Present And Correct

Is it nearly Christmas again already?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. The tree decorating, the purchase of festive pyjamas, the traditional baking of the Christmas cake, the annual attempt to make the cat wear reindeer antlers… all are beloved family traditions in our house.

But does anyone else struggle with buying presents?

Every year I dither over what to buy for the loved ones in my life. Especially for my parents. My mum and dad are both in their eighties. They literally have everything. What do you buy a couple who’ve celebrated more than 160 Christmases between them?

I tend to go for things I know they’ll use: clothes, spa treatments, restaurant vouchers and the like. (After the embarrassment of buying them the same presents two years in a row, I now keep a list.)

The most successful present my sister and I ever bought for them was Amazon Alexa. Once we’d all got over the trauma of setting her up and activating her, Alexa is now like a daughter to them. Their favourite daughter, probably, as she never causes a mess and is always happy to discuss the most trivial and random things for hours on end without wandering away for a cuppa.

My dad is particularly hard to buy for – he’s diabetic and partially sighted. I can’t even get him a good book and some choccies. If anyone has any bright ideas – and I really mean that – please let me know. This year I’ve settled on a hamper of low-sugar goodies from Diabetic Hampers UK which will be delivered just before Christmas (www.diabetichampers.co.uk since you ask).

My daughter is easier. Anything from a cool brand is fine by her. Of course, her definition of cool is very particular. It doesn’t include Debenhams or Marks and Spencer, apparently.  But Urban Outfitters and Brandy Melville are in.

Have you seen the clothes in Brandy Melville? Everything is one size, as long as that size is a twiglet.

But on a serious note, Christmas isn’t fabulous for everyone. I know you know that. If you want to help make Christmas better for the less fortunate, and give yourself a warm fuzzy feeling, here are three ideas:

1. Donate a Christmas present on someone else’s behalf. Lots of charities do this; Build Africa has a ‘shop’ where you can buy much-needed ‘alternative gifts’ that help families in Kenya and Uganda, like a school desk or a life-saving vaccination https://buildafricashop.org/
2. Secure a place at a shelter for a homeless person over Christmas. Crisis UK is running a campaign so those without a home don’t spend Christmas on the streets. It’s £28.87 per place https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/reserve-a-place-at-crisis-at-christmas
3. Don't forget the elderly. A quarter of a million elderly people will spend Christmas alone. Many will go the entire Christmas period without seeing or speaking to anyone. Age UK has a list of things you can do which don’t cost money and don’t take much of your time, but could make a huge difference to a lonely person. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/

 Have a fabulous festive season everyone. See you on the other side! 

The Best Things Come In....

And it's here! Finally! 18 months after publishing the first in my Daughter of Kali series, I have just released the last book in the trilogy.

Infernal Destiny is now available on Amazon, almost four years to the day since I left Aljazeera to try my hand at writing young adult urban fantasy. And I don't regret that decision for a second. Writing fiction is the best fun you can have that a) isn't bad for your waistline and b) doesn't involve having to shower afterwards.

What's that, you ask? Have I made any money out of it?

Sweetie, if I'd made any money I would be writing my next book on a yacht moored up in the Med somewhere.

But it's not all about the money., is it? It's about the endorphins. And also, self-discovery.

For example, I have learned that I have quite a gruesome turn of mind sometimes. There's a lot of blood in the last instalment of my trilogy. A lot.

I'm also rubbish at self-promotion. I do the obligatory ads on Facebook and shout-outs on Twitter and Instagram, but to be honest, marketing is not my thing. So I am quite content to tell you guys about my book and... er... that's it really.

Choosing my book covers is one thing I have definitely improved at. Like the goddess Kali, my first book Awakening has had several incarnations.

Interestingly, it took me a year to write and publish book 2 after book 1, but only 6 months between books 2 and 3.  I'd be really interested to hear from other authors whether speeding up is common. Are we just getting the hang of it? Or are we getting less picky? Maybe writing books is like having children. You're really, really paranoid about the first one - but after that, you relax.

Or so I hear. How would I know? I have more books than kids.

Daughter of Kali: Infernal Destiny is available on Amazon. Click here and check it out.

Thrills and Chills

Hallowe'en is nearly upon us, like a scary shadow looming out of the dark.

And what better way to celebrate the spooky, the macabre, the downright frightening, than with a spine-chilling book on the scariest night of the year.

Below, I've listed some of my top picks of the horror books I read in my youth, usually at night under the bed-covers with a torch so my parents wouldn't yell at me to go to sleep. 

Back then, they scared the willies out of me. Do they stand the test of time? I'll let you be the judge. Read them alone, if you dare....

Salem's Lot (1975)

Stephen King is the master of horror. People normally point to The Shining or Carrie as his scarier tales, but for me it was his second novel that did it. Vampires! Taking over a town! The horror stayed with me for a long time.








The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1974)

Laird Koening wrote this gripping thriller about Rynn, a 13 year old girl who lives alone and murders people who threaten her. You actually end up rooting for her - but in 2015, readers voted her the 20th most evil child in literature. Psychologically creepy. 

The Rats (1974)

A classic of the 'killer creatures' genre. Giant mutant rats run wild devouring people and pets alive. Contains graphic details of mutilation and death. 10/10 for gross-out material. And it spawned three sequels. Can't say fairer than that.

Squirm (1978)

Man-eating worms on the loose! Okay, it doesn't sound great - but if you like your horror shlocky and gross, this is the one for you. Wierdly, this was a film first and then became a book. Not on a par with James Herbert or Stephen King, but it's a short read, and has some decent squirmy moments.

The Pan Book of Horror Stories (1959-1989)

My horror bible. A gruesome British series of short horror stories collected into thirty volumes. The anthologies cater to all tastes from the macabre, to the chilling, to the horrifically violent and feature tales from such famous authors as Peter Fleming, Bram Stoker, and L.P. Hartley.





There's also a fair bit of carnage in my latest book, 'Daughter of Kali: Infernal Destiny.' Those who have read the first two in the series will know book 2 ended with my main character, Kaz Deva, being taken over by a part-demon part-goddess supernatural force. And to say it's bloodthirsty is an understatement...

Infernal Destiny will be published on Amazon on 24th October. Reviewers and bookbloggers can claim an advance copy at StoryOrigin in exchange for honest reviews on Amazon and Goodreads by clicking here and requesting a free download.

Happy Hallowe'en! And remember... sometimes when things go bump in the night, it's not always nothing.... bwah ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa

Why Am I Here?

Do you ever get that feeling that you shouldn't be where you are? That you've managed, through sheer luck, to achieve something good but any minute now someone's going to find out that you don't deserve it?

I get that feeling a lot with my writing. Every time I offer a book for review, or create a Facebook ad, or tweet a link to it on Amazon, I can't help feeling like a fraud. Who am I to say you should read this? What if you hate it?  What if it's terrible? What if I can't actually write, and I'm just deluding myself?

Maybe you recognise the feeling? A reluctance to believe that anything you do well has value?

This is Imposter Syndrome and it's amazingly common. A study found it affects some 70% of individuals at least once in their life. It's linked, among other things, to perfectionism and a fear of being unsuccessful.  It's also prevalent among high-achievers and women of colour. So, that's pretty much all the boxes ticked for me, then.

Take heart people - we're not alone. Some incredible figures have suffered with Imposter Syndrome, including  Neil Armstrong, Michelle Obama, Tom Hanks, and the author Maya Angelou who once said: “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’” This from someone who won multiple awards!

So apparently what we Imposters have to do is this: 
1) Recognise that sometimes, yes, we will do and say stupid things. IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!
2) Change your internal rules. You have just as much right to ask for help as the next person.
3) When you succeed - give yourself a pat on the back. Don't feel guilty - you earned this!

Here endeth the pep talk. By the way, I have a new book out, a humourous short story called Soul Quest. It's a 100-page fantasy novella which will hopefully appeal to fans of the late great Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. 99p/99c on Amazon, or free to my newsletter subscribers.

I'm still feeling the effects of Imposter Syndrome so I'll just say it's, you know, okay, if you like that kind of thing. Click here to buy. Or don't. It's probably not that good.


Daughter of Kali books 1 & 2 on Amazon now. Daughter of Kali book 3 coming soon. Sign up to my newsletter for news of releases www.shiulieghosh.com/author

Animal Magic

Meet the animals who’ve been disrupting my writing this month.

The gorgeous horse at the top there is Lexi, my 15’2 mare. She’s beautiful and sweet, and was bought for my daughter to ride in XC competitions – that’s cross-country to non-horsey types.

Unfortunately, soon after we bought her, despite a full 5-stage vetting before purchase, it became clear Lexi was suffering from tightness on one side, making it hard for her to bend and stretch. Pretty crucial if you want to soar across jumps.

Normally when a horse finds it uncomfortable to be ridden, they kick up a fuss as they’re being saddled. Some bite, some buck, some run away. Lexi is such a patient mare she never did any of those things so it took a while to spot. When she tossed her head around and swished her tail, we put it down to youth and exuberance.

Thankfully, we had her checked out by a fully qualified equine physiotherapist. She spotted the problem right away; Lexi was stiff through her neck and back, probably as a result of being broken in too young and having a badly-fitting saddle before we bought her.

She’s now had ultrasound and massage (yes, there is such a job as horse-masseuse!) and is much more limber.

But my animal woes were not over. Meet Freddy.

He’s a young swallow we found flapping around pitifully on the roadside during a family holiday in the Lake District. Freddy had damaged one of his wings, and was unable to fly. So back he came to the holiday cottage with us.

I was supposed to be using this break to put the finishing touches to the third book in my Daughter of Kali series. Needless to say, taking care of Freddy took precedence. (I should add, I have no idea if Freddy is an appropriate name. It could be Frederica for all I know, but the kids named it and it stuck.)

We spent two days trying to tempt Freddy with seeds and grains before discovering what he really likes is insects. The livelier the better. Wriggly mealworms and skittery crickets go down a treat. You haven’t lived till you’ve hand-fed creepy-crawlies to a hungry bird.

Freddy put on weight, his wing seemed to get stronger, and by the end of the holiday he was managing short flutters across the room. He’s now with a lovely foster family being prepared for his return to the wild.

And so finally, I can turn my attention to the third book. It’s very nearly finished, it just needs some final tweaking and polishing.

If only I can get a few days to myself without an injured animal to deal with…

Daughter of Kali: Infernal Destiny will be published later this year. Books 1 and 2 available on Amazon now.

Enjoy the Trip (not)

I’ve never been particularly graceful. I did ballet and tap dancing as a child, but alas, I had all the footwork skills of a drunk centipede. As I got older I tried Zumba and aerobics. The women around me soon learned to keep a safe distance. So it wasn’t a great surprise when I managed to fall down the stairs this week.

I missed my footing because I had piled up a load of Amazon boxes at the bottom of the stairs. Damn you Amazon, and your one-click ordering.

As I bounced butt-first down the last three or four stairs, I had time to reflect that I had turned into my mother.

Mum came to stay for the Easter holidays. After precisely one day, she tripped and fell downstairs. I should point out, before you start questioning the safety of my staircase, it has not one but TWO handrails and is a perfectly normal set of steps. It’s just that my mum was doing what she always does – carrying books, glasses, cup of tea and a crossword puzzle as she headed to the kitchen. So she couldn’t save herself when she slipped, because her hands were full. It was not my stairs’ fault, I promise.

My poor mum broke her hip and spent Easter in hospital. This was possibly a more stressful experience for the hospital staff than my mum, who during her long medical career was a Midwife, Nurse, Ward Sister and Nursing Tutor. My mum knows hospitals like the back of her hand. She knows best practice, hygiene protocols, and ward systems. And boy, she wasn’t going to let these nurses take any shortcuts.

Mum was out of hospital within five days of her hip replacement. That has to be some kind of record. I’m sure it wasn’t because she told them all how to do their jobs. Well, probably not.

I should say here how amazing the British health service is. From the paramedics in the ambulance who took mum to hospital, to the admitting staff in A&E, to the orthopaedic doctor, to the ward nurses - yes, even the junior nurse who bore the brunt of mum’s wrath for suggesting she change the dressing on an open wound in a crowded ward and risk cross-contamination – they all do a fine job under difficult circumstances and with far fewer resources than they should have. No wonder Donald Trump keeps making jokes about buying it.

Luckily, I did not break my hip, though I do have a rather attractive bruise on my thigh and am now shuffling around like a poor imitation of Marty Feldman’s Igor. 

Note to self: stop ordering Amazon parcels. Or at least, stop piling them up at the bottom of the stairs.

Star-Spangled Visit

Donald Trump came to town this week. Britain rolled out the red carpet, the Queen was prevailed upon to meet POTUS and FLOTUS, and Theresa May extolled the virtues of the ‘best alliance the world has ever known’.

I spent several hours in a news studio pontificating on his visit. Was he interfering in British politics? Did he really just suggest the NHS could form part of a ‘phenomenal’ trade deal? And what was the secret assignation he had with Nigel Farage, spotted leaving the US ambassador’s residence?

Trump dearly loves the pomp and ceremony laid on for his visit. Yes, he may have been snubbed by several politicians who declined invitations to meet him; even Meghan Markle got out of it by playing the exhausted new mother card. (Perhaps she thought one person loudly demanding her attention was enough). But meeting with the Queen (“a fantastic woman”) and being the guest of honour at a State Banquet in Buckingham Palace clearly soothed all ills.

Meanwhile protesters were denouncing him as racist, misogynistic, and divisive. Not that Trump was aware – when asked at a press conference what he thought of the demonstrations, he dismissed them as ‘fake news’.  

Trump is rather like a battering ram, pummelling his way through diplomacy, shattering global agreements and throwing out whatever thought hits his brain at any given moment on Twitter.

Perhaps there’s a bright side. Perhaps it’s the wake-up call the world needs, a warning that we have to stand together to maintain the international order against such destructiveness.

But failing that, there's always humour. The Trump Baby Blimp inflated over London during his visit is British satire at its best. Apparently, it’s now joined the ranks of Dame Helen Mirren and Sir David Attenborough as a ‘national treasure’.

Who knows what Trump thinks of it? In his book, it’s probably fake news too.

Totally Triggered

My daughter is currently revising for her GCSEs and says she’s ‘triggered’ by the upcoming exams. This is urban slang for a negative emotional response, like fear or panic. “Don’t be daft,” I say. “Just do your best. That’s all you can do.”

Wisely, I opt not to point out that she spent five hours coming up with a revision timetable instead of actually revising. And now that very same timetable hangs, limp and unloved, on her wall, totally forgotten while she revises whatever catches her fancy. “I’m not in the mood for Russian History,” she says dolefully, sliding her book closed. To be fair, no-one’s ever in the mood for Russian History.

I remember my exams at sixteen – O Levels as they were then. I’m sure I revised for several hours a day, but when I mention that to the offspring she rolls her eyes. Apparently revising for too long is counterproductive. It’s supposedly far more efficient to do just half an hour of one subject and then move on to the next.

Half an hour? That’s not revising. That’s basically reading a couple of paragraphs and deciding it’s time for a snack. Though I suppose half an hour is an aeon of time to today’s snapchatting instagramming teenagers. Thirty minutes to them is probably the equivalent of a long weekend to us.

The one thing I’ve tried to be alert to is my daughter’s mental health. According to a Girlguiding report in the UK last year, more than two thirds of girls and young women said exams were the biggest cause of stress in their lives. Mental well-being is talked about much more openly these days and it is something we've discussed in our household. Some headteachers are concerned that tougher GCSEs are potentially damaging the mental health of our kids. Arguing about revising doesn’t make this any easier - there’s obviously a delicate balance between pushing them to do well, and pushing them too hard.

With the husband working away from home, it’s been left to me to gently encourage my daughter to revise regularly and consistently. Okay, maybe not so gently. Apparently you shouldn’t make sweeping statements like: “You’ll regret it when you open those grades in August,” or “I revised seven hours a day when I did my exams.”

But now that she’s got into her stride, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how diligent she can be. She's working hard, and I know she's smart. I’m just trying to silence that little voice at the back of my head saying “if only she’d started sooner…”

Anyway, one way or another, it’ll all be over in a few short weeks. Then we can all relax.

Until the results in August. Gulp.

For Book's Sake

My second book came out on April 5th, and it's fair to say I was pretty stressed about it. There were so many things to think about; cover design, release date, pricing, promotional material, review sites, advance copies..... I think I slept an average of four hours a night in the run-up. To be honest, writing the darn thing was easier.

Now it's out, and it's a different kind of stress. Will people read it? Will they like it? Will they - please, by all that's holy - leave  a review? And what about the advertising; facebook ads, tweets, instagram posts....? It's relentless. 

Stress is weird. I thrive on it to a certain extent - well, I work in live TV so pressure is a constant companion. On the days I'm not on air, the lack of stress makes me feel not quite whole. I actively seek to fill the gap by piling things on my 'to do' list, much to the irritation of my family. I find it hard to switch off. 

They say a little stress is good for you, and in fact researchers have found that a little challenge in your life (NOT a massive trauma, that is) makes you better prepared for when things really go wrong. Those with a history of some adverse life events have less disability and higher life satisfaction than those with no negative life events. 

In other words, a little of what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. So maybe my book-stress is toughening me up.  

On the downside, the cookie jar has had a bit of a hammering. Not to mention the red wine. According to the Mental Health Foundation, 46% of people eat unhealthily or drink too much when they're stressed. 

So if you guys can help me out by downloading my book and leaving reviews, you'd be doing me a kindness. I promise I'll stop dipping my oreos into my shiraz as a pick-me-up.

Daughter of Kali: Unholy Alliance is now on Amazon on special offer for just 99p or $1.29 until April 15th. Click here to download it wherever you are.

Thank you. And remember - a good book is just what you need to help you relax!

New Book - April Release

It's almost here!

Book 2 in my Daughter of Kali series now has a release date, and I am very excited. April 5th will see the birth of the sequel to Awakening, featuring our heroes Kaz, Em, Darius, and a whole new cast of characters.

In Daughter of Kali:Unholy Alliance Kaz is now sixteen and a Warrior, but her Mum is still desperately ill. It's a tale of adventure, demon-slaying, and kick-ass heroines - but it's also about family, loyalty, and how far we'd go to protect the ones we love, even if the people around us don't understand what we're doing.

Here's the blurb on the back (always one of the hardest bits to write, in my experience!) 

Demons, magic, and a mythical beast named Gary….

Sixteen year old Kaz is now a trained Warrior for the secret society known as the Guild. Just like her mother before her. But her Mum is in a coma, and only demonic power can save her.

Going against everything the Guild stands for, Kaz must make an unholy alliance with the Named One who once inhabited her mother.

She also has a Goddess on her case. Kali wants her to fulfil a prophecy - only Kaz isn't quite sure what that is.​

Her own power, the bloodthirsty inner voice she calls the other, is getting stronger. And as if that wasn’t enough, her emotions are going haywire. She’s torn between Darius, the Warrior in love with her best friend; and Jack, dark, brooding, and a bit irritating.

Kaz finds herself navigating a dangerous path at great cost. The lives of those she loves are in danger, and her only hope of saving them is to solve the mystery of the prophecy - even if it means losing herself.

In honour of the new release, my publishers Peach have also updated the cover of book 1, Daughter of Kali: Awakening. 

What do you think?  I like it - but then, I'm biased!

Sequels are tricky things to write - how much detail do you put in from the first book? How much will readers remember, and should you assume some readers haven't read book 1 at all?

Hopefully I've got the balance right but I would love to hear from other authors who've written a series to get their take. 

You don't have to read Awakening to make sense of Unholy Alliance - but it helps.



Unholy Alliance will be available on Amazon from April 5th at a promotional discounted price. I hope you snap up a copy, and please leave me a review if you can.

Because unlike my main character Kaz, I actually care what other people think! 

Wheel of Time

Getting older is no picnic.

For one thing, maintenance becomes a full time job. All that effort to look young again – the pruning, tweezing, plucking, dying, (of the hair, not physically expiring. Though come to think of it, the latter is also happening.)

In my head, I’m still twenty-something; the youngest person in the newsroom, happy to be referred to as a ‘girl’ and not find it condescending, capable of working 24/7 and function on all cylinders. Now I’m one of the older presenters on screen and a mentor to some of the younger staff. If I don’t get seven hours of sleep a night I’m more grouchy than a grizzly bear. And if anyone calls me a ‘girl’ it’s because they’re short-sighted or being ironic.

I think the hardest part is the knowledge that I am no longer cool.

I used to be cool. I was a war reporter and the Home Affairs Editor for a national news network. As a young journalist, I fearlessly blagged my way into Serbian territory in Kosovo. I once got made an honorary member of the RAF when I flew refuelling missions with them in the Balkans. I launched Aljazeera – the first face on a network that now gets viewed regularly in hundreds of millions of homes. And I did it with the eyes of the world on me, not to mention the Qatari royal family. I’ve interviewed world leaders, terrorists and celebrities.

Fast forward twenty years. I am still a TV presenter, I still interview powerful people and I still hold a position of authority. And yet, somehow,  I am not cool anymore.

I can pinpoint the exact moment It happened. It was when my daughter became a teenager. It is a commonly known fact among teenagers that their mothers are never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, cool.

My daughter cringes with embarrassment when I meet her friends. I’m not allowed to talk to them lest I use my ‘journalist’ voice. “What’s my journalist voice?” I ask, puzzled. “The one you use to ask questions,” she replies darkly. So that‘s it then. I’m not even allowed to ask how they are.

I am also a Young Adult author, and some of her friends have read my book, Daughter of Kali Awakening. They seemed to enjoy it. The school even asked me to go in and do an author talk for the girls. My daughter is mortified by this. Obviously, appearing at school will reveal how deeply uncool her mother is.

I’m curious to know whether this phenomenon holds true for people in really cool professions. Did Neil Armstrong’s kids roll their eyes when dad started talking about the  moon landing again? Do Michelle Obama’s girls forbid their mum from talking to their friends in case she uses her ‘First Lady’ voice?

But I suppose I had it coming. When I was a teenager,  I considered my own parents to be old-fashioned stuck-in-the-muds. I loathed it when they tried to make well-meaning conversation with my friends, cringing when they made jovial jokes and tried to be matey with them. Three decades later, I finally know how they feel. What goes around comes around.

Now you must excuse me. Those grey hairs won’t tint themselves.

Skin Deep

Is there a word that means to be grateful for something you really shouldn’t have to be grateful for?

I was trying to think of it the other day, as I read about Hollywood actor Liam Neeson. Let me explain.

The recent admission by Neeson, that he once went out looking for a black man to murder because his friend had been raped by one, will have shocked many. As it rightly should. To be fair, I believe he told the story because he acknowledges the wrongness of it. But it doesn’t deflect from the truth. A truth mirrored by the rise in race hate crime in the UK, and the disproportionate police killings of black people in the US.

Skin colour matters.

I’ve known this from an early age. From the name-calling at school, or being told to ‘go back where I came from’ (always a puzzler; I was born in Leeds.) And then, when I got into journalism, to have others openly question if I’d got the job because I ticked the right diversity boxes.

Thankfully, these instances were few and far between. By and large, the vast majority of my life has been free of racism. Most of the people I know judge others on their actions and personalities rather than something as random and uncontrollable as skin colour.  I’m lucky to work in a multi-cultural environment with people from a plethora of nations. And I'm good at my job, regardless of my melanin count.

But I‘m not naïve. I know it’s an issue. And I also know that we people of colour – especially women of colour – often have to work harder, and be better, just to be treated the same.

So I am thankful this is one burden my daughter will not have. Because she’s white. Looking at her, you would never know she has a grandfather who is an Indian immigrant and a mother who is brown. Her features are more English suburban than Asian subcontinent. She will never face racial prejudice.

She has grown up in a multi-ethnic household. She has a rainbow heart, and an inclusive soul. She herself is colour-blind when it comes to people.

But how sad it is that I’m glad she inherited her skin tone from her English dad, not her half-Indian mum.

And that’s why I think there should be a word, one that means being grateful for something you shouldn’t have to be grateful for. If anyone knows of it, please tell me.

Mightier Than The Sword

I am a short hop, skip and a jump away from bringing out book 2 in my Daughter of Kali trilogy. The first, Awakening, was published in May 2018.  I started writing the sequel in August. So it's taken me, let's see, five months to complete a 78,000-word novel, edit it, polish it, change the ending, and get it to the point where my agent is happy.

I didn't think that was overly long, but I have recently discovered there are a whole school of writers out there who put out a book a month. A book a month! It takes me that long to decide how my tale will start and finish.

At least I have more knowledge about the publishing process this time round.  It's not easy to sell books -  the Twitter writing community is jammed full of people trying to finish manuscripts, find agents or publishers, or publicise their finished product. Selling books is a brutal business, even though there are many, many immensely talented people out there.  My first Young Adult book has relatively few sales compared to the effort I've put in, and I'm someone with a fairly high-profile platform to begin with. I'm hoping it's a slow-burn thing, and that all of a sudden it will take off. (In case you haven't guessed, I've always been an optimist.)

The actual writing of the book was the most fun part. The marketing, not so much. It's a crowded playing field, especially the urban fantasy genre I write. But I have learned some valuable lessons, so for the benefit of any aspiring authors out there, here are some tips.

1) Start marketing even before your book is published. Put ads on Facebook, Instagram and Amazon. Send out advance copies to bookbloggers and ask if they'll review it. Join Facebook groups and become a Goodreads author. Upload copies to the likes of Netgalley or run promotions on Bookbub.

Bear in mind, nearly all of this costs you money. And even if you are lucky enough to have a supportive agent and publisher like me, you still have to do a lot of your own marketing. Unless you're JK Rowling, that is. I guess she can relax.

2) Covers are all important. You know that saying, don't judge a book by its cover? Well, people do. Immediately and harshly. I left the cover of Awakening to my publisher, and although it's perfectly fine, it's not the image I had in my head. I took a step back because I was a new, first time author and I didn't know better. This time round, with book 2, I'm a bit more possessive about it.

There are websites devoted to cover designs, as well as sites like Pixabay and Shutterstock where you can buy images to use (and many are free).

Sadly, there does seem to be a lack of 'diverse' faces among them. My main character Kaz is a brown-skinned half Indian girl and I'm struggling to find the right image. It's astonishing how many of the faces featured are Caucasian. A quick trawl of pictures logged under the heading 'Indian Girl' brings up either a bunch of wholesome, intellectual-types, or women wearing Bengali dancing clothes. (Or, in a lovely touch of ambiguity, a Native American girl in a feathered headdress.)


3) Don't give up. If you feel you have a book to write, then write it. I have found it's a discipline - not a chore exactly, but you do have to treat it like a job, where you make yourself sit down and write whether you're in the mood or not.

As a TV presenter, I have set work patterns so I tend to write on my days off - usually for six or seven hours straight. Other people write in the hour before they go to work or when the kids are at school. Yet others use their lunch breaks or set aside time at the weekend. One person I know writes between midnight and 2am because that's when she can concentrate the best.

It's totally your choice how you go about writing. But if you're the kind of person who says "I always wanted to write, I just never had time," then my best advice to you is this: make a start. Write the first chapter. Then just keep adding to it. Even writing 500 words is an achievement.

As best-selling author Jodi Picoult says: You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page. 

So, the next chapter of Kaz Deva's adventures will begin soon. If you like feisty heroines, magical quests and exciting adventures (and don't mind a few scary scenes) then you'll love this.

No release date yet, but I will be choosing some lucky people to receive a free copy to read and review.

If you'd like to receive an advance review copy, add your email address to the comments below and I will be in touch.

New Year, New Goals

The last mince pie has disappeared and the turkey leftovers have finally run out. Christmas is over, the festivities are done, we're well into 2019, and staring down the barrel of another year.

So naturally, this is the time when we decide we're going to be different. We're going to shed those pounds, join the gym, write that book, ask for that pay-rise. In short, we're going to seize life and make new goals.

What is it with New Year Resolutions? Why New Year? Are we incapable of making a goal in, say, April? But I digress.

It will surprise no-one that the top three New Year Resolutions are almost always about physical improvements: exercise more, lose weight, and eat more healthily. In fact, you probably made the same pledges last year. 

But what's interesting is how many goals are about mental well-being. Last year, according to a YouGov poll, 24% of us focused on self-care (by getting more sleep, for example); 15% of us decided to learn a new skill; 15% wanted to make new friends, and 18% wanted to read more. This bodes well, as health experts urge us to take more notice of our inner happiness, and do more to address mental health issues.

But making a promise is very different to keeping it. A UK survey a couple of years back found around half of us don't think we'll stick to our promises. Psychologists say the key is setting yourself small, achievable goals. Don't say "I want to be thinner." Instead, say "I want to lose five kilos before my birthday." 

Baby steps. 

So, here are my three resolutions for 2019:

1. Stop being so impatient, especially with stupid people. (Also, stop calling them stupid)

2. Remember that just because it contains nuts, it's not healthy (i.e. lay off the peanut butter)

3. Start doing more fun things with your daughter, because it won't be long before she's off on her own life-journey (and stop angsting about the state of her room, you can clean it up when she's gone)

What are your resolutions? Whatever you hope to achieve, here's to a successful 2019.