Patricia Sands

Author

Writing

Canadian Authors Association

by

Canadian author Elizabeth Abbott was the guest speaker at the meeting of this association on Thursday, October 21. As well as giving the audience interesting background to her published novels, she spoke candidly on her writing process and experiences. Deftly fielding questions after her talk, her knowledge and insights were well-received. The Canadian Authors Association goes to great lengths to provide its members with informative evenings such as this the third Thursday of every month.Check out their website. http://www.canauthors.org/

http://www.elizabethabbott.ca/

 

Myself and my good friend and fellow author, Patricia Caviglia with Elizabeth Abbott (middle).

http://patriciacaviglia.com/

Steve! Thanks for the photo!

Writers and Editors Network (WEN) Toronto

by

On Saturday I attended my first breakfast meeting with this organization since I joined earlier in the summer. The energy in the room and interaction of the members was impressive as well as friendly and welcoming and a lot of good information was shared. Lucy Waverman, well-known Toronto cookbook author as well as newspaper columnist and food editor of the amazing LCBO Food and Drink magazine, was the guest speaker. As well as providing interesting information about writing cookbooks and testing recipes she spoke at length about the publishing world in general. She has seen a lot of changes in her career and noted how self-publishing appears to be the way of the future as traditional publishers struggle  to keep going. She stressed the importance of social media marketing – like it or not! More on that in my next post.

Check out Lucy’s website and bon appetit!

http://lucywaverman.com/

http://www.wenetwork.org/

The Eagle has landed!

by

Holding my newly-published book in my hands was an incredibly exhilarating experience. In fact, I’m still not over it two weeks after the fact. Every time I look at a copy of the book and pick it up I feel such a rush of emotions I can hardly stand it! So for everyone who is working on something they wish to publish, I can only encourage you to keep at it. When you finally reach the point I am at, you will feel all the angst and hard work were worth it. I guarantee it!

Since The Bridge Club is a POD (print on demand), it will not be seen on store shelves for a while. However it is available online through all the big booksellers and bookstores have assured me that they are able to order it for anyone who requests it. All the information is on my website www.patriciasandsauthor.com

Now the new challenge of promoting and marketing The Bridge Club kicks in. As a writer, I really never considered to any great extent what would happen once the book was published. I’m learning quickly that once the author says “Yes, I’ve finished writing this story”, it’s all about business. I know, I know … how else will people other than your family and friends learn about your wonderful story if you don’t spread the word? It’s just that I’m the type of person who would rather give copies away. “No, Patricia,” I’m being told, “that’s not the way it works!” Thus begins the next learning stage of this great adventure.
Social media marketing! I’ll keep you posted as to how I’m doing.

I returned last Wednesday from a week away with my real ‘bridge club’ as we celebrated our collective birthday (every 5 years) on Vancouver Island as some of the women now live there. Good stories will follow!

In the meantime, write on and read on! Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians.