helenwritesit I wanted to step away from all the excitement for a moment and write a few words about my experience as a debut author so far. It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks and here’s why…
While I’m busy promoting A Concert for Christmas (more on that later), I’ve also been finishing off the second book, which has now been delivered to my publisher. It was already in fairly good nick (I think!), but it did need a bit of a rewrite, deepening some of the characters and fleshing out some of the plot. It’s the first time I’ve done an in-depth rewrite in a while and it was really nice to be flexing my writing muscles again. I’m itching to write something new now too…!
Having pressed send on my second book, I’ve shifted back to A Concert for Christmas, which is going to be published in less than a month! Eek!! And while I try to get my head around that (I still can’t quite believe that it’s really happening), I’ve been doing the dreaded self-promotion. I desperately want the book to do well, so I don’t begrudge the work I’m doing with marketing and publicity; but putting myself out there is definitely out of my comfort zone! Just this morning, I’ve visited two libraries and two local bookshops, asking sheepishly if they’d be interested in holding an author event or a book reading. I think it went well, and frankly, I was just pleased that they didn’t laugh at me and ask me who I think I am! As I was leaving, one book shop owner congratulated me for being brave – I think she must have sensed my nerves! Ultimately, I’m hoping that one of my networking efforts might lead to a book launch of some sort, which would be a dream come true!
I’ve also been putting more effort into social media – I am now on TikTok (yes, I know, I am almost definitely too old, but I’ve done it anyway!) – and I’m making the effort to post regularly. I’ve not yet put my face everywhere and absolutely not as a video (I can just about tolerate a still image of myself). Some kind of video of my actual face talking might be the next step; but I’m not ready for that quite yet!
An exciting moment was when my author copies arrived. I got especially emotional seeing my dedication and acknowledgements, because so many people have helped me get to this point. And, there’s a real blurb and author biography which seems like madness, but so very exciting!
What I’ve loved the most is the lovely, lovely messages from so many people: friends, family, people I went to school with, other authors, random people I’ve never met… the support out there for authors is incredible and it makes me feel very loved. I just hope that once everyone reads A concert for Christmas, it can live up to expectations! An exciting and tense month ahead…
