Happy Mermaid Holiday

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas wherever you are, despite the restrictions we have. We (my mum and I) had a lovely roast turkey, with just the normal potatoes and veg. No trimmings as we can’t eat those. Anyway, the mermaid in the title is my mermaid trilogy. Now until 1 January the whole trilogy is on special offer at Smashwords only. The Quest and Emerald Quest are free and Vanity Quest is half price. You can find out more about them at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/julieday40.

I call the trilogy ‘coming of age’ mermaid stories with an eco theme and they are for 9-12 year olds. If you have any small relatives that age, maybe they will like one of them to read.

Happy reading.

Happy new year.

Julie

Geraldine says you can read her story for free

What am I talking about? Well, I am taking part in the Smashwords Summer/Winter promotional sale this month. I have put the first book in my ‘Geraldine’s Gem’s’ magical realism series called ‘One Good Turn’ as free, this is Geraldine’s story. The rest of the series is discounted to be at lower prices. It is for July only and exclusive to Smashwords. You can find out how to get there at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/julieday40.

Happy reading.

Julie Day

 

 

Rainbow School Book 4 now available

My series of children’s books The Rainbow School now has four books to it. Book 4 called Qessa and the Bouncing Blazer is now published and available on Amazon. Type in the book title and you will find it. Here is the blurb:

11 year-old Qessa Noyse is a quiet girl. Not just because she has Asperger’s Syndrome with a noise sensitivity but she has recently moved to a new school. Her brothers challenge her to find something that will cheer her up and that she is better at than they are. This sets of a chain of events, starting with her blazer shining when she tells herself she will find this some thing at school. She’s taken to another world where she is a confident teacher teaching others to play the recorder, and playing the recorder in a hall. Can Qessa use her talent with the recorder to build her confidence, make friends and beat the challenge her brothers set her?

I hope you are interested enough to think about buying. Happy reading.

My goals are achanging

My writing goals this year have changed. I mentioned one goal I wanted to achieve, possibly, but if not do the alternative. The goal was to maybe submit more ideas to a certain magazine that published short stories that was suited to what I write. That goal has now completely changed, because the magazine has changed their rights policy. When I had my story published with them last year, I was given the rights back after publication. That magazine now has a contract (which I didn’t get) asking for All Rights. You can read more about it at womagwriter.blogspot.com. You can also read more about it in the current issue of Writer’s Forum magazine.

So what to do instead? Well, I am planning on getting all my magical and ghost stories together to put as a collection. I am also going to enter more competitions and write more fillers, starting this week. I will be entering a flash fiction competition this week, and have in mind to write a couple of bits for Writer’s Forum magazine. Oh, and I have started writing sci-fi stories, which I am having fun doing. They will be about a subject that is in the news – climate change and air pollution. I have lots of articles on it that I’ve collected over the last few years, and it’s a topic I am passionate about.

Watch this space…

An incentive for your readers

Sorry I haven’t been here recently but my mental health hasn’t been great recently, and I’m still struggling at times. You can read some of it here http://www.julieaday.blogspot.co.uk.

Anyway today I am going to talk to you about giving an incentive to your paperback reader at events. How about printing off the first chapter of your book with the copyright page and cover as a free incentive to readers at events? Some readers might look at your book and are not sure about it, but you can have a copy of the first chapter to give away for free, saying, Here is the first chapter. Have a read and if you like it, then you can buy it. Good idea?  I have done this for my children’s books because I was at a pop-up market and someone came to look at my Rainbow School books but wasn’t sure about them, so I printed off the first chapter and gave them to the person. It might lead to a sale later on. Maybe not from that person, but someone they know that they have mentioned your book to them.

So,  next time you take part in an event with your books, have a printed copy of the first chapter ready. If you see someone looking unsure about buying, give them the free chapter and see what they say. You never know.

Good luck.

Know your rights

Or it could be called ‘Know you’re right with rights’. I am talking about rights in contracts for either magazines or publishers. I am also talking about what is called ‘all rights’ and ‘moral rights’. I might have told you previously about all rights contract with women’s magazine Woman’s Weekly. That issue is still rumbling along as a lot of authors who are regular fiction writers for them won’t continue with their contracts with the magazine. All rights means that the magazine will take your story and keep all rights for it and it will no longer be your story to do what you want to do with. The magazine can do what they want with it instead and not pay the author. This is also moral rights. So if you get a contract from either a magazine or publisher and they ask for all rights and/or moral rights, you have two options: 1 to negotiate for first rights, or just outright say no.

There are two books that help explain rights really well. They are:

The Magic Bakery by Dean Wesley Smith

Closing the deal on your terms: Agents, Contracts and other considerations by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

I have read both these books and highly recommend them if you want to know more about rights, esp if you are an indie author, like me. They are good reads if you are traditionally published too.

Happy reading

I need your help – ghosts

I need your help with another title for a series of short ghost stories I have started writing (creating more work for myself lol). I already have a possible five in mind, with the first already being worked on by me, my editor and me again. The series title is ‘The Family Helpers’ with the tagline ‘ghosts who help others’. Here are the five I have thought of so far:

1. The Nanny – helping a mother who can’t control her noisy children
2. The Friend – a young boy who helps an autistic boy
3. The Nurse – helping a mother with a sick child
4. The Sibling – helping a child who has a problem
5. The Housekeeper- Helping a mother get her children to be normal not quiet

I would like to make it six but can’t think of another title. Let me know what you think. Who can a ghost help next in a family? Look forward to hearing from you.

Read about a magical Chocolate Cupcake

I have been busy publishing again. Book 3 of my adult magical realism ebook series ‘The Secrets of Singleton’  is now live on Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo. It is called ‘The Chocolate Cupcake’ which Angel bakes in her uncle’s cafe, and has a secret ingredient in it that makes her flirty with the delivery lad, Pete. I have a tagline for the series now: Do you need help finding love? Visit Singleton. It can help you. And you can help it change its name. Intrigued? Why not try it… There are lots of cakes mentioned in the book, which made my editor drool. lol.

I had fun writing this one, and hope you have fun reading it.

Book 3 of The Rainbow School series is now out

Just a quick post to let you all know that Book 3 of my children’s series The Rainbow School is now out. It is called ‘Susie and the Jiggling Jumper’. It is available on Amazon here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Susie-Jiggling-Jumper-Rainbow-School/dp/1720452539/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528286013&sr=1-1&keywords=Susie+and+the+jiggling+jumper.

It is close to my heart because Susie is based on me at that age during primary school, with the Asperger’s and heart problem.

I hope you like it. Happy reading.

Julie

 

 

Amazon and your book price

I am back to let you in to something that I recently found out about Amazon, which some of you might not know about. Last weekend I discovered that Amazon had greatly reduced one of my children’s books. I was furious as I hadn’t been informed about this by them, so I sent them an email. Then I mentioned this on a FB group I belong to who are mainly authors. Someone came up with an idea that I ended up doing, and not to worry about it. Here is what they had to say:

They said to take advantage of the low price and stock up with more yourself to sell on. I thought this was a good idea and did do this, buying 5 copies to add to my stock. You might be paying the low price, but you still get the right amount of royalties which I will get.

The other thing I thought of afterwards (and that always happens, doesn’t it? Get the great idea after the event), is that I could have promoted the book at the low price to people to drive sales of it. So, if this happens again, I will do just that, as I would if my ebooks were in KDP Select and you had a promo on.

So, if this happens to your book, don’t seethe, get promoting and stocking up. Take advantage of what Amazon do.

There you have it, another way to promote your books when it happens.