It’s No Longer a Secret

October 26, 2011

All the Secret Things, my novel, quietly slipped into the world-wide web. The paperback edition is available for the first time at Amazon.com.

When you carry a novel within your heart for thirty years, writing it off and on, and reaching 73 as I have, All the Secret Things, finally had to be finished. I feel empty now that my characters are alive on paper and no longer pleading for me to tell their story, but my ‘joy has risen’ because I completed Emily’s story in my lifetime.

In my novel, I wanted to convey through my main character Emily her determination as a child to make a positive difference.

She was caught between two sets of parents and did not feel safe with either family. When she lived with her father, she was terrorized by her stepbrother. When she lived with her alcoholic mother, her bizarre behavior embarrassed Emily.

Yet, it only takes one person to believe in you . . .

She had that “aha” moment when she was ten and that one person believed in her.

In the story Emily’s mother had humiliated her in front of the school children and Miss Gilbert the principal. After Emily’s mother left, the principal reassured the child, that she was loved and respected by her teachers and friends and would do well in life because of her gifts.

Emily thought: I smiled; I was so relieved. I knew that moment Miss Gilbert’s kind words had changed my life. She believed in me; she saw something special in me. One day I knew I’d be a teacher just like all the other teachers I had loved. I’d be kind to children, listen to them, and treat them with respect.

Now that the secret is out, I hope you will read Emily’s story.

Advertising Adventures

My first novel is now out, and I need to promote it, but I don’t know where to begin or where to send it for reviews. I’ve spent hours trying to find places to submit the novel and discovered a few things in my search. I thought it might be interesting to share my book promoting adventures in this blog. What worked? What didn’t work? I’d love to have ideas from other authors. So please join up and follow this blog and let me know what worked for you and equally important, what did not work for you.

Aggressive self-promoting authors turn buyers, bookstore owners, and bloggers off.

 Why?

 Why shouldn’t we be able to promote our writing like other people do the products they develop and create?

We shouldn’t have to feel apologetic about offering a book we have worked so hard on, unless we come across as pushy or aggressive or we whine and complain about the publishing company not doing enough for our book. Or we may self-publish and still feel slighted because we aren’t being noticed or don’t have a fan following.

 So how do we INDIE publishers, who have our own imprint and are self-publishing promote our books without being obnoxious?

That’s a good question and one I would like to explore here.

 I will begin by sharing one not so subtle way to promote our books.

 My focus is on my debut novel All the Secret Things.

Here’s my first idea about how to get the word out using Gmail and their “Signature” feature (Your email server should have this feature; if they don’t Gmail is a free email provider service) :


1. Choose “Labels” from the drop down menu. 
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and click on “Manage Labels” at the bottom.
3. Magic! A gold “Settings” box appears.
4. Click on General on the bar in the left hand corner.

 5. Scroll down to Signature:
 6. Type in your information in the blue bordered box. Here’s mine:

  All the Secret Things Sheila Cragg’s
debut novel now available on Kindle
Paperback on its way soon, I hope.

 7. Copy the title of your book and click on italics.

 8. Paste in the URL location of your book; highlight it; and click on the link, where your book is offered for sale. All the Secret Things http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MKQMSM You can also paste in a small copy of the book cover.

 9. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the save changes button.

 10. You’re done. Now every time you send an email, you will be promoting your book.

 Please send your promo ideas; we all need them. I would love to hear from you about ways you have been able to promote your book in non-pushy way.