So – one of the best parts of my publishing journey has been connecting with so many great bloggers. I was really anxious about this when I first published Dark Dates: everything I saw online seemed to be about drama between authors and bloggers (especially indie authors) and lots of blogs I first encountered had a policy of not dealing with indie authors at all.
But despite my initial misgivings, I ended up having almost universally positive experiences with the book blogging community. Sure, not everyone loved my book – but I didn’t expect them to (in fact, the reviews were better than I could ever have hoped, but they obviously weren’t universally glowing, and sometimes you read a review and wonder if they’re even talking about the book you wrote – but I quickly learned that’s just part of being out there). But even those sites that weren’t massively enthused by the book itself were never anything less than helpful, courteous and polite, and overall I came away from this experience with nothing but great respect for bloggers, most of whom do this for free, in their spare time, working around other commitments.
Even better, I feel like I made some genuine friends in the community. It’s a tricky balance, of course – you don’t want to compromise someone’s ability to be honest about your work – but it’s also great to connect with people, even if only online, whom you genuinely like and have lots in common with.
One of these lovely ladies is the wonderful Kat, the Book Tart. We bonded over our love of vintage (she’s fabulously stylish), Supernatural and Doctor Who – as well as a taste for silliness. So when some bad luck struck her and her lovely beau, I was happy to help out – and, given my own great experience with the author and blogging community, I’m not surprised so many others leaped to assist, too. So my first post is below, but do enter her competition, and keep popping by during this period of transition for her – I’m sure she’ll appreciate the support!
Dark Dates 