A Book Launch in the Museum...

Usually when I'm in Leicester, it's on a Friday for a Belmont Belles RNA Chapter meeting, so going to the city on a Saturday was unusual, especially when there was a big football match and memorial parade at the football stadium.

This time I was there for a book launch at the New Walk Museum, for Rosemary J Kind's new release, Unequal by Birth.

Cover design...

The museum was busy and popular with families. Just inside the entrance there was a large Lego figure displayed- think it was an Astronaut.

I will definitely visit another time as there was so much to see, including the art gallery that I passed through to get to the book launch in the Lord Mayor's room.

There were refreshments provided in the area outside the meeting room before the launch began, which gave me time to say hello to Rosemary in person- we've been friends online for many years but never met because of distance and no opportunity to be in the same county.

Rosemary's books for sale at the launch...

Rosemary read the opening chapter, that carries on the story of her characters from the earlier book New York Orphan.

There is another book in production...

Rosemary talked about the research she'd undertaken and the part the Orphan Train Movement in late 19th century America, featured in the first novel.

The Q&A followed, then there was the opportunity to buy a Rosemary's book (or books) and get them signed.

It was a lovely afternoon and I'm sure Rosemary's latest book will do well- she told her guests that on Saturday morning it was in the kindle charts ahead of Hilary Mantel and just behind Ken Follett- there's a screen shot on her Twitter account...

Sadly, I couldn't stay longer as I needed to get my train before the football match finished and lots of people headed for their trains home.
Fortunately, the station was only a five-minute walk away, barring getting across the road via a series of new pelican crossing points!

New Walk Museum
Leicester...

It was good to get away from my desk for an afternoon...

Have you been to a book launch in a place that wasn't a bookshop?

A Week of Learning...

It's been a busy week so you'll be getting two posts today and tomorrow, otherwise it would be a very long post to read.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed earlier last week and saw a link for the Romance Writers Summit. There was a free sign up to see the sessions released each day for five days- though this was a time zone in America.

After signing up I watched a few of the six sessions and they were interesting and useful. There was an email waiting the next morning in my inbox with the link to sign-in and go to page for playing each session.

It was like the online conference that the Alliance of Independent Authors do twice a year; you can access the content for a limited time but after that you need to buy an access pass, but with this summit that would give access to additional content and downloads related to some sessions.

Having been struggling with the beats in Act 2 of the Three Act structure- I'd been reading up on it and was still not clear around the middle mark, but then it all fell into place with NYT Bestseller, author Marilyn Brant. Her session 'Breaking Down Pride & Prejudice by the Beats' finally made sense of the troublesome middle.

Now I need to apply what I've learnt to my own novels!

Back to offline life, Friday was a workshop session held by the Nottingham Story Weavers, my local RNA Chapter, on Social Media & the Savvy Author with author Talia Hibbert.

She is brilliant and a lovely person too...

Talia has a book coming out early November with Avon, 'Get a Life, Chloe Brown'. So we received some insights on her social media use around the new book, and on using several social media platforms.

We all see writers with great social media posts, photos and images with the accompanying text. I've wondered how to do these correctly. Well, now I know and it's not complicated. 

There were examples of specific tools that make the process user-friendly. I will definitely try them out.

There were three things (among many others) that Talia emphasised as important: a website and a mailing list for your newsletter, and your author brand. 

For the couple of hours we had, there was a lot of practical and helpful content with the visual displays- and the handout with the website links we needed.

By the end we were all buzzing with a renewed energy.

If you'd like to find out more about Talia and her books, then pop over to her website.

Join me tomorrow to read the second post about my day in Leicester...

image:pixabay.com