Awards and Engagements!

For this week’s Blog Post I thought I’d say a few words about the Joan Hessayon Award of the Romantic Novelists Association. Many of you know about this, but it’s fallen to me, as the “local rep in York” to organise the actual event where the Award is made for the last couple of occasions.

This year’s event is different for a couple of reasons. Foremost it’s the first live RNA event for a year and a half! Because of the dreaded Covid everyone is feeling their way, getting used to meeting real people and actually talking to friends old and new in real life, and not on Zoom!

Our event takes place at the Merchant Taylors Hall, one of York’s three extant guild halls. The Merchant Taylors Guild still very much exists today, as a benevolent charity. They do a lot of great stuff, although it’s a long, long time since any member picked up a needle in earnest. We have a few less attendees than normal this year because of Covid. This does make social distancing easier, of course.

RNA Chair, Alison May, 2019 Winner, Lorna Cook,
and the previous winner, Hannah Begbie.

A candidate is any RNA member who has had their first novel published having come through the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers Scheme. I came through this scheme myself and cannot recommend it enough. As a start-up writer the support and feedback that you do get is amazing. This year there are eleven candidates, and I wish them every success this weekend.

The candidates in the 2019 Award Ceremony.

Nobody goes hungry at the York Tea!!

And THIS years winner is: Caroline Day, 

 And now on to part 2. I’ve Just Got Engaged – and So Should You!

 No, not to anyone you know, but rather Engaged With…. Yes, the word is ENGAGEMENT.

The people who read this blog will – in the main – be writers. You can divide these into three classes.

• 1.       Conventionally published, with one of the “Big 5”
• 2.       Conventionally published with one of the new, Small Publishing Houses,
• 3.       Independently or self-published.

If you are Independently published, you know you must do all the publicity, sales, and marketing on your own.

If you are with a Small Publishing House, you will also have to do all your own publicity, sales, and marketing by yourself!

And, if you are with one of the “Big 5”, you are STILL expected to do a lot of your own publicity, sales, and marketing!

So the word-of-the-day is Engagement. i.e., Engaging with your readers, your followers and the general public. In short, with anyone that you think might buy, borrow from the library, or download your book. 

And how do we find them? Social Media, I’m afraid.

People either love social media (i.e., me) or hate it. However, this is not about your feelings of distaste, its about SELLING YOUR BOOKS!

This post is going to look at just part of 1 facet of it. Facebook and Facebook Groups. Why? Because Facebook is the LARGEST social media platform by far – nearly 3 BILLION users!

And –1.8 billion people use Facebook Groups, and there are tens of millions of groups on Facebook.

https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/

Facebook Groups are your way of expanding your reach. The trick is to be selective, and only join those groups that contain fans or users of your kind of work, be it any of the different writing tropes or genres.

Big group or small group? If a group is getting 60 posts an hour, then your post is likely to be visible for a minute, tops. If it is getting 3 posts a day, then your post will stick around a lot longer. Facebook itself wants more activity directed to Groups.

“But I don’t have anything to say!”

Of course you do. Your news includes:

• 1.       When your cover comes out.
• 2.       When you get a publishing date.
• 3.       When you sign a contract with a publisher
• 4.       When you are signed by an agent.
• 5.       When your book appears in the best seller lists.
• 6.       When your book is referenced in the press.
• 7.       When you get a review.
• 8.       When you work up a new advert for your book.
• 9.       When you are having a launch party
• 10.   When you are having a blog tour
• 11.   When you are appearing in anyone else’s Blog, or on their page.
• 12.   When you are going to a writing event
• 13.   When you have been to one (especially with photos)
• 14.   When you have a new entry on your own blog or page.
• 15.   When you are meeting writing friends socially
• 16.   When you are starting your edits
• 17.   When you are finishing them.
• 18.   When you see your book on a shelf for sale.
• 19.   When your cat does something extra cute.
• 20.   Your dog, ditto!

 Always – with any of the above – include a link to the event / page, etc., and to your book.

On the hedgehog front, they have abandoned us! Hopefully they will be back in the New Year. In the meantime, we are leaving food out, just in case. We now have the fattest magpies and pigeons IN THE WORLD!!

 

Putting My Head Above the Parapet

A couple of months ago, I got the shock of my life (almost) when an invitation arrived from the lovely Rae Cowie asking if I’d like to join the Not-So-Secret Seven. This is the team that produce the consistently good Novel Points of View blog.

I must have hummed and hawed for ages – possibly as much as two milliseconds before deciding to accept! The phrase “with alacrity” comes to mind.

The Not-So-Secret-Six-plus-Me are all fellow romantic novelists and fellow members of the Romantic Novelists Association.

Being asked to join such a team carries its own responsibilities. Luckily, the group generates its own strength. To tell the truth, I was sincerely flattered to be asked to join.

 

So a bit about me. I’m male, large, old, a former sailor, and write historical novels based around a singularly colourful bunch of characters in my family tree. These include:

Robert Rochfort, Earl of Bellfield and of Belvedere. A complete and utter bastard.

Jane Rochfort, his daughter, Lady Lanesborough and who was one of the “Faro Ladies.”

John King, her second husband, who seems to have been a dodgy Jewish moneylender. He wasn’t.

Henry Dumaresq, my Great-great-grandfather, who joined Wellington’s army in 1808 as an ensign and finished up as Lt. Colonel at Waterloo and aide-de-camp to General Byng.

Stephen Harvey James and his son, also Stephen, opened up the Crown Mine at Botallack. Stephen, his son, was also the mine’s last Purser.

ALL of them and more have stories to be written about them, their lives and their loves. I’ve done the first, and I’m working on the second. All of them are worth Googling. All of them are usefully dead, so they can’t sue, too! Should I live long enough there are absolutely LOADS more, too. No one properly famous, but all interesting!

By the way, it’s worth remembering that about one-third of the UK population can claim descendancy from King Edward III. This includes Danny Dyer, so on that basis, at least 2 of the others in the Not-So-Secret-Seven must be related to me. I wonder which two?

 

Apart from writing, I also do a fair bit of back-office work for the RNA, including setting up the Author Profiles on the RNA Webpage. This has been and continues to be quite fascinating.

Some people take full advantage of their “profile space”. They write something about themselves and their writing that will be attractive to readers old and new, while others prefer a sparse listing. There are even some who don’t want a profile up at all! I find this a little odd, as this is free advertising for you and your books. It is also very much part of your “brand” and will say much the same as on your Amazon page or your website.

After doing over 1000 profiles, it’s still fun to put them up for people. Here are the profiles of three of my fellow bloggers.

https://romanticnovelistsassociation.org/rna_author/kathleen-mcgurl/

https://romanticnovelistsassociation.org/rna_author/victoria-cornwall/

https://romanticnovelistsassociation.org/rna_author/linda-mitchelmore/

 

 

And now, a word about hedgehogs!

We retired to a small village just north of York (Old York, in the UK) a few years ago. Access to our garden is relatively open plan. It backs on to what was an old orchard full of fruit trees, which now forms the large back garden for one of the original farmhouses in the village.

In our second year here, we were sat out one warm summer night when we saw our first hedgie, just bumbling around in one of the borders.

The following day I put a hole in the fence to the old orchard, and we started to put food out for them.

Then our daughters bought me a trail cam!

Ever since, and about 5 cameras later (they don’t last forever), we have both been finding hours of entertainment from them. Every year, they have come back to the garden, where they do great work eating garden pests.

We have had as many as 5 in the garden at once! This year they are back. Just two of them so far, but the hoglet season will be upon us next month.

It’s easy to see why they are Britain’s favourite animal, and as it happens, this week is Hedgehog Awareness Week!

 

 https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/hedgehog-awareness-week-2021/

Enjoy! And don't forget to subscribe and share!

John