Thursday 9 October 2014





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Monday 8 September 2014

HOW I SELF-PUBLISHED MY CHILDREN’S BOOK AS A PAPERBACK

After I wrote my children’s book Sophie and Crystal Carter and The Unexpected Secret and got nowhere with the traditional publishing route, I decided to take the plunge and self publish.  A lot of Authors such as Beatrix Potter,Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence and William Blake have all at some point in their writing career, self-published their work. So if you have written a book and haven’t gotten anywhere with the traditional route, maybe self publishing is for you. My personal experience of self-publishing happened in 2005 when I was 21. I loved Art, Design and I’d written a book so I began to do my research using a book called The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This book had pretty much everything in it that I needed to know about self-publishing a book. At the time I was studying English at college so the only money I was getting was the money I was getting for attending college. Once I’d worked out the cheapest way to publish it, saved up my money, and done my research, I began the self-publishing process. I designed, drew and painted the front and back cover of the book and also designed the spine. I went through my manuscript several times, checking for spelling mistakes, making sure the page margins were the correct size and writing up all the relevant pages such as the copyright page. Once I’d finished editing the book I bought the ink and the paper and began to print it. I used my printer at home and sat in my bedroom for hours, printing out every single page of my book. Once I‘d done this and I had a few hundred copies of my book printed out, I then took it to the local printers. They scanned my front and back cover, added the spine and printed the covers out. They then glued a cover onto each book until all of the books were ready.  When I picked up the books from the printers I was quite excited and proud once I saw the end results. I had two hundred physically copies of my book in front of me and my next job was to sell them. I’d done research on how and where to sell them and gave some copies to the local book shop on sale or return. This meant that I would give them copies of my book that they would display in their shop and they would only pay me for each book if and when they sold. I also sold copies to family, friends and local people that I knew. I contacted the local newspapers and they wrote an article about my book and I also went on local radio. I spent some time at local Primary schools, reading it to children. The whole process was really enjoyable and a learning curve for me. My main aim was not to expect to print and sell hundreds or even thousands of copies of my book, but to simply see what kind of feedback
I would get. All the feedback was positive and I was happy that people were able to enjoy reading my book as much as I’d enjoyed writing it. In the end I sold about 400 copies but didn’t have the funds to continue with the process, but some years later my book had a second chance when I was able to publish it on Amazon as an e-book and paperback. I am currently writing the follow up to Sophie and Crystal Carter and the Unexpected Secret, which I’m hoping will be enjoyed by people as much as the first one was.




Tuesday 12 August 2014

FREE E-BOOK

Will Sophie and Crystal defeat the ultimate evil? Download my book for free and find out. Please feel free to leave a review on Amazon.




 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E9EV34U

Sunday 10 August 2014

Have you joined Pinterest?




Have you heard of Pinterest or have you joined yet? When you find awesome stuff on the internet you can use Pinterest to save it. Pins on Pinterest are visual bookmarks for anything that you find and want to keep.  So what can you do with these pins that you save on Pinterest? You can pin them to a board which has a specific theme or subject. For example, if you love Zumba and you find pictures/ information about Zumba online, you can pin it onto a board on Pinterest and call the board Zumba, just as if you have organised them into a folder. You can follow other people’s boards if you’re interested in the things that they are pining onto their boards. Other people who have joined Pinterest can follow any of your boards too. If you see a pin that you really love, you can pin it to any of your own boards. You can like other people’s pins and they too can like anything that you pin.   

So how exactly do you create a pin? You simply go onto one of your boards and click on add a pin and select the web or your computer to upload a picture you like. Once you’ve uploaded your image, you need to select the board that you want to pin it to from your drop down menu, then write a description of what your pin is. You also have the option to share your pin with Twitter and Facebook by clicking on the boxes   underneath your description. Then once you click on pin it, it will pin it onto the board that you selected. If you have pins that you want to promote that you have pinned to a board, you don’t have to go through the whole process that i’ve just explained, you can simply go onto that pin and re-pin it as many times as you like. This is a really awesome site and there are so many things on it that are interesting and helpful and fun. 


http://www.pinterest.com/kellycairns9







Monday 4 August 2014

The Writers Bureau


Have you ever heard of The Writers Bureau? The Writers Bureau is a creative writing course that you can do from home in your own time. The course was designed to help people to learn how to make a career out of creative writing by being a freelance writer. What exactly is a freelance writer you may ask? When you are a freelance writer it means that you are self-employed and can work for one publication or several. Being a freelance writer means that you can choose your own working hours, choose who you want to and don’t want to work for, you can work from home and choose when you have holidays. The course teaches you how you can make money from writing short stories, articles for newspapers and magazines and even how to write a book. This creative writing course is a first-class home-study course and was written by professional writers. You will get a tutor who will support you through the whole course, giving you expert personal guidance. Your tutor will also give
you advice on presentation, copyright and style. You will get guidance on how to sell your writing and if you don’t make money from writing after completing the whole course, you will get a full refund, guaranteed. So if you are looking for a creative writing course that will teach you how to earn from your writing, I recommend this course which I do myself and think is awesome. You can earn while you learn, it’s ideal for beginners and you don’t need any special skills or qualifications to enroll. If you are serious about a career in writing, this course will teach you everything you need to know to be successful. You can get free details about this course with no obligation to buy, by filling in the form on their website.