Isn’t it great when a website asks to feature you? You might already be familiar with ManyBooks.Net not just for their author interviews and other free content but because of their free downloads of out-of-copyright books. They contacted me recently and offered me the opportunity to be interviewed for Author of the Day.
Here’s the feature for you to read. Haven’t they done a great job?
Here it is at last! Publication day has arrived for Summer on a Sunny Island!
My thanks, as ever, to the fab team at Avon Books UK and Blake Friedmann Literary, Flim and TV Agency for their fantastic support.
The idea for Summer on a Sunny Island was sparked by a service kids’ reunion in Malta, where I was brought up for several years. My brothers, my sister-in-law and I managed to convert one lunch into a ten-day holiday so I didn’t see why such a reunion shouldn’t for part of a novel too. It’s about Rosa, who’s supporting her celeb-cook mum Dory in Malta and Zach, who’s looking after his Maltese grandmother’s property. They’ve both left tricky situations behind them in England but, of course, those situations don’t just go away.
I really hope that you enjoy the opportunity to travel to Malta by book, even if you can’t travel in real life during the pandemic. Malta’s a glorious, golden nugget in the blue Mediterranean sea and a part of my heart will always be there.
Thanks to every single blogger who’s signed up to read and review the book. Here’s details of the blog tour for you to follow:
In addition, fab bloggers, including several from Team Sue Moorcroft, are kindly hosting extra posts from me.
Mark West, Strange Tales, 27th April.
Anne Williams, Being Anne, 29th April.
Samantha Smith, Written by S J Smith, 30th April.
Karen Cocking, My Reading Corner, 1st May.
Lucy Catten, Lucy Literati, 2nd May.
Sherry Gloag, Heart of Romance, 3rd May.
If you read Summer on a Sunny Island it would be fantastic if you could pop a review online. Every single one is appreciated.
On the evening of Friday 1st May I’ll be appearing on a screen near you as part of the Avon Book Fest. Bella Osborne, Phillipa Ashley and I will be live at 5.30pm BST and you can send us in your questions using the chat feature. It’s free and you can sign up here.
And no publication day blog post would be complete without buy links – so here they are!
Summer on a Sunny Island on UK Kindle
Summer on a Sunny Island on UK Kobo
Summer on a Sunny Island on UK Apple
Summer on a Sunny Island paperback
Filed under Apple Books, Audio, Authors, Avon Book Fest, Avon Books UK, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, Book bloggers, ebook, HarperCollins, Juliet Pickering, Launch, Malta., Paperback, publication day, readers, reading, Sue Moorcroft, Summer on a Sunny Island, Summer read, Team Sue Moorcroft, Writers, writing
Summer on a Sunny Island will be hitting shelves and devices in two weeks and the promo looks a little different this time. No physical launch party, radio interviews booked by phone and only virtual events. I have to say I’ve had a great time doing these virtual events with Avon Book Fest, MyVLF and Curl Up With Cathy.
I’ve also recorded a piece about Summer on a Sunny Island for Blake Friedmann, the wonderful agency that represents me, to go out to publishers in other countries. That took me nearly all morning, by the time I’d carried my laptop around the house to find the most flattering light, decided what to say, stood some of my books up in the background and applied make-up. The recording took twelve goes and I wish I’d kept the outtakes now! I swore, flapped my hands, pulled faces, groaned and banged my head on the wall.
I’ve also been invited to take part in Facebook Live events for Tamworth Book Club on May 7th at 10.00 am; with Kim Nash on 5th May at 8.00 pm and, hopefully, I’ll be on BBC Radio Northampton on publication day, 30th April about 10.30 am, even if it has to be by telephone rather than whizzing over there to join lovely Bernie Keith in his studio.
People have been so lovely in inviting me to take part in online or radio events! It gives me a glow that so many take #BeKind to heart. Readers have also asked me how they can support me and other authors while we continue to write the books that earn our livings in tricky times and when some people have diminished disposable income. Here are all the ways I can come up with:
If you know you’re going to buy a book, why not preorder it? There’s no added cost to you but it can help with print runs, selling the books into retailers and, very importantly, chart positions. You can preorder Summer on a Sunny Island here:
Summer on a Sunny Island on UK Kindle
Summer on a Sunny Island on Kobo
Summer on a Sunny Island on Apple
Summer on a Sunny Island paperback
Summer on a Sunny Island audio
Buy new books. There are often a lot of book bargains about, especially ebooks. If you prefer print, some of the supermarkets are doing great work in keeping books on shelves and keeping open. Independent or High Street book shops and online retailers are doing home delivery.
Use a subscription service. Audible or Kindle Unlimited are just two ways to access books for a monthly fee.
Borrow ebooks and audiobooks remotely at your library. Many libraries have relaxed their rules so you can join remotely now. Luckily for authors, ebooks and audiobooks loans have just been included in the Public Lending Right scheme so they’ll earn a few pence for every loan.
Review the books you read … especially if it’s a good review. (My personal rule is that if I don’t enjoy a book I don’t finish it, ergo I don’t review it. But everyone makes her or his own decision.) Authors appreciate every single review. If you want to read books slightly ahead of release you can even join Netgalley and request books in return for a review. You won’t get everything you request but that’s a book bargain if ever I heard of one!
Sign up to free author newsletters. You can click to sign up to my newsletter here. Get news of releases, offers and events or maybe the occasional competition.
Follow authors on their social channels. Share your love with friends/your book club/ your followers. Here are my social media links.
And follow blog tours! Thanks to all the lovely book bloggers who have joined my blog tour or invited me onto their blogs. As well as the usual reviews, I’ve written special posts for Strange Tales, Lucy Literati, Being Anne, My Reading Corner, Written by S J Smith and the Heart of Romance and will reblog all those posts.
I’ve seen quite a few authors talking on social media about whether they should be writing during the current Coronavirus outbreak. Some feel too anxious, because of what’s going on around them; others feel it’s somehow wrong.
Whether I could or should continue writing hadn’t even occurred to me as a choice so these conversations have made me question myself. Am I insensitive? Or do I bury my head in the sand and hope real life will go away?
Maybe one or both, but I don’t think my willingness to plan my summer 2021 novel while I await edits on this year’s winter novel, A Christmas Wish, is due to either of those things.
Writing and reading are my escapes. Owing to external events, I’m actually working harder than usual. My editor and most of her team are working from home to keep producing my books. If I said I couldn’t write I would be letting them down. Missing deadlines would create timetabling issues for us all in the future, as well as endangering a career it has taken decades to build. Writing’s my job. A whole lot of people are working during the Covid-19 crisis. They don’t have other options and I’m not giving myself any either … especially as my editor is an author too and has written 46k in the lockdown alongside her day job. 😊 Some people have been laid off or put on furlough and must think me fortunate to have a job I can continue.
I admit to wondering about how the publishing landscape is changing but I feel that if I write my books then maybe getting them out to readers will fall into place. It would have been much worse if I’d been writing fifty years ago with no ebook or audio to sell, no social media to allow me to talk to the world, no remote ebook or audiobook borrowing from libraries. Also, the paperback supply chain’s still working! Independent booksellers and High Street chains, as well as internet retailers, are selling online for home delivery.
I’m not able to get out to author events but there are virtual substitutes that have the bonus of being free to watch – see my Avon Book Fest event with Fiona Gibson and Lorna Cook HERE or my chat with Cathy Bramley HERE. On Wednesday 15th April at 7pm (London Time) I’ll be on MyVLF with Heidi Swain, Rachel Marks and Hayley Doyle.
Summer on a Sunny Island is available for preorder and will be published in paperback, ebook and audio on the 30th of April 2020. Whatever promo needs to be done, I’ll do it … because? It’s part of my job!
Preorder Summer on a Sunny Island here:
Summer on a Sunny Island on UK Kindle
Summer on a Sunny Island on Kobo
Summer on a Sunny Island on Apple
Summer on a Sunny Island paperback
Summer on a Sunny Island audio
I’m excited that it will be on book shop and supermarket shelves today, especially after the ebook has done so well, bobbing about in the top 100 for most of the past few weeks, rising as high as #26. Thanks to all the readers who have bought it.
Last night we had a launch event at Rothwell Library where I sold out of all the prepublication stock I had. The audience was fantastic and my friend Mark West a great organiser and interviewer. Thanks also to the Friends of Rothwell Library for putting on the event. Rothwell is a community library now and volunteers are keeping libraries going.
I hope that readers enjoy Lily’s journey, both emotional and physical, from the frosty cottages of Middledip to the snowy mountains of Switzerland. It begins with a determination to find her half-brothers and ends with a lot of hard choices.
| Join the Friends of Rothwell Library where I’ll be in conversation with fellow author Mark West on the eve of the paperback and audio publication of Let it Snow. Happy to chat, sign books or join you in a photo.
And grab yourself a signed early copy of Let it Snow or one of my other books. Tickets £5 |
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| Organiser: | Friends of Rothwell Library | |
| Contact: | 01536 711880 | |
Let it Snow is available as an ebook from today!
(Paperback and audio will follow on 14th November 2019)
Publication day’s always exciting. It’s the culmination of a lot of work and I love the idea of readers waking up to find one of my books has been delivered to their e-reader. When I sold my first short story to The People’s Friend in 1996 I had no idea such magic would one day become routine.
As the story in Let it Snow ranges from the frosty cottages of Middledip village to the snow-bedecked mountains of Switzerland I’m taking this opportunity to share a few of the pix I took on my fab research trip to Switzerland with my author friend Rosemary J Kind. (You can find out more about Rosemary and her books here.)
Let it Snow is about Lily Cortez who comes from a non-conventional family with two mums and a sister Zinnia with whom she has no blood tie. Once she discovers she’s not the product of a one-night stand as she’d always thought but that her mum had an affair with a married man she feels compelled to find her biological family. Her search for her half-brothers takes her not just geographical distances but vast emotional ones too. Lily finds herself working for Isaac O’Brien, who’s what I think of as a reluctant hero. He wants to get out of the hospitality business and the village but finds his exit hampered by Lily, his ex Hayley and Doggo, his crazy Dalmatian. The book was a joy to write and I hope you enjoy it.
A lot of people have been involved in bringing Let it Snow to you. My thanks to the teams at Avon Books UK, Blake Friedmann Literary, TV & Film Agency cover artist Carrie May and all the wonderful people on Team Sue Moorcroft.
Today, A Summer to Remember hits shelves and devices everywhere in paperback, ebook and audio.
To celebrate, I’ll be on BBC Radio Northampton this morning on the Bernie Keith Show around 10.15 a.m. You can listen on 104.2 FM, 103.6FM, DAB, Freeview channel 734 – RDS = or on the BBC Radio Northampton website.
Even better, the blog tour begins today too!
My thanks to every lovely book blogger who has agreed to take part. I can’t wait to read your reviews.
