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Hello my lovelies,

hope you’re well and staying safe. In the lead up to publication of The Last Charm under my Ella Allbright pen name, I’ve done some things that are within my comfort zone… and some that are definitely outside of it! I thought I’d share those experiences with you here. Readers may be interested in taking a peek ‘behind the curtain’ and aspiring authors may want to think about what could be expected of them if they get that sought after publishing deal…

It’s been a while since I had a book published (2018, and that was in Italy) and a lot has changed since then, but the main things I considered when musing over (worrying about) publication plans at the beginning of 2020 included: the rise and increased power of Netgalley, Goodreads and Amazon; reader expectations in terms of engagement with the author; and changed publishing models (increased popularity of digital-first publishing and audio books).

I worked hard on The Last Charm over a period of three years through job changes, house moves, bereavements and raising teenagers. It’s a book that’s very close to my heart and I want to do everything I can to make it a success, so I decided to really go for it with promotion and building my author brand as Ella, while hanging on to the one I’d already created as Nikki Moore.

I decided to work on the premise of two ideas: –

(1) Knock on as many promo doors as possible – ask people for help, even if it makes you squirm. (If you don’t ask, you don’t get. The worst that can happen is someone says no, or fails to reply).

(2) Say YES to anything you’re asked to do, however scary it is

I consider myself a confident person, but actually doing these two things in practice has been hard! Over the past 6 months they’ve led to exciting yet often nerve-wracking experiences, but with some amazing results