A New Year Already??

I hope everyone had a fun, safe Christmas and New Year. It was a little strange for me this year. The boys are growing up fast and the idea of all of us being in the same room for more than 30 minutes seems to send terror into their very core. Bizarre I know, who wouldn't want to listen to me wittering on about books and films?

With the New Year comes resolutions. I'm not really one for resolutions, I think it's just in me to fight against rules, even if I set them myself. You need to set goals in life, that's for sure, but I always break resolutions within days. I have told myself to get organised, needing to find time to write, to market my books, to complete my day job and look after the family. The house can look after itself ... can't it?

So no resolutions, but I need to widen my audience. There are a few kind souls who have read and enjoyed my books, though I am not hitting my target, not getting out into the world. What I should say is that it is out there but nobody knows it exists.

I sat in on a great workshop by Sara Sheridan who mentioned she met with her agent about every 6 weeks to compare marketing opportunities and what they had achieved. If the author only had one or two rejections it was decided that she hadn't been doing her job. Obviously I may not be the best person to give advice on this as I can't keep on top of this but I can tell you what I have learnt through my journey.

You may already have your on-line presence, the author facebook page, twitter, goodreads and blog, just to name a few. A street team may be sending out information for you just as you read this post, but it seems to be about finding that fine line between promoting and pestering.

Don't just go out and scream at the top of your lungs, buy, buy, buy. Get involved in the community, not only the writing one, though most authors are only too happy to help. I am talking about reading groups, general forums on other people's work.

What took me some time to get to, was the real world presence. I have since gone into a few schools, after all my series is young adult, talked about books in general and recently given workshops of my own, in a hope of finding the children out there who will enjoy reading my books and to be honest any book. If they're reading, I am happy.