My Author Blog is Live!

I've been busy. Since I plan to launch my book in the next few weeks (Yes. Seriously. Probably around the 21st March)  I made an author site. I've also put together a little ebook give-away too. Check out the sidebar when you get there. Hope you like it! Please leave comments.


rebeccawoodhead.com 


LOVE YOU!!!!


Rebecca.


P.S. Both my Groupon blog and Writing Magazine column are doing REALLY well.

My Author Blog is Live!

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Need your Help to get Book out by end of September!

Update... I'll keep updating the smiley face below as funds come in, so bookmark this post if you want to keep an eye on things. We can make this happen! Ghost-written celebrity autobiographies may have the majority of the 'traditional' market but, every true word nerd knows...

the pen is mightier than the pin-up!

Progress over the last couple of days... Thought you might like to see this. Word Nerd Army kicks butt - again! :)

3 days of pretty, let's face it, slap-dash fundraising and I'm aleady 3/4 of the way there. Writers... are you watching this? Publishers don't run the show any more. Readers do. :)

The original message (before updates above):


Hi everyone. Lovely weather we're having. Look. I'm going to get to the point. I want this book published. It looked likely to happen, then my computer caught a virus and died so I had to buy another computer. Bang went my publishing budget. My goal has always been to get the novel published before the end of September this year. I need your help.

I won't go into tiny details about everything - they're in the announcement at the bottom of the page - all I will say is thank you to those of you who decide to help me reach this dream. I will do everything I can to help other writers when I'm published. You know this. I will also return this favour for other writers when I have the funds to do so. There are other options for funding I can use if this doesn't work, but wouldn't it be great if we were all part of this? Wouldn't it be great to bring this into the world together? 


If I manage to do this under budget, I will use left over funds for things like buying books to send to book bloggers - something that is beyond my reach as an authorpreneur - and buying books I can sign and give away in contests to my followers online.


What do you say? Can you spare a few pennies to get this book into the world? Anything you can spare will help. If you can't spare anything at all, I understand that. If you see an ad I put out on Twitter, and it looks interesting, click on it rather than working out the original URL - I'll make a couple of cents. It's only a couple of cents, but it's something. 


I'll put up the smiley face to let you see how close I am to getting the book out. It looks a bit grim right now, but I only started fund-raising today. It'll grin more as time goes on.


Thanks guys :)


Rebecca

For obvious reasons, refunds can't be given,

 so don't donate money you can't afford 

to give away. Feel warm fuzzies regardless of

the size of your donation though. You're very kind.

Thanks.

Need your Help to get Book out by end of September!

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Who's Steering this Thing?

This year has been intriguing.  A year or so ago, we all had a rough idea what the book industry was.  In fact, the premise of the blog I set up a year ago was that my words would eventually end up on a bookshelf.  As I gave my blog a make-over today I was aware of this.  How likely are my books to end up on a bookshelf now?  It is by no means certain that actual, physical books will be made from my words.  They could become best selling novels and never go near paper.  With every month, it is more clear to me that writers are not the only ones fumbling through a maze whilst wearing a blindfold: everyone is doing it.  

Readers are confused.  One minute, books were physical things.  The next minute, you could download PDFs for free - or for pennies.  Suddenly, ebooks can sell for as much as, or even more than, physical books.  I laughed at the idea of paying $75 for an ebook the other day, when I saw it being discussed on Twitter, only to be pulled up by someone who had thought nothing of spending $150 on one.  Meanwhile, independent shops have been forced out of towns by big book stores and they, in turn, are now being forced out by supermarkets and Amazon.

Ah... Amazon.  How convenient it is.  I love Amazon - there's even a little carousel of wonderful writerly things I lust after at the bottom of this page - but I am a little startled by their newest offer.  It is something wonderful for writers: utterly liberating.  We can finally grab our careers by the lead and march them through the park of profitable endeavour.  That said, it is a cloudy day for publishing.  What am I on about?  Well... you know that writers can now self-published through Amazon?  Their very generous royalty calculations have just exploded.  30-ish% is now 70%!  A fair share for writers will be exchanged for a fair price for readers and exclusivity to the Kindle.  Is this the best thing to happen for writers and readers in an age?  Should we all buy Kindles and publish our books with Amazon?  What would that do to publishers and book shops? How will the Apple iSlate change the literary climate?  Should we wait?  What do you think?

Who's Steering this Thing?

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I Have Been Nominated for a Twitter Oscar!

Real-Time Academy for Short Form Arts and Science Award ('Shorty')

This is a real, proper, no nonsense award and I've been nominated for it by a bunch of people, including the top magazine for writers in the UK! The people behind the award are here:http://rtacademy.org/ 

At the moment, I am in 3rd place behind multi-award winning best selling author, Neil Gaiman .

Please vote for/nominate me.  To do this, click here - http://tiny.cc/VoteRebecca and tweet a message about why I should win.  Look at what others have said if you need an idea what to write. It needn't be anything amazing but to qualify as a proper nomination/vote it has to be something.  In only 7 votes time I will be in 2nd place but this will get very competitive. It's a big award with a ceremony in New York and everything so what I really need you to do, if you feel you can, is to blog about it.

I am very close to getting published and this could tip me over the edge.  You are the best friends and supporters I could hope for in the online world and I know you'll help.  Thanks in advance. 

Rebecca

 

I Have Been Nominated for a Twitter Oscar!

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Merry Christmas!!

Since I started this blog, a year and a few days ago, many things have happened.  Here's a selection:

• Met wonderful people on Blogger
• Hubby was laid off
• Got very poor and ill
• Met wonderful people on Twitter
• Won Ms Twitter UK
• Word Nerd Army emerged 
• Booktrust was very kind to me
• Stephen Fry was very kind to me
• Lots of other people were very kind to me
• Made friends with lots of book industry people
• Made friends with lots of book-lovers
• Made radio debut on BBC Oxford radio
• Approached by magazine editors, publishers, agents etc in last month - what next?

Thanks so much to everyone for helping me through this year.  It has been extraordinary in many ways and also very hard.  Malnutrition, hypothermia and poverty are difficult things to experience but through all of it there have been so many laughs because of my online friends.  Thanks everyone.

People have asked if they can donate money. I felt that might be a bit 'give a man a fish' so I set this up instead.  If you want to help me to help myself out of poverty and into the book shops, I'd love it if you would sign this.  It is safe (Oath protected) and only takes two clicks.  Publishers have contacted me about it and they ARE watching so anything you can do to promote it will help more than you know.  Thank you.

Merry Christmas!!!  :)

Rebecca - http://tiny.cc/PublishRebecca

Merry Christmas!!

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