I’ve been rather quiet on my blog, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been quiet in real life. During 2015 so far, I’ve helped four authors to publish their books.
The editing process varies from client to client. Some people approach me with a manuscript that’s almost ready to be published, whereas other books need more shaping. Some of my clients are already fairly confident with computers and the internet – but I’m happy to guide people through the whole process and de-mystify it for you. I can also work on an effective cover design and blurb for your book.
Some books need to be typed up, having languished in a bottom drawer for years. If you, or someone you knows has a hand-written or type-written manuscript, that’s absolutely fine by me!
Some people don’t have manuscript at all – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a story to tell. If this sounds like you, let’s talk – and I’ll do the writing.
The reason that I use self-publishing platforms such as Amazon’s Createspace is that publishing is now accessible to everyone. As a self-published author, you’re in control of what your book looks like, how much it costs, and you receive the royalties directly into your bank account. I can also help you with marketing tools, such as setting up a Facebook page and Twitter account for your book, and advising you on book launches and other promotional tools.
I’m currently on the look out for new clients, so please get in touch if you think I can help: https://wildrosemarywritingservices.wordpress.com/what-i-can-do-for-you/
Don’t take my word for it though – take a look at the books I’ve published so far this year.
Send in the Clown by Tom Webster
Send in the Clown by Tom Webster
Tom Webster was born in 1931, and in the 1970s and 80s had a successful career writing radio plays for the BBC, juggling his writing with his job as a head teacher. On his retirement, Tom started to write his first novel, ‘Send in the Clown’, set on the North Yorkshire coast.
From a distance, it looks like a bundle of old clothes washed up at the tide’s edge, but thirty years in the Met tells Howard otherwise. It’s a body. And a body says trouble.
When Howard Johnstone retires from the CID, he returns for a holiday in his home town on the North Yorkshire coast. He stays, enticed by a beautiful face from his past. Gwen Melsome, the Fair Miss Frigidaire.
July 1962: Saltby Grammar’s production of Twelfth Night. Howard as Feste the clown. Gwen, the cool lady Olivia. Type casting. A passionate but interrupted backstage embrace.
After thirty years, Gwen is back, running her father’s old bookshop, and Howard falls in lust all over again. With wishful thinking, Howard takes on a part-time driving job for one of Saltby’s great and good, surgeon Alex Saunders. But when he finds a body on the beach, Howard curses his luck. He’s been an idiot to return, and an even bigger idiot to stay. Nothing but trouble ahead.
Take a look on Amazon.
Difficult Times by Debbie Mansfield
Difficult Times by Debbie Mansfield
Debbie lives in Sheffield with her husband and pet spaniel Jasmine. Difficult Times is a romantic thriller, set in an England where climate change has made many of its citizens homeless.
The sea waters have risen around the coast of Britain, bringing chaos and misery to thousands.
Jane works in a homeless shelter. After the death of her husband, she submerges herself in her work. Can she turn her own life around and meet someone special again? Clara lives alone and struggles to cope with the effects of aging. Will she survive when she is burgled and left for dead?
Martin is one of the unlucky ones. He sets out to make himself a new beginning in Leeds. Can he overcome the misery of living on the streets and find happiness?
Jez, Freddy, Matt and Neil are four homeless youths squatting in Leeds. What will become of the four friends as their hardship intensifies? Their paths become entwined, with devastating consequences. Is there a happy ending for any of them?
Take a look on Amazon.
Who Your Friends Are by Susan Day
Who Your Friends Are by Susan Day
Susan has been writing for a long time, developing her skills as a hobby, grabbing time in between work and a busy family life. She’s now retired and loves devoting her time to writing. Who Your Friends Are is Susan’s first published novel, but there will be many more to come.
Two little girls, Pat and Rita, back in the 1950s, become best friends. Who Your Friends Are tells the story, in Pat’s words, of the way their lives diverged.
Rita is ambitious and determined and becomes successful in a way neither her family nor Pat would ever have imagined. Pat follows Rita’s career with interest but without envy. She herself follows a conventional route through marriage, children, a job in a caring profession, and always believing in the enduring quality of their friendship.
Now Pat finds herself without a job, with her children all grown up and time on her hands. Her past history with Rita is due for a reassessment – what will she make of it?
Take a look on Amazon.
Tomorrow Never Comes by Derek S. Lupson
Tomorrow Never Comes by Derek Lupson
Some people would struggle to fill a small notebook with their life achievements and adventures. Tomorrow Never Comes is Derek’s first book – his hair-raising escapade in Ethiopia in the final year of Haile Selassie’s reign as he attempts – and succeeds in setting up a trading organisation based on NAAFI for the Ethiopian Imperial Airforce. I hope that Derek will now tell the world of his many exploits in his long and illustrious career with NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes).
The rifle was forced through the window of my old Renault Four car and rammed up my nose, forcing my head back at a painful angle. Here I was: a youngish retail executive, outside the rebel-held Airforce Base of Debre Zeit, deep in the heart of Ethiopia, while two rebels argued about killing me. It is at times like this that one wonders how the hell one got into such a situation.
Derek Lupson didn’t ask for a life of adventure. In 1973, he was running a supermarket for NAAFI in darkest Doncaster. The Managing Director then tells Derek that he’s the ideal person for a little job he has in mind.
The “little job” involves being posted 4,000 miles away, to Ethiopia, a country that has to be pointed out to him on a map. His task: to set up a modern trading organisation, based on NAAFI, for the Imperial Ethiopian Airforce.
In his struggle to achieve the impossible, Derek comes face to face with Emperor Haile Selassie, corrupt bureaucrats and wild animals. He encounters heart-rending poverty and decadent glamour.
But does he find the love of his life?
Take a look on Amazon.