Here at RT Booklovers Convention, Kansas City, MO

So, here I am in Kansas City, MO, with Christina Courtenay and Liz Harris, at least one of whom has just gone back to sleep. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to post pix to FB. Flights were long but good. Security at Newark so hot that they searched my cardigan and my hair! Hotel is v obviously geared up for a huge event, with RT Booklovers material even printed on our key cards. A day to chill today before the convention begins tomorrow. International Visitors reception at 5pm.

 

Marketing tips for authors from Janey Fraser

As I’m so pushed for time owing to my imminent departure to Kansas City for the RT Booklovers Convention, Janey Fraser has kindly offered to share the benefit of her considerable knowledge of self-promotion for authors to save me from blogging today. Here are her tips:

 

• Forge links with a competition sponsor. I do quite a lot with Champneys. They currently kindly giving away a one night break for two people on my web site. www.janeyfraser.co.uk
• Readers have to answer a question about my new novel Happy Families which has just been published by Arrow (by Janey Fraser £6.99).
• Pitch a tie-in article to local papers and magazines, offering a free book to the first five readers who email you with their comments. You might get more response from a local publication than a national one.
• Pay a local stationers or printers to get an ink stamp made up with your book’s title and your name and publisher and price. You can then stamp it on the back of every envelope you send. I paid about £15 for mine. The tip, by the way, came from an RNA talk.
• Get cards made with your book cover on one side and a blank space on the other. Send as post adds. They will be seen by at least two people The recipient and the postman!
• Spend ten minutes every day adding new followers to your Twitter list. The chances are that they will follow you. Then post at least three times a week. You don’t need to mention your book every time.But you might find people check out your website.
• Search for businesses with websites that might be willing to promote you. When my novel The Au Pair came out, an au pair agency kindly put my book on its website free of charge. 

My thanks to Jane!

I (heart) Chipping Lit Fest

The lovely Jaffe & Neale Bookshop Cafe

I had a fantastic time at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival (known affectionately as Chipping Lit Fest) at the weekend.

I led a workshop on ‘Writing Hot Scenes’ in a room above the Jaffe & Neale Bookshop & Cafe where I was treated to chocolate brownie and rooibos tea on arrival and cioccolata torte and rooibos tea on departure. With two slices of cioccolata torte to take home … (Are you beginning to see why I had a good time?) My thanks to Polly Jaffe for being so generous and hospitable.

The workshop went well, with lots of hilarity as well as work from the lovely participants. Thanks to you all for attending. In fact, you made it go so well that I’m now running a similar workshop at the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s conference July 12-14.

Then I was fetched by a nice lady named Susie to take part in a video interview on the balcony of the pub next door. Cue buying me a drink as we passed the bar and sitting me down to lunch with the film crew.

I’d been put up at a lovely hotel, enjoyed a gorgeous dinner on the evening before, and met Richard Dawkins in the Green Room. The sun had been shining all weekend and I was sorry that I had to leave.

But Formula 1 was on the TV.

On Monday I’m flying out to Kansas City on Monday to the massive and influential RT Booklovers Convention, the thirtieth year of this annual event that welcomes readers and writers of romantic fiction from all over the world. I’ll be appearing on three panels, signing at the Giant Book Fair, giving a radio interview, meeting readers and attending a mind-boggling array of parties and events. One of them is a ball.

Here’s my tiara.

I also have a red cowboy hat with sequins for ‘Rosie Gulch’s Gals’ party and blue/black feathers for my hair for a paranormal party, where I’ll be going as the Witch of Middledip.

Fantastic value script-writing workshop

Erewash Writing Group has arranged an all-day Playwriting Workshop to be held In Long Eaton on April 13th. It will be led by award-winning playwright, Keith Large.

Price £10.00, plus lunch £4.00, if required. Advance booking essential.

Full details from secretary Janet Devereux, tel. no. 0115 8498519.

Pitch your novel across the Pond and Beyond. Oxford Author Courses tell you how to do it

You’ve written your novel, and you want to sell it into the biggest and most prestigious markets in the world. But you don’t know how to begin, or what to do. Attend Oxford Author Courses’ day-long crash course, Pitch Across the Pond and Beyond, at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford on 13th April and you’ll come away knowing exactly what you should do.

You’ll hear from a very savvy and highly successful US agent who’ll tell you what’s hot and what’s not.  Christine Witthohn is founder of Book Cents Agency, which she started in 2006. Her approach is simple: she loves a great story, but more importantly wants to be the one to sell it. She represents both published and unpublished authors.

Stéphane Marsan, founder of successful, independent French publisher, Bragelonne will talk about the kind of books that have made his company such a force within the French publishing industry. Fresh from the Paris Book Fair (held late March) he’s actively looking for books in romance, horror, fantasy and young adult genres. Come and hear what he’s looking for now and how to submit your novel to his company – and don’t worry, Bragelonne do the translation!

Lynne Connolly is a British author who sells almost exclusively to the American market. She writes sexy, sophisticated romance in contemporary, historical and paranormal genres. Lynne writes mainly for digital-first publishers in the USA. It was her agent who suggested she try America when her first book was turned down in England. She it to the USA, it was accepted and she’s never looked back. She’ll tell you how she made herself successful in America with tips and hints of how to approach this biggest and richest of all English speaking markets.

Other bestselling British authors, who specialise in pitching, selling and marketing their work abroad, will tell you their secrets: how they do it – and continue to do it.

What works for other countries?

Which way to go – traditional, independent or self-publish?

Enjoy a fact packed day and come you away buzzing with ideas and enthusiasm for venturing away from the UK’s shores and into larger, more profitable markets. Broaden your horizons for just £120* with Oxford Author Courses Pitch Across the Pond and Beyond day.

For more details and booking form go to http://www.oxfordauthorcourses.com.

*Discount available for writers’ groups as detailed on the website.

For further information please contact: Maggi Fox, Press Officer, Oxford Author Courses, maggi@oxfordauthorcourses.com, 07770 754811

Inheritance Books – Sue Moorcroft

Inheritance Books – Sue Moorcroft.

Goodreads Giveaway

If you want to win a copy of All That Mullarkey, you can enter the Goodreads Giveaway here.

Choc Lit are working with Goodreads – just follow the link and click ‘Enter to Win’.

 
All That Mullarkey is about Cleo, who discovers that the writing’s on the wall for her marriage – the bedroom wall – and hurtles off for a bit of an adventure …

The lovely Justin is happy to benefit from her moment of wildness and their encounter sets off a series of events that turns life upside down for both of them.

Tempted? Just enter.

What happened at the RoNAs

Jane Wenham Jones introduces Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley

Well, I had an excellent time!

I didn’t win my category – that honour went to the lovely Katie Fforde – but I had an absolute blast at the party at the RAF Club in London’s Piccadilly. It’s a gorgeous venue and the staff kept the canapes and wine coming all evening.

And almost as Jane Wenham-Jones introduced the guests of honour, Richard & Judy, someone tripped or something and sent me absolutely flying. So I arrived on my bum pretty much at the feet of Richard and Judy to begin the proceedings with a bang. You’d think they’d have given me the RoNA just for that, really, wouldn’t you? But no …

Here’s the full list of winners:

Contemporary Romantic Novel winner – Katie Fforde
Epic Romantic Novel winner – Rowan Coleman
Historical Romantic Novel winner – Charlotte Betts
Romantic Comedy Novel winner – Jenny Colgan
Young Adult Romantic Novel Winner – Victoria Lamb

And the winners above go forward now to the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in May.

RoNA Rose – Sarah Mallory

Sophie Kinsella presented with Outstanding Achievement Award

Congratulations to them all. You can find photos on the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s website here.

My thanks to everybody concerned in the running of the RoNAs. I know a huge amount of hard work went into it and the event was just amazing, honestly. Slick and controlled (apart from the odd person flying through the air) and joyous.

Happy Publication Day Alison Morton!

Today I welcome the lovely Alison Morton to the blog to talk about her debut novel – Inceptio – published today. Congratulations, Alison!

For Sue Moorcroft’s blog 1 March

Thank you for welcoming me to your blog, Sue.

Today, is a very special day – my debut novel, INCEPTIO, is published. Hooray! Three years of slog – researching, writing, and polishing – have led to this exciting moment of holding my book in my hands. But it started when I was eleven years old with a day-dream under a hot Spanish sky.

Not many Year 6 children are obsessed by ancient peoples, history or archeological sites. But I was that sad kid. Fascinated by the mosaics in Ampurias (huge Roman site in Spain), I asked my father, “What would it be like if Roman women were in charge, instead of men? If it was now?” Maybe it was the fierce sun boiling my brain that day, maybe it was just a precocious kid asking a smartarse question. But clever man and senior ‘Roman nut’ that he was, my father replied, “What do you think it would be like?” Off went my brain on a dream…

Real life intervened (school, university, career, military, marriage, motherhood, business ownership), but the idea bubbled away in my mind and INCEPTIO slowly took shape. Three years ago, in a ninety day burst, I’d written the first draft of 95,000 words. Of course, like many first drafts it was raw, but since then it’s been edited, tempered and burnished. And I’ve learned what the craft of writing demands…

Does dreaming still help me write books? I know that if I’m trying to work through a glitch in the plot or develop dialogue between two people, I’ll often wake up in the morning with the answer. Sometimes I’m aware I’ve been dreaming, more often not. And it usually takes until I’ve finished in the shower for the new words to exit my brain in a coherent form.

In popular culture, Romans believed dreams were messages from the gods sent to reveal their wishes and took them very seriously. Emperor Augustus – cynical and politically adept – ruled that anyone who had a dream about the state was, by law, to proclaim it in the marketplace. The Roman writer Artemidorus (c. AD 150) concluded that dreams were unique to the dreamer and that the dreamer’s occupation, social status and health affected the symbols in their dreams.

Stories with Romans are usually about famous emperors, epic battles, superstition (back to dreams and their interpretation!), depravity, intrigue, wicked empresses and a lot of sandals, tunics and swords. But imagine the Roman theme projected sixteen hundred years further forward into the 21st century. How different would that world be? Transferred from a dream into reality, this is one of the things INCEPTIO explores…

New York – present day, alternate reality. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice – being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother’s homeland in Europe. Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety, a ready-made family and a new career. But a shocking discovery about her new lover, the fascinating but arrogant special forces officer Conrad Tellus who rescued her in America, isolates her.

Renschman reaches into her new home and nearly kills her. Recovering, she is desperate to find out why he is hunting her so viciously. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it…

INCEPTIO is released today as both paperback and eBook, in the UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inceptio-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624

and in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Inceptio-Roma-Nova-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624

And next? I’m working on PERFIDITAS, the second book in the Roma Nova series where it all turns into a bit of a nightmare.

You can read more about Alison, Romans, alternate history and writing at:

http://www.alison-morton.com, http://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor and follow her on Twitter @alison_morton

Come and meet the gorgeous Nico Noordholt

Come and meet the gorgeous Nico Noordholt.