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Happy New Year everyone! And happy birthday to me!Well, my birthday's not until 12 January... so I'm doing a "12 days of my birthday" celebration and until then I'm offering a 25% discount on the CreateSpace edition of my book, Discovering Wounded Justice: Cruel Menace: https://www.createspace.com/3390160. The special Birthday Celebration coupon code for the CreateSpace version of my book is 8FLE95WT. If you'd prefer a Kindle version before it's available on Amazon, you can get a copy here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3809. The special Birthday Celebration coupon code for the Smashwords version of my ebook is ZS68G and is only valid until 12 January. Please help me celebrate the New Year and my birthday! I'd like to wish everyone happiness, safety, security and much success (and many book sales for independently published authors) in 2010! Cheers |
Want instant gratification? Get a Kindle version of my ebook BEFORE it's available from Amazon.comI have a Kindle version of my book, Discovering Wounded Justice: Cruel Menace available at Smashwords. About three weeks ago, Smashwords founder Mark Coker announced a distribution agreement for Smashwords to supply ebooks to the Amazon Kindle Store, with titles to start appearing in the the Amazon Kindle Store in mid-December 2009. http://blog.smashwords.com/2009/11/smashwords-to-supply-ebooks-to-amazon.html http://www.smashwords.com/press/release/16 I'm hoping that the Kindle version of my book, Discovering Wounded Justice: Cruel Menace will be available in the next couple of days, but if you'd like get a Kindle version of my ebook BEFORE it's available from Amazon.com, you can get a copy from: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3809 Kind Regards Book signing successI've been really busy since Monday of last week! No, the Saturday before, now that I think about it. And boy, am I tired! I had some family members who live overseas arrive on Saturday, one of whom had never been to Sydney before and I spent a couple of days showing them about town to see all the "famous" things that I've grown accustomed to (and now really ignore), like the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They went to Byron Bay on Thursday. I had a book signing scheduled for Friday morning at New Farm Editions, a book store quite close to where my dad grew up, so I flew from Sydney to Brisbane on Thursday afternoon. The book signing went as well as I'd hoped and I sold and signed 11 books on the morning and left a small stock of books with the book store. A journalist from the New Farm Village News popped by the signing and I spoke with him briefly and had some photographs taken with my grandmother who lives in the area for a small article to be run for the Village News. On Friday afternoon, I went to Byron Bay for more catch-up time with the family and was interviewed by phone by a journalist from the Albert and Logan News (the local newspaper in the town where I finished high school) for another local interest piece and had a photographer take some photographs this morning to go with the article for the paper. Hopefully, the Albert and Logan News will run the story very soon! In between all this, I've also been "interviewing" both my grandmothers (who are both close to 90 years old) to get them to remind me of their favourite recipes so I can also put together a family cookbook. I'm due to fly back to Sydney tomorrow afternoon but I've now also got a radio interview scheduled for 8.00am tomorrow morning on Brisbane's 4BC breakfast show before I head to the airport! I think I'll be glad to get back home so I can take a holiday after my "working holiday" and get back to working on my next book! Although I don't know which one I'll be working on first! Regards Book signing at New Farm Editions on Friday, 20 November 2009I've been a little busy lately, trying to do some promotional work for my book, Discovering Wounded Justice: Cruel Menace while writing the next chapter in the life of Alyssa Giordano at the same time. It's been a bit distracting! But I'm actually happy that I've been distracted from writing! Why? Because I've been organising a book signing for my book, Discovering Wounded Justice: Cruel Menace on Friday, 20 November 2009 (10.00 am to 11.30 am) at: New Farm Editions Friday, 20 November 2009 I'd love to see you there! Regards What advice do I have for aspiring writers?In my last blog entry, I wrote about a question I was asked about my writing process. Another question I was asked recently was what advice I have for aspiring writers. Firstly: learn English! (Or whatever language you happen to be writing in.) It might sound ridiculous and obvious, but most people don’t pay attention in English classes at school and unfortunately some schools a horrific job in teaching the bare basics of English composition. Language is such a fluid thing and it takes practice to master it, like any subject. I was lucky: my mother started her career as an English teacher, my maternal grandmother started her career as an English teacher and my father learnt English as a second language. I also learnt Italian as my secondary primary language as a child and I studied French and Japanese and a little German in high school (although I’ve forgotten a lot of those languages). So I had a benefit many others might, no probably wouldn’t, have. Secondly: study a second language if you can. You will learn the rules of structure, grammar and spelling of another language which will go some way to helping you understand your primary language. Thirdly: read, read, read. You can learn a lot from seeing how others write. Fourthly: get a tough skin. You’ll get criticism from others and it won’t always be easy to swallow. Don’t take criticism as a personal attack on your soul; learn something and get better. Fifthly, and finally: don’t aspire to write. Write! Write, write and write some more! Regards |
