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Friendly Reminder

January 15, 2023 by Renae Wrich in category Writing tagged as be kind, new year, reminders, writing

For me, January has always felt like a clean slate. An opportunity to psych myself up for the year ahead and think about all the things I hope to accomplish.

On the contrary, January is also a time when I think back on all of the things I wasn’t able to accomplish over the past year.

Did I reach my fitness goals? Nope.

Did I tackle that home improvement project? Nope.

Did I publish my next children’s book? Nope.

I find that I always need that friendly reminder to focus more on what I did accomplish, and less on what I didn’t.

Did I make sure my children knew they were loved? Yes.

Did I keep things like family dinners despite our crazy activity schedule? Yes.

Did I raise a puppy? Yes.

Did I volunteer my time to important causes? Yes.

Did I take outdoor walks when my schedule/the weather allowed? Yes.

Did I tackle massive projects at work? Yes.

Did I start contributing to a new blog? Yes!!!

Did I write my first romance novel? Yes!

Focusing more on what I did accomplish, helps better prepare me for what I hope to accomplish in the New Year.

How can I build upon the things I that I was successful at? How will that help me accomplish the things I haven’t been successful with in the past?

Please remember to be kind to yourself. You’re doing great things and you are enough just as you are. Everything else is a bonus. 🙂

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Are you an author or a writer? and my TikTok Confession by Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2023 by Jina Bacarr in category historical fiction, Holocaust, Jina’s Book Chat, Paris novels, Writing tagged as author, Berlin, editing, Paris, World War 2, Writer, writing

@jinabacarrauthor

WIP woes… #booktok #authorlife #writersoftiktok #amwriting #ameditingfiction #womensfiction #booktoker @bookandtonic #writer #authorsoftiktok #heartbreakingstories #amediting edit

♬ original sound – Jina Bacarr Historical Author♥

No, this isn’t a trick question.

It’s the challenge we ladies of the pen all face in our social media, digital, crazy, mad, mad world…

The answer is: BOTH.

The writer is me in total chaos working on an insanely difficult book about rape in France during World War II with a deadline looming. My office is a mess, I’m a mess… the manuscript, thank God, is NOT a mess but it’s not finished yet. Weaving such a trauma against the backdrop of the Nazi Occupation is the most gut-wrenching task I’ve ever faced. It’s taken me a while to get a handle on the story of two sisters and how the rape of one of them affects them both.

That’s the writer me.

—–

Now for the author me.

That’s the me writing this post because this is my chance every month to reach out to you guys and let you know what’s going on in my world. It’s how we present ourselves to the book world and at times is as just as trying and difficult as the writer me.

Hence, my TikTok confession.

I hope you enjoy my video showing me in my office drowning in research material… oh, Lord.

——–

And now for some good stuff, if I may.

My WW2 story THE ORPHANS OF BERLIN is now FREE to read in PRIME on Amazon

THE OPRHANS OF BERLIN

Meet the Landau Sisters barely surviving in Nazi Germany… and Kay Alexander, the amazing debutante from Philadelphia who will stop at nothing to save them from the Nazis in 1939 Berlin…

And of course, there’s a British pilot hero to die for…

US https://amzn.to/3TMKZlf

UK https://amzn.to/3Qjp5mB

—————

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You Can Go the Distance by Kitty Bucholtz

January 10, 2023 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Classes, coaching, writing

Happy New Year! The thing I love about mornings, Mondays, and January is that it’s a great time to start again. Today is the first full working week of the year for me and I’m excited. I’m making plans and figuring out, of the hundreds of things I want to do, how much I can get done this year and what things are most important to me.

Decades of experience shows me there’s no way I can accomplish everything, not even the most important things. 😀 So I’ve been telling myself — like when you get on or off a train in the city — to Mind the Gap. Be aware that, in addition to my Everything list, my Most Important list is too long to finish in a year. But I also want to keep training my brain to believe that I CAN do what’s necessary. Even if my conscious mind doesn’t know how to do that, my unconscious can figure out some things that will be nice surprises to me this year.

I want to help you and our other writer friends find ways to get more writing done in a less stressful way this year, too! One way I’ll do that is to reintroduce my online class, Going the Distance: Time and Project Management for Writers. Yay! I’ll post more information about it here. Let me know if you want to join us!

The other way I can help is to share a simple exercise I shared with some of my clients in December. Looking ahead at the whole year, what are the top three things you’d like to accomplish? And for each of those things, what are the top three things you can DO to achieve each item?

That’s it. Simple. Nine tasks to move you toward a satisfying conclusion to the year twelve months from now. 😀 I hope it helps you to have this simple but comprehensive view of the year, no stress, no pages and pages of detailed plans. Just nine tasks.

If you prefer a deeper dive into planning your whole year so that you get the most accomplished that you possibly can, look for details on my upcoming Going the Distance class on my blog over the next week or two! Have a fantastic day and year!

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JANAURY RECAP

January 5, 2023 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed, Writing tagged as Marketing, publishing, Tracy Reed, writing, Year in review

Happy New Year…Bonne Année…

Let’s get right into it. It’s that time of year when people make a lot of empty promises to themselves in the form of resolutions. Then they berate themselves when they come up short around the three month mark. The other thing they do in January is recap.

I refuse to allow myself to feel guilty about not completing all of my goals. I take pleasure in the unexpected things that occurred.

So what did I set out to do last year?
Get my letters -Didn’t happen
Triple my income – Didn’t happen. In fact, I finished the year less than 2021
Triple my mailing list – Didn’t happen. I gained about a 600, taking my list to 4000. However, not all of them want to receive email.
Master Facebook Ads – This is one of those ongoing things because Facebook or Meta is always changing. I did learn that I need to upscale for better results.
Update covers – Still working on this one.
Learn how to write a sellable blurb – I’m going to take the easy way out and farm this out. I found a service I like. I’ll still work on getting better, but I’ve learned it’s okay to ask for help
Use Ingram Spark – I loaded one book.
Direct Distribution – Still loading books. Last month I set up my first ebook direct sale from website and Book Funnel.
Increase BookBub US followers to 1000 – I’m 400+ away from my magic number.
Increase my prices -Did this.
Release Three books – Did this. In fact, I also participated in two anthologies and started one of my books for 2023.

I came up short a few times, but I also did some things not on the list I’m proud of.
My first Google sale
My first Eden Books sale
Wrote my first rom con for an anthology for February
Increased the followers on my Facebook passion page.
(I’m shocked about this it’s at 2800+ followers in less than a year)
Wrote my biggest book, so far (107k words)
Started creating large print books
Hired a PA and she’s got me on a regular email schedule
Wrote 300k+ words
Completed NANO
I had one BookBub Featured Deal
(It landed me in the 100 free in the Amazon store. (This was huge.))

So what’s on tap for this year? Everything I didn’t do last year. SMILE. I’m serious. I put those things on my goal list because I had every intention of getting them done. I could easily blame my lack of goal completion on a lot of things, but I’m not. Although, having COVID and searching for a new editor are very legitimate reasons for a schedule interruption. Truth is, I could have put forth a little more effort, but I didn’t.

I’ve already started working on my list and it’s only the fifth day of the month. I really want to get my mailing list to 10k and my BookBub to 1000 US followers. To do so, I joined about five Book Funnel Newsletter promotions. So far, I’ve gained 110 followers. I’ve also joined a BookSweeps BookBub promotion for February. I tried one of these last year and gained a hundred plus new followers.

To sum up, 2022 may not have been the year I planned, but it was a very good year of firsts. There’s a scripture I like that says your latter days will be better. I’m counting on that to come true in 2023.

See you next month.

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Some Writerly Advice for the New Year

December 28, 2022 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as New Year's Resolutions, writing

Have you made your New Year’s resolutions?

Christmas and Hanukkah have passed, and I hope your celebrations were happy. Now is the usual time to start thinking about resolutions for the New Year.

I haven’t made any, and don’t intend to. Last year I decided my only resolution would be to take baby steps into the future. I think that’s probably one of the few resolutions I’ve ever kept!

What I need, I suppose, is motivation!!! With that in mind, here are some words of wisdom from famous authors of the past:

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul…” —Gilbert K. Chesterton
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” —George Eliot
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis
“Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow; The year is going, let him go, Ring out the false, ring in the true.” —Alfred Lord Tennyson
“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” —E.E. Cummings
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” —William James

When you’re as old as I am, it’s always nice to hear that it’s never too late. But actually, I found this bit of advice more in tune with the author and the upcoming holiday:

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald