Dragon Lake Books

The home of great stories

Amazon Academy

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Yesterday I took a day off of paid work to attend the Amazon Academy in Edinburgh. Hosted by Darren Hardy, the head of KDP in the UK we had a day of sessions with several UK authors:

Steven McKay – Historial Fiction
Harriet Smart – Historical Crime
Paul Teague – Non-Fiction and Science Fiction (who also represented the Alliance of Independent Authors)
Murray McDonald – Action Thrillers
Linda Gillard – Romance

Sessions included:

Making a book
How to write a bestseller
Marketing your book
Making it happen: The business of being an author

I’ve hesitated about attending author events like this in the past. I’m not yet selling enough books to justify taking a whole day off work, but Amazon are my biggest source of sales and I wondered whether I might “bump” into an agent or publisher.

If you, like me, are a lone(ly) author, struggling to make yourself known and learn how to market yourself, then I can only recommend getting yourself to one of these events!

It was a huge boost to my morale.

Amazon were a fantastic host. The event was well run and lunch was five star.

The authors on the panel were worth listening to, honest about their journey and full of helpful advice.

And…

It was great to meet up with other authors who are also going through similar journeys to myself and talk to people who understood what it is like to write, edit and market your books.

I’ve typed up my notes from the day, but the rough draft is over 800 words and I don’t have time to edit it tonight (when I’m writing this post) so will share them in a few days time.

[Update: you can now view the detail here: http://www.dragonlake.co.uk/2017/05/amazon-academy-the-detail/]

If you are working on a long term project on your own, make time to meet with others in the same line of work, to find out what is going on in your field of interest and be inspired.

Burying my head in the sand

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Was sharing yesterday’s blog post on Twitter when a Channel 4 video started playing.

I probably should have scrolled on, but was left like a deer watching approaching headlights.

Manchester.

22 dead.

“Terror” attack.

Despite having written a novel describing in some detail the ultimate “terrorist” attack on the UK, I find myself reluctant to share Fallen Warriors with that angle.

If the purpose of terrorism is to cause terror, then in that cause Channel 4 News, the BBC, Sky and undoubtedly most news organisations do the most to cause terror.

I replied to @Channel4News: “A horrific event. What evidence is there this may have been a “terrorist” attack?”

Perhaps I should have done more research before tweeting, but terrorism is a trigger word for me. I feel strongly that the media encourage terrorism through their reporting of it.

Someone responded, accusing me of burying my head in the sand.

I’ll ignore the insults and libel that followed that initial response and instead ask: is it healthy to fill our minds with fear all day, every day?

George Orwell warned of a world where the government kept us in perpetual war in 1984. A world where the population was kept in control through fear.

We have created a world where the smallest atrocity is beamed into our faces 24 hours a day whenever we pull out our smartphone.

In stark contrast to the media’s message is the message of Jesus: “Perfect love casts out fear.”

When I focus on the words of Jesus, on God’s word, I receive hope.

Hope for a future free of terror, a world free from fear. Now that is a message Channel 4 should proclaim!

All of my…

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As I start writing this post, I’ve yet to write up a formal plan for how I’m going to complete this goal of writing 100 words a day for 100 days.

I feel it will be important to set milestones and at each milestone, review where I’m at. This will give me a shorter timeframe to focus on which will make it easier to keep going. Rather than focusing on the big, impossible 100 day target, I just need to focus on the smaller goal.

25 days may be a good milestone. Breaks the target into four manageable chunks.

Also, I’m already starting to think in terms of weeks. I’m considering making every Friday Flash Fiction Friday. Every Sunday I plan to post about Jesus and faith.

I’ve already realised that I need to be writing two posts on Saturday – one for Sunday and one for Monday so I can take a day off each week.

Yet with all this thinking around planning…

On Sunday we worshipped using a Robin Mark song: Jesus, All For Jesus.

The words always give me pause. My ambitions. My hopes. My plans. Can I really surrender these? Have I really surrendered them to God?

Who am I blogging for?

I confess that I blog mainly for myself. I write mainly for myself. I am ambitious mainly for myself.

I suspect I will always battle with an inner desire to do for myself.

Yet, may my focus turn outward. May I look to serve Jesus through my writing. I suspect this is what I was made for, that I will only find freedom and purpose by living for Jesus.