The horror of the camera lens: Official Author Photo photoshoot in Paris.

#NCWR POST
As you know if you follow the blog, this September saw me heading to Paris on retreat. The focus of the retreat was visibility, and as part of that we were to undertake a professional photoshoot with the incredibly talented Regina Wamba of  Mae I Design (http://www.maeidesign.com.)

1. Pretending that it isn't happening.
The classic introvert safety net -
when things get scary, retreat and
read a book. The architecture
in Monmarte was just beautiful
and whimsical. 

Regina is an incredibly talented photographer and artist, and has been responsible for the creation of many USA TODAY best selling novels' covers. Her photography is magical, and so although the thought of having a photoshoot filled me with an almost panic attack inducing fear (quite honestly and literally) I was excited by the idea of it.

I have always hated having my photograph taken. As an extreme introvert, and somebody who is incredibly hard on themselves, having a camera pointing at me has had the same adrenalin rush as being faced with a hungry T-Rex.

Despite having been an out there and proud author for the last six years, I had not got around to getting my professional headshot done ---- and the retreat made me face the truth that it wasn't just my abject fear of being photographed, but something else - something much deeper.

2. I saw the inside projected outwardly
and that was hard to accept. The
defensive and yet powerful arm
cross, kind of says it all. 

It wasn't just that I feel silly, and weird looking, and 2 stone overweight, and gangly legged, and dough faced, and triple chinned - I was actually feeling VERY awkward about seeing myself as a serious author - of taking me and my work seriously... I know right?!

The NCWR retreat was all about facing this idea - and I soon realised that I was absolutely not alone in either of these fears. As much as we were all excited to be attending the retreat, of learning together and of growing together -- and drinking too much French wine together, we were all absolutely FREAKING TERRIFIED of the photoshoot. Excited but terrified.

Talking, we discovered that regardless of gender, our month running up to the shoot had been full of anxiety, preparation, mental strengthening, and outfit planning.

3. Allowing my true creative self to
be caught on camera was
exposing.

I don't think I fully understood until that moment what an integral thing our outside was to our inside. I'm a girl who has always prided herself on not being sucked into all that 'beauty' stuff - most days, I go make up free; it's not a strange thing to me to have a selfie with no make up, or to do the school run. Most days, I barely brush my hair - and I've never really understood how someone can actually physically spend a couple of hours getting ready for an event etc.... perhaps now I do, LOL.

We were all so self-conscious that Regina had originally planned to do our photoshoots in private slots, but like freaked out zebra in the presence of a lion, we huddled together and in the end, we tag teamed it. There was something really wonderful about working together, encouraging each other, complimenting each other, reassuring each other --- and laughing; laughing lots.

4. Doing a photoshoot with
friends was so much more fun
than doing it alone. I know
exactly who I'm laughing at
here - my dear friend
+Carlyle Labuschagne 

Regina is a picture witch - she has this ability to capture not just the outside but the inside - she has the magical ability to showcase that unique beauty that is within all of us. We had a fabulous two day shoot, one day in the gardens of the Musee du Rodin in Paris, in a glorious (almost too hot) day, and the following day, we headed to the beautiful, sublime and architecturally stunning, Monmarte Cemetery.  It was fun - it was empowering and it was revealing.

Two days ago, I got the 100 or so photos we took into my in-box. I wasn't sure what I was expecting but I was surprised to feel very mixed emotions. I had been so high on the days of the shoot - and then it was like being hit by a train. There was me, hundreds of me - being author, being creative, being professional -- being a grown up! Yes, a woman, a woman with flaws, and ugly spots, and beauty, and power, and dreams, and ambitions, and love, and laughter, and heartsease, and friendship - and it freaked me out. I barely recognised myself even though I knew myself.

5. Seeing my sense of dreams
and ambitions played out
on film, and most
importantly, seeing myself
as a grown up at last. 

And I trashed through them, groaning and moaning and getting upset, not seeing perhaps what I had wanted to see - - but it wasn't because it wasn't there, but because I was still looking through eyes that belonged to the me that had spent a lifetime never really feeling quite good enough, through eyes that were embarrassed to step out and stand up for who I am, who was ashamed of being so forward, and afraid that I would be humiliated, criticised or brought down ---- so I STOPPED MYSELF right there and then and gave myself a BIG TALKING to! That shit has got to stop.

6. Taking myself and my art
seriously is the first step in
acknowledging myself as creative

I mean, seriously, THAT. SHIT. HAS. GOT. TO. STOP.

And I looked with my new eyes. My future me in the now eyes, and I saw that there were photos there that were beautiful, that there were photos that expressed the inner parts of me - and that was who I damned well was, and I was doing okay.

So if you know that you are needing to go through this whole process, I have a couple of pieces of advice -

1) Invest appropriately; pay the top whack based on research and recommendations - save in a penny jar if you have, too. You need someone whose work you love, who is going to take time with you, who is going to make you feel 'normal' and who is going to show the magic. If you can, book an appointment with +Regina Wamba - she travels the world for various events and she's always got her camera with her.

2) In the meantime - if you can't afford who you really want, get together with a talented friend and do a 'mock' location shot - find somewhere beautiful and play and laugh and see what comes out - some of our favourite shots were taken with each other's iPhones whilst Regina was busy photographing 'properly'.

3) Take time over really thinking about what you want to convey through your wardrobe. I wanted two very different looks of the multi-faceted side of my job; the gothic paranormal author, and the event planner and coach.

So now, here I am, sharing the results of that photoshoot and I'd love to know which is your favourite and which should be the one you think I should choose to send out on those first press releases I'm going to send out :)

Introducing the founder of Little Bird Publishing....

That will be me.

Many of you don't realise that as well as being a 'full time' (that's a bit of an inside joke) writer, I am also the founder of Little Bird Publishing House.

Originally, I set Little Bird Publishing House up as my own unique press. It was designed to be the business front of my indie publishing career, and it worked really well. This was way back in 2010 when the idea of owning your own publishing house was still quite a novelty in the whole indie book world.

However, with the boom in indie books and authors, I began to see a LOT of dream paddlers; people offering to take your book, charge you a couple of thousand pounds and turn it into a bestseller - yeah, right!

It wasn't right - and it wasn't fair, and by late 2013, I had learned SOOO much on my steep learning curve, it felt time to help some other folks out. I began branching the idea of a publishing house with the establishment of two anthology projects. Dark Heart & Night Shade. It was an amazing way of testing the ground to see if I was ready to actually become not only an indie author, but a publisher, too. The Dark Heart & Night Shade projects led to some fabulous author friendships, and two of the authors are now fully-fledged Little Bird authors.

Fast forward to 2016 and we are a publishing family of ten; Hazel Robinson, Toya Richardson, Helen Whapshott, Alison Clarke, Martin Ferguson, Jo Richardson, Jill Turner, Katie M. John (me) and in 2017 Brandon Robb and L. Keane will be joining us. And when I use the term family, I don't use it lightly. As a collective of authors, we support each other, encourage, build, lend a hand, and generally hang out on social media.

My mission with Little Bird is and always has been that we are stronger together. That when we begin to work as a community of artists, amazing things happen - and they do.

I treat every single one of the books that run through Little Bird as dearly as my own, from the first initial edits, to the art work, to the marketing, to the love of the story - all Little Bird books are my beautiful nieces and nephews. Every author I work with is respected for their own unique and beautiful voice - that's what Little Bird is about; not crushing authors and creatives into a marketing book, but giving unique voices a chance to shine.

Every single Little Bird Book is worked until it is of a quality ready for readership - and the reviews, awards and fan-bases prove that.

I don't worry about markets and sales trends when it comes to selecting the stories we are going to publish, I focus on the story, on the author behind the story - and it doesn't matter if it sells 10,000 copies, or 10, every single story is important. Every single author's voice is important.

The thing about writing and defining oneself as an author is that it's freaking scary as hell. You're terrified that someone is going to 'out' you as a fraud, that someone is going to knock you down so hard that your'e never going to quite get up - and although it isn't always the nicest of worlds, by creating a community of authors who have genuine friendships grown through shared experiences and belonging to something a little bigger than being all by themselves, it makes the whole thing a lot less scary, and a hell of a lot more exciting.

In 2017 we see the next big step for us as a publishing house. We are the primary sponsors of Chapter.Con London and many of the Little Bird Family will be attending and manning our Little Bird super table, and we are also going to have a full publishing table at Leeds in 2018 with Hourglass Events. We are always growing and despite sometimes feeling like I have a million hats to wear, editor, designer, publisher, marketer, author, business woman, it's an amazingly fulfilling way to live.

If you want to find out more about Little Bird Publishing, or if you are an indie author who thinks that they might like to try a different kind of indie publishing, then you can see our public website www.thelittlebirdbookstore.com, which also has a link for authors to our publisher's website www.littlebirdpublishinghouse.com 



You can also come over and give us a LIKE at our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter at @LittlebirdPub - which amusingly is not a place you can procure beer from, but keep up to date with what we are all doing.

One of The World's Tiniest Book Launches in One of The World's Tiniest Cocktail Bars.

#StartSmallDreamBig

I'm heading off to UTOPiA in a month and having been nominated for a couple of awards for my book 'When Sorrows Come' and my series, 'Beautiful Freaks', I was feeling under increased pressure to find a drop-dead gorgeous evening gown (not that I need any encouragement, I love evening dresses) 

However, several weeks later and having tried on over 40 different dresses, every single one somehow wasn't right - either that or it looked pretty much the same as one of the 5 I have already hanging in my wardrobe. 

I was sat having a coffee, feeling a little deflated when I got to thinking that £200 / $300 was a hell of a lot of money for a dress I was going to wear just a handful of times. I began to think of ways that I could perhaps spend that money more wisely on attaining my life-plan. 

Coincidentally, the very next day, we stopped off at a new shop that had opened in my home town. It is the HQ office of a cocktail hamper company, founded by an interesting female entrepreneur. She wanted to create an office that was a joy to work in rather than the industrial unit office she had currently been renting. She chose one of the cute little Victorian fronted shops that had once been a florists, and now, as well as having a pretty office, she opens up the front of it as a tiny miniature cocktail bar. 

EUREKA, I would take that £200 and hold a perfectly miniature book launch party / signing. The cocktail bar will take just about 10 people - the perfect number of people as one of my very first solo signings. 

Then, life is strange; there are several other creative projects happening in my life at the minute, and for some reason, they all seem to be connecting with one another. One of these projects is working with women in the local community who have turned their back on traditional, patriarchal corporate jobs and professions to pursue their own path, create their own companies, and to sell their own services. TAP (The Academy of Possible) has recently been established, and it's a social evolution project that aims to connect women with skills with one another, so we can become cheerleaders and supporters for each other, both on a very practical sales level, and on an emotional, motivational level. 

As part of these two strands of my life, I had the idea that I would use the miniature signing in the miniature cocktail bar to make a miniature documentary on the theme of #StartSmallDreamBig, with the aim of inspiring other people to take that first step into doing something bold, social and extraordinary.

I'm not going to lie, the thought of a signing, where I will be reading, petrifies me. I'm still coming to terms with my identity as an author - which by 8 books down, I should have nailed already. And yet, there are reasons why I am 8 books down and never done a social launch party for one of my books... reasons that are complex and reasons that I know many others share. 

That's the aim of this project, to inspire folks to step outside of their comfort zones, but in a safe way - a bit like a controlled explosion, only just not with quite so much wreckage - although who knows what will happen with the added ingredient of cocktails. 

I'm being ultra brave, and fighting the fear by inviting a local journalist, the manager of a local national book store, and a high profile blogger to attend and be of the 10 guests that will be invited. I don't know if they will come, but I do know that if you don't ask, they definitely won't come. 

And if the filming is rubbish, if the reading is wobbly, if the whole thing is a little less than perfect, it doesn't matter, it will be perfectly imperfect and I will have learned a whole lot of lessons. 

Watch this space for more updates on this project, and I really look forward to hearing where you arrange your miniature signings having been inspired by this idea. 

Drop a reach out in the box <3 nbsp="" p="">

Chapter.Con 2017 London

CHAPTER.CON 2017 is happening and now's your chance to start being a part of it.

As you have read in my previous posts, my trip to the Utopia Author and Reader convention, in Nashville, Tennessee, USA in June of this year has had a profound effect on me. It has also inspired me to be brave and fearless enough to bring the format over to the UK, to create a convention that has a very special vision. That convention is Chapter.Con and it's starting to become real.

Today marks one of the very first steps towards building that community; it is the day that I have officially started fundraising in order to turn this dream into a reality. After speaking with several other convention founders, I have learned that running a convention is an expensive and most likely profitless endeavour -- but that doesn't matter. This isn't about making money, it's about building something significant and special, about creating a 'home' and 'family' for authors of YA and NA fiction in the UK, it's about supporting my local home community and creating a vehicle for change and growth.





Here is the Chapter.con Manifesto

Chapter.Con 2017

 



A UK Author, Blogger and Reader convention designed to celebrate Young Adult and New Adult stories of all genres from the indie publishing, small press  & hybrid community.

CONNECT.   EDUCATE.  INSPIRE

Whether you are a best-selling established author, an aspiring author, a blogger, a reader, a publisher or a book seller, I would like to invite you to the very first Chapter Con; one of the U.K's very first YA and NA book conventions especially designed to connect, educate and inspire women in the book world.

With a series of educational panels of experienced individuals, and inspirational key note speakers, Chapter Con is far more than a traditional literary festival, it's home, family and mentorship.

Chapter Con is open to Indie published, Hybrid published and Traditionally published authors of all ages and stages of their individual journey.

Although primarily a book conference designed for women authors, one of the primary beliefs of Chapter Con is inclusivity;  of celebrating diversity and individuality, meaning male authors of Young Adult and New Adult are welcome to attend.

Chapter.Con  2017 is the first of its kind in the UK. An innovative, celebratory Author, Blogger and Reader con for YA and NA (Please note that Chapter.Con is a no erotica con)

As a residential conference, it offers Authors, Bloggers, Readers and other Book Creatives to foster a strong sense of community and belonging. It's a con that will promote positive messages of collaboration, skill sharing and empowerment.

It is also the chance to have a LOT of fun and make amazing friends.

The proposed plan is:
Thursday p.m - welcome key note and social evening
Friday  a.m - exhibition rooms, school visits and panels.
Friday p.m - exhibition rooms and panels
Saturday - key note. Networking Breakfast. Public book signing event 10-4
Saturday evening - Awards Ceremony & Party
Sundy morning - key note, resolutions and farewells.

WHY THIS IS HAPPENING?
In 2015 I attended UtopYA in Nashville, Tennessee, USA; a conference founded by the incredibly inspirational Janet Wallace and her dedicated team.

Having been in the indie publishing scene for over 5 years as a UK author, I had found that the UK was a very different indie scene to what was happening in the USA. Social media taught me that my fellow USA indies were meeting up regularly, sharing, exhibiting, building community, collaborating and cheer-leading each other.  The one event that kept coming up was UtopYA.

Sick of feeling isolated and left out, I made the bold decision to head out and join them. (A fear of flying and a transatlantic journey would be worth it) What I experienced at UtopYA literally changed my life. I found the most incredible acceptance, friendship, fellowship, knowledge, and belief.

I learned more in those 4 days with the incredible UtopYA family about publishing, marketing, writing, authoring, blogging, reviewing  ... the list is endless, than I had in the  5 years going it alone.

I knew I had to bring this experience home to the UK. I knew I needed to build this kind of supportive, friendly, educational and inspirational community here.

When I spoke to many of my UtopYA American writer friends about this idea, they were totally behind it. Many vowing that if I got this project off the ground, they would come.  And trust me, these guys KNOW what they are talking about. These guys know the mysteries of Amazon algorithm, formatting, marketing, building readership, PR.....

BUT a conference like this costs  - A LOT

For this to work, it needs...
to be at least 2 days and 3 nights long meaning big location, hire expenses, especially as it is London pricing.

It needs a marketing campaign that not only draws in local people but people on a national scale. This kind of event is new to people and they need introducing to the idea.

It needs to subsidise hospitality so that we can attract the very best in the business from a global platform, which means flights and rooms.

It needs social occasions, such as an awards ceremony with hospitality.

It needs inclusivity, meaning we can supply grants to authors to help them attend.

It needs budgets for all the little things that add up, badges, tote bags, print material, events planning, tech teams, breakfasts and tea, cleaning crew.

THE REASON I'M CROWD FUNDING
Having spoken to several people who have gone on to run highly successful conventions, I am under no delusion that this is ever going to ever be a profitable exercise; the money (if any) that is made gets ploughed back into the following years, making it even better.

Authors, especially those in the indie world, really, really appreciate every penny they make on their books - it's a tough world and I don't want to gamble with their money in the early stages of this project. There have been too many events that have taken ticket money and then for many reasons flopped and authors have been left out of pocket.

£20,000 will NOT cover the whole costs of the event but it will allow me to pay the deposits for the hotel conferencing, initial marketing and promotional material. It will also allow me to start approaching Key Note speakers and get the whole ball rolling.


What about corporate sponsorship?
One day, I am hopeful that we will have on board an incredible group of corporate sponsors; we have a list we would like to approach, but we need to give those guys something tangible to invest in.

Although absolutely, with no doubt, I know Chapter.Con is going to be amazing and significant with the right funding, my word is not enough. We need to get Chapter.Con 2017 done and photographed, we need to sew the seeds of an exciting community they want to be part of.

I am working with a branding expert to put together an initial sponsorship pitch and hopefully when they see the energy behind this campaign and this idea becoming a reality, they will take a chance on us.

WHO AM I?
My name is Katie M John and I am the author of the UK Amazon bestselling series, 'The Knight Trilogy' and 'The Meadowsweet Series as well as several stand alone works and published short stories and poetry. You can find out more at www.katiemjohn.com

5 years ago I published my first book. Last year I quit the day job (15 years of English teaching) to concentrate on the writing world.

I am also the fouder of the small boutique indie press, 'Little Bird Publishing House' www.thelittlebirdbookstore.com which works with authors in a non-exploitative way. Little Bird is about building an author family.

I am a mummy, wife, author, blogger, publisher, tutor, and now it would seem, a convention founder.

Help me to build something beautiful.

Than you for your time, your generosity and your support. Every single penny helps.

WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN (This will be added too in the coming months as more authors get on board)
£5 A personalised thank you postcard and free download of 'The Forest of Adventures' by Katie M John

£10 A personalised thank you postcard and free download of 'The Forest of Adventures' and 'Witchcraft'

£20 A personalised thank you postcard and free download of 'The Forest of Adventures' and 'Witchcraft', A Chapter.Con limited edition badge

£50  Friday afternoon tea with a panel of authors, 5 x free eBook downloads (TBC)

£100 Friday Lunch with a panel of authors from the convention, 5 x free eBook downloads (TBC)

£250 Free VIP upgrade to the conference. Friday Lunch, Chapter.Con 2017 t-shirt, sparkly lanyard for convention tag. Signed paperback edition (TBC)

£500 Free VIP upgrade to conference. Friday Lunch, Chapter.Con 2017 t-shirt, sparkly lanyard for convention tag, Signed edition of a series (TBC)

£1000 - Corporate Sponsorship - inclusion of logo on events displays, banners, websites. Ability to distribute products through the conference  gift bags. A free 1/2 size exhibition stand.