Tuesday, June 2, 2015

For the Love of...Combining with Jo




Good Tuesday Everyone!

My guest today on this slightly, not exactly, regularly scheduled For the Love of...post is my friend Jo. Like many of us she has a lot of interests and aspires to make a living doing one or the other, or in Jo's case, combining everything she loves and rolling it into one lovely, workable, ambitious,and productive package. 

If you're a writer looking for solid, reliable, smart, and friendly promotion, Jo is your girl...or should I call her something else? Well, you'll just have to read her post to find out!

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Hi everyone and thanks for stopping by to visit. I love being asked to visit blogs… as a natural introvert, it's one of the easiest ways of being social from the comfort of my sofa *grin*. I have been trying to figure out what to tell you all about myself, which sounds silly, but it's far more complicated than you might imagine. Here in the real world I am an event manager – a job which I love. I love coming up with a great idea and then assembling all the elements that I need in order to make it real. I enjoy the challenges and even the stresses that are all part of the process. There is something about standing back on the day (usually in the last hour or two of the event) and looking around at everything, knowing you've succeeded in what you set out to do. Many of my events are also charity fundraisers and this gives the sense of achievement a whole different, and altogether more satisfying, spin.
 

Away from the real world I have a secret life as a writer. I've loved writing ever since I first learned how to string letters together to form words. At school, my essays were always just a little too long because I kept getting swept up in the story. I'm currently working on a fantasy novel, a romance story and a collection of children's stories. Yes, I have a wide range of interests and it's great to be able to shift genres when I feel like I'm hitting a wall in any of my manuscripts.
 

For the past two years I've been very fortunate to be able to marry my love of books with my love of organising things in my role as Marketing Director for Breathless Press, a small Romance and Erotica publisher which recently closed. As part of my job I discovered that I really enjoy organising blog tours for authors and being part of their journey. When Breathless Press closed, I saw an opportunity and decided to pursue it. Thus, my new freelance blog tour and promotions business – The Book Mistress - was born!

My aim is to provide authors with affordable blog tours as well as audio extracts that they can share on their websites and through their social media. I'll also be offering to provide guest posts for authors to use on their blogs, social media assistance and author PA services. It's an ambitious project, but one I feel strongly about. Authors love writing, they're not always so keen on the marketing side *grin* and unfortunately while there are some great, affordable marketing options out there (aside from doing it themselves which is free), there are sadly some businesses out there that are hopelessly over priced!

Step one, to set up all the online "stuff" for the new venture, is done. I have a few tours booked for June and now I start the real work of promoting my services. The only way to make this work is to connect with as many authors as possible.

So… here goes. Hello world, I'm The Book Mistress and I'd love to help share you with the world.

Cheers, 


Jo 



The Book Mistress on Wordpress
The Book Mistress on Facebook
The Book Mistress on Twitter
The Book Mistress on You Tube
The Book Mistress on Pinterest
The Book Mistress at Good Reads






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I'd like to give a big thanks to Jo for being on my blog today. Finding a way to help others while doing what you love is a position in life many of us would like to be in. I really admire Jo and I hope you've found her post to be inspiring!

Until next time,

Cin