One of the best things to happen since becoming an author, is finding a whole new batch of bookworm friends. It’s lovely to actually meet in person of course, but usually long before that happens, you will have met online, via messages and chats on the huge number of online book groups.
The usual place to meet in the flesh is at big book events where you will find writers, readers, bloggers and reviewers all mingling noisily with a glass of something alcoholic in hand, looking vaguely like people you might actually know. This gives an opportunity to play new friend bingo, matching up faces that you may only have seen and chatted to for hours online, with the real deal.
I’ll be taking over the book sites of two reviewer/bloggers this month as my new book Buried Dreams https://geni.us/BuriedDreams. is launched. The first is over at Donna’s Interviews Reviews and Giveaways and the second, also on Facebook, is Lynda’s Book Reviews and News. This is a very brave act on the part of both Donna and Lynda in this case.
Last year when I was Author of the Month over at Book Swap Central, another Facebook group for book lovers, my chats almost resulted in the whole group being banned along with me. My crime? To tell members which animal they were linked with, according to their date of birth and Chinese Horoscope, as Chinese New Year happened to fall during my takeover. We had great fun matching up people with their animal alter egos, but apparently this is a huge offence in Facebook world and could have had us all wiped out with a flick of switch. It just shows how careful these kind reviewers and bloggers need to be when there are deranged crime authors like me on the loose, fiddling with their precious groups.
One of the most special things as an author, is getting a message from a reader who has liked one of your books. Someone actually reading my books was something of a dream only a couple of years ago. Even when The Magpie, my first novel, was released on the unsuspecting public, I wasn’t sure I would have even one reader. To my relief, that little Imposter Syndrome ridden voice, wittering away at the back of my head, proved to be wrong on that score, but each time I get a direct message from a reader it still absolutely delights me.
Yesterday, I came across a new message, directed to the world all over social media, from book reviewer Samantha Luke, who I have never met in person or spoken to online, but who had read my last book, The Mad Hatter Murders and chosen it as one of her top ten books of 2022! A magic moment, the sort you dream about when you hope to become a published author. I’m showing you the picture she posted here. Just to prove to you that I wasn’t dreaming! Happy reading this month and come along and chat on 10th January over at Donna’s Interviews Reviews and Giveaways or on January 16th Lynda’s Book Reviews and News where I promise to be on my (almost) best behaviour.
