My Writing Toolbox

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about my 'writing toolbox', the resources and websites I use to help me with my writing, editing and publishing. Before I start, I just want to point out that I'm merely discussing these resources, I'm not being sponsored to write about them.

Writing.

Lenovo Laptop.

I write and edit all my books on my laptop, which is currently a Lenovo. Although I now write more often on my phone, I still use it for short stories and editing.

Huawei Phone.

Because I can take this everywhere with me it's what I use to do most of my writing and jot down ideas. I also use it to put all my writing events in my calendar so I can keep track.

Microsoft Word.

All of my books are in Microsoft Word. This is an industry standard for most agents which I why I started using it in the first place. For me it's easy enough to use and it isn't much hassle.

Evernote.

I've downloaded this on my phone and kindle to jot down ideas on the go. Eventually I started using it to write for NaNoWriMo which gave me enough flexibility to write on my lunch break and while on my commute.

Storage.

OneDrive.

All of my books and resources are stored on my OneDrive. It's easy for me to link everything up and I can download it onto my kindle. I have everything separated into neat little folders which keeps everything organised.

Editing.

Findaproofreader.com.

This website was recommended to me by a fellow writer on Twitter. I used it to post an ad asking for an editor for my book and got plenty of replies. I eventually went with my editor, Nicola.

Root-and-branch-editing.com.

This is the website of my editor, Nicola. She's helped me out a lot and cares about my story. I hope to work with her again in the future.

Cover Design.

Derangeddoctordesign.com.

I discovered DDD through another author's blog and booked them right away. I have booked them to do all the covers in the Elemental Dragons series, the two I've got back so far have been gorgeous.

Fiverr.

I've used Fiverr to find someone to write a blurb, create posters for my books and design the cover for the Elemental Dragons Short Story Collection. The people I've worked with so far have been lovely and I would love to work with them again!

Cover Animation.

@byMorganWright.

I recently asked Morgan to animate the cover for Blood and Water and the result is gorgeous! I'll be posting them more often on my Twitter.

Formatting.

Reedsy BookEditor.

I found this online tool while looking up ways to format my book. The best part is that it's completely free! The interface is easy to use and it takes no time at all to upload my books.

Website.

SquareSpace.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, my website is created using SquareSpace. Despite not knowing what I was doing I managed to create my website quite easily, though I'm still learning and adding new features!

Mailing List.

MailerLite.

I use MailerLite to send emails and build my mailing list. I find it quite easy to design emails and create templates, which saves time when sending my newsletter out every month. You can sign up here: 

https://www.subscribepage.com/jessicaturnbull

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! See you next week.

My Favourite Book Series

Hi all,

On Twitter I asked what you wanted me to write about this week, and my favourite book series won! (Spoiler alert - it has cats in it).

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of Warriors by a group of authors who write under the pen name of Erin Hunter. It is by far my favourite book series, one that I continue to read today.

It's about cats who live in a forest in one of four Clans. The first book is 'Into The Wild' and has carried on going since then. 

My Warriors book collection - with my ‘published works’ shelf at the top

Each series follows the perspective of one or multiple characters. My favourite is the 'Dawn of the Clans' which is technically a prequel to the first series. My least favourite is 'The Power of Three'.

My top three favourite characters are as follows:

Russetfur.

Hollyleaf.

Tallstar.

I started reading the books in 2005, when I was about eight years old. Although I took a break for a few years when I turned eighteen, I rediscovered them last year and caught up with all the books. At the time of writing this there are over eighty books in total, with more still to come.

Warriors really inspired my writing, as most of my original stories were about cats. I used to go on the Warriors Forums under the name RussetstarOfCloudClan (inspired by my favourite character - Russetfur and my made up Clan, CloudClan). Although most people just called me Russet. I wrote about my OC, Russetheart and had a spin-off series called Like Lightning, Disaster Strikes. Although reading those stories back now makes me cringe, writing about Warriors really helped my writing to grow and improve while I was trying to find my style.

Mishka wouldn’t make a very good warrior…

Warriors fanfiction inspired me to keep writing and I hope that one day people will love my books as much as they love the Warriors series. I've laughed and cried so much reading these books, and certain character deaths still pull on my heart strings when I re-read some books. I want people to feel that roller coaster of emotions when reading my work too.

I will keep reading Warriors until the authors stop writing books. I absolutely love the series and nothing has matched up to it since I started reading it.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading and will check out Warriors if you haven't already.

See you next week!

My Author Logo

Hi all!

Last year I made a blog post about author logos, the pros and cons of having one. I did also write that I'd consider getting a logo on the future. 

If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen my post about an author logo. I wanted to get one done to use on my website, media kit (which I'm still working on) and business cards.

My logo was designed by maadi7899.

Most authors have logos which contain pens, quills, books etc. I wanted to go with something different to stand out. 

At first I wanted to go with a dragon, but I realised that dragons would tie me to fantasy. I also want to write sci-fi and horror so I didn't want to link myself to just one genre. Next I thought about using a cat, but I couldn't decide between Rocky and Mishka. I didn't want to favour one over the other.

Sleeping Mishka (Left) and sleeping Rocky (Right)

So, I decided to use a snow leopard.

Why?

Snow leopards are one of my favourite animals. They're beautiful creatures and I've always been drawn to them. When I was younger I sponsored a snow leopard called Bagira for a year and I loved receiving updates on her every few months.

The leopard on my logo I have now named 'Bagira' in tribute to her.

This will be used as a header on my website and media kit. The business cards have already been designed, I just need to get some printed. I'll carry a few on me in case I meet someone who is interested in my work.

I'm glad I got it done, as now I can use it to promote my books. I won't be putting it in my books however, as it's more for behind the scenes stuff. It also puts me one step closer to completing my media kit.

If you want to get a logo designed, make sure you know what you want. You'll be stuck with it for a while so you have to make sure you actually like it.

That's it for this week! Do you have an author logo? What do you use it for? Feel free to answer in the comments.

See you next week.

2019 Year in Review

Hi all!

Seeing as next week's blog post will be my 2020 writing goals, I thought that I would do a year in review for the last Sunday of 2019! 

Published Blood and Water.

My debut novel came out this year with the next one out in April 2020! It's been a great experience self publishing and I want to thank everyone who bought my book.

Sold 40 books.

I've sold 40 copies of Blood and Water, thanks to everyone who bought one!

Wrote three books.

I set a goal for writing two books this year, but I managed three! 

Elemental Dragons Book 4: Cinder and Fire - 88,000 words

Celestial Plague Book 1: Nirvana - 83,000 words

Celestial Plague Book 2: Heaven - 83,000 words

Participated in July Camp NaNoWriMo and November NaNoWriMo.

I finished Cinder and Fire during Camp NaNo and Heaven during NaNoWriMo. I said last year that I would participate again, and I've enjoyed it. Now I'm just taking a break until the beginning of January to start working on Purgatory.

Hired editor for two books.

My editor, Nicola, has edited two books for me this year. Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth and Elemental Dragons Book 3: Glass and Ice. Venom and Earth is almost ready for publication as it is in the formatting stages, while I have only recently got the edits back for Glass and Ice. Next year I will be asking her to work on the final book.

Two cover designs.

Both Blood and Water and Venom and Earth have come to life this year thanks to Deranged Doctor Design! They both have gorgeous covers and I've already booked the next two books to be designed by them next year.

Entered Blood and Water for a book award.

I've entered Blood and Water into the Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Wish me luck!

Read 30 books.

I've read 30 books this year, most of them being Warriors books. I've already got a little pile going ready to be read next year.

That's it for this week, come back next Sunday to read about my 2020 goals. See you next week!

Venom and Earth Cover Design

Hi all!

If you haven’t seen my social media posts the cover for Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth has been revealed! It has been posted to my Twitter and Facebook pages, and also on another author’s book blog:

https://suesbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/cover-reveal-venom-and-earth-by-jessica-turnbull/

As with Blood and Water this has also been designed by the wonderful people at Deranged Doctor Design. (I got the Print Social package for those who are interested).

Like with Blood and Water, I thought I would explain a few key details of the cover:

The colour scheme is green and purple, to represent the title of Venom and Earth.

Hazel, the MC, is again on the cover.

The rocks are not being created by Hazel as she is not an Earth Elemental.

The rocks are being conjured by someone else, cornering Hazel.

The background is a forest, which comes into play later on in the book.

I liked the font from last time and kept it, as well as the colours.

Again, dragons aren’t in the background as I thought it would be too overwhelming.

That’s it for this week! Next week I’m going to talk about NaNoWriMo, how I felt during the entire process and how I managed to churn out 61,908 words in total.

See you next week!

Why Authors Need Reviews

Hi all!

As I have now published Blood and Water I wanted to make a post about reviews and why they're so important to authors.

Advertising.

The more reviews a book has, the better. This is because it gives the reader a chance to skim through what other people think before buying. Also, to market on certain book sites you need to have a certain number of reviews. Some ask for five, some ask for twenty or more. If you review the book, the author is one step closer to being able to market it on certain sites.

Feedback.

Authors get lots of feedback from reviews, good and bad. This can help them see what people liked or didn't like and whether there is something about the story, cover or formatting that could be improved upon.

Amazon exposure.

The more reviews a book has on Amazon, the more likely Amazon is to recommend it to others. It also contributes to the overall sellers rank, so if they get enough sales and reviews they can break into the top 100.

Goodreads rating.

On Goodreads, you can rate and review a book if you wish. This is good for authors to see how well their book is doing. If your Goodreads account is connected to Amazon, you can review on one site and have it posted to both. This saves you time while also giving the author a boost.

Balance.

Unfortunately there will be people who deliberately leave bad reviews. Some don't even read the book, instead they just rate it badly because Amazon recommended it to them or they think that by rating others badly their book will perform better. By reviewing, you can balance out the bad review and give the author some confidence.

Authors loving hearing what people think.

Putting a book out there is scary, and when people review the book it shows the author that not only are people buying it, but some are enjoying it too!

Blood and Water's first review.

Encouragement.

By reviewing, you can encourage the author to keep writing. This is good for books in a series, if you're invested in the characters and are desperate to know what happens in the next book, say!

Covers.

Some authors like to post good reviews on their covers to try and attract more readers. This shows they appreciate their feedback.

Social media.

As with covers, some authors like to post their best reviews on social media. If you review, you might see your review reposted on one of their social media profiles!

If you have read Blood and Water and have enjoyed it, please leave a review! I'm grateful for any feedback I can get as it's my first book and I want to know what people think.

I hope you enjoyed this week's blog post, see you next week!

My Publishing Plan

Hi all,

With Elemental Dragons Book 1: Blood and Water now out I thought I would talk about my publishing plan so you all know when I will be releasing my next book.

I'm hoping to release a book every six months, so the plan for Elemental Dragons will look like this:

Book 1 - October 2019

Book 2 - April 2020

Book 3 - October 2020

Book 4 - April 2021

Hopefully if that goes well then I'll follow the same plan for my future books. I've got a vague idea of the order I want to publish them in which will be as follows:

Celestial Plague series. (3 books)

Years standalone.

Possible Elemental Dragons prequel.

Damaged Goods series. (3 books)

Possible Damaged Goods prequel.

Curse of Anubis series. (4 books)

Street Rats standalone.

Enna standalone.

Aerus Vs Bolt standalone.

This may be subject to change depending on what I feel like writing next, or if I come up with a new idea that I'm desperate to write straightaway.

Six months gives me enough time to get everything ready but also makes sure that the readers have consistent content. Having written all four books in the Elemental Dragons series already, I'm confident that I can keep it up.

Thank you to all those who have already bought my book, and I hope you're enjoying it! If you want to show your support, please leave a review on Amazon, it really helps me.

See you next week!

Why Marketing my Book is Hard for me

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've done a post about mental health, and today I've done something that I think is worthy of a blog post.

As authors, self published or traditionally published, we have to market our books so readers can discover them. It's a lot harder than it looks, as most of it is just trial and error until you find something that works for you. Unfortunately, as a sufferer or anxiety and depression, marketing is very difficult for me to do.

Let me explain.

Today I sent four emails to various writing groups to ask them if they would be interested in reading my book.

It took me two hours to build myself up to pressing the send button on each. The amount of anxiety I felt was horrible, I felt like I was back in school again. Despite being much better than I once was as a teenager, communication is still hard for me. The feeling of 'they're just going to say no' is still very strong. I wrote those emails over and over, worrying that I'm sounding too robotic or too casual. Even now, an hour after sending those emails, I'm expecting them to berate me for even asking.

Marketing is a huge part of publishing a book, and in my eyes, the scariest. I've been judged by people so much in life and now I have to go through it all again. As much as it pains me to send those emails, I know I have to do it.

I have to give Blood and Water a fighting chance.

If I just release it and don't bother marketing it, it won't sell. I need to market so people can find it, no matter how terrifying it is.

My next step is to put up posters around my hometown and ask libraries if they would be interested in displaying a poster. While writing, editing and publishing the book was scary, this is so much worse.

My anxiety is threatening to overpower me once again, but I'm fighting back. Yes, it might take me a few hours to send an email and yes, fretting so much about a poster can seem trivial.

But in my eyes, it's terrifying.

I've seen a lot of people talk about authors hating marketing because they're introverts and hate to big themselves up. I however, want to talk about the mental toll marketing can have.

It doesn't matter how mentally strong you are, marketing is draining and absolutely terrifying. It's not just about being an introvert, it's about being genuinely scared of rejection.

As authors we face rejection at every angle, marketing is just something else to worry about. Querying was bad enough, but in the end every email I sent out I knew I would get a 'no' from. That's when I decided to self publish. But with marketing, you can't just decide not to do it, it's vital for your book.

I'm hoping that one day I will just go numb to the feeling of marketing like I did with querying, and then it won't scare me anymore. Until that day, if it ever comes, I'm going to carry on trying.

Whether it takes minutes or hours, I will continue to market my books.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed. See you next week.

How to Support Your Favourite Authors

Hi all,

With the release date for Blood and Water now exactly a month away, I thought I'd make a post on how to support authors. Most people think that buying their books is all they can do, which isn't true!

Buy/borrow their books.

This is the one most readers know about. If you can't afford to buy an author's book, borrow it from the library instead. You're still supporting them by reading their work!

Write a review.

Authors rely on reviews because it means that more people will see their book. Some sites, such as Amazon, will promote books once they have a certain number of reviews. A lot of book promotion sites also only promote books once they have a number of reviews.

Follow their social media.

By following their social media you're showing an interest in what they're doing. They may also post about what they're working on and events they'll be attending.

Tell them how you feel about their work.

Whether it's a letter or a DM, if you love an author's work, tell them. Authors write for their readers, and most would love to hear their feedback.

Tell others about their books.

By telling other people that might buy their books, they can get more sales and reviews.

Sign up to their mailing list.

You can show that you're a fan by signing up, and in return you get to see what they're working on and when their next book will come out!

Attend events.

If the author is attending a certain event and you can as well, most won't mind if you want to say hi!

Pre-order their books.

To show an author how excited you are to read their work, pre-order their book! It will also help them climb through the ranks on Amazon.

Rate their books on Goodreads.

Books with a lot of ratings will be seen by new readers. Some people base whether they will read a book or not depending on how many other people have rated it.

If they're up for an award, vote for them.

If your favourite book is up for an award, make sure you vote and let other people know. Authors rely on reader's votes in competitions.

That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed reading!

The Worst Parts of Querying

Hi all,

As #pitmad was this week I thought I would talk about querying agents and publishers.

Before I decided to go down the self publishing route, I queried my novel with over 70 agents and publishers.

All of them rejected Blood and Water.

Querying is nerve wracking enough as it is, but for me, the responses were the worst part. Most of the agents were courteous in their rejections, but seeing that 'no' did make my heart sink. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about the reality of querying.

Some agents never reply.

It doesn't matter how much work you put into your first chapters and cover letter, some agents just don't reply. I know that they have to through thousands of queries, but I'd still much prefer a 'no' to silence. Out of the 77 I queried, 31 never replied.

Don't expect feedback.

With so many queries to go through, they can't afford to spend time writing a long email about what could be improved upon. If you receive one of those emails, great. Read their feedback and see what you can action.

Some emails will just be the word 'no'.

Don't get offended. With so many queries to go through, the emails may just be short and sweet. Just be thankful that you heard back so you can query someone else.

It's a lot of research.

A lot of agents like your query letter to be personalised for them, which means that they'll keep an eye out for bits where you mention their favourite book or what they're looking for. Some agents just reject a query if it's not personal enough, whereas some don't like personal details at all. Include one or two, like their favourite book, but don't go overboard.

Rudeness.

Unfortunately, there will be the minority of people who are rude. I had two agents reply to me in a rude manner. One told me that my idea was great but my writing terrible. She told me that I should hand over the idea to someone with 'talent'. Another told me to stop writing forever as I wouldn't get anywhere. Be aware that these responses are rare, and just shake them off. Don't let their words get to you.

Some will make you jump through hoops to send an email.

I once came across an agency that required you to watch three six minute videos to get special 'codes' so you could query them. Emails without these codes would be rejected outright. I would advise against querying these kinds of agencies, it's too much for a simple email.

Their website bios might not match what they actually want.

I queried an agent that stated in her bio that she specifically wanted books about YA books about dragons. Great! I sent her an email and a week later got one back that said she isn't looking to represent YA. I double checked her bio and it definitely stated YA. See what they post on their social media to see if your book would be a match.

You may be waiting months for a reply.

Although some agents reply within a few weeks, some take months. My quickest rejection was two days, but the slowest was seven months. Query between 6-8 agents at a time, and once most have got back to you, send out another batch of queries.

That's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it, it's just a few weeks now until Blood and Water comes out, so if you want to pre-order your copy please visit my books page.

See you next week!