Cally Taylor's Blog, page 8

Do you remember the first time?

Thanks for all the great comments on the 'Home for Christmas' book trailer. I co-wrote it with a friend (and Orion filmed it) and I was curious how it would be received. I know book trailers aren't for everyone but, after seeing a talk about online marketing and trailers at the RNA conference this summer, I thought I'd give it a go. It made me laugh anyway!

I'm curious, what do you guys think of book trailers? Do you think they are effective marketing? Spoil a book? A waste of time? Would you want one for your book?

Back to the tried and tested promotional route today - I'm guest blogging over on Talli Roland's fabulous blog about the first time I (rather than Beth) heard those '3 little words' for the first time. I had to wait longer than you might think...

http://talliroland.blogspot.com/2011/10/everyone-says-i-love-you-except-to-me.HTML


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My boyfriend won't say 'I love you'...

Hello.

Sorry to barge in on Cally's blog but I'm having a bit of a crisis and I need to share it with you. Maybe you can help?

I should probably introduce myself. My name's Beth Prince. I'm twenty-four, I live in Brighton, date Aiden - journalist extraordinaire - and I work in the Picturebox, the only independent cinema in town.

I haven't got the most exciting life in the world but it makes me happy. There's just one thing that's worrying me - my boyfriend hasn't said I love you yet. It wouldn't bother me (well, maybe a little bit - it has been over ten months since we got together) but it's not like this is the first time someone I've gone out with has stumbled over saying those three little words.

In fact... no, how about I tell you myself instead of waffling about it here....

Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After

Do you like short stories? Thinking of writing for the women's magazine market? Want to read a fabulous collection of funny, moving, thought provoking stories by 13 successful women's fiction writers? (including me!)

You don't have to wait much longer...


'Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After' is a vibrant and varied collection of stories from writers who between them have had hundreds of short stories published in women's magazines in the UK and around the world! Contributors have also won or been placed in dozens of competitions, published novels and written non-fiction for many UK magazines.

The twenty-six stories encompass the dizzying heights of happiness, the heartbreaking depths of sadness and every emotion in between. Within the pages of this book you'll meet a housewife with a surprising secret, a beekeeper with a problem and an undertaker with something unusual on his mind. You'll also encounter angels, ghosts, aliens and many other intriguing characters. And, in the end, you may just find the path to happy ever after.

The idea for this book came from the successful 'A Story A Fortnight' writing group which brought the writers involved together in a project that has inspired and supported them in their short story writing.

Who's been up to 'Monkey Business'?

What's happening in 'The House At Summer's End'?

Who is 'The Girl In The Yellow Dress'?


If you want to know, you'll have to read 'Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After'.

You can follow us on Twitter @tears_laughter
You can join our Facebook page

We are aiming to release the book in Kindle format next month and in paperback by the end of the year. We'll be launching a website soon, but meanwhile keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for news.





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Win a signed Advanced Review copy of 'Home for Christmas'

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Goodreads Book Giveaway













Home for Christmas




by Cally Taylor

Giveaway ends October 20, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win





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Me, Mr Metal, the Spudling & our little bubble

First off I'd like to thank everyone for their congrats, emails, messages, cards, flowers & presents. Mr Metal* and I have been overwhelmed by the excited, delighted response to our news and we can't thank you enough for adding to the magic of the Spudling's** birth.

Becoming a little family really is the most wonderful thing in the world and, nearly two weeks after he was born, we're still marvelling over every sound and facial expression our tiny son makes. And don't get me started on his farts, they make us howl with laughter every time. How can something so tiny make such a loud noise?!

For the last two weeks Mr Metal, the Spudling and I have lived in the most amazing bubble and we'd be tempted to stay here forever if it weren't for real life knocking at the door. Mr Metal has to go back to work in 2 weeks time (yes, we're uber lucky that he gets to spend a whole month with us) and my second novel, Home for Christmas, is out on 10th November.

When Heaven Can Wait came out in 2009 I pulled out all the stops to promote it but this time around my injured thumb (which is nearly fully recovered thank goodness) and my new status as 'mum' (aka the milk machine!) means that my ability to get involved in lots of PR and marketing has been limited. I have been involved in a few marketing ideas - including something chicklitreviews will be exclusively debuting at the end of this month, a writers space feature for Novelicious, some competitions I'll be running from my Facebook page and a tiny blog tour - but that's it. I haven't had time to write articles or stories for the press and there won't be a launch party or any signings. The thing is I really need this book to be a success if I'm to stand a chance of getting a second two book deal, especially in this worrying 'are chicklit sales on the downturn?' time and I'm running out if time and feasible ideas.

So....

I was wondering if you could help?

The tagline of the book is 'all she wants for Christmas is three little words' and I thought it would be wonderful if, on 10th November, as many bloggers as possible could blog 'All I want for Christmas is...' and then something you want this year, or when you were a child, or a great (or terrible!) Christmas memory. And if you could end your post with an image of Home for Christmas, the blurb and a link to Amazon that would be amazing!

If you'd like to get involved please comment on this post or email/tweet me and I'll post the image/blurb/link nearer the time.

But for now there's a beautiful little boy who's wailing for a feed so time for me to take off my author hat and put my mummy one back one. I like the way it looks! :)



* my boyfriend used to be the lead singer in a signed heavy metal band but now has a much more sensible job!
** My nickname for baby on this blog because I thought my pregnant bump looked more like a potato than a beach ball!


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My TopSecretProject finally revealed...

Born on 1st October by emergency C Section (he was breech) at 7.57am, my first child - a son - weighing 9lb 1.5oz.

He is perfect in every single way and his dad & I couldn't be more in love with him.

Six Sentence Sunday

I saw this on Liz Fielding's blog this morning and thought it might be fun to join in. I left it too late to officially sign up with Six Sentence Sunday for this week but thought I'd post six sentences from 'Home for Christmas' anyway. Feel free to play along in the comments - post 6 sentences from whatever you're working on at the moment.



What happened in the cinema that day we first met became a bit of a running joke between me and Aiden. Whenever one of us was down or grumpy, the other just had to say, 'It could be worse, you could be stuck in a toilet!' and then we'd both laugh. Well, I always laughed. Aiden didn't seem to find it quite so amusing after the hundredth time I said it.

In a way, it was weird that we'd ended up together. Our taste in films was about as diverse as it could be.


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A bit of this and that...

Not much to report but I thought I should do a quick catch-up blog post as today was the day I was planning on typing 'THE END' on Project B after a 10,000 words a week x 7 weeks mad first draft dash (a challenge I set myself back in August).

The truth is that slicing my thumb open, getting PR/marketing in place for 'Home for Christmas' and tending to TopSecretProject have prevented me from achieving my goal. No 'The End' for this author but I am about 29% of the way through the first draft (roughly 21,000 / 70,000 words) and I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

Having said that I do feel a bit of (internal) pressure to get it finished asap but think that's more to do with the fear/worry that someone else will write, and publish, a similar novel before I can get this one 'out there'. I had a similar fear with 'Heaven Can Wait' and several heart stopping moments as I was writing the first draft when someone would mention that a TV show or novel was 'similar'. The worry was unfounded. The fact is that no one is going to write EXACTLY the same novel as you and, even if their novel DOES propel the author straight into the bestseller charts, it doesn't mean that your novel won't get picked up too (publishers do like a bandwagon!).

A couple of blog posts have attracted my attention this week. There's this one by Cassandra, a literary agent intern, about word counts and how they differ between different genres etc:

http://www.camarshall.com/2011/09/word-count-guidelines.html

And this one by Adele Ward about how an advance can ruin an author:

http://adeleward.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-advance-can-ruin-author.html?spref=fb

Thought provoking stuff I thought.

If I could be anyone I'd be...

...Michael Palin!

Not only has he travelled to places I could only imagine visiting AND had adventures that money can't buy but he's been in films and is part of Monty Python, one of the greatest comedy partnerships ever.

I've spied on seen him at the Orion parties (he's an author too don'tchaknow!) and he seems like a genuinely lovely guy.

Who would you be?

In case you're wondering... this post is brought to you by a blog splash for the launch of Talli Roland's new book 'Watching Willow Watts' ...

About Watching Willow Watts

For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father's antique shop and nights watching TV, as the pension-aged residents of Britain's Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits after a viewer spots Marilyn's ghostly image in a frame.

Instantly, Willow's town is overrun with fans flocking to see the 'new Marilyn'. Egged on by the villagers -- whose shops and businesses are cashing in -- Willow embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and ramming herself full of cakes to achieve Marilyn's legendary curves.

But when a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village's newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness?

Buy the book:

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/nIygH

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/riMpmH

Bookmarks, business cards and blogs...

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, I'm not sure where time has gone but it seems to have developed a magical 'speeding up' quality which means there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day at the moment.

The stitches in my thumb came out a couple of weeks ago - and I now have an impressive zig zag scar that I have to massage several times a day - but I still have the thumb splint on. It'll remain on for a few more weeks until my physio starts but I'm kind of getting used to it. I've even taught myself how to crossstitch with my right hand (it's slow going though!)

Talking of the 'thumb incident' it's definitely impeded my progress with Project B. Instead of being about 60-70% of the way through as planned, I've only written 25% of the first draft (17,661 words / 70,000). That said, considering I'm typing up the 12,000 or so words I wrote by hand before my accident as well as writing new words AND I have to keep taking breaks when my thumb swells up, I'm not doing too badly.

I've also been ploughing on with my Home for Christmas promo work, including making some bookmarks and business cards online and organising a very small blog tour to celebrate publication day (10th November). The business cards are from Moo.com and I love them, despite the fact I didn't quite get the left and right margins to match! The bookmarks are from Stressfreeprint.co.uk and they're great but not really weighty enough to be long lasting bookmarks, they're more like slim flyers! If anyone knows a good, cheap online place for decent bookmarks do please let me know!

What else? Well...Top Secret Project is due to launch very, very soon and all work on ProjectB and Home for Christmas will temporarily stop when that kicks off. Sorry to be so cloak and dagger about it but I'm the superstitious sort and it's all very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Watch this space - I'll reveal all in the next few weeks...



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