Silent September
There have been no blog posts from me in September and it's the first time since the blog started in January 2014 that I've left it this long. However, I have been progressing on my writing journey and learning a lot - I've been in the editing cave! How has it taken me that long, you may ask? Didn't I start that in August? In next week's post, I shall tell you how I went about it prior to submitting my novel.

I wasn't editing for the whole time, though, and here are some writing related things I did:

Amazon Author Academy Wales - 
This was a free event held at the Celtic Manor in
Newport. The first session was led by Darren Hardy who led us through the process of uploading a book on Amazon's KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For someone like me who has never tried to self-publish, or even contemplate it, he made it seem very straightforward! He demonstrated every step and stressed the benefits of publishing independently. The second session was entitled How To Write a Best Seller and took the form of a panel discussion. Darren interviewed Orla Ross, Mark Dawson and L. J. Ross, three indie authors, whose books sell well. The third session dealt with Marketing Your Books and Finding Readers and the business side of writing.  The importance of finding readers, turning them into fans and finally into ambassadors for your books was stressed. The authors all agreed that having a social media presence was essential. Any ways to promote your book through mailing lists, target ads., price promotions, launch packages, pre-ordering a long time in advance of publication and blogging a few sample chapters beforehand were mentioned as successful strategies by the three novelists. The final session was Making It Happen - The Business of Being an Author. Members on the panel discussed outsourcing things like accountancy, cover designs and editing. Jo McCrum of The Society of Authors talked about contacts. It was an interesting day and it was good to catch up with author friends and meet new writers.

Publishing Options and Submitting Your Novel - 
This was the second of Alison May's workshops I attended in Birmingham. As always the day was full of interesting and helpful advice, plenty of interactive activity and above all it was fun. In June, we had looked at editing and the analytical aspects of writing, but this session concentrated on the business side. Alison started by looking at the pros. and cons. of Traditional v. Self Publishing. She talked to us about pitching our novels to agents or publishers and the importance of making 'every word work really hard.' She asked us to write pitches for our current novels. As always, I found it hard to be succinct and cut back to the essential information that summed up or sold my book. I have worked hard on that since! She also talked about contracts and how the Society of Authors can help check these if you are a member. The day flew by and I was amazed at how much Alison covered - blurbs, the effectiveness of book covers chosen by publishers to make the book sell well, synopses and how to submit to the appropriate publishers/agents for you. I came away with my head buzzing, keen to get back to the WiP. I highly recommend attending a course run by Alison!

Sparkle Writing 1: Hook and Hold - 
This was an excellent day's writing workshop organised by the RNA Marcher Chapter in Hereford. It was run by Libertà Books and it focused 'on the vital first 10% of your story, roughly the free sample that an e-book buyer can download.' Author Joanna Maitland, a member of the Chapter, was the presenter and kept us busy for the whole day with examples, practical ideas and activities for: 

• the HOOK to get the reader to start reading
• the HOLD to keep the reader reading to the end of the excerpt
• the 10% moment to get the reader to BUY the book

I came away with plenty of food for thought and when I returned to the editing, I looked at the beginning of my novel with a very critical eye! 

As well as helping to plan the Autumn term meetings for the South and West Wales Chapter of the RNA, attending meetings and catching up with writing buddies, you can see I haven't neglected my writing journey completely. It's just that I've kept it to myself! I have finally finished editing Whispering Olive Trees and last week, I submitted it to the two editors who requested the full manuscript at the 2018 Conference in Leeds. Both said they were happy to wait for it; at that stage, most of the novel was in a first draft form. I'll try now to forget about it and intend to start planning novel number three in earnest. It's going to be another mother/daughter saga, this time involving a 'foundling' and the contrasting location will be war-time France. I can't wait to get back to story-telling and writing again. 

Thank you for reading and returning to the blog after an absence of posts from me.Can you write alongside editing or, like me, can you only work on one thing at a time? I'd love to hear how you work.

You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBayLit and on Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.