I was crazy excited this week to receive the proof copies of the Visionary Collection this week, they truly are just beautiful! I adore the new matte covers, and the fabulous cover designs and the way they are interlinked. They’re just stunning.
I took a few pictures, and also did a short video which includes a reading for a lovely Earth Angel in India.
Aren’t they beautiful?
The back covers
They will be available very soon!
[youtube http://youtu.be/Rmjhd52ksGo]
If you would like to win any of these, email me to become a distributor!
As mentioned before, I will be entering everyone who has distributed the tour cards into a prize draw to win some fab prizes, and today I managed to photograph them all! If you would like to be in with a chance to win, you can still become a distributor in the tour just by emailing me. It wont cost you anything except for some time and enthusiasm!
So here they are:
First Prize:
A signed set of the newly released Visionary Collection!
Second Prize:
A handmade bracelet featuring a quote from The Elphite.
Third Prize:
A beautiful leather diary, with a metal coin that says ‘Destiny’ attached.
Pen not included 🙂
I am alive.
I am awake.
I am loved.
Fourth Prize:
A large black PAM’s Bar t-shirt, which was made for the launch of The Doorway to PAM in 2011
As modelled by my gorgeous partner 🙂
Fifth Prize:
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It really has been a busy few weeks, and things seem set to continue in that way. This is just a short update, to mention a few things that have been happening.
First of all, I had a lovely review posted by Tiffany Hathorn, who read and loved The Elphite. She also interviewed me for her blog the other week. It seems mad that many people have read and loved The Elphite, but I have so few reviews on Amazon (or anywhere) for it. I’m determined to remedy that, by doing some more marketing for it, a part of my Visionary Collection launch.
I have finally edited and posted a new Oracle Card Reading, and will post another later in the week. You can watch it below 🙂
[youtube http://youtu.be/UOzIPZiV8z0]And finally, in this short update, I would like to put a call out to anyone who would like to get involved in my book tour, because I have to say, I think it will be epic! You can check out all of the details on the website.
Aside from that, I am focussed on finishing I’m Here, ready for release in just a couple of weeks, and organising more publishing workshops. (Oh and watching Fringe – ever so slightly addicted to it!)
I will post another update soon!
I just can’t wait any longer to show off my shiny new covers for the Visionary Collection! Aren’t they beautiful? They were designed by the fabulous madappledesigns, and I really couldn’t be happier. I am working on the formatting at the moment, so the first three books in the collection (Heaven dot com, The Doorway to PAM and The Elphite) will be available with the new covers on Kindle and in paperback by the end of May, along with the release of my brand new novel – I’m Here.
The full covers for the print copies:
I know fellow book-lovers out there will understand what I mean when I say that favourite authors can become like gods to us, and that we can put them up on pedestals, elevated high above us ordinary human-folk. And when we reach out to tell them how much their words have touched us, how much their prose has changed our lives, we are shocked and quite excited when they respond, amazed that they deemed us worthy to reply to.
But honestly, authors are humans too. It was more unusual to get a reply years ago, when snail mail was the norm, because as most authors know, finding writing time can be tough as it is, but handwriting and sending replies to fanmail would eat into that time too much. These days, when you can reply in 140 characters on Twitter, or reply to a Facebook post or a short email quite quickly, the likelihood of getting a response has increased dramatically.
I remember writing to one of my favourite authors as a teenager, in the earlyish days of email, and was very excited to get a reply, even though the reply consisted of a single line. It felt like I had connected, though briefly, with a mythical creature that a mere mortal like me shouldn’t have been allowed to. In recent times, I have connected with several authors on Twitter, and have ended up having conversations with some of them, who have turned out to be genuinely awesome people.
Back in January I received a message on Goodreads from a fellow book-lover and book reviewer, asking for a copy of The Elphite, because she was keen to review it. I responded quite quickly and soon sent a copy of the book. The review she has written will soon be posted, along with an interview, and the brand new cover of The Elphite! She said that she was surprised and extremely excited that I had responded to her request, and sent her the copy, because after all, I was an author, and to get a response from such a mythical, magical creature was unexpected but exciting.
I’ve said it before, but I will repeat it here – I am just a human. I’m not even an incarnated Faerie or a Starperson. Just a mere mortal. And I love hearing from my readers and from potential readers. It is what keeps me writing, keeps me connecting, keeps me creating. So reach out, send messages, all are appreciated and cherished and often printed and stuck on my walls, to motivate me to publish more books.
Sending love out to everyone who has ever sent me messages, you are all amazing. xx
It’s been a quiet week on the blog front as I have been busy editing and also spring cleaning the house. I’ve also been working with the madly talented madappledesigns on the new covers for Heaven Dot Com, The Doorway to PAM and The Elphite, as well as the cover for my new novel, I’m Here.
The title of this post is referring to the quote on my calendar right now, which says -‘ Do not speak – unless it improves on silence.’ And I guess that’s why my blog posts are a little sporadic, because as a rule, I do not post unless I have something to say, that I think is worth saying, and worthy of my readers’ time.
Rocking with my firewalking buddies at last year’s UPW.
So why am I writing this post? Because at this very moment in time, a whole group of my favourite people are at Tony Robbins’ Unleash Your Power, in London. I attended the event last year, and it was amazing. I can honestly say that it changed my perspective on life completely, and made me realise that I could in fact live the life I wanted to live. Walking on fire was one of the scariest things I have ever done (even more so than breaking an arrow with my neck) and it made me feel like anything was possible. Since then I have been doing work I love, full time. I haven’t yet got everything sorted, but I know that I am so very lucky to live in such beautiful surroundings, to have an awesome partner and to be living my life’s purpose.
I have had times where I’ve wanted to give up. When it looked like things weren’t working out, or when the finances start to freak me out. And I would start thinking about what I should do instead. Perhaps I should go and get a job, it might be a boring 9-5, and I might only get minimum wage – but it would be a regular income! Surely that would be better? I’d get stuck in these ruts for sometimes days at a time, where I’d scour the job pages, send out CVs, etc etc. And do you know what? Usually I ended up giving up on that and going back to the task at hand – making a living as an author and a publisher.
It came to my awareness recently that I was never going to make Plan A work, if I was focusing on Plan B. If I truly believed in my Plan A of being a successful author, then I didn’t need a Plan B. Just having a Plan B makes Plan A destined to fail. I remembered these words from a talk that Brad Burton gave at a 4Networking meeting I attended, 18 months ago. He knew that his Plan A was going to work. Even when his family and friends thought he was crazy, even when he suffered setbacks and financial problems. He just knew. And he believed in it. I believe that it was his belief that made it work. His single-minded determination made his business successful. But it wasn’t an easy path for him, and I also believe that anything worth doing, anything worth creating, will require a decent amount of hard work, sweat and tears.
So I have thrown away all Plan B’s. There is no other path for me. My path is to do my writing and publishing, and anything related to it. Normal jobs are no longer on the agenda.
It doesn’t just apply to career, either. When you have a relationship back up plan, then your relationship is destined to fail. If all you can think of is what you will do, where you will go, or how you will cope when the relationship breaks down, then inevitably, it will indeed break down. You have to give 100% of yourself to the relationship you are in, and believe that it is ‘forever’. If you don’t want to do that, then it may be time to leave.
So what is your Plan A? What will it take for you to commit to it? Let me know in the comments 🙂
I hope that this post improved on the silence, if it didn’t, my apologies to you!
I don’t normally blog twice in one day, but an interesting synchronicity popped up this evening and I felt the need to share it. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am reading Choose Yourself by James Altucher (and just so you know, I’m not getting paid to endorse or advertise his book, I happened to see it advertised and liked the sound of it, I’m just a reader 🙂 ) Now the book is full of very useful advice, but the part that made me stop reading, was when he suggested that you do exactly what one of the characters in my book does. In his book, James suggest that whenever you think of the past or the future, you are in fact time travelling, and a good way to stop doing that and remain in the present, is to label your thoughts ‘past’ or ‘future’.
Now if you have read my book, a visionary fiction novel called The Elphite, you will know that this exact exercise is what Mrs M does with Ellie. Whenever Ellie references the past or the future, Mrs M labels it and cuts off the conversation. By doing this, she is teaching Ellie present moment awareness. She also teaches her how to release all fears and worries, by getting her to ask herself three questions –
Am I alive? Am I awake? Am I loved?
If the answer to those three questions is yes, then there really is nothing to worry about, because in that moment, which is the only moment that exists, all is well. Lori Lesko read The Elphite, and wrote on her blog how she had found the above exercise to be useful. I really must remind myself to try it out too!
I’m only halfway through Choose Yourself so far and I’ve already found many things that have resonated with me and have inspired me, and I look forward to reading the rest.
Thank you for reading my blog, especially if you have read it twice today! Have a wonderful evening.x
Was very pleased this week to receive a wonderful review from Patricia D. Eddy, who reviews books for Author Alliance. You can read the review in its entirety on Goodreads here.
If you have read The Elphite, perhaps you would consider taking a few minutes to write a review on Amazon too. It’s amazing how powerful reviews can be, especially for books by an unknown or Indie Author. And I don’t just mean because they encourage readers to buy the books and give the author a chance, but because chances are, the author reads every single review, and not only takes any criticism or advice and works on it, but also uses the positive words of encouragement to keep motivated. I wrote about this in a blog post a little while ago.
So maybe today, seeing as it’s a day of expressing love, you could show an Indie Author some love and write them a review!
Just wanted to let all of my American readers know that they can get a copy of The Elphite on Kindle for just $1.99. It’s for a limited amount of time though, so grab your copy now!
You might remember that back in March this year, I attended the Spiritual Renewal Retreat in Oregon – which is four and a half days with Neale Donald Walsch. During the session on the Friday, I had the chance to speak to Neale, to thank him for running the free retreat, which had enabled me to be able to attend. He asked me what I did, and I told him that I was a Spiritual Fiction Author. He asked for the title of a book I had written, and I replied ‘The Earth Angel Training Academy’.
He said he wanted to read the book, so the following day, I took in a copy I had with me (as I was about to begin writing The Other Side, and had taken it with me for research purposes). I gave it to Neale, who was very excited to be receiving gifts (at the same time, he was receiving a signed CD from the drummer of the Turtles, who was also on the retreat).
On the last day, the Sunday, we all gathered in the room, and I was sitting at the front. As Neale began the session, he pointed at me, and said ‘You!’ He then turned to the rest of the group, and told them that if he looked a bit bleary that day, it was because he had stayed up until 2am to read my book! He told everyone that they should all get a copy, but not to read it at night if they wanted to get any sleep!
Will Richardson, Neale’s friend and the President and Director of Programs at the CWG Foundation, also read The Earth Angel Training Academy, and The Elphite, both of which he reviewed on Amazon for me.
I didn’t want to bother Neale for a review, as I know he is a very busy man, but I was eager to know what he had thought after he had finished reading the book, so I e-mailed him yesterday and asked him for his thoughts.
I never expected to receive a reply so quickly, but I woke up this morning to find his e-mail, and needless to say, have been very happy since!
Here it is –
“The Earth Angel Training Academy packs wonderful and ancient truth into an imaginatively original tale that both delights and enlightens. The result: a read that is both fun and inspiring.” — Neale Donald Walsch
It was the best Christmas gift I could have asked for. If you would like to buy a copy of The Earth Angel Training Academy as a gift for someone this Christmas, there is still plenty of time! You can get one here.
Have a wonderful day!
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