Tag: Online Communities

I’m back!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 18 Comments

I'm back

Well it’s been a couple of weeks since my last WIPpet Wednesday. I hope you’re all OK. My work experience at Bristol City Council has begun. It’s going well and I’m really enjoying it.

Also on Monday I had an interview for a paid job. I’m waiting to hear back from them to tell me if I’ve got it or not. I have to say I think I fluffed the task they set for me at the beginning as maths is not my strong point and one of the tasks I had to do involved a maths calculation.

Anyway we’ll see what happens with that one and I’ll let you know how I get on. Back to the main event. For this week’s WIPpet I thought I’d do something different and share with you an excerpt of a fantasy story for children I was writing a few years ago and never finished.

Confession: technically I haven’t written any more of this since 2011 so shoot me now if I’m breaking the rules!  (But maybe you could read my excerpt first. 😉 )

To set the scene Stephanie and Thomas are staying at their dad’s house.  Their parents are divorced and they see their dad every weekend.  But while they’re staying there something strange happens.  Cue 9 paragraphs for the 9th April:

Thomas opened his notebook and began to write.  He and Stephanie were stunned at what happened next.   Instead of Thomas’s messy handwriting appearing on the paper, a beautiful script emerged from the pen.  It was as if the pen was writing by itself.  The two children were mesmerised by what they saw.  Then something strange happened. 

As Stephanie watched the writing appearing on the paper, everything around them began to change.  Their surroundings went blurry and Stephanie felt as though she were spinning.  She tried to speak but no sound came from her mouth and she couldn’t see Thomas although she could feel his hand in hers.  Frightened, she screamed but again there was no sound.  But it didn’t last long.  All at once the blurriness disappeared and Stephanie saw Thomas standing next to her looking dizzy.  Then as their surroundings came into focus, Stephanie realised with a shock that they weren’t in Thomas’s bedroom anymore.  Her mouth hung open in amazement.

‘Where are we?’ she said.

‘I don’t know but we’re not at Dad’s anymore.’

They were standing on lush green grass, greener than anything they’d seen before.  They were in a beautiful meadow, covered with tiny flowers of many colours, some pink, purple and yellow.  The flowers seemed to be giving off light, Stephanie noticed, almost like mini suns.  But unlike the sun, it didn’t hurt her eyes to look at them; in fact she felt soothed by them and less fearful. 

They could hear the sound of bumble bees droning around them and Stephanie saw some settling down on the flowers to collect the pollen.  In the distance they could see enormous mountains which had snow on the top of them.  But before they had any more time to look at their new surroundings, there was a sudden huge explosion like a bomb going off near where they were standing.  Stephanie jumped and clutched at her brother’s arm.  She hated loud sudden noises.

‘I want to go home,’ she said in a small voice and began to cry.  She was even more worried when there was the unmistakable tramp of feet.

‘Come on, Steph, we’ve got to hide,’ Thomas said urgently, pulling her away from the sound of marching and across the meadow.  But it was huge and there was nowhere to hide.  The marching was getting closer.  Thomas propelled her towards the longer bits of meadow grass.

‘Lie down quickly,’ he commanded her.  She did as he said and they both lay quivering with fear in the tall grass.  The children heard the sound of footsteps approaching.  Then they stopped.  Stephanie knew they’d been discovered. 

As always you too can take part in WIPpet Wednesday.  Just post something writing-related on your blog, making sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name here.

Thanks to K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

What’s going on in my world right now

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 4 Comments

world

I know I’ve been absent from my blog for a while. Well actually from my writing my novel a bit too. I didn’t even take part in WIPpet Wednesday this week.

The reason is that I’m preoccupied with work matters. May sound boring, actually quite exciting. Today was my first morning of my work experience with Bristol City Council (here in the-sometimes-sunny UK!).

It went really well, but I was very nervous last night and apprehensive, not to say completely knackered, which is why I didn’t take part in WIPpet Wednesday.  The people I’m going to be working with were really friendly though, and welcoming which was great.  I think the work is going to be good and I’m excited about it.

Just to confuse you, I found out today that I’ve got an interview for a part time paid job (the work experience is unpaid).  So I feel like I’m in a win win situation – if I get the paid job that’s fantastic, if not I’ve still got the work experience to be doing.

In the first paragraph of this post I mentioned that I’d been absent from my writing.  I can explain!  I’ve done well over 4000 words on my new WIP.  But although I know where I want it to go at the end, as well as some of the action that takes place in the middle, I wasn’t sure how to carry on from where I’d initially got to.

So I’ve gone back to the drawing board so to speak.  I’m fleshing out scenes that could take place between my MC and my other characters immediately after where I’ve got up to on the computer.  This is going well but taking a while, so I’ve been away from my lovely pink laptop for a while and curled up on the sofa scribbling away in my notebook.

Phew!  So now you’re pretty much up to date with where I’m at.  I hope to be doing more proper writing soon and taking part in WIPpet Wednesday again next week – lack of tiredness permitting!

Happy Writing Everyone! 😀

WIPpet Tuesday??!!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 26 Comments

Yes, yes, yes – I know I’m getting earlier and earlier with my WIPpet Wednesday posts.  And technically it’s still very much Tuesday here in the not-so-sunny 😦 UK.

But I’ve got a good excuse – I’ve got an early start (for me anyway) for work tomorrow and I tend to find if I don’t post my contribution to the wonderful WIPpetness of Wednesday early, I end up posting them late.  And not to put too fine a point on it, I get knackered.  I like to be able to take my time in reading all your wonderful excerpts too.

That’s it.  That’s all the justifying of myself I’m going to do!  Back to my WIPpet post.  For what will be this Wednesday, the 26th March, I offer you 23 words from my new WIP.  My WIPpet maths goes like this: 26 – 3= 23.  I started writing it on the 8th March and I’ve done well over 4000 words so I’m happy! 😀

I guess many of you can manage a whole lot more than that in that space of time, but it’s a lot for me! BTW the ‘she’ in question is my MC Rebecca and she’s part way through her first day as a teacher at a secondary school (for 11-16 year olds).  So here’s my snippet:

Feeling a need to freshen up, she headed for the nearest staff ladies.  When she reached it she found two other women there.

There.  I’m being stingy with the amount I’m sharing, but I haven’t written much so I don’t want to share too much at this stage.

If you’ve taken a look at what us WIPpeteers are sharing and would like to get involved, just post on your blog anything you’ve written lately.  Make sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name here.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

Wow what a wonderful WIPpet Wednesday!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 27 Comments

Hey everyone.  How’s your week been?  Mine’s been pretty good.  Lots of possibilities job-wise opening up for me.  Gonna apply for another admin job with a little charity here in Bristol (UK).

Anyway on with the task at hand: my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday.  Seeing as it’s the 19th March, I thought I’d share with you another 19 sentences from my new, as yet untitled WIP.  The lines follow directly on from last week’s  WIPpet.

Rebecca, my MC, is having an unpleasant encounter with a man in an Audi who nearly knocked her off her bike…

It wouldn’t do for the pupils of Radcliffe High School to see their newest teacher let rip at a man who was presumably a parent of a pupil at the school.  Or – God forbid – a member of staff.

But it was the Audi driver who lost his control.  ‘This is my fault?’ he snapped.  ‘You came at me out of nowhere.  One second you weren’t there, the next I have to slam on the brakes because a hapless cyclist has acquired a death wish.  And don’t you dare tell me that I wasn’t paying attention.  I have been driving for twenty years and I have never had an accident.  So before you go reporting this incident to your superiors I’d make sure that you get your facts straight.’

Without waiting for a reply he wound the window up and Rebecca only had a moment to grab her bike before the Audi roared off.  Shaken she slowly removed her helmet, the rain settling on her long, black hair which she’d coaxed into a practical chignon that morning.  Her legs were wobbly so rather than hop back on her bike, she pushed it to the nearby bike shed and locked it with shaking fingers.

‘Are you OK, miss?’ a voice asked.

Starting a little at the unexpected words, Rebecca looked up.  A girl of about fourteen was standing there.  She was slight, yet tall and had long unruly-looking dirty blonde hair.  She also seemed a little awkward.  Rebecca felt the need to put her at ease.

‘Yes, I’m fine thank you.’ 

Anyone can join in WIPpet Wednesday, just share some of your writing and make sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then hop on over and add your name to this linky.  Thanks to the wonderful WIPpet wizard K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Guest post by Barb and Babs for their blog tour

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 4 Comments

Today I’m pleased to welcome Barb Drozdowich and Babs Hightower to do a guest post on sharing blog posts as part of their blog tour for their collection of books which have the aim of enabling writers to fully develop their social media platform.  The books and their topics are listed at the end of this post.  They look really great so please check them out.  So now I will hand over to Barb.

What is Sharing and why do you need to encourage it?

I’d like to thank Elaine Jeremiah for inviting me to share some thoughts today! My name is Barb Drozdowich and I teach WordPress and work with authors on a daily basis to help them understand the technical aspects of Book Promotion.

Today I thought I’d talk about Sharing. This is a topic that comes up frequently in my interaction with authors.

Authors love to get comments on their blog posts – don’t we all? Comments are lovely! I often see comments encouraged in blog tours that are posted on my blog as well as others. In the big scheme of things, however, comments are not very important. Sharing is hugely important. Sharing buttons are those little icons that sit at the top or bottom of post or maybe float along the side. Ideally, they have icons for every social media platform known to man.

It’s your job to create great content that your readers want to share with their friends and followers. I don’t care if you don’t have a Stumbleupon account. Maybe your readers do and that’s where they want to share. You just need to make the content interesting and easy to share.  You want your readers to share your post on Twitter, on Facebook, on Stumbleupon and on whatever other social media accounts they favor.

Easy, right?

So why do I think that sharing is more important than comments?  Because Google thinks that sharing is more important than comments. Although readers will find your blog from many sources, some will find you from a Google search. You want to do everything that you can to make your blog rank as high as possible in a Google search. Think about it – most people will only look through the first few pages of a Google search. So, you want to be on one of those first few pages.

Understanding some of the technical aspects to promoting your books is challenging for many authors. Authors write beautiful stories – that’s what they do really well! You wouldn’t hesitate to take a writing course or go to a workshop. Likewise, don’t waste your valuable writing time wrestling with technical issues; ask for help.

Bio: Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books. Barb has published 4 books specifically to help authors understand some of the technical issues that they come up against when promoting their books.

Barb can be found: 

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site) http://bakerviewconsulting.com

Barb Drozdowich (Author Site) http://barbdrozdowich.com

Sugarbeat’s Books (Book Blog) http://sugarbeatsbooks.com

Facebook (Author blog) https://www.facebook.com/BarbDrozdowichAuthor

Facebook (Bakerview Consulting) https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bakerview-Consulting/576090425782155

Twitter http://twitter.com/sugarbeatbc

Google+ https://plus.google.com/110824499539694941768

Goodreads http://goodreads.com/BarbDrozdowich

Amazon Author Page http://amazon.com/author/barbdrozdowich

Information for Barb and Babs’ books:

B&B no 5

Do you feel out of your comfort zone when dealing with book bloggers? They are the New Gatekeepers to book publishing success – but how can you tap into that source of free promotions by putting your best foot forward?

The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers combines the advice of 215 blogging professionals collected in a survey covering all aspects of communication between authors and Review Blogs. Whether you are a new author, or have many titles under your belt, let us demystify the promotion of your book on a book blog.

You’ll learn about whom and where book bloggers are, and the following:

The Query,

The Review,

The Giveaway,

The Author Interview,

The Guest Post,

The Book Blurb Excerpt and Cover Reveals and more!

“I’ve found Barb’s advice on forging a professional relationship with the blogging community indispensable. Her step-by-step approach will help you garner the reviews needed to increase book sales.”

–Christine Nolfi, bestseller author of Treasure Me

The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers is available on:

AmazonUS  |  AmazonUK  |  Kobo  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Smashwords

Creating buzz for your book – and your career as an author – just got easier. Go Global: Building an International Author Platform That Sells will help you decode the mystery behind building a powerful author brand and navigating the social media platforms essential to publishing success. Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich will steer you through the technology behind international marketing without all the techno-speak. She has helped many authors just like you build an author platform that engages readers and builds sales.

B&B no 3Go Global teaches you why you need the various facets of the author platform to build visibility.  Barb uses a simple analogy, Operation Book, to help you understand the steps to successful book marketing in the media age. She covers:

– The Difference between a Website and a Blog

– What Your Blog Should Contain

– The Important Components of a Blog

– The Nine Essential Social Media Platforms

– Newsletters

– Amazon’s Author Central

With simple-to-follow steps, Barb will help you create and manage an Author Platform to support your career.

Go Global: Building an International Author Platform that Sells is available:

AmazonUS |AmazonUK | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

B&B no 4What are Book Blog tours? Are they something that you have tried yet? “Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors” covers the topic of Virtual blog tours from beginning to end with the following topics explained:

• What is a book blog tour?

• How is a tour different from Online Public Relations

• How to set goals for a blog tour

• How to choose a Book Blog Tour Company for your book

• Giveaways and Tour Graphics

• Author responsibilities before, during and after the tour

• Follow up and planning for your next tour

• Book Blog Tours from the point of view of a book blogger

This book covers all aspects of a Book Blog Tour in easy to follow language that will help any author take on the challenge of a blog tour with confidence.

Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors is available:

AmazonUS | Amazon UK | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

 

 

 

The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors is the must have book for all authors. Every author has heard of Goodreads – some like it, some not so much. With over 120 color graphics, this book leads you through the process of creating your account, adding your books, making friends and so much more.

B&B no 2Let us share with you all those little gems of networking potential that Goodreads offers, such as:

– Blog posts

– Excerpt downloads

– Widgets

– Apps

– Event invitations

– Groups

– Polls

– Lists

– Trivia and Quizzes

– And many more

The Ultimate Goodreads for Authors is the most comprehensive book available today. Suitable for all authors, from the newly published to the experienced. It has something for everyone to learn.

The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors is available:

Amazon US |Amazon UK

B&B no 1Getting help to promote your book just got easier. Public Relations for Authors Take Hold of Your Own Promotions will help you locate that special publicist who will help you promote your book the right way. A Publicity Director for two publishers Babs brings knowledge to this book.

Public Relations teaches you why you need a publicist and how to find the right one for you. To understand what you need she covers:

How publicity can help sell books

What you need to know about publicity

Writing Pitches

Media Kits

Press Releases

Where to find a PR agent

What to send to your PR agent

“A practical, step by step book that helps you find the correct publicist, when publishing a book. ” by Lynelle Clark

 

Public Relations for Authors is available:

Amazon US| Amazon UK| Kobo| Barnes & Noble| Smashwords

About the authors:

Barb Drozdowich

Bio: Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

 Barb can be found: 

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site) http://bakerviewconsulting.com

Barb Drozdowich (Author Site) http://barbdrozdowich.com

Sugarbeat’s Books (Book Blog) http://sugarbeatsbooks.com

Facebook(Author blog) https://www.facebook.com/BarbDrozdowichAuthor

Twitter http://twitter.com/sugarbeatbc

Google+ https://plus.google.com/110824499539694941768

 

Babs Hightower

Bio:Babs has been helping authors since 2000. She owns a book review blog Babs Book Bistro which got her started in PR and helping authors promote themselves. In 2012 she started working for Entangled Publishing and worked her way up to Publicity Director over the Scandalous Imprint. She is a publicist for World Castle Publishing. She is also known as Morgan Kincaid writer of Historical Romance.

Babs can be found: 

Babs Book Bistro website: http://www.babsbookbistro.net

Babs Hightower PR website: http://www.babshightowerpr.com

Author website: http://morgankincaid.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/babsbookbistro

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BabsMorganKin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabsHightowerPr

Facebook Author: https://www.facebook.com/authormorgankincaid

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/babsbookbistro/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1970552-babs

Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/102563748897854093407/posts

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/babsbookbistro

A new start

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 31 Comments

Hello everyone and welcome to my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday, hosted by the lovely K. L. Schwengel whose cover for her new novel Emergence I revealed on this blog yesterday.

Well I have an announcement.  Cue fanfare… I’ve finished the first round of edits of Reunion of the Heart and it’s going out to beta readers very soon.  Much love to them!!  But really the fanfare is about my BRAND NEW WIP I began at the weekend.  It’s another romance (no you can never have too many romances!  OK you can if it’s not your thing but it is mine – though BTW I don’t actually read romances all the time!).

Anyway my new WIP is currently untitled.  I haven’t a clue what to call it yet but I’m sure I’ll come up with something eventually. My MC Rebecca is a teacher in a secondary school in the UK.  For those of you who don’t what I mean by a secondary school, it’s for kids aged 11-16, so I’m guessing for you in the US it would kind of be junior high and a bit of high school mixed in together.

I’ve probably got that completely wrong – I find the US system of schooling and all your grades for the year groups really confusing – but you get the idea!

So for today’s WIPpet, I thought I’d share with you the opening 12 lines from chapter 1.  Enjoy!

The tyres of her bike screeched to a halt, skidding on the wet tarmac and narrowly avoiding the bonnet of the car which had also stopped.  Rebecca leapt off her bike, stalked over to the large Audi and hammered on the driver’s darkened window.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ she yelled, oblivious to the stares and sniggers of the surrounding children.

Slowly, deliberately the window was wound down.  A middle aged man was sitting at the wheel.  Dark and austere, he glanced at Rebecca as though she wasn’t worth his notice.

‘I think it’s more a question of what you’re doing,’ he said.  His voice was calm and controlled yet simmering with anger.

‘What I’m doing?’ Rebecca spluttered.  Then remembering where she was she paused and took a deep breath.  ‘I was looking where I was going and I’m lucky I did because if I hadn’t I would most likely be severely injured or dead.’

Aware that she had an audience, she did her best to regain her composure.  

If WIPpet Wednesday seems like the kind of thing you’d enjoy and you want to get involved, just post a bit of your newest writing work on your blog, making sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name to this. Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

Cover reveal for Slave Again by Alana Terry

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 3 Comments

I’m delighted to be able to do a cover reveal of the upcoming Slave Again, the latest novel from talented author Alana Terry.  She’s the author of the brilliant The Beloved Daughter, a story about one family’s plight in North Korea and the daughter’s desperate attempt to escape.  It’s available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK and I would highly recommend it.  So here it is:

She escaped a North Korean prison camp only to find herself enslaved again.

Slave Again, by inspirational suspense novelist Alana Terry.
Cover Reveal: Mee-Kyong endured a childhood fending for herself in a North Korean prison camp. When she finally flees across the border into China, Mee-Kyong must draw upon all her survival skills. Does Mee-Kyong have the cunning she needs to escape the world of abuse and shame into which she’s been sold? Can she manage to save both herself and the innocent child under her protection?

About the Author:  Alana Terry is a homeschool mom, pastor’s wife, and Christian author. Her debut novel, The Beloved Daughter, has won awards from Women of Faith and the Book Club Network. The Beloved Daughter was a number one bestseller in Christian suspense on Amazon. Her next novel, Slave Again, is due out this summer.

Giveaway Time! Alana is giving away free copies of her next release to anyone who makes a donation to Liberty in North Korea, an organization dedicated to rescuing refugees who escape North Korea. She’s also giving away a mini kobo e-reader and several copies of Slave Again, so be sure to enter the giveaway below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

1 year of my WordPress blog!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 10 Comments

1 year of blog

As  of today it’s officially one year since I started my WordPress blog!!  But I can’t say that’s when I started blogging because I began that with my Blogger one. However I can honestly say that WordPress has taken my blogging to a whole new level. Yes it’s more complicated to use than Blogger and can at times be infuriating.

But it’s also hugely rewarding to be able to connect with so many other wonderful writers so easily, to be able to interact with them in ways I feel I just couldn’t with Blogger and to have all this support from the international writing community.  You guys are the best!  I’ve grown so much as a writer over this past year, thanks in no small part to the encouragement I’ve received since I started this blog.

Using this blog has been and continues to be a learning curve.  It’s only recently that I’ve discovered the importance of tagging my blog posts, something I had no clue of for a long while.  I’m sure it’s something that most of you take for granted.  And I know I’m not especially great with WordPress – there’re still things I want to do with it that I can’t at the moment and I’m just figuring out as I go along.

But I’m getting there and as it is I’m able to interact well with other authors which is the important thing. The rest can wait for now. I would like to thank all of you who are following my blog once again – I really appreciate that you take time out of your busy lives to read my blog and comment on it.  Thank you!

I will raise an invisible toast:  Here’s to many more blogging years!

 

Relaxing at the spa

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 32 Comments

Hi everyone.  Hope you’ve had a good week.  I certainly have.  Spring is in the air and to coin an American phrase I’m feeling mighty fine!

For today’s WIPpet Wednesday I thought I’d share with you 5 lines from chapter 3 of Reunion of the Heart for the 5th of March. We’re going backwards in the story from last week’s excerpt to the weekend away at the spa that my MC Anna goes on with her three friends, two of whom she’s been reunited with at the reunion.

Anna and her best friend Melissa are relaxing as they experience one of the many treatments on offer…

‘Oh this is bliss,’ Anna murmured as the masseuse kneaded her back.  She could feel the tension inside her unwind as if she’d been coiled tightly like a spring. For the first time in ages her thoughts were Elliot-free.  Letting go had never been this easy before.

‘Mmm you’re right,’ Melissa said. 

So it’s short but sweet.  Boy do I envy Anna and Melissa.  I really fancy a nice massage right now. Anyway that’s it for this week.  I may be kind and share with you something longer next week.

If you fancy taking part in WIPpet Wednesday all you have to do is share some of your writing, making sure that it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your details here.

Thank you very much K. L. Schwengel for hosting.  We love youuuu!!

Call for beta readers

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 7 Comments

Hi everyone.

I’ve finished the first round of editing of my novel Reunion of the Heart and I’m currently reading through it again, correcting and amending as I go.

I would like to send it out to beta readers soon, so if you would be interested in reading it and letting me know what you think, please get in touch.

I only need a few people to beta read, so really it’s on a first come, first served basis.  This novel is very much a romance, so won’t be to everyone’s taste.  But if you think you might like to be a beta reader for me, please let me know.

My email address is: elaine (dot) jeremiah (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank you! 🙂