Time For New Beginnings
Hello, and welcome to the Winter Newsletter, I had intended getting this out earlier last month, however, working in retail saps your mental strength at this time of year. I am still trying to work out when exactly to send out the newsletter to maximise the giveaway prize that I can offer to you, so the Spring newsletter will be out mid-March just after the Leeds signing event that will allow me to grab some great bonus swag for that giveaway.
I am hoping you have all had a great Christmas, it was, of course, my first as a grandma and we had a lovely couple of days over the festive period and spent quite a bit of time trying to learn how to play the monsters new board game Dead Of Winter, you can't beat a family sitting around the table to avert a zombie apocalypse.
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So, let’s begin by starting with the winner of the last newsletter draw Nicola, she has been wonderfully understanding about the fact the parcel is still sat on my desk waiting to be sent, not having a post office down the road any longer is a nightmare and the fact it was the festive season meant the bigger ones were chaotic, so I have a couple of things waiting to be sent that will be there in the next week or two. Now on to the prize for this month, I have a ceramic coffee cup which I love so this month I am giving one away alongside a bundle of other goodies that I personally enjoy. Now in this photo there does not look to be a lot there however, I will be adding more to it the thing is depending where the winner lives will affect what can go in, someone informed me that sending certain types of chocolate to the States can land you in trouble with customs so I will adapt the package to the winner. I will draw the winner on the 7th of February.
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Roll On Leeds!!
In March I will be doing the Leeds signing, Leeds is my home town, I was born there and lived there until just before my 16th birthday, my parents actually moved back and still live in the house that I was born in. There are lots of amazing authors heading to the event and tickets are still available if you are interested click here. There is also a ball in the evening which has a Great Gatsby theme, at the minute I have the headdress and that is it, the situation is not helped by the fact I just got weighed and if I was already worrying about feeling self-conscious about wearing a flapper dress it just got a whole lot worse. One other thing is if any of you did decide to come to the ball you have the option to ask to be seated with people so feel free to request a seat at my table.
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If you are on FB and want to hear from me more than once every three months then consider joining my Raven’s Rest Readers group.
I actually received the greatest gifts any writer can get over Christmas I got two awesome reviews one on Ascension and the other on Voices Across the Void, lately I am reading so many friends complaining about Amazon removing their reviews as a writer or as a reader simply because they have come into contact with each other. Social media is constantly evolving making it easier for people to connect but it seems that Amazon is struggling to differentiate between someone who becomes friends with a writer because they met them or just admire their work and the scam companies posting reviews for cash, even verified purchase reviews are being removed. The problem is that for big-name authors it makes no difference they get thousands of reviews and usually interact very little on a personal level with fans, maybe they tweet or reply to comments but they don't add them to their friends list, for us Indie Authors tough it is those very personal interactions which help us move forward, someone at Amazon needs to start applying common sense in dealing with these issues and maybe employ more people and less automated systems to look into these matters.
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I was debating what to add in this month but I thought I would hopefully make you smile by showing me making a fool of myself. I go belly dancing as a form of exercise, and yes I know at the minute it has not been working that well but that is a different story, in December they hosted their annual Hafla, basically everyone takes turns to showcase their dance groups, eats loads of food, buys gorgeous shiny things from the Souk and then all have a knees up together. The girls I dance with are incredibly talented and I get coaxed into joining in this occasionally this, this year they did a TV theme special dance and I did the Doctor Who theme as the time Vortex so if you want a good laugh you can find the video here. I lot of my December plans went downhill after this point because I was hit by this dreaded lurgy which has been doing the rounds here in the UK, okay it is technically just a cold but it lingers, I have had it four weeks now which I am sure makes it worse than a normal cold although I am beginning to wonder if it is just the one cold or several running together, even my trusted remedy of chicken Soup and Olbas oil has not shifted it completely (not together honestly). I hope you have all avoided the various ailments flying round this time of year and had a wonderful festive period.
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This newsletter is still in development in terms of me finding fun things to discuss with you as well as making sure you get all the latest news. If you don't already follow me on social media there will be a freebie around the first few days of March and the Leeds event so it is worth picking at least one to keep up with me on. If you are on FB then please join this group Leeds Literary Lovelies I will be doing a page take over thereon Monday 12th February at 9pm UK so come and say hello, plus there will be giveaways most nights between now and March from myself and other authors. Until next newsletter have fun, happy valentines and remember no matter what I love you all and I will be back here in March and if you have any photos of you with any of my books and swag please share them with me I would love to see them being used and enjoyed xxx |
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