Category: 3 Top Tips

3 Top Tips, Blog

Life Is Like A Snapchat Post…

christinahollis

…one minute it’s there, the next minute it’s gone. Only five minutes ago I had a tiny baby girl, and then a little boy. She is now a card-carrying professional, and he is a head taller than me and still growing! I have no idea where those years went. It’s scary, but here are three ways to make the most of your blink-of-an-eye existence…

1.Make Real Friends

Step away from the screen and network in real time.

Put down your phone and make an effort to talk to people. Our fractured families and constantly busy lives mean there’s a growing epidemic of loneliness. You can stop the rot and make a difference—and making an effort will make a difference to you, too. If you grew up surrounded by a loving family, it’s easy to take the good times for granted. Make sure everyone in your family circle knows exactly how much you love them. If you can’t say it out loud, a meal, a kiss, a smile or a silly little gift will say it for you.

2.Plant A Tree

The flowers of apple “Irish Peach”

You don’t need to make it a forest giant like an oak. An apple tree will fit into the average garden, and is the perfect choice. They live a long time—the original Bramley apple tree is over 200 years old—have a beautiful structure in winter, gorgeous flowers in spring and fruit in autumn. If you don’t have a garden, don’t worry. The Woodland Trust is making Britain a better place by caring for existing woodlands and planting new ones. Like all charities, they rely on donations and volunteers. Giving your money or time is another way you can make your mark in a good way, and other people will benefit from your generosity, too.

3.Write A Book

This is my favourite!

Keeping a journal is a great way to hand your thoughts on to the next generation. If you can turn your life story into fiction, as the great Catherine Cookson did, you will really make your mark. History can be captured by every one of us. By preserving our own memories and the ones of those around us, we can make sure the fascinating little details of life—what we ate before takeaways, and how we found things out pre-internet—can be remembered forever. It was discovering the stories of ordinary people that inspired me to write Struggle and Suffrage In Bristol.  I’m really proud to have created this book, and I hope everyone—not just the people of Bristol —enjoy reading it. You can get your own copy here.


Find out more from http://bit.ly/PSBristol
3 Top Tips, ambition, creative process, So You Want To Write A Book Part One, Writing

So You Want To Write A Book? Three Top Tips…

christinahollis
By Antonio Litterio

1. Start with social media. There are two great reasons for this: commitment, and publicity. Talk’s cheap. Anyone can say they’re going to write a book. When you put the word out about your ambition on Facebook, it’s there for everyone to see, for all time. You’ve made a commitment. Your friends can encourage you. Post extracts, and Tweet teasers to get feedback from your audience. They’re potential readers for your finished book. Let them in on the ground floor of your ambition.

2. Set aside some dedicated writing time every single day. Carry a notebook with you everywhere. Keep a diary, and make quick notes about everything you see, hear and think. If you only manage a handful of words a day, that will make a sizeable haul in no time. You’ll have created a source of inspiration you can draw on, all through your writing career.

3.  When you get a minute to yourself, alone, read your work aloud. You’ll catch all sorts of things you don’t notice when you’re in the act of writing. Injecting some feeling into your precious words as you speak will make the good bits sing, and encourage you. It also shows you where you need to add punctuation, or alter your sentence structure.

To make sure you don’t miss any of my top tips, follow my blog using the sign-up form on the right hand sidebar of this page. I send out a newsletter a couple of times a year with news about my writing, country life, competitions and offers—join my mailing list here.

3 Top Tips, books, Her Royal Risk, His Majesty's Secret Passion, Leena Hyatt, marketing, Nas Dean, selling, Valentine's Day

How To Succeed with Blog Tours: Three Top Tips

christinahollis
Available from http://bit.ly/1ujX5zc

1. Decide what you want to get out of the experience: selling tons of books would be ideal, of course, but it doesn’t always happen. You also run the risk of overexposure if you’re a one-trick pony (see Tip 3, below). Concentrate on building and strengthening your on-line networks. Open a spreadsheet, and log the details of your number of followers, comments, and other details before you start. Make sure you provide the entertainment and information your followers are looking for in your pieces. If the totals on your spreadsheet increase after your blog tour, that leads to more satisfaction in the long-term than a temporary blip in downloads. You may never know whether a purchased copy of your book was read, but it takes positive, measurable action for a blog reader to sign up for your newsletter, or “like” your author page.


2. Get someone else to handle to admin. I work with Nas Dean, although other on-line assistance companies are available. Compare several before deciding which one to use. I’ve found Nas offers great value for money and has lots of contacts, so you get plenty of opportunities for networking. This spreads the word about you, and your work. A good admin person will arrange dates, and supply an idea of the material your host is looking for. An administrator will also arrange giveaways and competitions. Don’t leave everything to them, though: when your blogs go live, visit the pages to make sure things are running smoothly, and reply to all comments.

Available from http://bit.ly/1GQPIIq

3. Hide Your Message, So They Go Seek: Mary Stuart wasn’t in the business of selling books, so she only had the phrase “Philip and Calais” engraved on her heart. The three words branded on an author’s every organ should be “buy my book” although you should keep it in mind, rather than out in plain sight. Shrinking violets don’t sell many stories, but avoid veering from no promotion at all to becoming the most shameless self-publicist since P.T. Barnum. Make sure your cover art and buy links are there on every piece you submit, but be careful to include more than simple advertising in the content of those blogs. You want to engage, entertain and maybe even inform your readers. My first book for The Wild Rose Press, His Majesty’s Secret Passion, came out at the beginning of February this year. On the 14th of every month, I have a regular blogspot with Leena Hyat’s Authorsoundrelations. Of course, this ties in nicely with Valentine’s Day. Rather than do a straight “Buy my Book!” with links, this year I provided hints and tips on keeping your Valentine’s Day flowers fresh for as long as possible (you can read that piece here).  The information came from my flower-growing life outside of writing. The tie-in with His Majesty’s Secret Passion was that my heroine Sara was given a beautiful bouquet by a mysterious stranger.

Blog tours involve a lot of writing, but they are good fun. I’ll be scheduling another one in a few weeks to promote Her Royal Risk, the next book in my Princes Of Kharova series.  Visit my author page here on Facebook to find out more details about what’s going on.

3 Top Tips, Characters, readership, Rudyard Kipling

Three Top Tips On Characters and Readership

christinahollis
Power of Words by Antonio Litterio.jpg: Antonio Litterio derivative work: InverseHypercube
By Antonio Litterio

1. Make your readers care about your characters and what happens to them. Grab them on page one, and don’t let go. Your audience is hungry for action, whether it’s romance or drama. They want to escape from their everyday lives into a different reality.  Give them heroes and heroines they can relate to, and give those characters aspirations, a job to do and a journey to make, whether it’s real or metaphorical.

2. Let your characters grow and change through the course of your book. Make them interesting and multi-dimensional. Remember the words of Rudyard Kipling: “I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.” He trained as a journalist, although his verse hold true for fiction, too. “Why?”is the main man you want nagging away at your reader, urging them to turn the page to find out what happens, how and where, when and to whom (or “who to”, if you’re going for the popular vote).

3. If you’re determined to launch your writing on the public, make sure you aim in the right direction. Find out exactly what readers want, and give it to them. Nothing less (or more) will do. Writing for profit doesn’t work in the same way as producing meals for children. You can’t say; “you’ll have this, and like it.” or “how can you say you don’t like it if you’ve never tried?’ The purchasing reader has the right of ultimate veto. If you want to sell, fit your work to your audience.

This is an extract from my next release, You Can…Write a Book. To find out more, mail me at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk, putting “Booklet 2014” in the subject line.

#1k1hr, 3 Top Tips, Creative Writing, fiction, Neo, Susan Maushart, Twitter

Three Top Tips for Getting Your Writing Done…

christinahollis
Distracted? Who, me? 

1. Enjoy yourself and your work, and it’ll be reflected on the page. If you’re wrapped up in your characters and can’t wait to find out how their story unfolds, then it will show in your work. Indulge yourself in your imaginary people and their fictional landscape. Those powerful feelings will travel from your brain, all the way down to your writing (or typing!) fingers.  To paraphrase the old quote: write, and they will read–but only if they get swept up in your enthusiasm.  You’ll know when you’ve found the right mix of characters and plot. The writing won’t feel like work!

2. I love using  #1k1hr on Twitter to join forces with other writers who need the motivation of writing to a deadline. It’s really useful to be part of that supportive online community, but like fire, the internet is a great servant but a terrible master. If you want to produce a reasonable amount of quality work, you’ll have to find some way to stay off-line for long periods.  Who hasn’t gone online for a few minutes to check their emails, only to then lose hours to WILFing (What Was I Looking For?) as Susan Maushart put it. Read her book “The Winter of Our Disconnect” to discover that there really is life on the other side of the screen.  

3. Like it or not, whether they’re going to be self-published, emailed to an agent or publisher, or sent out conventionally by post, manuscripts have to be put up on a screen eventually.  Writing things out longhand then transcribing means you get an extra look at your work as it goes through the process. That’s useful, but it takes more time than simply tapping away at a keyboard from the start. If you’d rather type than write out in longhand but get easily distracted by the internet, try a Neo. It’s a simple keyboard with a basic memory–that’s all. No facility for going online means no distractions (well, not from that direction, anyway!). When you finish your writing session, you just upload your work into your current WIP document. 

If you’ve enjoyed these tips, you can find more at my website, christinahollis.com What’s your most useful tip for getting the writing done?