and with the facilities you have? If not, either set the alarm an hour earlier each morning and borrow what you need, or revise your objective–but think carefully before doing that because A is for... 

AMBITIOUS–Go for it! Aim for the stars - if you miss, the moon will break your fall. Find an inspirational quote and post it up where you’ll see it every day. Edmund Burke’s “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing” glares down at me all the time I’m writing.

REALISTIC–Ambition is indispensable, but there are limits. I come from a family of comfortably upholstered women. Much as I’d like to be a size eight, it's never going to happen. Believe me. That’s why I modified my own aim, from “getting down to 130 pounds” to “following a calorie-controlled healthy eating plan and taking more exercise for one month.” I lost 5lb without ever feeling I was on a diet, so all I need now is the willpower to repeat...and repeat...and repeat.... as necessary!

TIMETABLED–deadlines, like the threat of execution, concentrate the mind wonderfully. Draw up a list of what you need to do, and work out how long it will take. Mark the finish date in every form of diary you have. Tell yourself it’s absolutely non-negotiable. Obviously there will be times when work has to take a back seat because of illness or accident, but personal disasters apart use every carrot-and-stick you can think of to motivate yourself and hit your deadline.

Writing From Life: Inspiration Fieldwork...

Cyril Connolly wrote: "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall”. He was writing in the first half of the twentieth century. Working people can’t afford to think like that these days. 

When my children were small, I found the perfect way to keep us all happy. On fine days, I loaded up everything we needed and headed off for the local pick-your-own farm. It was a perfectly safe and secure space, complete with fresh air, and exercise. At first they stayed with the picnic, then later they galloped around while I picked strawberries, raspberries and anything in season we didn’t have at home. As they grew older, they did the picking while I sat in the shade and wrote. We were nearly always the only ones on the site, and the peace and quiet was lovely. Sadly, the lack of customers meant the fruit farmer couldn’t make a profit. He eventually gave up, and sold his land to a developer. We had to find another pick-your-own place, but luckily Over Farm runs a great farm shop too and seasonal events as well, so it’s always busy.

By David Shankbone

DD and I went fruit picking early last Friday, before the sun got too hot. After picking pounds of strawberries from the greenhouses here during May and June we’ve finally run out,  but everybody’s still keen to have fresh fruit every day.  Supporting the pick-your-own was an easy way to get some more, and made it cheaper than buying ready-picked fruit.  The quality was better than supermarket fruit, too, as we could be selective. We only picked the best, ripest berries. No supermarket tricks for us, such as hiding the unripe and damaged ones at the bottom of the punnet. One of the biggest con tricks pulled on the fruit-buying public can be put in two words: "home ripening". Most of the time it has been picked hard and green days before, then it gets shipped for miles. The produce goes wrinkly and/or mouldy before it gets soft enough to eat. When it eventually seems “ripe” it’s got none of the flavour of properly matured fruit, picked at its peak and eaten within hours.  

By Birdies Perch

Our freezer is now packed with boxes of strawberry granita, frozen raspberries for adding to our traditional Christmas trifle, and fruit puree ready to defrost and pour over cheesecake. It’s supposed to last us for months, but the weather’s so hot at the moment, I think we’ll have eaten it within a week. That’s a good excuse to go back and pick some more fruit!

There was a bonus from our day out in the peace and quiet of the countryside. It took the form of some unexpected inspiration. The ticking of my daughter’s watch sounded very loud in the quiet of the strawberry field. It gave me an idea for a new short story. Everyone laughs at the amount of junk I carry around in my handbag, but at least I had a notebook and pen right there with me. I could make notes on the spot, instead of having to wait until I got home. By that time, you can bet I would have been distracted by a dozen other things, and forgotten my idea. 

A sun-soaked strawberry field was the last place I expected to be hit by inspiration. Have you ever had a good idea in an unusual setting?

Writing (and Rewriting) Romance As Ebooks...

Photo by Bertil Videt

I love putting my own spin on historical events by using them as the background to romance. At the beginning of my fiction-writing career, I wrote six books for Harlequin Mills and Boon's Masquerade imprint under the pen name of Polly Forrester. These were originally only available in the UK so I'm currently working to introduce them to a wider audience by bringing them out as ebooks. Lady Rascal is already available and my next title, Jewel Under Siege, is due for release later this summer.

Jewel under Siege is set in Constantinople, at the time of the Crusades. Elena is a young widow who finds herself in an impossible situation when tough warrior Emil literally falls into her life. He is an enemy who has nothing but contempt for her people, but the lure of the forbidden means Elena and Emil are soon attracted to each other despite all the dangers.

Revisiting my earlier fiction means I can add a few little touches to the text. At the moment I'm taking the chance to make Elena and Emil's romance sizzle still more under the Turkish sun. How do you like your historical romances - hot or homely?

You can keep up with the progress of Jewel Under Siege towards publication by subscribing to my newsletter. Just send an email to me at christinahollis@hotmail.co.uk with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Three Top Tips On Writing That Book...

By Johannes Vermeer

It's said everyone has a book inside them. These days it's tricky to forecast what is going to be the next  blockbusting best-seller that spawns a film franchise, but all successful writers have something in common.  E.L James, J.K Rowling and J.R.R Tolkien don't only share a love of initialising. Each of them did more than dream. They buckled down and did the work: day after day of drafting, researching, writing, re-writing, editing  and reading. It doesn't matter whether they had help with some of the grunt work. The fact is, their ideas wouldn't have made it around the world if they hadn't had the conviction to start putting them into words and then kept going until their stories were told. 

I can't promise that your dream project will outsell Shades, Potter or TLOTR, but there's nothing surer than this. To be in with a chance, you'll have to get your masterwork written. Here are three top tips for doing just that...

1. START... in the right place. I wrote Lady Rascal because I'd got bogged down while studying an Open University course on The Enlightenment. I really wished some of those posh, privileged gentlemen doing the Tour of Europe could get a taste of how the other half lived. My hero Philip Adamson has a lot in common with the Paris he's visiting: despite grand appearances, there's trouble on the horizon. At the same time, heroine Madeline discovers that changing her appearance can get her out of trouble. As I was writing an historical romance rather than a text-book on Eighteenth-century Paris, I wanted to get Philip and Madeline together on the page as soon as possible. Madeline's career as a revolutionary ends with a bang right at the beginning of the book, when Philip assumes her looted finery means she's an aristocrat in danger. She's swept off her feet, and whisked away to a new and completely alien life.

2...AND THEN... make sure your plot has enough twists to keep your reader turning the pages. A good way to tell if you're on the right track is how easy it is to stop writing. If it feels like your fingers are pushing through treacle, that's a warning sign. If you're scribbling or typing as fast as you can, desperate to capture the movie playing in your head, there's a chance your reader might be carried away by your story, too. Ironically, it's when the words are flowing easily that you should finish for the day. Then your enthusiasm will carry over to the next session, and you'll be raring to go. With that method, there's no sitting down in front of a blank page, wondering what to write. You've been thinking about your next scene since the moment you stopped work the day before, and that's a great way to avoid the scourge of Writer's Block.

3. FINISH...in a way that will satisfy your reader. They should have learned a lot about your hero and heroine along the way - and maybe something about themselves, too.  Tie up all the loose ends of your story. Never introduce a character or plot thread and then abandon them, thinking no one will notice. Someone always does! Nemesis, the last book in Lindsey Davis' Falco series, deals with huge, emotion-wringing themes of life, death and family relationships. I lapped all that up but discovered, too, that I'm an obsessive when it comes to animals. I thought I'd be the only reader left worrying over the fate of one of the most minor of minor characters - Nero (aka Spot) the ox. I needn't have worried - he wasn't forgotten after all. If his disappearance hadn't been explained at the end, I would have felt Nemesis was like the old jigsaw puzzle of Great Britain's counties we had when I was a child. The smallest county, Rutland, was missing. Apart from that our jigsaw was perfect, unless you were interested in that teeny-tiny- well, spot!

Three Top Tips: Writing Heroes

Jonas Kaufman 

My previous writing tips have covered the general themes of getting started, and how to keep going. Now it's time to focus on writing fiction, and more particularly romantic fiction. This is a brilliant form of escape for millions of people. It's a non-fattening, affordable indulgence and it relies on sweeping your reader into a fantasy world. That means you'll need a hero. Here are my three top tips for breathing life into your creation:

MAKE HIM ATTRACTIVE - This doesn't mean only drop-dead gorgeous, physically perfect specimens need apply! Good looks go a long way to seducing your reader, but they'll need more than that to keep them involved in your story.  Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted. Write a short biography of your hero to discover what makes him the man he is. Give him a past and a future, as well as a present.  Upbringing and ambitions forge character, and suggest motivations. Little details such as whether or not he has a pet, what car he drives and the type of music he likes all add colour to your work.

MAKE HIM SUFFER - give him a problem that is too big to be solved easily. In Lady Rascal, Philip Adamson starts out by being too decent for his own good. He's a highly intelligent, hardworking man who has sacrificed his career as a doctor to return home and run the family estate. The strain has begun to tell, but he refuses to give up. Then Madeleine invades his life, and turns it upside down. Unless he can resist her, Philip faces following in the disastrous footsteps of his older brother. He was a man who tore the Adamson family apart.  The conflict between the way hero Philip works with cool efficiency to keep everything running smoothly, and the dangerous attraction he feels for Madeline keeps the action moving.  

MAKE IT WORSE - Once you've presented your hero with a problem, magnify it. In real life, men tend to work on instinct, rather than emotion.  Present your character with a dilemma. Make him choose between an easy decision, or a tough one - between his head and his heart. Will he do the right thing for the wrong reason, the wrong thing out of a sense of love or loyalty, or will he compromise? Whatever he does, make his action consistent with his character.  Imagine your heroine's car has crashed on a level crossing, leaving her trapped. A train full of children on a day-trip is running out of control and heading straight toward her. Who would your hero save? As this is romance and we want the story to end happily ever after, he'd manage to board the train, fix the fault and save both his heroine and the children, of course. But not before your reader has turned lots of pages, desperate to find out what he'll do, and how. 

Who is your hero? Is he fictional, or a real man of flesh and blood?

A Writer's Life: Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn ....

By Jean-Marie Favre

...and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

If you've dropped by my blog before, you'll already know technology means nothing to me. My main aim in life is to tell stories. To my mind, settling down with a notebook and pencil or my Neo  is sheer luxury, but these days that's just the start of the process. If your aim is publication, putting words on a page is only part of a writer's life. You have to market yourself and your work, which takes time - time I'd rather use for writing.  

Getting your name out there and becoming "searchable"is seen as a vital career move  - but what happens then? As well as  blogs, websites, accounts with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,  author pages on Amazon (.com and .co.uk) and publisher's sites are practically mandatory. All these pages need to be kept up to date, and that's a continual work-in-progress. The net's thirst for information is unquenchable, and the sea of snippets is immense. I love keeping up with gossip, so I Tweet regularly as  @ChristinaBooks. Once on-line for that, I find it hard to leave. The quick look at one site I'd intended soon stretches into half a hour of surfing far and wide. I now ration my time on line, so I can concentrate on writing. It's difficult to break the habit of dipping in and out, so I set a target for the amount of work I'll get done before I can have a session of idling on the net. This is where the Pomodoro (TM) technique mentioned in my last blog comes in useful. I work intensively for short bursts, then reward myself with a spot of site-hopping.

I'm still trying to find out exactly what LinkedIn is for, by the way. It seems to be full of interesting and like-minded people, but I'm not entirely sure why. Obviously there's an employment-exchange element, but if someone endorsed my copy-typing skills I think I'd be more likely to refer them to an optician, rather than  offer them a job! 

How do you use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and the other social networking sites, and what's the best thing your surfing has done for you?