Word Nerd Knight is Amazon Bestseller!!!

One of my Word Nerd Knights - Dan Holloway - is in the TOP 15 ON AMAZON!

Back in 2009, Dan told me that we need a literary sensation. Well, we have one, and the personification of it is right there on Amazon. This moment, in case you hadn't realised, is historic. We are living through quotable times. People who realise there was more to William Morris than chintzy wallpaper are looking on with interest. There's a movement. Those people involved are not all alike in style, but they are alike in purpose. This is a revolution. No doubt about it. You're living through it. Cool, huh? I wrote more about it on Groupon's blog.

Buy Dan's book. It's not going to be cosy reading - that's not Dan's style - so if you scare easily, buy it for a friend, but buy it. You're part of history. Remember when we did this? Remember when we did this? We can do this. We can get Dan to number one. I'm probably going to see Dan next week. Give me something great to tell him.  Share this post. Tell people on Twitter and Facebook. Tell people on Goodreads. If you want to say you were part of this - when it's all over the news and the telly - then you have to get off your arse, cough up 70p, send out some tweets and BE part of it. Are you with me, Word Nerds?

Writers Need a List

One of the tools I use for list building

Well, hello, my word nerd chums!

For a long time, I didn't realise what I now do, and I collected faces on blogs. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Probably over 1000 now on my various blogs. What a wasted opportunity.

That's not what I want now. What I want is for people to opt-in to my list. For that reason, I didn't even put up a follower gadget here for AGES. In fact, I only put it up at the request of others. If you're scratching your head about that choice, wait until my course on building a list for your books comes out. All will be revealed.

Suffice to say, this blog puts LOTS of people onto my list. That gives me a much better relationship with them. I get postcards from people in different countries. This week, I got a beautiful, handwritten letter from one of my readers in America. Why? Because I build relationships with my readers via email. If you're on my list, you'll know that. If you're not, you're missing out! Every time I send out an autoresponder email, I get replies. Not just one or two. Not just short replies. I get letters, and I email back as many people as I can. That's how you build real relationships with people. I love that.

Obviously, click 'follow' if it makes life easier for you (it's a handy way to follow the blog, after all) but the way to get the inside scoop is to put your details into my opt-in box. That gives me the opportunity to share things with you that I wouldn't share with others. Everything that goes up here is free and easy for Google to access. Sometimes, I have special info I want to share with only a few, special, readers and writers. The only people who get that are the people on one of my lists. 

By the way, if you want to get started on building a list on your own blog - or on social networks like Facebook - you can use the tools I use without any up-front payment. Try them out for 30 days for free. You can leave any time, but use those 30 days wisely and start building a list. You can download that list at any time. It's yours whether you keep using the list building tools or not. It's a set of tools I've used for months, and I've recommended it to stacks of people. I haven't been paid to do so, either. I've done it purely to help out other people. Check it out and see what you think.

How Do You Label Yourself?

Here's a new article I wrote for literary e-zine, Words with JAM on the subject of labels and writers. Check it out, here.

My Video Debut

Here's my very first 'face to camera' video - or at the least the first one that made it to YouTube. Cathie Heath asked to interview me for her blog and I thought it might be fun, having done an audio interview for Brian's blog, to make a video response. I'm wearing glasses too. Bex in spex! Watch it and find out:

• My very first memory
• Why writing a novel was a huge accomplishment for me
• The difference between malnutrition and starvation
• Why Mary works for an MLM

WOW! 200 Downloads in 2 Hours!!!

TIME'S UP! Putting the book to bed after its exciting day. It needs its strength for its big début on Wednesday. Well done if you grabbed the first three chapters for free. 


UPDATE: Rather than write another blog post, I'm hijacking this one. I'll leave the chapters up until 11pm, since I'm an hour late. Sorry chaps. Had to sort out international copyright stuff so that I could do this. Took a bit longer than I thought, so ... as a reward for your patience ... you get THREE WHOLE CHAPTERS! I've bundled chapters 1-3 together, and you can find them here. The password is wordnerdsrock (because you do).


Yesterday evening, I put up the first chapter of my book for two hours. More than 200 people downloaded it! You can see some of their comments if you look at the last post. Here are some from Twitter:

@ 

I need more...1 chapter isn't enough!!! - play4smee

Just read the chapter, so capturing! I need to know more :) can't wait to get the book now to read the rest. - RhiRhiB 

I'm hooked after reading Chapter 1 and I'm looking forward to reading the whole book. - BookishMagpie


I love it !!! cant wait for it to become available to buy... - Susielwcp 


I loved it! ...  I'm definitely interested in reading on to see what happens next! - reader1107


It's wonderful -- can't wait to read the rest! - melissamaday 

Many more missed the opportunity to grab it, and they've begged me to put it up again, so I am.


Today, my latest Word Nerd Monday post comes out on Groupon, and my Writing Magazine column goes out to subscribers. To celebrate, I'm giving away two things.


The first chapter will be up for the rest of today. It's just before 1pm GMT now. I'll leave it up until tonight. At around 8pm GMT I will put up Chapter 2. At 10pm, they're both coming down. Ready?


Chapter 1: The password is ... wordnerdarmy


Look forward to reading your comments.


Oodles of love,

Do You Have "Pens Envy"?

Tee hee. Sorry, couldn't resist that title.

This week, I'm writing about fountain pens. Writers get very excited about fountain pens. Once, a discussion we were having about them on Twitter became so animated that one of my tweets ended up in a national newspaper!

*Whispered aside*: A few canny writers have cottoned onto the fact that furnishing me with info when I ask questions quite often leads to free publicity. If you are one of them, I advise you to comment here. If you're lucky, you could end up featured on Groupon (the fastest growing web company in history) next Monday. I feature best selling authors, aspiring novelists, students, etc. If you write, and you say something quotable, you're in with a chance.


So, where do you stand on the fountain pen issue? Do you bubble over at the idea of a Mont Blanc, or are you quite happy with a Bic? Are you so far past pens that you can't read handwriting any more? Tell me all. If you love pens, I'm particularly curious to learn:

1. What's your earliest memory of fountain pens? Did you use them at school, or did you ever make a quill? Was there a particular brand you used?
2. Is there a fountain pen you've owned that is/was particularly special to you?
3. What kind of pen brings on 'pens envy' for you? If you could have any pen/collection of pens, what would you choose?

Look forward to reading your thoughts.

Very best wishes,

Word Nerd Mondays - Inspiration for Writers

Groupon asked me to write a Word Nerd Monday series for writers. What fun!

The first one went out last week. It was about Writing Retreats for Word Nerds. Today, the next in the series went up: Watering Holes for Word Nerds.

Where do you write? If your passion is reading, rather than writing, is there a special place that you read? Would you consider taking a reading holiday? The more I think about it, the more I think it might be quite delicious to disappear from the world with nothing but a suitcase full of books. What do you think?  Let me know in the comments section. Please share my new blog with your friends too.

Very best wishes,

It Takes a Village to Raise a Book

Welcome to my new site. I'm now an author, a columnist for a national magazine, and a professional blogger. T'was not always so. Here's the story:


Back in 2008 - health in tatters, battered by the economy, and on the verge of losing all income - I looked at the first draft of the manuscript for Palaces & Calluses and sighed. How would I get it into the world, and would the food budget last long enough for me to survive until I did so? I yearned for the lofty heights of the coffee-shop poverty of J K Rowling, as I struggled to afford tea bags or food.


Struggling Writer


We'd just moved to a new - rented - house. Well ... new to us. It's a very old, Cotswold stone cottage looking out over fields. It had no carpets or curtains but, in time, it had broadband. I fired up the laptop I'd bought in easier times, and saw a writer blogging about writing. She wrote for a magazine and was blogging about the publishing process. I noticed a 'blogspot.com' after her name. When I googled, 'blogspot', Blogger appeared, along with information about setting up a free blog. Free. Sounded good. I typed in my details, decided to call my blog From Brain to Bookshelf, and began to plot the story of my journey, navigating the choppy waters of the publishing world. Many of the people I first met in those early days are dear friends now.


After a while, I set up a Twitter account and - long story, short - I'm now one of the most influential women on Twitter in the world. Through the people I met online, who supported my progress (the Word Nerd Army), agents and publishers began to notice me. 


By that time I'd had a bit of a moment, from which I haven't yet recovered. My husband, in his usual down-to-earth way, looked across at me when I was prattling about how important the publishing industry was one day, and said: 'they are a distribution network'. Somehow, that one line sobered me up. I sat down and de-constructed what agents and publishers do. It was an eye-opener. Then I made a mental list of all the parts of that process where I was weak. I decided, that day, that I'd learn those thing and go my own way. 


Learning Curve


The next year was spent learning all I could about the business of books, and the business of business. Obviously, being a Dot Com Pioneer back in the 90s and beyond, I understood business, but I'd gone straight to Director from a standing start so, clearly, there were areas I'd missed. For a while, I lived on EST instead of GMT because that's when all the best training calls happened. 


My husband was made redundant, we ran out of money for heat (or even much food), but he believed in my writing. He let me take money from the heating and food budgets for internet access, so I could build my readership. After over twenty bouts of hypothermia, over five stones (70 pounds) of weight lost between us, and a resilient determination to focus on what could be achieved through online networks, I reached a point where - with over 12,000 followers on Twitter, and many thousands more elsewhere (and over six and a half million in my network) - I don't actually need agents or publishers. 


I have been blessed with the most supportive, dynamic, and determined followers online: The Word Nerd Army. Over the last two years, they have done everything they can to help me bring this book to you. They even paid my heating bills on a couple of occasions. Any success I have with this book is also their success.


If you buy my book, thank you. Please tell your friends. I've not taken steps to curb piracy, because I trust you. If you can afford to buy it, you will, and if you feel moved by it or find it funny I'm sure you'll tell your friends, or buy them a copy.


What Success Means to Me


The bit of the story I missed out is that I'm a coma survivor. As a child, I sustained such bad injuries in a car accident that I was told it was very unlikely I would ever be able to write as well as my peers. I taught myself to speak, read and write again - without the help of a speech therapist or counsellor. When I typed the last word of the first draft of my first novel, that felt like success. 


I have no way of knowing whether I will be deemed a success as a novelist by anyone else, that's in your hands. If I don't do well, it certainly won't be for a lack of trying. As far as I'm concerned, I'm living my dream. Anything that happens now is a bonus. 


Very best wishes,




P.S. Here's the book I did all this for. Hope you enjoy it. xxx