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 10

Author Life Month: A Non-Author photo

Ooh! So many to choose from but I think this might be my favourite one of all time... My daughter fast asleep in her daddy's (who was also fast asleep!) arms. After what felt like hours of screaming (my daughter is lactose intolerant and had reflux so the poor thing permanently had a scrinchy belly) it was one of those rare moments of absolute peace and contentment which begged to be photographed and always reminds me of just how precious my little family is.

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 7

Author Life Month: Music

I love music. But not just any music... I love rock and metal. Most people take one look at me when I tell them this and double over with laughter because, apparently, I don't look like the kind of girl who's into that 'stuff'. That's not to say I don't like other music, because I do, but my go-to choice will always be some of the 'hard' stuff.

When I was writing my Thirty Days series, music featured heavily in the backdrop to Abby and Taylor's lives because music features so heavily in mine. Just hearing a particular song can take me back in time to some particular moment, like meeting my husband in a club at university while Reef's 'Put Your Hands On' played in the background. So when I was writing pivotal scenes in Abby's life, I could always find inspiration for feelings and motivations in certain songs.

So grab yourself a copy of Thirty Days Have September, settle in with the playlist and immerse yourself in Abby's (and mine, of course!) world.

Get your FREE copy from

Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Nook

Listen to the playlist

HERE

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.