Phoebe M.C.'s Blog, page 3
December 31, 2023
Writing Q&A
In todays blog post I thought I would answer nine questions related to writing and my career as a writer
1. What inspired you to pursue a career in writing?
My mother started writing her own book series when I was a little girl and I wanted to just be like her; and while my life hasn’t turned out how I pictured it would I am very happy that it has turned out that I can write for a living and share my stories with the world.
2. How do you stay motivated when facing writer's block?
I work on multiple stories at a time so when I face writers block I just put a pin in that book and work on another. At a later date I will reread my story and if I am still stuck I will move on from that scene and come back to it after.
3. What's your writing process like from idea generation to publication?
I address this in my book on writing An authors guide to writing by Phoebe M.C. But once I have come up with an idea I write a rough plan on what I want to happen; start writing. Put the book on stand down for three months then edit and self publish it.
4. How do you balance creativity with the demands of running a writing business?
I will manage all my social media and the demands of advertising etc. through the day and work on my books with the creative side at night.
5. Could you share a memorable writing success story or milestone in your career?
I think it’s he biggest milestone in my career was seeing the first book in The hybrid series get over 60 buys in the first six months of the book release. The most buys I had ever had in any of my books; and while it only had one five star review I knew that with more improvement I would make my dream come true.
6. What are the most significant challenges you've faced in treating your writing as a business, and how did you overcome them?
Self doubt for sure; thinking my work isn’t good enough or that no one will like it. I overcome this by looking at my previous book sales; learning what I did wrong in previous books and work out a plan to get better with each book I write.
7. What advice would you give to writers looking to self-publish their work and market it effectively?
My main advice would be to make sure your book is as good as you can possibly get it and don’t be scared when you don’t see people buying it immediately. On the front of how to market effectively; share the hell out of it. Talk about it whenever you can, make a tiktok and market it that way as well can lead to a lot of sales.
8. How do you manage your time effectively to balance writing, marketing, and other aspects of your writing business?
I write 2-4 nights a week for around two hours a night and in that time I only focus on my book. Once a week I will bulk film/ write up promotional tweets and posts and then upload them throughout the week in the mornings.
9. How do you measure success in your writing career, beyond just financial aspects?
While I haven’t actually seen a lot of money from my Amazon books (unlike my HiNovel books) I measure my success by any reviews I get, comments on my social media and just knowing that even if it flops that in writing and editing that book that I learned what to do better for my next book
What other questions do you have for me? If you want to start writing but don’t know where to start consider checking out my book on writing. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHM7NBL6?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
November 30, 2023
How I did with my 2023 writing goals
My goals for 2023 were write 100,000 wordsPublish all of my hybrid seriesFinish writing all unfinished booksEdit 2 books
How I did?
I managed to publish all of my hybrid series within the first month of 2023, I managed to write the only unfinished book I had sitting there waiting to be written and managed to edit it all by June 2023. I then started writing and editing another book which I just finished in November 2023. I didn’t manage to write 100k words I only hit 78k but that’s still good enough to me.
October 31, 2023
tips, tricks and tools that help keep your writing career organised
Whether you write for pleasure, part time or full time it can be hard to keep all your work organised.
- Having a place dedicated to your writing is beneficial because you can keep all your supplies in one place.
- having your documents in files will be really helpful because then you can just click into the file you want and have all the information you need. Each writing project has a file with everything you need as well as files for ideas, writing, stand down, editing and published etc.
- have a writing routine that works for you
September 30, 2023
My best writing routine yet
But with this routine I’ve managed to juggle being a mum and writing.
i write when I can, Which means when my daughter is playing or watching TV I write on my phone.
which means when my daughter is playing or watching TV I write on my phone.
When my daughter is asleep I write on my laptop; and when she’s feeding I plan out books.
It’s not great because I don’t get to concentrate for long periods of time only 10-15 minutes here and there throughout the day but it works for us and that’s all that matters.
When it comes to editing I will edit a chapter a day while she’s playing, watching TV, eating or sleeping whatever she’s doing that doesn’t require me I will be editing that one chapter a day.
September 13, 2023
An authors guide to writing
An authors guide to writing By Phoebe M.C.
An author's guide to writing is my book on all the things I wish I knew before starting to write my first book from how to world build, the pros and cons of self-publishing and so much more.
I started to write this book back in 2020 when I published my first four books and have been slowly writing it ever since. This book is literally everything I have learned about writing, self publishing, editing and marketing over the past three years
September 1, 2023
How to get book ideas
Getting book ideas can be hard work especially if you have written all your ideas already but it’s not impossible to get more.
- look at book covers: I find looking at sites that sell book covers can give me a few book ideas.
- Pinterest: I find scrolling through Pinterest images gives me inspiration to write a new book
- writing prompts: writing prompts is a good way to start writing a book; you might not know where the book is heading but it’s a good way to start writing which leads to more ideas in my experience.
- look at what works: looking at what is helped me in the past with writing so another words looking at what box of mine sells the best helps me come up with more ideas like that which guarantees more sales.
July 31, 2023
Self publishing pros and cons
Self publishing is an easy way for you get your book on the market but does that mean it’s the best option? I’ll be going over the pros and cons today so you can make the best decision for you when your book.
Pros:
-Better Royalties: Traditionally, publishing houses pay authors royalties on the books they sell. For example, you might receive 10 percent to 15 percent of the list price of each book sold
-Faster Exposure: One of the benefits of self-publishing is that your book gets to market faster than it would via traditional methods.
-Longer “Shelf Life”: One of the biggest benefits of self-publishing over traditional publishing is that it gives your book a longer period in which to find its audience.
-Every decision is yours: instead of having the publisher down your throat wanting to control the price of your book, the cover and everything else every decision is yours to make.
-Anyone can do it: anyone can self publish while it’s insanely hard to break into the traditional publishing world.
Cons:
-Less Editorial Support: Of course, self-publishing is not without its downsides. One of the main drawbacks of publishing on your own is not having the benefit of an editorial team at your back.
-Less Marketing Support: Just as self-published writers are on their own when it comes to editing, they have to take the reins for marketing and distributing their products.
- Fewer sales: a lot of people aren’t willing to give self published new authors a chance.
June 30, 2023
Interview with a book character
I thought I would give you a character interview with my newest book character Taylor.
2. Who are their parents? My mother is Janet Davis and my father is John Davis
3. Where do they live? my mum lives in Naples Florida and I don’t know where my father is
4. What is their greatest achievement?My greatest achievement is getting out of Lockwood asylum as well as moving out of Florida 5. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you?The most embarrassing thing that has happened to me is when I pissed myself when I was arrested
6. Who do they consider their closest friend or best friend? My best friend is George he is the only person who has ever stuck by me.
7. Do they have a romantic partner? I guess Mason counts as a romantic partner.
8. Which family members are they close with?I’m not close with any family members
May 31, 2023
becoming the female stephen king
Growing up, I was obsessed with Stephen King. When I started writing to be published, I soon began studying everything he has ever done because, unlike most people, I had an unhealthy obsession with becoming the female version of him.
i was always trying to get my writing up there with him and i got close at times while he doesn't say how many words per minute he can write by working out that he writes 2,000 words a day and spends roughly three to four hours writing a day. i worked out that his word per minute is around 11.1 words. this shocked me because i had always thought that it was way more than that especially since i was already writing 60 words per minute.
Stephen King published his first book when he was 26 years old, he had tried with many other books and never gotten there but Carrie would change that.
i published my first book by a self publishing website at 14 but later took it off the market due to thinking i could edit and sell my own book all by myself which i couldn't and actually left a large chunk of my book unedited (amateur move Phoebe amateur move)
My next book i published was actually though self-publishing at the age of 17 and that was the real start of my writing career in my opinion.
After I published my first I quickly wrote and published 9 more books meaning I was well on my way to becoming famous even if only one book took off.
While I don’t know if I will ever become the female version of Stephen king it gives me something to work towards and to never stop fighting to get my books out there into the world.
April 30, 2023
How to advertise a self published book
Writing and Publishing a book is hard work and an amazing achievement but it doesn’t end there you still have to advertise the book if you want to make book sales.
Here are all my tips I personally use to get book sales.
Free kindle book promotion: before I published the final books in my book series I ran a free kindle book promotion which gained me a lot of new readers and even led to a few books sales on my newer books.
Use social media: I run a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook pages and tiktok for my writing and I post teasers and the book covers regularly with top trending sounds and hashtags.
And finally run ads: running Facebook, google and Amazon ads can generate a lot of sales.
How do you advertise your books?
