Two years ago I worked with Heidi, a creative writing lecturer, and students at Canterbury Christchurch University (CCCU) on a small project to increase my profile on social media. At the time I had 20 Twitter followers and, to give you an idea of student input, I now have almost 3,000.

A few months ago I was approached by CCCU to teach Professional Practice I — to examine and engage with the media industry; in particular enabling students to understand and practice styles, techniques and professional practice required to write and edit non-fiction articles and features suitable for the newspaper and magazine market, and the opportunities offered by the internet.

Students will also be introduced to the skills and basic understanding of persuasive writing required by the advertising and copywriting industry.

This module aims to provide students with knowledge and understanding of contemporary professional practice across a variety of industries.

Writing, blogging, marketing, advertising, copy, website, social media and building a database of readers and launching new novels — these are the skills I’ve had to develop as a self-published author.

Now I can share my experiences and knowledge and — do you know what?

I’m very excited.

As a self-published author it’s important to be recognised in the world of academia. #trailblazer.

I believe it’s important to be ‘current’ in this constantly changing world of social media, self-publishing hype, and online sales and marketing. It’s essential to keep up with trends, to be informed and to sift out relevant information in a professional manner to help others.

Is writing a novel harder than planning a teaching semester?

Let me explain: with a book or short story there’s the introduction of characters — the hero and antihero (keeping it simple), then there’s the goal or ambition that creates the story, conflict where things going wrong, followed by a resolution.

With planning lectures there’s the introduction (the aim of the lecture) and what will be discussed, the aims and ambition of the tutorial and problems to overcome, followed by a summary of what’s happened.

See the pattern?

I think that working with students will be like engaging with readers. You have to build on basic qualities and strengths:

Engagement. Enjoyment. Knowledge.

These are the discussions I’ll have with students so that hopefully they will find their own voice, their public images and their route or niche in their individual writing careers.

It’s a journey of discovery, expectation and surprise — theirs and mine.

Stay with me and I’ll let you know what happens.….at CCCU.