Marketing and All That Jazz!

I think I may be blogging about the writing side of things more often than the jewellery side of things in the near future, so do bear with me.

The next stage to publishing a book is of course to tell people about it. I am not a marketing guru, I don't really know the first thing about marketing, and find it really hard to sell myself.

However, I have had to learn, and learn fast over the last few days. I've already made lots of mistakes, though I'm happy to say none that have cost me any money so far. It's more about the words I use to get my book 'out there'.

But one thing I did this week, and something I'm proud of. It's not perfect, not by any means, but it's pretty darn good with what I have available to me, and I did it all by myself...all that is, except the soundtrack, which is Darklight by Davy Spillane, and one of my all time favourite chillout tracks. It seemed perfect for my video. Now I hope to be able to link you to it.

I may blog in more detail about my experience with CreateSpace next. I can't say yet if it was worthwhile indiepublishing, it's too early, and I have seen mixed reviews, but I can blog about the overall experience.

See you soon :)

Belated Post, Beads and Book

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I updated my blog, but alas! It has really been that long. There is a very good reason for that though. I’ve been a little bit busy.

You see, I’ve really enjoyed writing the tutorials, and sharing them with you. I love beading, I love designing jewellery, I love everything involved in working out a new design, making the method as intuitive as possible, working on diagrams, writing the instructions, laying them out in an attractive (I hope) form and sharing my passion with you. I don’t set out to teach grandma to suck eggs, but I do set out to share what I know and love, and hopefully inspire you to new ideas and designs of your own.

Over the last year or so, I have written quite a few tutorials now, and I’m getting quite a following. They’ve all been tried and tested, and all passed muster, although some mistakes have been pointed out by readers, for which I am grateful, and those same readers have come back for more so it’s all good.

Really encouraged by this, I decided that once I had put together 20 tutorials using SuperDuo beads, I would compile them into a book. I’ve now done it, I have a book that I have written, with designs I made. I look back on the time it took to write this with some sadness that it’s now done, and some joy that at last I’ve achieved a lifetime ambition, to have that book with my name on it. I’m proud of my first book; I wrote it to share my love of beading with you, and that is what I’ve done.

So here it is, Beautiful Jewellery with SuperDuo Beads. 20 detailed projects with step-by-step instructions, clear diagrams, and photos. Each and every piece is open to your own interpretation, you can add, embellish, change the beads around a bit, or just make them as they are. I want readers to use the book as a platform for their own creativity, in the same way we tweak a recipe to our own tastes or diets, change the milk to soya, use apple instead of pear, beef instead of pork…with my projects, use crystal instead of pearl, bicones instead of round, change the bail on a pendant. Play with your own creativity.

As time goes by, I’ll go over some of the project in the book, but for now here’s a taster.

By the way, it’s available on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback.

Here are two of the necklaces in the book. the Calendula, a pretty flower necklace which also has a matching bracelet and earrings, and the Louisa, which is open to all kinds of adaptions, with colour, beads, shape and so on.