Day 11

Author Life Month: A Fave Review

Reviews, as much as we authors would like to deny it, are kind of like our lifeblood. A good one can make you feel like the hours of self-doubt, countless cups of coffee and stress headaches were all worth it. A bad review, on the other hand can make you cry, reach for a bottle and in the case of a certain few who I won't name, go completely mental and stalk the reviewer! Most of the time reviews tend to be pretty samey but every now and again someone will write something brilliant that has me going 'that person just really got me'. This one totally rocked my world!

Day 9

Author Life Month: A Challenge Overcome

What do you do when you write about something you've never actually experienced? Of course, the whole point of fiction is to write... well, fiction. But if you're anything like me, you like a good dose of fact with with your fiction so I generally tend to write about places and situations I actually know about. The people and their stories may be pure fantasy but it helps to to be able to inject that bit of reality if I can actually describe a place I've been, an aroma I've smelt, a taste I've experienced.

I think one of my biggest challenges so far came when writing the BDSM scenes in Tied to You, and in particular the caning scene. Given that I have never been caned myself, nor had an inclination to, it was a particular challenge to capture the emotions and sensations Liv would have felt. So thank heavens for Google, and a couple of people in the scene who were happy to divulge a few home truths. 

These days I love trying to write a little more on the wild side...indeed my search history may raise more than a few eyebrows. I swear there are no bodies though!!!

Day 8

Author Life Month: An Awesome Moment

Oh my word... how could I even try an pin down one in my thirty-five years? There have been so many with highlights including my hubby proposing in New York, our wedding, the day we brought our daughter home from the hospital... and so many more.

From the perspective of being an author however... hmm, I guess it would have to be my first review from someone I didn't know.

Writing my first novel was an experiment in itself in that I had no idea whether I could even get the story out of my head and onto paper. It took three months to produce something I felt was ready to be put out there and even then I wasn't sure how it would be received. But when I checked my Amazon page (which we authors know we shouldn't do and can't help ourselves!), I found the following words...

Really Gripping read, couldn't put it down!

Squirmed, laughed and cried.

Loved it and Can't wait for the next one.

There is nothing nicer than when someone just 'gets' what you were trying to achieve. And when they take the time to leave a review, from an author's perspective that's pretty special. So, on behalf of authors everywhere, please leave a review. Even if it's only a couple of words, your thoughts have the power to make us authors smile or reach for the bottle of wine!

Day 6

Author Life Month: Fan Art

   

Katrina's Art

  

Peanut Button

One of the things I love seeing is people's own interpretations of art, whether it's books, music or movies, as you can see from these two awesome examples.

As yet no one has created any fan art for any of my books (major nudge people!) but I would be super excited to find out how people see Taylor and Abby or Alex and Liv. So if you fancy creating some art in exchange for a free ebook drop me an email at author.bibipaterson@gmail.com

Visit these amazing pages to see more fab drawings. Both take commissions!

> Peanut Button

> Katrina's Art

Day 5

Author Life Month: That'll cover it

The evolution of a book cover is a curious thing... We are always told not to judge a book by its cover but how can we not when it's the first thing we see?

When I first started designing the cover for my first book I had this idea of going completely against the grain of what was typical of the erotic romance genre. I briefed my vision to a fabulous illustrator and what she came back with was exactly as I asked for. At full size on my screen it looked amazing and I proudly uploaded it onto Amazon when I was ready to release my book. But when I brought up my listing on Amazon all I felt was disappointment. What had worked so well on my screen did not translate into a tiny thumbnail; all those tiny little details and nuances were simply lost and simply looked amateurish amongst the other covers.

The second version worked better as a small thumbnail. I'd learnt a lot from looking at other covers but I was still determined to make my cover stand out by going down the illustrated route. Yet when it came to promoting the book it became clear that the style and genre of the book did not fit with the cover. With a background in Marketing and my dissertation written about colour theory in product packaging I had to concede that I'd messed up. Instead of working with the genre, I had been working against what people expected, confusing them and damaging my sales.

So I did what I should have done in the beginning. I looked at what worked for those bestselling covers and went back to the drawing board. The result was something I finally felt could stand on its own amongst the other books in the genre. It fit in with what people expected when looking for a story in the erotic romance genre yet still felt unique to me.

But in the end design is subjective. What appeals to one person is not necessarily another's cup of tea so in the end you can only put your cover out there and hope the sales follow.

Day 4

Author Life Month: My WIP

For the last couple of years my writing has centred around my Thirty Days series. Taylor and Abby had taken up permanent residence in my head and it wasn't until I finally released the last installment that I was finally ready to move on to something new.

Introducing...

Coming this summer I will be launching a new series set in Docklands' West India Quay. Crazy barmaids, rockstars, threesomes and unexpected pregnancies are just some of the dilemma's facing the residents of Port West. 

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Day 3

Author Life Month: My last 5-star read

Reading is such a personal thing and everyone has a different idea of what makes a 5-star read. My biggest turn off when reading something, whether it's anything from a Facebook post to a full-length novel, is bad grammar or horrendous spelling. But the occasional typo is not enough to put me off. Which is what got me thinking about my last 5-star read.

I'm a voracious reader and can read up to 4/5 novels a week when I'm not writing. It's rare that I find a book that I can't finish and even rarer to find a book that makes me 'feel'. However, when I find something that makes me cry, or laugh out loud, or even mourn the end I can't help but put that in my 5-star pile, even if the occasional typo crops up.

So here's the thing.... my last 5-Star read... Harry Potter fan fiction. When I found myself sobbing into my pillow at two o'clock in the morning, I knew that I'd found something special. By the time I'd finished the story, I was hooked and it's inspired me to start looking beyond the usual places for something new to read.

So when you're looking for your next read, why not try something new? A new genre, a new author, something 'indie', something unpublished... You never know what kind of gem that might surprise you!

Day 2

Author Life Month: My Author Photo

Here's a secret (well, it's not one any more obviously!)... 

I hate having my photo taken. 

I'm 35 so that makes me part of Gen Y... pre-social media and the dawn of the 'selfie', I grew up with rolls of film that you would take to the chemist to get developed and would then marvel at the fact most of them had my finger across the edge. I wish I could say I have perfected the pout, or the way I should tilt my head, or even that amazing cat-eye liner that celebs are sporting these days but I'm still as clueless as I was in my teens.

I do like this picture though. 

I wish I could say it was a quick snap but in fact it took my sister half an hour to do my make-up and then an hour of being shot from every angle with a professional digital SLR camera to get one shot I was happy with. I guess that's why I keep it even though I no longer wear the glasses (thanks to laser surgery). I know I'll have to update it at some point but for now I'm content for this to be the image people associate with me as an author... the saucy book lady with the bright pink hair!

Day 1

Author Life Month: My Books

All my life I've been creating stories in my head. I always thought I was a little strange as I couldn't fall asleep without some story playing out in my head like a movie. It was only through a series of (un)fortunate events that I suddenly ended up with a lot of free time on my hands and a need to do something to stop myself going crazy. So I started writing down a story that had been stuck in my head for months.

This was the start of my Thirty Days series. Two years later, not only had I written all four books of that series, I had also written a standalone novel and a couple of short stories. If you had asked me when I started writing that first chapter whether I could write an entire book, I would have laughed at you. You see, and here's the thing, the characters were driving me crazy. I started writing them down to get them out of my head. And you know what? It worked. So I wrote and wrote, and wrote some more and all of a sudden I had a book. But the story wouldn't leave me alone and four books later I finally had a complete series.

What started as a way of getting some peace and quiet in my life has turned into a passion. I'd always toyed with sitting down and writing a book but first my career and then a baby became my sole focus. Now, I'm somehow managing to balance all three. And when the voices start becoming too loud in my head, I know it's time to turn my laptop on and get writing.

Find out more about my books HERE