Five of the Best who have helped me on my writing Journey

Today I am drafting many of my blogs for the forthcoming weeks. My problem is that I have never been able to blog on a regular basis.

Some may think why bother anyway. Well what I have learnt along the way is that whether we want to publish lots of ebooks, Indie publishing or aim for that traditional publisher. The joy of seeing your book on the shelves of a bookstore. Whatever your goal you need people to know about your work. Your Author's Platform.

Well here is my top five websites and the people behind them that could help you as they have helped me.


Number 1 has to be Nick Daws writer/author of over 80 books and courses. If I had not come across him and his inspirational courses, I would not have started, let alone come this far. His first course I purchased was "Write any book in 28 days" which is still relevant and successful today as when he first produced it.His chatty style, made me think he was in the room next to me. Teaching me and guiding my hand, If you haven't already follow him on Twitter and Facebook along with Nick's writing blog. I also signed up for his e-newsletter and his MWC writers forum. All well worth diving in to!

Secondly I joined Twitter, you do not have a clue when first joining and I know it can be off-putting. So I looked to see who followed who, up came Gary Smailies from Bubblecow.
I have learnt so much from his experience, They give hints and tips of which publisher will accept authors without an agent! The have a mentoring program and will edit your work for a fee. If you visit the Bubblecow website and Gary is at his desk then a pop up window arrives and you can ask any question and Gary will answer via live chat. Gary may not know this but he has been there to motivate me to carry on writing.

Number 3 has to be Joanna from The Creative Penn. Joanna frequently gives Podcasts, webinairs, writing tips and author interviews. She is a published author herself, her most recent being the "Pentecost".
 Through her downloadable ebook on the author's platform, she gives the benefit of her experience.

My last two I have grouped together as they work together, Problogger and Copyblogger. They have tutorials of how to get started with your blog. They make it all so simple, break it down, you learn from very successful guys.

I love learning, love a challenge. Recently this blog has not been as regular as I would have liked. Unfortunately I have been dealing with my own health issues. I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and one of the ways I have been coming to terms with it, is through my blog called Fibroliving.wordpress.com. On there you can read my story of how I am leaning to live with Fibromyalgia and it is learning to live with me.

Who inspired your writing career and who helped you along the way?

I will post my writing tips in my blog as I come across them, alternatively you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook as Sloanwriter.

Look forward to catching up with you soon.

Who was or still is your favorite Chidren's author

What children's author inspired you and why?

The first intention was to blog about my  favourite childhood Author. Then I realised apart from the odd Enid Blyton my reading was directed by my schooling. What I  needed to study and pass exams and then I remembered  Walt Disney and Hans Christian Andersen.

How could I have forgotten the magic of the many many tales of Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping beauty Snow White and Seven drawfes. 

Hansel and Gretel, The 3 little pigs, I could go on but I realised books were not the main feature I remembered from my childhood. 

Comics, I used to "borrow" my brothers Dandy and Beno, I was a Jackie fan, with the latest heart throb adorning my wall. Donny Osmond was my hero and I still have a soft spot for now. My music tastes varied but thats another blog!

It was not until children arrived and I reread stories to them that I really started to look at the authors. 

One stood out,  Roal Dahl and my son's favourite was fantastic Mr Fox. I became convinced however he knew the book off by heart and was not really reading it.

 I  wanted to expand his reading and it was about the time when there was a buzz around that i did not understand. So eager to find out what it was and found  Harry Potter and the author JK Rowling.

By then book three had been leased (not knowing any of this as I was too working night shifts as a cardiac nurse).

So I went out on a day off and purchased all three in paperback.

  Sat up in bed, I discovered it was a real page turner.  Harry Potter and the Philosphers Stone, it was a different world of magic and mayhem.

The next morning.  I simply said to my son.  Please read this if you get page 5 and you didn't like it it's okay.  Deep down I knew he would be hooked as I was. 

Then became  fun waiting for films to come out and each book in hardback as soon as it was released.  Yes, my husband and daughter went to a store at midnight to buy a book for me on release and we sat up  most the night to read it .My husband has the photograghic proof!

My son,  by this time was away in the Royal Navy but still bought the books when he could. We often would have friendly family competitions guessing where the story was going. It was something for all the family to enjoy around a  time when often you feel you can use touch with your teenagers, Harry Potter series of books and films shared some of the magic.  My son has since moved on to Dan Brown and the Eragon  series. I can visulise him on his ship somewhere enjoying a good book.

So what story or author inspired you to have a positive impact on you and your family?

To Blog or not to Blog and the Frequency 1, 3, or daily that is the question?

They say to write about what you know.

If you were ask anyone to sum up my knowledge and what they know about me; it would be Health matters, closely followed by Cooking/baking and now writing. 

There are lots of ideas of how often you should blog and from what I have read it seems the optimum appears to be 3 times a week. The advice also states no matter how often you blog, DO IT REGULARLY!!

Due to commitments and family tragedies last year that was not easy to achieve.
So New Year, fresh start, to turn a new leaf to coin a phrase, I am starting now! 

What I need however is your help, your comments and interaction will assist me in keeping to this pledge!
The advice I have read is to keep to set themes, do not go off track, so have decided to blog on three main topics.
1)  My continuing journey of writing and sending out any helpful hints and tips along the way I find.
2) A blog on health matters hints and tips to just assist with those little concerns and I love to hear from you regarding your concerns.
3) Cooking and baking with a focus on reducing the bloating we feel, tiredness etc., this can be linked to wheat intolerance, so will put tried and tested recipes for you to try. 
Sometimes all three will be linked as I write on health and how it can be improved with what we eat. 

Don't get me wrong I am not an expert, nor profess to be, I am not a Dietician but a health professional who has personal experience of Wheat Intolerance. 
Just to clarify Wheat Intolerance is totally different to an allergy or gluten intolerance for which you need to see your medical practitioner for diagnosis and treatment.

Why cooking and baking, well to me it is a kind of therapy.  If stressed, baking calms me.  If I hit writers block as we all seem to do from time to time or inspiration just flies out of the window, then I whip up something tasty or bake and bake until family and freezer full!

Apart from watching my mother as a child and a few regimented domestic science (cookery) lessons at school, I am pretty much self-taught.  My mother said I had a knack to look at a recipe, be able to follow it and produce a fairly accurate result first time.

These days we all want tasty, healthy food we can enjoy without the guilt.  Hopefully through these posts I can show you that you can. I will include recipes that have been thoroughly tested and enjoyed by family and friends.

They will be
 1) Low fat,
 2) Low salt,
 3) Low GI ( keep you fuller for longer)
 4) Low wheat, some even wheat free.
Lastly there will be no Coconut Why no Coconut I hear you ask?  That is because I am allergic, cannot stand the smell, taste, texture at all.  So if you love the stuff please feel free to add I will mention when I have substituted coconut for other ingredients.
The blog will demonstrate how you can look at any recipe and adapt to suit your needs and the needs of your family.

Any questions on this or anything, please feel free to comment below, I welcome, your questions, feedback and comments and promise to answer.

Journey of learning to write

Well as a few of you will know from following this blog, I have been having an eventful year but through it all I have met some wonderful people in the writing world. I say meet them I mean through Twitter, Facebook, email, writing blogs etc. We have never met in the physical sence.


I can honestly say Joanne at The Creative Penn, Gary at Bubblecow and of course Nick Daws (who without his courses and support none of this would have been possible) have truly been there with hits and tips and just the right amount of motivation to lead to the success of finally having my first ebook published. It is now with Smashwords.com at  http://bit,ly/aAgHV . Take Control Of your Pain is an ebook to help the reader be in charge of thier pain.


Copyblogger is another inspiration to continue to blog and learn the alien world (to me) of SEO. I have not mastered it yet. I know amongst the emails, the blogs and twitter updates find time to learn on a constant basis. The skills of writing, connecting with you the reader and the technical side of things. Producing a webpage, converting a word document to a pdf or a jpeg file ( that you need for a cover for your book).

These are all new skills to me, and in many ways a forgien language, one I feel I am at best currently a little better schooldays pigeon French! The big thing I am prepared to learn, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by it but don't we all when learning something new. It can be scary, outside our comfort zone from learning to drive to our first day at a new job. Just as you have a teacher at school, at tutor at universecity, a driving instrutor to teach you how to move a ton of metal from a to b, your parents encouraging your first steps and speech, we are constantly learning from the day we are born to the day we leave this planet. If we stop learning, stretching ourselves, we do not develop.


We all fell numerous times when learning to walk and our parents where there to guide us and pick us up. Just as I have met along my journey new people who have helped me and guided me even when they did not know it.
The writing world is like that, we may type at home alone but we have our support network, not just our friends and family who have supported me. Yes my biggest champion is my husband and he was the one who master the book cover I struggled with.

I am throughly happy with my third career, I have support now, never dreamed of from my previous careers. From real people I may never meet who just want you to succeed. That to me is priceless.

Welcome to my new Friday blog no 1

Welcome to my New Friday Blog which will be centred around health news ans tips.

Blog number 1 Why I choose my 1st ebook in this format.

Back in the late 70's everyone it seemed wanted to be a nurse. So the top schools of nursing as they were called then were able to pick and choose. I even enquired via the military route only to be told "get qualified in civvy street and then come back as our waiting list is too long".



I would go for interviews and dread the one question they would all ask, " Why do you want to be a nurse"? I never had a straight and sleek answer it was something I felt not an answer written down and rehearsed. It was not until I reached Bradford Royal Infirmary and the matron interviewing at the time fully understood immediately how I felt. It was instinct, it was something inside, so strong it was something you had to do!

Since then I have wanted to learn and pass on my knowledge. I now feel the same about my writing and whilst working on bigger projects of novels, I wanted to pass on my knowledge in an easy format. The modern way to pass on information quickly is through blogs, social media and ebooks.

Hence my 1st ebook Take control of your Pain evolved. A desire to get across to many people as would be interested the tips and teachings I use devery day with my patients.

Nobody likes to be in pain, it can be very miserable, depressive even. Ever had toothache, earache that no matter what you tried, you really did not feel the benefit. In the military there was a saying " any pain fix with tubigrip and Ibrufen" If that did not fix it then maybe physiotherapy, failure there too or little improvement and you have someone who is very fed up with his pain and the system. Sadly for too often the waiting lists for therapy are too long and often a shortage of therapists.

Many doctors as general practitioners or M.D.s have the similar conditioning to treating pain.
They do an excellent role but they must be jack of all trades and only truly master a few through experience.

What is needed is empowerment of the individual to learn how to control his/her own pain. Give him simple tools and exercises, show him/her there are alternatives. Build a better relationship with your health professional. Work with the health professional that suits you best, it may not be your doctor.


Pain control is only the start, I intend to release more ebooks, based on stress, cholesterol, Diabetes, How to beat the bloat and many more.
If you would like to sign up for my newsletter coming soon, Please either leave your contacts below or email me at info@takecontrolofyourpain.sloanwriter.com.
Look forward to hearing from you.

Writing your book is only the first step!

Having a book, either printed form via a traditional route of a publisher, being self published or producing  a new ebook as I have is only the 1^st step.My book was completed some time ago but I decided to publish it on Smashwords, this needs then to be completely reformatted but if you follow their guide you will succeed.Next I needed to produce a sales page to promote it and sell through clickbank, who needs a sales page or pitch page they call it and a thank you page.  You need to follow their guidance carefully and being no webmaster this took time.

I have been successful and now have copies of my book at both Smashwords and clickbank; I also promote it through my personal webpage and its own sales page.I am now utilising my previous experience of marketing and sales to promote, promote.

 Some interesting facts I have picked up, there are approx 65 billion people in the world, only 1.5 billion currently use the internet.  45 million users of the internet in the UK approx 70% of the population; which means 30% of the population have no access to my book if I purely at internet sales.

So with Kindle, IPAD’s Iphones, Ereaders etc on the increase, do I need to look at other methods of getting my message across.According to Business link SW 88 billion was spent on online sales last year and currently looking at 121 billion this year.

 So the book is written, published, it has a webpage, what else can I do? 

Social media and blogs.

The figures I am quoting again come from a business link workshop but Facebook were at 550 million users, it now thought to have surpassed 100 million.  Twitter over 160 million users, My space 110 million, LinkedIn 75 million all are approx as growing every day.

However YouTube is the 2^nd highest most searched site on the internet.  Not sure if I am ready for it but I might brave a video of me talking about my book, watch this space!

Next I am looking at a newsletter but must think carefully as to the content etc but again watch this space!I have registered my sites with Google, Yahoo and Bing and in-between all this promotion, I need to write, like I need to breathe, it has become part of me.

So I blog, write articles and plan new books.  I am currently working on two projects, one health related subject and one for children of all ages including adults.

So to conclude I am now considering instead of fitting in blogs when I can, having a regular Wednesday blog as today on my journey of writing and having a Friday blog as a health related topic.

Let me know your thoughts, would love to hear from you.  Either leave a comment below or a message on my webpage of guest page.

Your choice, will gladly respond to all.

1st book published

Well we are here at last!!

Where is here you ask, well in case you did not get the memo, Lesley aka sloanwriter first ebook is now published. So far it is on Smashwords.com and hopefully soon on Clickbank.

On Smashwords, your book goes through the affectionally known process as the meatgrinder. You need to format your book in a way, you may otherwise not for a PDF for example. The plus side is that the meatgrinder makes it avaialbe to any downloadable format. Kindle, IPad, Epub, etc, the downside is that you can't have any text boxes or tables. If you only want to sell your book as you intended then opt just for Clickbank not Smashwords. However if you do not have  text boxes ( mine was for a drawing) or tables as in a novel, they are excellant if you follow thier guidelines for formatting.


For those of you who have not heard, my first ebook is about pain management. Take Control of your Pain.

Is a how to guide to enable anyone to gain a better understanding of thier pain, put them in charge and not let them feel overwhelmed by it. Simple tools to use on a daily basis whether you have a pounding headache, back ache, joint pain or even cancer pain. You can show your pain who is boss and develop a better relationship with your medical practitioner or health professional. In effect you can talk their language.

Anyone can benefit from this book, if you suffer from a painful condition or just a nagging headache, this can help you take control.

If I have whetted your appetite or you are one of the many asking when it was to be published, I have a 50% off promotion, all I ask in return is that once you have read it, please leave a review. To gain your 50% discount you need to add this coupon code at checkout. HX32N this is valid currently for a short promotional time only, so hurry, buy, read and review soon.

Many thanks to all for your patience