Writer’s Retreat – At Home…

With things as they are, authors are missing book tours, book signings, and the loved Writer’s Retreat that a lot of writers do together. But, we can still do these things. It won’t be the same as it has been, but we have to persevere through this.

So, let’s dive in. If you had planned a Writer’s Retreat and it’s been cancelled due to restrictions, then I have good news. Have it at home. Find a place inside your home that you can turn into your retreat. Maybe it’s the corner of your living room or bedroom. It doesn’t matter where it is. Hang up pictures of a place that brings you inspiration. Play music to inspire you. Burn scented candles that remind you of the place you were going. But make it your own private retreat.

Set up a place to write, facetime with fellow authors, and enjoy a moment to yourself. Have a conversation with writers on social media. You can get feedback from others virtually. But make it work for you. You’ve got this, so create your oasis and get lost in your writing.

I know it’s not the same as having fellow authors sitting with you and feeding off one another’s thoughts, but in times like this, we have to get creative. The important thing is to get the words out there for our fans. They need those words to have a retreat of their own.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Social media promotions…

It’s Tuesday, which means we made it through Monday!

I want to talk with you about promotions. As authors, we constantly struggle with how to promote our books. Do we spend money? Do we wait and see how it goes? What do we do?

I’ve asked these questions many times. Advertising can be expensive, but there are less costly choices. You may be saying, but what do I do now? Promote, I say promote. I’ve been doing a little experiment with promotions. It’s amazing what I found out. Now, don’t get me wrong, paid advertising does have its great points and bad points. But, today I want to talk about promotions.

I went a whole week without promoting my book on social media. Let’s just say my sales went down. So, the next week I promoted to one site. Guess what? My sales started back up. I added several sites to the promotional train and boom, my sales went up.

Now, I’ve been doing steady promotions on several social media sites and what I’ve found is that every day I have sales, instead of gaps. Also, it’s helping to grow my platform, which is good. I’ve gained several newsletter subscribers too.

A great point of social media promotions is that they are free! What’s better than that and you still get results. Try it out. Do the test and let me know how it goes for you…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

P.S. Don’t forget to promote on your blog! Here’s mine:

myBook.to/Tuscany Take a trip to Tuscany and fall in love with Lana and Romeo!

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Coffee…Writing…More Coffee

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Good morning! Are any of you having a hard time getting awake this morning? I’m struggling after the three day weekend. It was a great holiday, but my body and mind seem to still be on vacation.

Oh well, this will be a pot of coffee morning…. I’m working on getting my word count in this morning. I finished Highlander’s Son last week and hope to finish Lacey’s Choice this week. Both of these books have been in the works for a couple of months, so I’m trying my best to get caught back up. Tax season really slammed me this year and it affected my writing like no other year has.

It doesn’t help that my two new series ‘Sky Ridge’ and ‘Wishful Harbor’ are knocking on my mind, wanting to stay inside. Every time I push them back for a day or so, they jump back in with full force and win. But this week, I plan to finish a couple of in-process manuscripts before I go back to the newest ones. Let’s just hope I do.

So, what are you working on this week?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Romance – The Classics…

Good morning everyone!

Ok, so you know I’m a romance author and that I love everything romance. That includes the Bronte’ sisters and Austen. Yes, I love Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Wuthering Heights.

Some romance lovers say they don’t like these classics, but they were the first romance authors. Yes, they’re different from what we read today, but not by much. The main difference being the setting and the era that they wrote in. But the story is the same, guy and girl meet, they’re pulled apart, then they fall in love. It’s epic, really.

Out of these three, it would be hard to say which is my favorite. I love Jane Eyre for the dark era in time, then Pride and Prejudice for Elizabeth’s spirit and Wuthering Heights for the drama.

The adaptations of these stories on the big screen are good too. So, if you’re not into reading these long novels, then check out the movies. But, know this, the novels are the real deal.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…