KA Hitchins

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Who is your ideal reader?

2nd May 2018 by KA Hitchins Leave a Comment

It’s a sad fact of life that authors can no longer sit in their ivory towers reading books and writing unputdownable stories of indescribable beauty and profound insight.

 

 

Self-published authors have known for years that if they don’t promote their books then no one is going to buy them. But even traditionally published authors are expected to dip their toes (or tweeting fingers) into the overcrowded and murky swamp of book promotion.

But before you begin signing up for every social media platform available, do something low tech first. Take a moment to think about who your ideal reader might be. You might save yourself an enormous amount of time and energy if you tailor your promotional activities to the types of people you think might enjoy your book.

Your idea readers might be

  • Male, female or both
  • A child, teen, parent, other adults in a variety of age ranges (e.g. young adult, middle-aged, retired)
  • Married, single, widowed, divorced
  • A person from a particular demographic, ethnic group, culture or geographical area
  • A person of a particular political or religious persuasion
  • A person facing particular difficulties
  • A person with particular interests or hobbies
  • A person who loves fiction or who prefers biography, memoir, non-fiction or a how-to book.
  • A person in a particular income bracket or who is struggling financially
  • A person with a particular occupation or no occupation – student, homemaker, self-employed, employed, unemployed, retired

 

 

 

Back of an Envelope Stuff

The first thing I do when  trying to find the audience for my books is to mind map some of the themes and issues covered. From this, I concluded that the people most interested in reading my debut novel, The Girl at the End of the Road, would be

  • Readers of contemporary commercial fiction
  • Men and women, probably over the age of 30
  • People who had family members with special needs or needing care
  • People who live in Suffolk
  • Christians
  • Dog lovers

 

Tailoring your Promotional Activities to your Audience

Once I had a better idea of who my book would appeal to, I tailored my promotional energy in that direction.

For example, I contacted a Suffolk Arts Magazine, who were kind enough to review the book. I also drafted an article for a dog magazine. I sent review copies to special needs bloggers and talked about the book in various autism forums online. I had a book signing in Bury St Edmunds Cathedral bookshop because I have a scene in the Cathedral. I was also able to write articles for a couple of magazines to help raise awareness of autism.

As well as looking at the content of your book here are some other things you might like to consider.

  • If you are writing a children’s book, you need to target parents and schools. Your local primary school might appreciate a visit from a local author, particularly if they can link the topic of your book into the National Curriculum and you can offer an author visit/talk/assembly. There are loads of possibilities on social media, e.g. Mumsnet, local online parenting groups etc, and literally thousands of mums blogging about different parenting issues. See if you can find any that review children’s books and offer to send them a free copy or the ebook.
  • If you are writing a biography/memoir, this is the kind of material that might be shared with Women’s Institutes, U3A meetings etc. These kinds of groups are always looking for good speakers (check out the National Association of Women’s Clubs at http://www.nawc.org.uk/speakers.php).
  • If you are writing a ‘how to’ book, you could offer to run a course at a local school, college, church, library or village hall, as well as giving talks to WI meetings and women’s clubs (see above).
  • If you are writing general fiction, you could connect with local book groups, independent bookshops, book bloggers and virtual book groups and reviewers on Facebook.
  • If you are writing a theological or political book you will probably be receiving invitations to preach or speak at churches, or talk at political gatherings or conventions.
  • If your book is historical, or touches on local geographical features, you might like to contact your local library, historical society or environmental group.

 

 

Spread Your Nets Wide

Ideally before publication (but this can be done at any time you want to give your book a boost) draw up a list of all the possible people you could tell about your book. These include:

  • Friends and family
  • Local newspapers
  • Local radio
  • Your local library
  • Your Parish/Church Magazine or website
  • Local or special interest bloggers
  • Relevant special interest magazines
  • Groups you belong to and would be willing to support you (mine were dog walkers, my writing group, parents from school)
  • People on your Christmas card list
  • High profile names relating to your area of expertise or the type of book you are writing
  • Facebook groups – search for book groups, groups interested in topics covered in your book, and Facebook groups in your home town who would be interested to hear news of a local author
  • Use Twitter hashtags. It’s a bit like tagging a person but relates to a topic. It’s a good way of connecting yourself to other people with similar interests, e.g. in promoting The Girl at the End of the Road I sometimes used the hashtags #autism, #aspergers and #walking the dog. Other useful hashtags for writers inclue:-

#AmWriting

#AmEditing

#WordCount

#WritersLife

#WritingTip

#WriteTip

#PromoTip

#Publishing

#EBooks

#BookMarketing

#PubTip

#WIP (work in progress)

#FridayReads

#BookGiveaway

#MustRead

#LitChat

#Kindle

#Review

#Blog

#CoverReveal

 

Ways to get the message out

As well as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, there are many other ways to get the message out, depending on who you are contacting, e.g.

  • Sending out a press release to all appropriate newspapers and magazines with a personalised covering letter/email from yourself.
  • Producing tailor-made articles in advance for local newspapers and magazines, together with a good photograph of yourself and the cover art of the book. They might not choose to publish, but they are much more likely to include a piece on you as a local author if you have done all the donkey work for them and written an article which all they have to do is edit.
  • Give a free copy of your book to your local library, and have some bookmarks printed advertising your book to go on the front desk.
  • Get some flyers/posters printed and ask if your local shops, community centres, church or school would be willing to display them for you.
  • Send out invitations to your book launch to as many people as you can, in particular Facebook groups sharing things to do in your home town.
  • Photocopy a small flyer for inclusion with your Christmas cards – this can be done even if your book is going to be published in the Spring. (The run up to Christmas is the busiest time for bookshops. If you include a small flyer with your Christmas cards and send them out on 1 December it will remind people that they still have time to buy your book to give as a present.)
  • Contact local radio stations to ask if they would be willing to interview you.
  • Ask your friends if they know any bloggers, book reviewers or journalists you can contact about your book.
  • Ask local shops if they would be willing to stock and sell your books. It doesn’t have to be a bookshop. You might have a small gift shop or newsagents that would be willing to take copies direct from you as a local author at a reduced price so that they can sell them on.
  • Create an author page on Facebook, if you haven’t already done so. Here you can share every step of your journey to publication, build a sense of anticipation among your followers and generate online pre-orders.
  • You could organise a blog tour. If you want to see how you could do this, check out my blog here: http://www.kahitchins.co.uk/how-i-organised-an-author-blog-tour/

 

Tips

  • Try and always have a copy of your book with you in case you bump into someone who wants to buy one.
  • Have a card or bookmark to give away or place in each copy of your book so people know how to contact you or follow you on social media.
  • Ask people to give you feedback. Tell them they can always leave a review on Amazon. They don’t have to have bought the book on Amazon to leave a review.
  • Never ask to do a review swop – this goes against Amazon’s review policy.
  • Never pay for a review – this goes against Amazon’s review policy and if they find out they will remove all the reviews from your page. However, you can give a free copy of your book to someone and ask for honest feedback.
  • Always have a visitors’ book or sign-up sheet with you when you give book talks or signings. Encourage people to leave their email address to sign up for your newsletter. This means you can contact interested parties about any price reductions, events or future book releases. Don’t send newsletters too often, and only send them if you have something meaningful to say.
  • Actively encourage people to follow you on social media.
  • Personal recommendation is still the best way to sell books, so ask people to recommend your book to a friend if they enjoyed it.
  • One of the best ways of promoting your book is to find other people who will promote your book for you. Try and encourage your friends and family to leave Amazon and Goodreads reviews. If you know any bloggers, ask if they would interview you or review your book on their blog. Once you have received reviews or been mentioned in blogs, you can share these on Facebook and Twitter. Lots of activity on your social media about the feedback you are getting increases the credibility you have as a writer.

 

Instead of focusing all your energy on your book, spend a little time thinking about your readers – where they hang out, what they enjoy doing and how you might be able to connect with them in a meaningful way. After all:

 

Filed Under: Blog, Uncategorised Tagged With: Book Promotion, Promotional Activities, Readers, Social Media, Writer's Life, writing

Social Media Anxiety

26th April 2018 by KA Hitchins Leave a Comment

Whether you are new to social media or already active on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads, it’s very easy to feel it’s all getting out of control and taking too much time. There are so many platforms and so much advice about what authors should be doing – most of the technical stuff going right over my head.

People are interacting with each other in new and evolving ways online. Everything seems to be moving at a tremendous pace. It’s difficult to keep up with the jargon and the etiquette. We don’t want to look stupid or attract trolls. It would be easier to put our heads in the sand and stick to the real world of paper and ink.

 

 

As a writer and a Christian, I want to communicate the things God has laid on my heart. It would be so much easier if I could just write a book, find a publisher, and leave it at that. As it turns out, finding a publisher is just the start of the journey. Once you have that elusive publishing deal, it’s expected that you’ll do a certain amount of book promotion online. For me, it’s been a steep and difficult learning curve.  I only started my online journey in 2013, but here are some of the things I’ve found out as I’ve begun to use Facebook and Twitter.

It’s not about the Numbers: if you can’t go wider, go deeper

The virtual world is full of unpleasant gossip, facile posts about cute pets and what people are eating for dinner, news of injustice and brutality around the world, political lobbying, hard sales tactics, erotica, bad language and belittling humour. This means that as well as puzzling about the mechanics of how to use social media, there’s the question about how I can have a public presence as a Christian author, engaging with others about my projects and also demonstrating some grace and generosity in my interactions. Social Media can’t just be ‘buy my book, buy my book’. Firstly it doesn’t work and secondly it annoys people. Social media needs to be social.

 

 

I once naively asked to join a promotional group for writers on Facebook. I was told I couldn’t join because I had less than 10,000 Twitter followers! Then I was told I could join a smaller group, build up my following until I had reached 10,000. The way they built up followers was by a kind of chain letter system. Every day on the Facebook group you had to post up your Amazon book page and Twitter address, and then share EVERY Amazon book page above you on social media and follow every Twitter address. You couldn’t pick and choose which books you shared. As you can imagine, some of the front covers were highly questionable, so I unfollowed the Group.

I’m never going to have 10,000 followers on Twitter, and don’t want to have that many because it would be impossible to manage and to meaningfully connect with people. So instead of worrying about the number of followers I have, I’m trying to go deeper instead of wider. This could mean going deeper on a certain topic or going deeper in my connection with a small group of people. I’m trying to shift my perspective away from the number of likes I receive and working towards real exchanges with people, taking an interest in their creative projects, sharing their posts and thanking them if what they have written has enriched my day. We can all spread a little bit of joy into other people’s lives.

Do you feel you are speaking to an empty room?

It’s easy to feel disappointed when there’s no reaction to the things you are posting and sharing. Sometimes it all seems a bit of a waste of time.

 

 

I’ve had to change my expectations about what a single post can do. I don’t think there’s a secret formula, but I do think it’s worth persevering. At least I have a place in the virtual world where people can meet and connect with me. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities to speak on the radio and to submit articles to magazines. Maybe I wouldn’t have had those opportunities if the person extending the invitation hadn’t been able to search my name and find me on the internet. Having a website and a Facebook page with photos of events I have spoken at gives a certain amount of reassurance that I am a ‘proper writer’ and not the nervous introvert which I am in reality.

Being Intentional rather than Reactive

However, I’ve found it’s all too easy to spend my time on social media reacting to what other people share. This has made me feel that my life and the things that concern me are much less interesting than what everyone else is posting. Instead of reacting to other people all the time, I’m now trying to be more intentional. I can choose what I let into my life, and how I let it in. Hopefully this is bringing some structure into my use of social media which will be positive over the long term.

My social media strategy now looks like this. Choose what I let into my life and how I let it in. Decide what I’m going to talk about and how I’m going to talk about it. Share what I feel is important. As well as promoting my work, I share in private Facebook groups some of the deeper themes that my work focuses on. Hopefully as I move forward this will bring back some sense of control.

The lives of authors are filled with risk. We are juggling work and family commitments, while digging deep as writers and exposing ourselves to the judgement of others. Life seems full of small rejections and disappointments, not least on social media. But that’s no reason to give up. If you believe in your writing, and know there are readers out there who would like to connect with it and with you, then keep reaching out with you message. Just connecting with one other person in a meaningful way can make all the difference to them and to you.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorised Tagged With: Book Promotion, Christian Writer, Deeper not Wider, Facebook, Intentional not Reactive, Social Media, Twitter, writing

How I organised an Author Blog Tour

8th August 2017 by KA Hitchins 1 Comment

Authors love being featured on other people’s blogs, whether it’s having their latest book reviewed by a book blogger, being interviewed about their writing life or contributing an article on a subject dear to their heart. The pièce de résistance must therefore be having your very own blog book tour.

 

 

A blog tour is like a traditional book tour, except all the stops are virtual. Instead of going from book shop to book shop, the author goes from blog to blog. The purpose is to expose the author to as wide an audience as possible without having all the expense and trouble of travelling around the country. You can read more about blog tours here: http://www.bookmasters.com/blog/blog-book-tour/

I’ve managed to have my books featured on several individual book review blogs, but had no idea how go about organising a blog tour for myself. Having signed a contract with a small independent publisher, there was no money to pay for a publicist to organise a tour for me and I didn’t know many bloggers personally who I could recruit.

In any case, as an unknown author I found it excruciatingly difficult to ask bloggers for their help, particularly as they knew what a blog tour involved and I didn’t. I was worried I’d look stupid and unprofessional.  Having also had my fair share of rejections through the submissions process, I wasn’t keen to expose my tender heart to more refusals.

 

 

Then I had a light bulb moment. I would ask another author if I could organise a blog tour for them, making it clear I had no experience in this area but would be willing to give it a go if they were. I knew I had to find the right kind of author – one whose work I admired, who was also a new author and who had passions and expertise outside of their book which would be interesting for bloggers to explore.

The main advantage of organising a blog tour for another author is that it’s much easier to ask for help on behalf of someone else. It’s also easier for a blogger to say, ‘no,’ to a third party, and it doesn’t hurt when they do! When they say, ‘yes’, however, you know they really want to be involved.

Having come to the end of the tour, I can wholeheartedly recommend the benefits. It was exciting to be able to enjoy someone else’s positive reviews and success for a change.  I logged onto social media every day during the tour with a sense of expectation, reading that day’s blog and enjoying seeing it Retweeted and shared into wider networks than my own.

The benefits for the author were: several great book reviews, a small increase in book sales, greater credibility as a writer and the possibility that her name and the name of her book will be more easily picked up by search engines in the future.

As well as increasing the profile of the author, I’ve also gained more Twitter and Facebook followers, and have met some wonderful people online who I might not have bumped into otherwise. I have more of a sense of the community of writers and bloggers working in my genre and I’ve seen first-hand how bloggers are able to find new angles on the same story, presenting their thoughts in the most succinct and imaginative ways. Hopefully the lessons I’ve learned will improve my own blogging.

Perhaps most importantly I’ve realised how rewarding it is to work collaboratively. The writer’s life is a lonely one. It was all too easy for me to become obsessed with my own reviews and sales figures and begin to lose perspective. There are many ways to gain a sense of personal achievement and helping to promote another author is one of them. With the internet swarming with publicists charging extraordinary sums to organise blog tours, it’s time writers took matters into their own hands.

So authors, instead of desperately searching for book review bloggers to feature your book, why not organise a blog tour for another author you know. Take a moment away from your own marketing and give yourself the opportunity to enjoy someone else’s success. There will be benefits for you both – and you never know one day someone might be willing to organise a tour for you.

And if organising a blog tour seems too much work, why not occasionally feature another author on your blog? Amazon does not allow review swaps on its site, but there’s nothing to stop you teaming up with another author to blog about each other’s books.

 

 

Here a step by step guide of how I set up the blog tour.

  1. Find an author who has several different angles to their writing, not just their book. Are they involved in a particular field or have a particular expertise? Have they an interesting life story? Can they talk about writing related issues? Some of the blogs on the tour can be book reviews, an author interview or an article produced by the author on a topic close to their heart, but the material for each blog needs to be unique in some way. Bloggers do not want to duplicate material from other blogs.
  2. Recruit a group of willing bloggers (this is the hard part!). I advertised for bloggers in relevant Facebook groups, and contacted other authors I knew who blogged. It took several weeks before I had enough blog spots to cover ten days.
  3. Set up a secret Facebook page and add in all the bloggers and the author. Encourage them to follow each other on Facebook and Twitter.
  4. Send out a review e-book to each bloggers so they can read it if they want to.
  5. Ask the bloggers what kind of a blog they want to have on their site and encourage them to coordinate direct with the author over interview questions/blog content.
  6. Agree dates for the tour with everyone and produce a schedule, ideally with a blog being published every day for a set period of time. Encourage the bloggers to advertise the schedule in advance.
  7. Select a relevant hashtag for the tour so that all Tweets can be easily found in one place and retweeted
  8. Once the tour is up and running, check that blogs are being posted each day and chase up any that are late. Share the blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, including in the secret Facebook group so the other bloggers can find them easily. Share and retweet other people’s posts and tweets.
  9. At the end of the tour, thank and congratulate everyone involved.

If you have experience of organising blog tours, I’d love to hear how you do it. I know I still have much to learn.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorised Tagged With: Author Promotion, blog, blog tour, Bloggers, Book Reviews, rejection, Writers Working Collaboratively, writing

What I Learned Walking the Dog

24th May 2017 by KA Hitchins 2 Comments

In 2011 we rehomed a 16 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback called Harley. He’d been living with a young couple and their new baby in a one bedroom flat with no garden. Every time the baby cried the dog barked. Every time the dog barked the baby cried.

I’d been searching for a dog for some time. I didn’t want a puppy because there was a lot going on in the family at that time and I didn’t think I would be able to dedicate myself fully to the house training. Conversely, we didn’t want a dog who was too old to learn new tricks. My husband wanted a big dog. It’s a macho thing. I wanted a short-haired non-moulting dog. It’s a vacuuming thing! Harley was perfect in every respect.

 

 

Neither my husband nor I had lived with a dog before, although I always wanted one. I loved the idea of the kids coming out with us on long family walks at the weekend, and all of us curling up together on cold winter nights. What I was less sure about was the thought of walking the dog every day in all weathers.

Six years have passed and, as it turns out, walking the dog has been the best part of being Harley’s ‘Mum’. I’ve seen the seasons change in ways that would have been unimaginable to me during my 20 years of commuting to London: frost on cobwebs, striped caterpillars on nettles, ears of wheat clicking in the shimmering heat.  I’ve learned the names of trees and wild flowers. My fitness has improved. I’ve made new friends. And the slow rhythm of walking and looking and thinking and breathing has kick-started my writing career.

 

 

Those family rambles never materialised. It’s as much as I can do to get our teenagers out of bed and down the stairs for lunch at the weekend. And they’re too busy curling up with their play stations and iPads in the evenings to worry about their parents or Harley.

So, here in brief, are some valuable things I’ve learned from walking the dog.

  • You have to do it regularly (at least once a day).
  • You have to do it whether you feel like it or not.
  • It gets easier the more you do it.
  • You will start enjoying things you never thought you would.
  • There will be unanticipated rewards.
  • Your observational skills will improve.
  • Your insight will deepen.
  • You will need to shake up the routine to keep things fresh.

I’ve discovered that these truths apply to many other aspects of my life: housework, cooking, communicating with teenagers, helping with GCSE revision, writing my next novel, and  – last but not least – spiritual growth.

Who would have thought that walking the dog would teach me so much about walking with God?

 

Filed Under: Uncategorised Tagged With: cooking, GCSE Revision, God, housework, novel, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Spiritual Growth, Teenagers, Walking the dog, Walking with God, writing

Author Spotlight: Fiona Veitch Smith

17th April 2017 by KA Hitchins Leave a Comment

I’m delighted Fiona Veitch Smith has agreed to be interviewed for my first ever ‘Author Spotlight’.

 

(Cartoon of Fiona busy at work by Chris Bambrough)

 

I became aware of Fiona in January when a friend lent me The Jazz Files, the first in the Poppy Denby Investigates series. It took me back to my teenage years when I voraciously read Agatha Christie. There’s that same sense of an era which, despite its crimes, has a certainty and confidence about morals and manners. But in contrast to Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, Poppy Denby inhabits a world of real historical characters and events. This adds extra depth to the novel, the protagonists and the plot. Here’s my review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1888534926

 

 

Of course, I couldn’t wait to read the second book in the Poppy Denby series, The Kill Fee. Once again, the fledgling journalist finds herself smack bang in the middle of a murder myster, this time connected to the political fallout from the Bolshevik revolution. You can read my review here.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1902343348

 

 

I was intrigued to find out more about an author who could blend history and fiction together with such panache, and sent her the following questions.

 

Why do you write?

Writing is part of who I am. I would not feel complete without it. Like an athlete who does not run, or an artist who does not draw, I would not feel that I was expressing who I really am if I didn’t write. When I have not written for a while, due to other work or family commitments, I start to feel on edge and irritable. I need to write to get back into balance. For me, it’s a way of connecting with my soul. It’s a spiritual thing and a physical thing.

 

How long have you been writing?

All my life. I have made up stories and plays since childhood. I did a degree in journalism and worked as a journalist in my 20s and early 30s. I also spent some of that time working for a theatre company writing plays.  I left full-time journalism when I was 32 (although I still did some freelance work) and have been pursuing a career as a professional creative writer ever since – I’m now 47.

 

What is one thing you wish you knew when you started out?

How hard it would be to earn a living as a professional writer. I thought it would just be a matter of time until my earnings picked up to the same level they were when I worked as a full-time journalist. Fifteen years later I now earn the UK minimum wage. But I can’t give it up. Creative writing is so much part of who I am now. I get frustrated at times by how little I earn compared to my professional peers – and how much better off I would have been, financially, if I had stuck to full-time  journalism – but then I remind myself how much more I have gained by being true to myself and following a career I love.

 

How would you describe the genre you are writing in?

I have written in many genre and media. I write for theatre, film, animation, children’s picture books and adult novels. I have also written Christian devotional material and of course journalism. I have even written marketing copy for an estate agent! When you are earning a living from writing it is helpful to be able to turn your hand to whatever work comes along – and pays. However, in recent years, I have started to find the most success in writing adult mystery novels and children’s picture books. So they are now my main focus. I am currently working on a series of picture books for SPCK about the biblical Joseph (of the rainbow robe fame) and for Lion Fiction, a series of murder mysteries set in the 1920s about a female investigative reporter. I think that is where you first came across me, Kathryn, when you reviewed the first two books in the Poppy Denby Investigates series.

 

How did you come up with the character of Poppy Denby?

The idea came when I visited suffragette Emily Wilding Davison’s grave and thought it might be interesting to have a murder mystery set against the backdrop of the suffragette movement. I had previously started, but then abandoned, a contemporary mystery novel about a young female reporter sleuth, but I decided to try it again, this time set in 1913. However, after trying to get the story started for a month or two I felt that the period just wasn’t working for me. I decided instead to move the story forward to 1920 and instead of having the reporter as a suffragette, made her the niece of a suffragette inheriting the freedoms won by the sacrifice of others. Poppy is from Morpeth, like Emily Wilding Davison, and like the historical character, moves to London. She is also based somewhat on me as a young journalist, struggling to forge a career in what was then a male dominated world.

 

How often do you write and what is your process?

That varies according to how much teaching work I have on at the time (I sometimes lecture at my local universities). Also, if I have a new book out, I need to spend a lot of time promoting it. My most productive writing time is May – September when I have no teaching and usually no books coming out (my books usually come out in the autumn). During the summer I write every day, Monday to Friday. Other times of the year I snatch writing time where I can between other work; but never at night and rarely at weekends as I try to keep that as ‘family time’. I find my best writing is done in my bedroom on my bed. It’s a lovely sunny room and calming. I have a separate computer and room for my non-creative work – admin, lecture prep, editing, marking, and social media – so when I sit propped up on my bed with a cup of coffee to hand and my creative computer open, I’m ready to write.

 

Do you write with an outline?

Yes. It’s very important when writing mysteries that all the threads tie up. But the outline changes as I work. I still maintain flexibility within it to follow different paths and ideas.

 

How do you market yourself and your book?

I am active on social media via Facebook and Twitter. However, I rarely do any blogging (I used to before the days of FB, but my FB account attracts lots of followers, far more than when I blogged, so now I just maintain a website as a ‘shop window’). I also speak at writing groups, book groups and occasionally festivals. I also do interviews like this one for book blogs, websites and print magazines.

 

What writing advice can you give?

Be prepared to grow into your writing and work on it. And be prepared to take criticism and guidance from people who are more experienced than you. But don’t expect to get it all for free! Creativity is God-given, but learning how to craft and apply it is something you need to work at and, at times, pay for, like anyone learning a new profession. However, if you want to write as a hobby – and not earn a living from it – that’s perfectly valid too. Just write and enjoy it!

 

Can you create a short writing prompt?

Think of a person. What do they look like? What are they currently thinking about? Now, see them standing at the foot of a flight of stairs. What happens next …?

 

Fiona Veitch Smith is a writer and writing tutor, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She writes across all media, for children and adults. Her mystery novel The Jazz Files, the first in the Poppy Denby Investigates Series (Lion Fiction) was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger award in 2016. The second book, The Kill Fee is currently a finalist for the Foreword Review mystery novel of the year, and the third, The Death Beat, will be published in October. Her novel Pilate’s Daughter  a historical love story set in Roman Palestine, is published by Endeavour Press and her literary thriller about apartheid South Africa, The Peace Garden, is self-published under the Crafty Publishing imprint. Her children’s books The Young David Series and the Young Joseph Series  are published by SPCK.

 http://fiona.veitchsmith.com

www.poppydenby.com

www.youngbibleheroes.com

Filed Under: Uncategorised Tagged With: Crime, Fiona Veitch Smith, Historical novel, Mystery, Pilate's Daughter, Poppy Denby Investigates, The Dead Beat, The Jazz Files, The Kill Fee, The Peace Garden, writing

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Recent Posts

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