Queensland Baby! Goodreads Giveaway, New Books Available, and My Last Chance Prayer

Hello from beautifully sunny Queensland!
Yes, that's right, I've left the (not so cold now) weather of Melbourne, and flown the two hours up to Brisbane for the annual Caleb Christian writers conference!
Have been working my little backside off trying to get ready for this conference for the last few weeks, as I'm actually getting a table and selling books! My first physical event as a bookseller. Pretty exciting, no?

I have a lot of little things I want to cover just to keep you all updated, so I'm just going to lay it out.

GoodReads Giveaway:

First of all, big thank you to everyone that entered the Goodreads giveaway for the hardcopies of The Five Day Writer's Retreat. Over 1,000 people entered! It was really amazing.
I've sent out the five copies, but apologise to the winners in the UK, as it won't arrive until early December. 

I am sorry that only 5 people could win the hardcopies. However, to make it up to the rest of you, I'm offering 50% off the Smashwords' electronic copy of the book. This can be used by absolutely anyone until the 10th November, 2013. All you need to do is go to Smashwords and use this coupon code:

WD79W

 

You are more than welcome to share that around. I appreciate the support, and want to share the fun.

 

Colostrum - A Handbook of Spiritual Antibodies for New Christians.

 

I've finally published my father's first book! It's available as an ebook at Amazon, and soon will be coming as a hardcopy (I'm testing out Lightning Source rather than Createspace for it, and will give you a full report on the two once I get the proofs and hardcopies of Dad's book). 

Dad's been an Anglican minister for over 30 years, and has put together a handbook of the worst heresies that tend to shipwreck new believers. From experience he passes on the spiritual antibodies needed to fight these diseases. 

It was so much fun editing this book for Dad, largely because it was just so... Dad! Reading it is just like listening to him speak. I could even imagine his gestures and facial expressions. It is colloquial, and excited, theologically sound, and sensible. Highly recommended for all new believers, and would make a perfect baptism present. 

If anyone would like a review copy, sign up for my reviewers' list just on the left hand sidebar of this blog to always be offered free review copies, or send me an email at b.greentr@gmail.com.

Prayers, Please!

Finally, tomorrow night is the Caleb Dinner, where the winners of the Caleb Awards will be announced. My Christian Young Adult Supernatural, Sally Hunt Vs. God is a finalist in the unpublished manuscript section. To be honest, if I don't win I don't mind in that I get control of my manuscript and can publish it myself. However, at some stage I do want to be a Hybrid Author, with a combination of traditionally and self-published works. Largely, I want to see the difference and how well traditional publishing now compares. This would be a great opportunity. 

Also, just knowing my writing is of winning standards would be nice.

In a similar vein, I've entered the first chapter of After The Winter, the 1920's historical romance I did as my first draft for NaNoWriMo last year, into the Harlequin 'So You Think You Can Write' competition a few days ago. Little did I realise that if I get through to the next round, I need to submit a full manuscript by mid October! I have 50,000 words, but I never actually completed the first draft. So, pray that I do get into the next round, and then that I can get the manuscript written to a high enough standard in just a week! 

 

If you want to read the first chapter, check it out at: http://www.soyouthinkyoucanwrite.com/manuscripts-sytycw-2013/after-the-winter/

If you were wondering what my ROW80 goals for the next week... well, you can probably guess now. Intensive romance writing!

 

Anyone that will be free in a week or two to do some quick beta reading, I would love you long time!

 

Stay tuned for updates!

What Do You Look For In A Book Cover?

Hello everyone,

Sorry that I haven't been publishing as much as I should. Surprisingly, trying to self-publish your own book in a matter of weeks is just slightly more stressful than you would think. So I'm not actually going to revisit my ROW80 goals for this week, and instead focus on what I did manage to achieve!

Things for the book launch are definitely coming along.

I now have the newsletter sign up for The Five Day Writer up and running! It is not yet very sophisticated, with follow-up emails etc., but sign up before the 17th of March, 2013 and you will definitely get a free copy of The Five Day Writer's Retreat. Thank you to those of you who have been quick off the mark and have already tried to sign up. It is now up and working, so please try again!

The Five Day Writer website has also continued to be updated.

But more importantly, my wonderful assistant, Bea, has been hard at work creating a number of mock covers for my e-book!

The only problem is now that I can't decide which one I like best :D

So, I've narrowed it down to 2 covers and am putting it to a vote here, as I trust your opinions.

A little promo about the book from the website;

Retreats are times to rejuvenate and prepare your mind, body and soul for change. They are calm places that give you the tools to enable you to face your fears and follow your dreams. And what better dream than to be a prolific writer?

Whether it is a historical romance or a website on the science of space – this book will help you banish writer’s block and write more freely than ever before.

The Five Day Writer’s Retreat covers essential topics such as:

-          Understanding Your Creative Nature: how to overcome your fears and limitations.

-          Entering Your Writing World: creating flow and sticking power.

-          Motivation and Will Power: learn how to maximize each for effortless writing.

-          Lifestyle of writing: arrange your life to produce better quality writing.

-          Preparing for your work: build anticipation and excitement for your particular project.

With that in mind, which of these two covers do you think best encapsulates the feel of the book?

Do you think the cover should highlight the writing aspect, or evoke feelings of relaxation and 'retreat'? 

Constructive criticism welcome, as these are only the mock-ups that can be changed. 

Cover 1:

Cover 2:

Thank you again everyone for your support.

Don't forget to sign up to the newsletter at www.thefivedaywriter.com before the 17th of March, 2013 in order to get your free copy.

ROW 80 Check in 4, and First Non-Fiction Draft Complete!

Hello and welcome on this very nice night.

Why am I so happy, you ask? 

Well, I have just completed the first draft of my first non-fiction book!

The Five Day Writer's Retreat is all there! Everything I want to say, my action points, a whole lot of quotes, and some little digressions. 

And to be honest, I'm pretty proud of it. It has some really good advice which I was interested to learn about. (My creative youth gave me a brilliant example of how to set goals which was exciting to write, and I did a bit of research into a few areas such as nutrition for brain function which has pointed some things out I should be doing.) It's great when writing teaches you what you are writing about.

I want to go through a put a few more quotes in, and photos (though the photos are a bit of a discussion point at the moment because if it is an e-book, on computer they will look great, but on kindle or other grayscale devices I'm not sure they won't just be a bit irritating. Thoughts? Anyone read books with a lot of pictures on their e-reader?). It also needs a huge edit, as there will be spelling and grammar errors all over the place. But now that it is all there, the process of cleaning it up, giving it a shave and doing its hair, making it presentable seems rather fun.

I think the plan for the next two weeks is something like this: next weekend I'm going to attempt the insane task of writing for 15 hours a day Saturday and Sunday and see if I can completely discovery write a book from beginning to almost an end in that period. 

Therefore, I don't to start another new project this week. So, instead I'm going to alternate between editing this book and doing the preparation for my next top secret assignment.  Well, it's only top secret now because I'm really excited about it, and want to give the project its own entire post. So for now you will just have to wait in anticipation. 

So, ROW80 goals for this week:

5,000 words for 5 days:

Monday yes, Tuesday almost, Wednesday yes. Then Friday and Saturday together yes, and Sunday almost (finished the book, so didn't keep writing). During this period I have also edited away a lot of words as I went as well. However, succeeding in finishing the first draft was the main purposes.

3 articles:

Yes. 2 hubpages and 2 article directory submission. Go me. 

Blog posts:

I think I did 4 posts per blog, which is not everyday, but I think this might become my new goal. 4 is quite a lot, and now that I'm getting a steadier readership, I don't feel I have to post to hold onto readers (I was a bit anxious about this for a while, because my stats showed a great increase on the days I posted, and almost nothing on the days I didn't, so naturally I felt compelled to post everyday). You all happy with just 4 posts a week? Will give you a chance to actually read all of them :D

Other things:

So, have started putting together my new website for my company: thebuffygroup.com

Don't get too excited, as I'm currently playing around as I've never used WordPress before and is taking a while to adjust from Blogger. 

Blogger continues to irritate me, particularly Wednesday where I tried for over an hour to get my post to publish, and in the end had to email it to myself and do it at work because even the next day it still wouldn't work. (And wasn't my internet, as my other post worked). 

Still haven't heard from Telstra who promised super, duper faithfully to ring me in 'two to three days' last Monday about why they can't get my internet to work. Am going to ring them tomorrow and tell them not to bother, I'm changing providers. 

Still having issues trying to register my fitness blog....

And on that note, I need your help!

I have come up with a range of names that I could have for my new fitness blog. I'm moving my old one (Fitbuster) over onto its own domain, partly so I have more control and partly so it isn't '.blogspot.com.au'. So, all the content, and hopefully the appearance, will stay pretty much the same, I'll just rebrand it and build on it. 

My current choices (with input from friends and family) are below, please vote on your favourite in the comments! All advice greatly appreciated.

1. PersonalFitnessBaseCamp (this is my favourite at the moment, just to let you know).

2. BuffyFit (am afraid I might have trademark issues with this).

3. ThinkingFit.

4. FitTrack

5. GetFitHQ

So, what do you think? 

And don't forget to comment for the Goal Journal! Open until next Sunday when I will hopefully finish my 30 hour madness :D

ROW80 Check In 2

Wow, is it Sunday already? When did that happen?

Right, so second Round of Words check in. How have I been going?

Well, I've been having great fun writing my 5 Day Writers Retreat. 

I've been going over my early blog posts about preparing for the challenge and just seeing how much more I now have to add to that now. It has also challenge me to look again at my lifestyle and see how I can make it more conducive to writing. 

I'm a little behind in actual words, as my goal is 5,000 words a day 5 days a week, so after a week I should have 25,000 words and I'm only up to 16.149. However, I'm happy with what I've done, and I've spent a lot of time working out the structure for the book and finding suitable quotes and inspirational stories from my favourite authors. 

I now have only a week left to finish the draft, so I might need to focus more on the writing and less on the formatting which can be done later. But my enthusiasm for the book is growing as I work on it, which is always a comforting sign. 

I've been good with my blog posts here, but am a bit behind with my fitness blog. Largely because I've been spending a lot of time trying to do research into how to recreate it. I'm moving it away from blogger and giving it its own domain and website, so find a good name which will attract traffic is difficult. (Also, American webhosting companies suck... just found out that the one I signed up to (and paid for) doesn't take .com.au domains! Totally could have told me that at the beginning. (Okay, they might have in the small print, but I didn't see it, so it doesn't count). 

Article-wise, submitted a total of 5 articles which kicked ass on my goal of 3. Adsense still does not want to acknowledge me (they say you should have at least 10 HubPages articles before applying to Adsense, and I now have 11 or 12, but I will keep adding more and more until Adsense has to accept me!). 

I'm not sure if I've explained about Hubpages yet. It's an article submission directory, where you set up your own account and write up 'hubs' (aka articles) on any topic that interests you. The reason I started looking at it was because it was recommended as one of the ways to increase your online platform's reach (and looking at my stats, quite a few of you reading this will have come from my Hubpages account, hello!). Also, it can increase your passive income because you can sign up to get Adsense payments for people that click on the ads on your article. This is, of course, if Adsense will acknowledge you. Otherwise, Hubpages gets all the revenue.

Two bloggers I follow a bit signed up to test the income potential, and in a month put up roughly 150 articles, then left it. They are still getting $200-$300 a month from adsense from these articles. Sounds pretty good, right? 

Well, I'll tell you more when I've tested it out further, and cover article directories in my series on building an online platform. However, if you already have an Adsense account and you want to practice your writing, then you should definitely consider it. I can't see any downside to it except you can't republish that content elsewhere on the web. And I can say that it will get more traffic to your site, if you keep posting regularly.

So, if you are interested in signing up, and want to give me a little kick back, check out the Hubpages sign up page. This is an affiliate link, so while you don't lose any of your revenue, HubPages gives me a cut of their percentage from the ads. Win for me, win for you!  

So, overall for my ROW80 goals: some wins, some draws, maybe a loss or two. 

And that's the check in for the first week done!

(I've just found this great feature for ROW80, sorry for not doing it before. Check out the other blogs which are also doing ROW80 by following the blog hop!)

 

ROW 80 First Check In.

Um, right, okay. So, all fired up about Round of Words in 80 Days?

Was on Monday. Monday was great. I got up at 7 am and worked on my new project for 2.5 hours before spending a day at work, and then coming home and working on my blogs and online stuff. Success! In Your Face 'Resolution Fail'! 

Only problem? Was a bit too excited, so Monday night couldn't tear myself away from doing my online work until well after my usual bedtime, and so Tuesday morning couldn't drag myself out of bed. Slept in until I was running late for work and had to catch the train (grabbing a burger for breakfast, failing so badly!). Then had to go up to spend the night with my little sister and couldn't get any work done. That was fine, I decided to count that as my day off for the week. 

Then comes today. Well, can totally claim granddaughter brownie points as managed to spend time with both sets of grandparents.  Saw Les Mis with one side and then went up to visit my other grandmother and go on a very slow walk with her. (Covered 0.9km in half an hour, but hey, she's 97 and still determined to go for walks, so kudos to her.) What does that mean for my writing?

Goal:

- write 5,000 words a day on my new project: 

Okay, so I cheated, my current project is a non-fiction book called 'The Five Day Writer's Retreat'. So on Monday I went through and outlined the whole thing, and the next four books in the series (was on a roll...) and then went through all my old blog posts up to August and copied the relevant content into the relevant places for the five books. 

I plan to use that as the basis then re-write the entire thing and add what I've learned over the past six months. However, just coping it all out came to about 14,000 words just for that first book (not taking into account the other four that I added posts to). So, I basically have 5,000 words a day done on the project, it's just that they are not original words, so is cheating a bit. But, considering everything, I'm totally okay with cheating.

- Post for both blogs.

Didn't post last night, but got both done the night before, and will get both done tonight. (And managed to fix up a few of my links and start my resource page here. If you want resources for starting a blog, check it out!) So mostly there.

- 3 articles a week.

Have actually managed to do three Hub articles already. I've found that I can get at least one done in my lunch break at work. The deadline really helps. So, that is one thing I don't feel I've cheated on.

Am really excited about this e-book, so will be getting down and working on it over the next week and a half. I really want the first draft of it finished by the end of next week, so I can start editing and formatting. I'll be running a few posts in the future on actually produce an e-book, optimising it for Kindle, getting it on Amazon and marketing it, passing on everything I learn from the process.

Also, I'm going to be offering free early bird editions to any of my followers or email subscribers (have just worked out how to contact you!) if they are prepared to give me useful feedback and review it on Amazon (honestly! not just saying nice stuff) when it comes out. So, if you want to get your hands on a free pre-release copy, sign up to either the email subscription or follower section!

Will get down to more work over the next few days. Nothing planned, all family obligations paid for a while, I think. (Though love my family, shouldn't think of it as obligations...)