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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

A Valentine’s Day Book Promotion

Posted in Cafegirl Books, Chapters - condensed, Color, Self Publishing, tagged , , , , , on February 6, 2012| 8 Comments »

I launched my book, Any Color but Beige, with a solid public relations program last September. The combination of my modest budget and previous professional experience enabled me leverage this into some good coverage that included two TV interviews, print and digital coverage in several newspapers, blogs and e-zines, and a couple of speaking engagements. I also learned that, although several of the media were interested in the book, they felt no sense of urgency to write about it. The reason: memoir is a genre they call “evergreen.”

Evergreen is both a good and a bad label. It’s good because the media can make use of (promote) your book at any time. It’s bad because they could put your book on a pile underneath copies of more current evergreen books. So when it comes to generating lots of coverage for your book, your story has to be two things: topical and urgent.

With that in mind, I have decided to make a second attempt at a PR program – this time promoting the book as a life story, love story and an international dating story – just in time for Valentine’s Day. Of course, this time I will put a slightly different spin on it.

This year, author Cat Larose suggests sending yourself a dozen red roses or a bottle of pink champagne on Valentine’s Day. It’s the colorful thing to do, says Larose. After all, you cannot truly love anyone else until you love yourself.

I’m hoping that relationship and lifestyle editors and program directors in search of a fresh angle for Valentine’s Day will seize upon the story and feature it on or around the big day. In conjunction with that, I have secured a “Meet the Author Sell and Sign at Chapters on St. Catherine Street in Montreal on Saturday, February 11th at 2:00.

It will be interesting to see if this new spin generates some additional media coverage and results in sales.

Timing, as they say, is everything. Let’s see if that’s true.

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Blog Tour Wrap Up

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, Self Publishing, tagged , , , , , , on January 27, 2012| 3 Comments »

As part of my 2011 book promotion / marketing efforts, I participated in WOW!’s Blog Tour. For those of you who are new to The Chronicles, WOW! stands for Women on Writing and it offers genre-specific blog tours to authors via its extensive blogger network.

The tour took place in November / December 2011 and included guest posts on participating blogs, interviews, one podcast and a book giveaway contest. It offered one free copy of Any Color but Beige to individual readers and an opportunity for one lucky book club to win ten copies of the book. All international winners received an eBook or Kindle format of the book. To be eligible, the blogs required readers to tweet about the book and that increased my exposure in cyberspace.

Here’s what I liked about the tour:

It was well organized. Participating blogs posted topics well enough in advance of the tour, so I could prepare just the right posts to help promote the book.

It gave me a list of topics to write about. Sometimes writing about a particular subject is a lot easier than coming up with a topic on your own.

Once the guest posts were published, I could use them on my own blog. This bought me some much needed time off in the month of December.

Some blogs reviewed the books. It was good to get different viewpoints from people who knew nothing about me, my blog or my story. Objective reviews help a writer see things in a different light. Or consider things they wouldn’t have previously thought of.

The tour was international and that was perfect because it’s in keeping with who I am and what I do. I was a guest on blogs in Estonia and Finland. And some of the contest winners were as far away as Australia and Malaysia. The winning book club was from Madrid, Spain. I will be participating in the Madrid book club discussion via Skype in the spring.

The one drawback to the tour was that the tour could not provide any real quantitative data analysis. However, my own analytical conclusion is that my fourth quarter 2011 blog views were up a whopping 60%. How much of that is attributable to the blog tour I can’t say for sure. I can say that, post for post, the only thing I have done differently between 2010 and 2011 is take part in the tour.

The bigger question is did it lead to an increase in book sales? And here I would have to say I don’t know. I have no basis of comparison because sales are similar across the three months since the book’s release in September.

Were the dollars I spent worth it? I would say yes they were. I consider the dollars spent an investment in the Café Girl brand and my ongoing stories.

photo: © istockphoto.com/scanrail

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How Travel Can Cure Writer’s Block

Posted in Adventures, Barcelona, Books, Cafegirl Books, Italy, Tango, Tokyo, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on January 9, 2012| 11 Comments »

Anyone who has ever stared down a blank page and blinked first knows how devastating writer’s block can be. I’ve read several articles

on the causes of it, but the best reason I’ve heard to date is actually the simplest to cure – the cause of writer’s block is a lack of fresh ideas, and the best source of new ideas that I know of is travel.

My favorite place to stay in Trieste

You don’t have to travel to the ends of the earth either to be inspired. A jaunt across town to a new neighborhood is just as inspiring as jetting off to Japan, and a lot more economical for those of us on a budget.

Let’s take a look at all of the potential ways local and long distance travel can inspire us.

First and foremost, it’s all about the place. First impressions can be quite powerful when you’re visiting a place for the very first time. For frequent travelers like me, who have been so many places, the challenge is to see a familiar place with fresh eyes. Armed with a seek-and-you-shall-find attitude, I’m always amazed at how many new things I can discover.

The most fascinating thing to write about is people and the cast of characters that make up the place you’re visiting. You can write about their physical appearances, perhaps so very different from your own. You can capture their mannerisms and customs, or you can dig a little deeper and find the commonalities. One of my favorite things to do is recreate conversations with the colloquialisms of unconstrained everyday conversation. It makes us feel like we’re eavesdropping.

Another thing you can do is take us on a tour of some of your favorite places and tell us why they’re your favorites. For example I’m a WWII history buff, and on almost every visit I make to London, I always go to the British War Museum. I become a time traveler. I can feel the sense of urgency, the life and death struggle of nations as the fate of democracy hangs in the balance.

Why not make up stories about your favorite places. I’m often fascinated as I walk the winding back streets and alleyways of old cities like Venice or Barcelona for example. I try to imagine the everyday life of the inhabitants of these ancient dwellings. What happens behind closed shutters, on bougainvillea-covered balconies or in local shops? I look at the laundry hanging on the balconies and try to guess, from the articles of clothing, who lives in that household. What they do for a living?

If it’s a gondolier, does he sing because he is happy? Is it a bank president having an affair with his secretary behind his wife’s back? Or is he madly in love with his wife and rushes home each night to plant a kiss on the back of her neck? Are the children bored with their over stimulated digital lives? Do they still play outdoors? Is a woman sick and dying behind shuttered window? Does she still have a burden of regret weighing heavily on her soul, pinning her to this earth like an insect in one of those shadow boxes. What was the regret and what could she have done differently?

Local culture, cuisine and customs also yield a rich harvest of stories, observations and ideas. Engage all your senses: taste, touch, hear, see and smell what the place and its people have to offer. Participate. Go out of your comfort zone and learn something new, something indigenous to the place. Mush a dog sled in Alaska, dance Flamenco in Barcelona or dive the Great Barrier Reef. Or be a tourist in your own city.

And, finally, never leave the house or hotel without a notepad and pen because Inspiration can strike at any time, curing your writer’s block in an instant.

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Drum Roll, Please…

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, Chapters - condensed, Self Publishing, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2012| 4 Comments »

As promised here’s the first chapter of my next book. It’s the follow up to my first book:  Any Color but Beige:  Living Life in Color.

I’ve created a separate tab at the top of the Home Page.  To read it all you have to do is click on the tab that says New Book / New Chapter.

Happy Reading!

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New Year’s Menu – Humble Pie

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, tagged , , , on January 1, 2012| 4 Comments »

Okay, I thought I had a Chapter ready for New Year’s Day. But yesterday my editor returned my draft with so many comments and questions that it may take me another day or two to sort it all out.  There’s nothing like all those little red marks to keep a girl humble.

Notes to self:  Do not try and back into your story.  Don’t rush – these deadlines are self-imposed. Send thank you note to Mel. A good editor is worth her weight in gold.

Stay tuned.  It’s only a temporary delay.

Books, blog, writing, rewrites

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New Year, New Beginnings and a New Chapter

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, Lifestyles, Self Publishing, Social Media, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2011| 13 Comments »

In every writer’s life there are two stumbling blocks to overcome. On second thought, make them stone walls to surmount: writer’s bloc and writer’s resistance. Writer’s bloc, as I learned from a Robert McKee Story seminar, occurs when you run out of ideas. Writer’s resistance is a lack of dedication to your craft. Lately, I’ve been suffering from both.

“How is that possible?” you may ask. “She’s been posting content consistently all through December.”

Well, I have a confession to make. I’ve been coasting. Yes, that’s right. For my December postings, I’ve mined content already created for my WOW blog tour back in October and November. Regular readers of just “The Chronicles” may not have noticed this, but crossover readers between it and the WOW tour found at least one familiar post.

This strategy gave me a much-need rest, but now I’ve run out of content just as I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing every night. Of course this would happen just when my blog took a significant uptick in readership and e-mail subscriptions – for which I am amazed and incredibly grateful. In fact, all of this new interest, new subscriptions, increase in comments and “likes” has given me a new sense of purpose. I am now accountable to a new and growing invisible group of friends who drop by the Café regularly to catch up on the latest happenings.

Realizing that I might find it tough sledding in December I also promised my readers a chapter (one with a surprise ending) of my second book by the end of December. Many of you have also been kind enough to ask me about a sequel, and both things have motivated me to sit down and write.

I’m happy to report that although it doesn’t quite have the surprise ending I had in mind, I do have a chapter ready for you to read. It’s a Destination Chapter. Those of you who are familiar with the structure of my book Any Color but Beige will recognize that this chapter picks up the story where my first book leaves off. Where we go from here remains a mystery.

I’m superstitious so I decided to post it the first day of 2012 rather than the last day of 2011: a new chapter equals a renewed sense of purpose.

I’d also like to wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Whatever your projects are this year, may they bring you the satisfaction and joy of doing something you love.

Back Behind the Computer

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What Color Should Your Writing Room Be?

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, Color, Lifestyles, tagged , , , , , on December 29, 2011| 14 Comments »

The Color Purple

photos: ©iStockphoto.com/photodjo

Color has a profound psychological impact on our lives. It’s used every day to stimulate our senses, excite us, calm us and, yes, induce us to buy products. Each color family has its own set of characteristics that trigger certain responses in us. With that in mind we should tread carefully when adding color to our space, especially our writing space.

There are trend colors, those colors du jour that we fall “in like” with. Be careful here because this relationship is a bit like infatuation. Color fatigue sets in quickly with trend colors. And before your know it, it’s time to move on to something else.

Then there are colors that last a lifetime – those are your favorite colors, the colors your intuition chooses. These are the colors that you feel close to and comfortable with. These are the colors that already appear in your closet and in the most comfortable rooms of your house.

When it comes to choosing color for any room, keep in mind that you don’t have to have an all red or all green room. Sometimes a dash of color is just enough to stimulate your creativity or get you in writing mode.

What follows is my take as a color marketer on color and how it can affect us as writers. Keep in mind that if you’re seriously engaged in the writing process, you’re focused and so you don’t see any color – it’s actually the absence of color, i.e. black type on a white page.

Red is a very stimulating color; it is the color of heat, passion and warning. It’s used a lot in fast food restaurants to move people in and out quickly.  Use a dash of red to jump start your project.

Purple is a mystical color. It promotes healing and meditation. Leonardo da Vinci said that the color purple can increase meditative powers tenfold.  A purple room is good for contemplating plot and structure.

Blue is a very relaxing and calming color. If you’ve put yourself under the pressure of deadlines, then blue is the color for you.

Green is Mother Nature’s favorite color. And just look how creative she is.

Yellow is a high-energy color that stimulates the mental process of thinking and activates memory. If you’re writing a memoir a little yellow will go a long way.

Orange is a color you either love or hate. It’s also a high-energy color and encourages socialization. It might be a good color to use in a room where writers convene to discuss their work.

Whatever color you choose for your writing room it should be a color that enhances and promotes your personal well-being – as you feel it. Color like everything else in a room should disappear after a while as you engross yourself in your story. At that point your story’s own color will jump off of the page.

©iStockphoto.com/RuslanDashinsky

Pick a Color, Any Color

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Baring Your Soul for a Memoir – Cat Uncovered

Posted in Books, Cafegirl Books, Lifestyles, Self Publishing, tagged , , , , , on December 16, 2011| 10 Comments »

The secret is out. Now that my life is officially an open book, the world (I have friends on six continents) knows that I am not Wonder Woman. It is an image I struggled for a long time to preserve, but with the publication of Any Color but Beige: Living Life in Color I have given up that struggle. And I feel the lighter for it.

I didn’t intend to write a memoir and I certainly didn’t mean to bare my soul to strangers. Because up until recently, I have often said that I would rather chew broken glass than admit to any vulnerability. Ah, vanity!

On the surface I was calm, cool and confident as I shrugged off life’s slings and arrows, like some superhero in a movie. I’ve traveled the world for my job, lived abroad in some very nice cities and had a romantic life that was ripped from the pages of a Harlequin romance novel. It made for some sparkling conversation over cocktails with the girls for whom I put on my game face and pretended that my life was perfect.

But it wasn’t. The truth was I was in a blue funk nursing a broken heart and I didn’t know what to do about it. So I started to write. I poured my heart onto the page because I wouldn’t allow myself to cry. All of the emotion I felt went into my writing, and slowly I began to get my bearings.

Before I knew it, I had 200 pages of perspective. Having gone that far, I sent it off to a freelance editor for an evaluation. The minute I pushed “Send,” I felt a rush of embarrassment. What did I just do? I asked. I’ve sent 200 pages of total nonsense to a complete stranger. I was mortified. It took a month before I heard back from her and each time I thought about it, I’d squirm a little bit in my skin.

Much to my surprise, the evaluation came back positive and with it a long list of recommendations, one of which was to create a blog based on my experiences. The blog helped me build an audience for my book and hone my voice. It also helped me to get over some of the awkwardness I felt when writing about my experiences. I soon learned that what I had to say resonated with readers.

The blog was good practice for writing the final version of the book. Through it, I got used to gradually exposing me and my life. Because the blog preceded the publication of my memoir, and chronicled my life, it felt a lot like the gradual opening of rose – one petal at a time. At its core lay the sweet essence of my book.

Now when I think about the book, I think about the authenticity of its story. Now, rather than feel embarrassed, I feel relieved at having shared it. I used to think I was alone in my experiences. So many people have told me that they have found themselves on its pages that I realize the feelings of love and loss, happiness and disappointment and, most importantly, optimism are universal. And feelings are always better when they’re shared.

Photo: © iStockphoto.com/olandesina

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Are You Living a Colorful Life?

Posted in Cafegirl Books, tagged , , , , , , on December 12, 2011| 13 Comments »

In my book, Any Color but Beige: Living Life in Color,  I finally realize that the picture-perfect life I created for myself was missing something essential – color.    Once I identified what was wrong,  I found happiness by living life in color. Use my little  quiz below to determine if you need to add more color to your life.

Ticket to Happiness

Start by answering “yes” or “no” for each question.

  1. Can you name the last time you felt a rush of happiness?
  2. Do you like to try new things?
  3. Is there at least one person, place or activity you are passionate about?
  4. Do you indulge in that passion often?
  5. Can you laugh at yourself?
  6. Do you have a short bucket list?
  7. Have you done something spontaneous in the last week?
  8. Have you laughed or shared a laugh in the last day?
  9. Do you smile for no reason?
  10. Do you have a curious mind and an open spirit?
  11. Do you make yourself a priority?
  12. Do you know your favorite color and indulge in it?
  13. Do you enjoy your own company?
  14. Do you treat yourself to little (or big) things on occasion?
  15. Do you have one true friend you can turn to in joy or despair?
  16. Do you nurture your spiritual side?
  17. Do you give back, even in just a small way?
  18. Do you live in the moment?
  19. Are you a work in progress, learning and growing with every experience?
  20. Do you have a personal mantra, motto or special book or song that defines you?

Scoring

For each “yes” response, give yourself five points.  For each “no” response, subtract one point.  Add up the points to reveal your color score.

Color Lost: less than 25 color points
Oops! Looks like you’ve misplaced your color compass. A little Meditation Mauve (from the Any Color but Beige color palettes) would serve you well as a starting point to get back on track. Leonardo da Vinci believed that meditating in a purple light increased effectiveness tenfold.  Hang a purple crystal in your window and bask in its beams.  Now that is a mood swing for the better!

Color Roadblock:  26 – 50 color points
Time for a makeover – just add color.  You are eyeing that box of crayons, poised and ready to choose your signature color.  Who would have thought such a bold, marvelous creature was hiding behind all that sensible beige?  Try adding some Marvelous Darling (from the Any Color But Beige color palettes) with clothing or accessories, to get moving again.

Flying Down the Highway: 51 – 75 color points
You are officially on Adventure Road. If color were a country, you would have a passport! Whether it’s from around the corner or around the world, you collect colorful souvenirs and use them to decorate your inner and outer space.  Seize opportunities to bring colorful pieces of your travels and adventures home. Who says you can’t take it with you?
End of the Rainbow: 76 – 100 color points
Congratulations, you have a rainbow in your pocket! Your life encompasses a full spectrum of color experiences.  Time to take all that Zenergy (from the Any Color but Beige color palettes) and share it with others.  Start a blog, write your memoir or just find time to share colorful experiences with others.  Keep focused on living life in color to continue to reap the benefits.

Photo: © iStockphoto.com/pagadesign

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The Versatile Blogger Award – Now I Get It!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2011| 10 Comments »

Thank you.

I am grateful to two fellow bloggers who have nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award – and it’s not just about the recognition and exposure for The Chronicles, although that’s a huge part of it. It’s about more than that. It’s about helping me define exactly what my blog is. In other words, I no longer have an identity crisis; I have a category, and that category has a name: Versatile Blogger.

Several months ago, as I wrote and rewrote the description for my Facebook fan page, the best I could come up with was a kitchen sink kind of blog. I was a little slow on the uptake because the word versatile more than covers what I do, and in a much more elegant way.

One of my nominators, Jacqui Murray − WordDreams − and I met nearly a year ago when WordPress featured one of her posts on “Freshly Pressed.” We entered into a cyber-conversation that continues to this day. Jacqui is now my go-to person for all things writing / publishing. If she doesn’t know it, she knows someone who does.

My other nominator is Divya Srikanth, (aka Dee Shrek) − of Literally Challenged – who is from Chennai, India and writes with a very wicked wit.  I suspect that if she ever wanted to swap writing for stand up she’d pack the house.

My thanks to these two very talented bloggers for nominating me. I’m honored. Their blogs are well worth checking out.

There’s more to this award than this cool graphic. I’m also supposed to share seven things about myself and pass along this award to 15 blogs I’ve discovered. So here goes:

Seven Secrets 

  1. I’ve always wanted to own a steel mill.
  2. I cry when I hear the “American National Anthem” and France’s “La Marseillaise.” I think it’s because I actually pay attention to the words when I hear them. People at sporting events must think I’m crazy.
  3. If I didn’t sell color, and couldn’t own a steel mill, I’d be a private investigator.
  4. My favorite food is donuts, the sickly sweet kind filled with frosting inside and out.
  5. I’ve memorized all of the lines in Casablanca.
  6. I want to take a freighter cruise around the world.
  7. I hate shopping.

Twelve Terrific Blogs 

Okay I’m a wee bit short of 15 but I promise you’ll love the one’s I’ve listed here.  In addition to Jacqui and Divya’s blogs I also follow these fabulous blogs.

Arlene’s New Beginnings – Observations on Life, People and the Universe.  Arlene is a gifted writer, artist and photographer with a great sense of personal style.

Savvy Savings Bytes – If you want to really love NYC on a shoestring then this is a must read.

Gal About the Globe – This blog is the perfect travel companion.  It covers lots of ground from global happenings, fashion, and profiles of successful up-and-coming Gals about the Globe. And you don’t even need a passport! Pay it a visit.

Three Great Tango blogs – Since I’ve been too busy writing to dance lately but my spirit dances to the beat of these blogs.

Passionate about prose? Then visit Nissi’s blog Plantain Periodicals. 

Get Inspired at Clicking50.  Sonia’s blog is a visual feast. See the world through her eyes it will give you a fresh perspective.

If you want to nourish the poet in your soul, read Carolyn Donnell’s blog Deeper Colors. 

Under the writer’s category and a second time winner is Nicole Basaraba’s Uni-Verse-City. You’ll love this forum for words on writing.

Meet Gracie, the magnifi-cat of the Tiniest Tiger.  She’s a celebri-cat and is passionate about saving her cousins in Africa through the Conservation Cub Club. You gotta love her!

Okay fellow bloggers now it’s your turn to pass it on.

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