If anyone's looking for a brilliant illustrator to collaborate on picture books or to create book covers that are generic to your stories, here's a little bit about the amazing Sarah Chipperfield, who created the art work for my Inkitt entry:

https://mariathermann.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/calling-all-fantasy-travellers-please-choose-a-road-less-well-travelled/

She's currently putting together her about.me.com page, so you'll be able to contact her via that and I'll also put a link to her site onto my own.

Calling all Fantasy Travellers: Please choose a Road Less Well Travelled!

No seriously, my entry for the Inkitt writing contest "Wanderlust" has just gone up and if you love the Fantasy genre this is the place where you might discover some brand new authors you'd like to vote for and help them to make the winning entry. Or you could just kick off your dusty wanderer's boots and read my children's story "A Road Less Well Travelled"! Careful, don't step on leprechauns with your size tens! Did I mention it's got witches, talking scarecrows and plenty of jokes about breaking wind? Thunderpants-a-go!

http://www.inkitt.com/stories/23849

If you like what you see, please LOVE, VOTE and FORWARD to other bookworms. Thanking you kindly.

Calling all Romance fans! Inkitt have just launched their brand new writing contest, and this time it's for the Romance genre, my gentle, doe-eyed bookworm friends. Here's the link:

"Entwined": http://inkitt.com/entwined

Good luck to all Bookrix Romance writers who want to dip an inky toe in the water and participate. Perhaps we'll see your entry published in book format here at Bookrix one day? Naturally, with a "winner of the Inkitt "Entwined" competition 2015" stamped all over the cover!

It's the season of re-enactments and where else could writers of fantasy or historic fiction see the era they're most interested in brought to life. Here are a few brilliant pics from a huge re-enactment of a medieval battle fought in Russia.

https://hague6185.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/re-enactment-festival-of-ancient-battles-in-russia/

Just click on the link that is mentioned in the Wordpress blog and marvel at the stamina these actors must have had...spending all day in those heavy and sweaty outfits! Great stuff.

Yay! I finished my short story for the "Wanderlust" Fantasy writing competition on Inkitt(dot)com today! It's gone off to two beta readers and I'm still waiting for the cover illustration to be completed...fingers crossed, my entry should appear on the Inkitt site for voting any day now. Phew, my part's nearly done. Over to you, dear readers of all things Fantasy genre!

A few days ago I mentioned in the Coffee shop Group here at Bookrix that middle-aged women experience this strange phenomenon: the moment they turn 45, they turn invisible. Immediately, one participant in the conversation regaled us with a tale of having that very same thing happening to her when she and a friend went to a bar. As if to prove a point, last night, when I left a real coffee shop here in the UK, I nearly got run over by a cyclist. Darting out of a totally dark park without his own lights on, the young lad nearly flattened me.

He hadn't bothered looking left or right or even ahead, just hurtled out of the park without taking any notice of potential pedestrians. Although the lad asked me in a rather shaken voice if I was alright and only cycled off when he was satisfied that I really was unhurt, I was rather angry. Silly sausage. If my ample frame hadn't stopped him, he'd gone straight into the road and smack into oncoming traffic of a far more solid kind. It's getting autumnal again kids, put your lights on when you're out cycling!

You know the old adage...don't hide your light under a bushel....well, make yourself visible kids, for bookworm's sake! And the same goes, of course, for all of us middle-aged women out there:)

My little eye spotted a Wordpress blog post today that came from an author hoping to collect one hundred volunteers for her book launch on 1st October this year. I discovered the clever author used something called Thunderclap to promote her book launch. Here's the link to her project, if you want to see what that looks like in action (and lend your support):

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/30885-a-book-is-born

It seems such a great idea. Naturally, I added my Tweetie-bird support to the venture. If you have a Bookrix book or other artistic venture you'd like to launch with a Thunderclap loud enough to be heard by Martians, this is a great way to do it.

Some time ago somebody invited me to do a virtual book tour on Worpdress, but I didn't really know what that was all about so I declined to participate. My loss, now that I understand a bit more about it, I see that it could have been very beneficial for all concerned. Anyway, here's some food for thought for Bookrix readers keen to get a foot in the door of a virtual book tour:

http://fireandicebooktours.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/a-list-of-guest-blog-topics-and-ideas-for-your-virtual-book-tour/

The above Fire & Ice Wordpress blog post provides authors new to the idea of book tours with some great ideas and explains how it works. Good luck.

Am now up to just under 1000 views per week on Aboutme(dot)com, so just spending about 20 minutes on the site every day, tweeting nice things about a few people and complimenting their mini websites has increased by own views per week drastically. There are of course numerous ways in which one can raise one's "visibility". Here are a few sites that may interest the English language contingent among Bookrix authors:

http://www.indie-book-bargains.co.uk/awards/longList.php
great site and has children’s fiction category – uses ASIN ebook ISBNS to list – do today!

http://everywritersresource.com/selfpublished/
free promotional listing for indie authors

http://www.amazon.com/forum/meet%20our%20authors/ref=cm_cd_t_mdb_f?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2UYC1FC06SU8S&tag=viglink21067-20
on this page amazon authors can talk about their work and join in discussions

http://www.goodkindles.net/p/why-should-i-submit-my-book-here.html
submit an article about your work and do your own review! Targeted at Kindle owners/readers

All of these are free to join.

Thanks to my feeble attempts at promoting my work on aboutme(dot)com, I came across an interesting new Berlin-based website for writers. Everyone can join in their genre contests. Doesn't matter what length you submit at, book, poem or short story, as long as you follow the guidelines. Writers have a month to complete their contest submission. I'm entering the "Wanderlust" Fantasy competition. Readers on the site vote on the stories they like best in the various genres. Here's the site, if you're interested in joining:
http://www.inkitt.com/