I'm taking a bit of a break from writing for the weekend, and instead focusing on new and improved ways to promote my books, and I stumbled across a great way to show off my work!
If you've never heard of KBoards, you're missing out. This is a great avenue for all - readers and writers - to learn what there is to know about writing, publishing, self-publishing, ereaders, and where to find great books. I've been a member for quite some time now and have learned so much from there.
Well, today, I came across the 'Book Profile Page' feature. This is completely FREE and any author who is a member of KBoards can do it.
All you have to do is type in this URL:
http://www.kboards.com/book/?asin=XXXXXXXXXX
then replace the 'XXXXX' portion with your book's ASIN number, which can be found in the numerical portion of your book's URL on Amazon or any website where it is listed.
Add in all the information that it asks for, including Y or N for whatever feature you want or don't want, cut and paste your author bio and picture URL from Amazon (or wherever you like), type in your email address and choose a password (you can choose a different password for each book if you wish), and BAM!
Check out what it looks like here. You can see all three of my books in the 'A Calamity Place Romance' series listed! When you click on each one, it shows a dedicated page for all the book's info!
KBoards members that are looking for books can navigate through the site by genre, author, etc., to find your book.
Cool, eh? Have fun!
Sandy Appleyard
I write memoirs and fiction in all genres. My characters have secrets, tell lies and find themselves in trouble all the time. The challenge is figuring out how to rescue them. Best of all, they live much more interesting lives than I do, so I live vicariously.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Friday, September 15, 2017
Scoliosis and Embracing Challenge
We all have some kind of challenge, whether it be physical or emotional, or something else, and it's important to not let it define us. God has given us an obstacle, and it's up to us to face it, deal with it, and perhaps even overcome it.
But what if it can't be overcome?
Some things are with us for life, no matter what. For some, that's a hard pill to swallow. But as long as it isn't something life-threatening, we must remember that; that there are many people out there with terminal illnesses, and we are not one of them.
Embrace that.
For myself, I learned something pretty upsetting after being involved in a car accident when I was twenty-one years old. It was bad enough to realize that the car that I loved and only had for three months was totaled forever, but when I went to physiotherapy for whiplash, and found out I had Scoliosis, my life changed forever.
It was scary, frustrating, and there were so many unanswered questions, but, looking back at the last twenty years since my diagnosis, I can honestly say that having Scoliosis, in many ways, has been a blessing.
What?
Yes, I said that it's mostly been a blessing.
Why?
Because, overall, it's forced me to take better care of myself, it's made me push the envelope in a lot of ways, and it has made me look at life and people so much differently. It's also made me a better and stronger person, and has made others look up to me, which in turn, makes me feel better about myself.
How?
I'll get into much more later, but for now, I'll tell you that having Scoliosis inspired me to write my second book.
But what if it can't be overcome?
Some things are with us for life, no matter what. For some, that's a hard pill to swallow. But as long as it isn't something life-threatening, we must remember that; that there are many people out there with terminal illnesses, and we are not one of them.
Embrace that.
For myself, I learned something pretty upsetting after being involved in a car accident when I was twenty-one years old. It was bad enough to realize that the car that I loved and only had for three months was totaled forever, but when I went to physiotherapy for whiplash, and found out I had Scoliosis, my life changed forever.
It was scary, frustrating, and there were so many unanswered questions, but, looking back at the last twenty years since my diagnosis, I can honestly say that having Scoliosis, in many ways, has been a blessing.
What?
Yes, I said that it's mostly been a blessing.
Why?
Because, overall, it's forced me to take better care of myself, it's made me push the envelope in a lot of ways, and it has made me look at life and people so much differently. It's also made me a better and stronger person, and has made others look up to me, which in turn, makes me feel better about myself.
How?
I'll get into much more later, but for now, I'll tell you that having Scoliosis inspired me to write my second book.
And it's also inspired me to write the follow-up to it, five years later. Please stay tuned, even if you don't have Scoliosis, I'm going to talk about life and it's challenges, whether or not it relates to a physical deformity.
Wishing you all well and God bless,
Sandy Appleyard
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
What puts the ‘Calamity’ in Calamity Place Romance?

"A real-life saga that pulls at your heartstrings."
Calamities in these romances occur basically amongst the
floors in the building known as ‘Calamity Place ’. The storylines take place in Toronto ,
Ontario , my hometown, and they involve twentysomething
characters, with their own set of personal issues. But they are all interwoven somehow, and if
they’re not, they sure end up that way!
When writing these novels, I purposely made it so that the
characters were all introduced based on their presence either in another part
of the story, or in another volume, making it easier for the reader to remember,
without having to use a lot of back story.
The beauty of this type of serial romance is that there is
never really an ending. Each story has
its own cliffhanger, and the reader never really knows where the conclusion
will be….I still don’t!
It starts with Kendra, a shy recluse, who has many friends
itching to pull her out of her shell.
While reluctant most of the time, she finds herself giving in to
Cassandra or Missy’s pleading, and paints on a happy face to quell any
misgivings her friends may have about her.
But why is she such a hermit?
Kendra is beautiful, smart, and isn’t shy around men. Her friends know what it is, but Kendra
hasn’t admitted it to herself…yet.
The second novel in the series focuses mainly on Cassandra
and Luke. They met at a bar once, had a
brief relationship, and then suddenly Luke ships himself out of the province
for a much-coveted position as a police officer. In book two, however, Luke comes back…and oh,
what a roller coaster ride they have!
The third novel, still a work in progress at the time of
this posting, tells about a couple introduced in book one, Linda and Ray. Also in the mix and adding to the calamity,
is Mark, Luke’s best friend and fellow police officer colleague. But it’s not a love triangle or anything that
you would expect. The relationship that
the three have is very unique and while I haven’t reached the end of the
manuscript yet, I can say that the conclusion will be heart-breaking, but at
the same time very fulfilling, depending on which male character turns out to
be your favourite!
Book One is just 99 cents!
Books one and two are currently available on Kindle, and
free for Amazon Prime members. Book one
is just 99 cents! Look for book three
coming in Spring/Summer 2017!
Subscribe to my newsletter so I can let you know when book three is available! Click here to subscribe.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
The Return of the Word
Eleven years ago I took a break from corporate life to raise
my children. Approximately ten years ago
I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do: write a book. The practice became addictive, and then I
learned how to publish, promote and blog.
To be perfectly honest, I loved every bit of it and I still do. I fell in love with the written word, and it
has become a lifelong love.
Nearly twelve years later, I have written and self-published
countless books in both fiction and non-fiction. The whole process is still very enjoyable to
me. Words, story ideas, and scenes come
to me always.
However, while pouring my heart and soul into writing,
publishing, promoting, etc., I learned a very painful lesson: Be careful not to
make the written word your be-all-and-end-all.
You see, writing, while some can make it their living, the
odds are very stong against most of us.
As a writer, you have to be rational and realistic, and have a career
already in place. If your books do become
successful enough that you can quit your day job, great, but more than likely
that isn’t going to happen, and you have to remember that always. Writing should be a love, and something you
enjoy doing when all your other things are taken care of. And as a love, you
need to make time to do it every day, for yourself.
Last year, I returned to work after a ten year hiatus. The tables turned; I took a break from
promoting and blogging, but I never stopped writing. Writing is a part of who I am now and it will
always will be that way. Now that I’ve
adjusted to working full-time, I can also slowly return to promoting and
blogging. So far I’ve touched on
Facebook, Twitter, and I’ve continued posting some of my books on Wattpad.
If you love writing, just be careful and make sure that
isn’t all that you love. With all of the
obsession over writing, I’d forgotten how much I also loved to work; to
interact with live people, rather than just cyberspace and e-people, if you
will. Also, writing doesn’t pay…at least,
it doesn’t pay well, and having a paycheck; contributing to your family, is a
very rewarding experience.
Check out my books on Amazon, Kobo, and Wattpad. The first book in my LA Cops Series is always
free on Amazon, and the first book in my ‘To Hide in Holly
Springs ’, and ‘Calamity Place
Romance’ series are just 99 cents on Amazon.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
What's in a Book Title?
If you scroll through Amazon, you'll pick up many different titles. And by different, I mean some that are intriguing, others that are pretty basic eg. one word titles, and some that a reader will pull up to learn more about the book, because the title is so unusual.
Myself, I like to create book titles that have that sort of affect; unusual. Even though authors like Sandra Brown, who often select titles that are a little vague (probably on purpose-another clever tactic), and get away with selling zillions of books, I like to make my book titles more interesting.
For example, my first book I called 'The Message in Dad's Bottle'. It sounds a little like 'Message in a Bottle', that famous book that later became a blockbuster movie, but it's not quite that. I chose that title to leave readers wondering "what message is in the bottle? and why is it 'dad's' bottle?"
I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress' was probably the most difficult title to come up with. The title probably took me longer to create than the actual book did. The title itself is rather ironic because the cover is an image of me wearing a semi-backless dress. Hence the inspirational point of view I create in the book; the fact is that I did exactly what I said I wouldn't do, because I fought through one of the obstacles the Lord gave me to fight.
Fiction titles are a little trickier sometimes, depending on the content. For 'Blessed and Betrayed' I wanted to depict the main character's disposition: she was, in fact, both blessed and betrayed all her life, without knowledge of either.
My personal favourite is 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'. Many readers have asked me why I chose that title, and they've also commented on the cool fact that I managed to put the title into a section of dialogue inside the book. If any of you are children of the 1980's and were William Hurt fans, you'll remember a blockbuster movie called 'Children of a Lesser God'. That name always stuck with me, as did the content; it was such a compelling story of a man who falls in love with a hearing-impaired woman. While brainstorming ideas, I wanted to make the name of this book very memorable and interesting, so I morphed a title from a way-back movie and created 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'.
Okay, I whimped out a little on 'Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl'. The original title was 'The Night He Threw Out Saigon', which in the end, I thought it sounded too exotic, and I wanted the name of the book to be a clear reflection of the strength of Jessica, the main character, and how the two men in her life fight to get her back home safely. Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl just fit.
Last, but certainly not least, 'The Wheels of Change'. This book had a title before I wrote the first paragraph. The reason being: I wanted it to be about a man in a wheelchair. And it is that and so much more, but I wanted to focus on how the main character changes so much after being put in a wheelchair, and how differently he sees life from it. It's a simple title, I know, but it says it all.
What about you? What sort of titles do it for you? Which ones have stuck in your mind over time?
Here is the link to my Amazon page if you would like to view all my books from one page (I've provided links to the individual books above-just click on each highlighted title to be linked to Amazon).
Please leave a comment if you have something to say. I would love to hear from you :)
Myself, I like to create book titles that have that sort of affect; unusual. Even though authors like Sandra Brown, who often select titles that are a little vague (probably on purpose-another clever tactic), and get away with selling zillions of books, I like to make my book titles more interesting.
For example, my first book I called 'The Message in Dad's Bottle'. It sounds a little like 'Message in a Bottle', that famous book that later became a blockbuster movie, but it's not quite that. I chose that title to leave readers wondering "what message is in the bottle? and why is it 'dad's' bottle?"
I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress' was probably the most difficult title to come up with. The title probably took me longer to create than the actual book did. The title itself is rather ironic because the cover is an image of me wearing a semi-backless dress. Hence the inspirational point of view I create in the book; the fact is that I did exactly what I said I wouldn't do, because I fought through one of the obstacles the Lord gave me to fight.
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My personal favourite is 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'. Many readers have asked me why I chose that title, and they've also commented on the cool fact that I managed to put the title into a section of dialogue inside the book. If any of you are children of the 1980's and were William Hurt fans, you'll remember a blockbuster movie called 'Children of a Lesser God'. That name always stuck with me, as did the content; it was such a compelling story of a man who falls in love with a hearing-impaired woman. While brainstorming ideas, I wanted to make the name of this book very memorable and interesting, so I morphed a title from a way-back movie and created 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'.
Okay, I whimped out a little on 'Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl'. The original title was 'The Night He Threw Out Saigon', which in the end, I thought it sounded too exotic, and I wanted the name of the book to be a clear reflection of the strength of Jessica, the main character, and how the two men in her life fight to get her back home safely. Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl just fit.
The original title to 'No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday' was 'Just When
I Needed to Laugh'. Which, in the end, didn't cut it for me. No Thanks just seemed more poignant and the phrase itself tells you what the book is about. Plus, I tested it out with some Facebook friends and they said just the title itself was funny, so there you go.
Last, but certainly not least, 'The Wheels of Change'. This book had a title before I wrote the first paragraph. The reason being: I wanted it to be about a man in a wheelchair. And it is that and so much more, but I wanted to focus on how the main character changes so much after being put in a wheelchair, and how differently he sees life from it. It's a simple title, I know, but it says it all.
What about you? What sort of titles do it for you? Which ones have stuck in your mind over time?
Here is the link to my Amazon page if you would like to view all my books from one page (I've provided links to the individual books above-just click on each highlighted title to be linked to Amazon).
Please leave a comment if you have something to say. I would love to hear from you :)
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
A Free Twitter Tool I Wish I Knew About Long Ago
Perusing potential new Twitter friends, I discovered a
remarkable tool I did not know about called ‘Pinned Tweets’.
The way it works is you can ‘pin’ any tweet you want to the
top of your tweet list. Meaning that you
can select a tweet that someone else tweeted about you (or one you tweeted yourself); perhaps book accolades,
reviews, free day plugs, etc., and pin it to your profile.
What is the advantage?
Well, one is it highlights this tweet so that anyone hopping on your
profile will see that tweet first. Two,
if your Twitter friends are looking for a tweet to retweet you, they don’t have
to look far to find the one you’ve chosen to stand out above all the rest.
How do you use it?
Find any tweet and look at the footer strip where there are
three small dots on the far right hand side. If you hover over the
dots with your mouse it says ‘more’.
Click on that and select from the drop-down menu ‘pin tweet’. This will pin the tweet to the top of your
profile and you can see it by clicking on your tweets. It will be the first one and it will actually
say at the top ‘pinned tweet’.
This is a great tool and I’ve found it to be very useful
already. I hope many of you start using
this as it makes life so much easier for people like me, who want to
reciprocate a mention/rettweet with a tweet. It’s a real
time-saver so we don’t have to scroll down, perhaps through days worth of
tweets, to find a book plug or original tweet (or something that isn’t a
retweet).
Check it out! See my
profile to view the ‘pinned tweet’ and give it a try!
Do you know any more little goodies like this? Feel free to add it in the comments!
Sandy is the author of fiction and memoirs. Her latest release is a funny, kid-style memoir called No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday.
Subscribe and get Book One for FREE today! Click here for details.
To learn more about Sandy, please visit her website www.sandyappleyard.com
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
5 Things to do When You're Stuck in a Following-Follower Rut
Twitter is quite the mystery to most. It’s telling by how many books are published
about the workings of the site.
One day you have retweets, mentions and followers coming out
of the woodwork, then the next you’re scrimping to find people to thank for all
those mentioned.
It’s inevitable to go
through a lull every now and again, but if you find your numbers have hit a
wall and are stuck there, this post will help get you past it.
First, use a service like www.justunfollow.com weekly, removing
all inactive users. About once a month I
recommend going through and removing those who are not following you back.
Note: Be sure
to give a good week or more of lag time when you begin following people
spontaneously, otherwise you’ll be unfollowing people you haven’t given a fair
chance to follow you back.
The only way to climb the Twitter totem pole (unless you’re
a celebrity or have incredibly good luck) is to follow people spontaneously.
So here are a few tips to get you there:
1. Find an author or
person who does something similar to you. Find out who they’re following and follow
them as well.
Note: don’t just go and follow their followers,
be sure to follow who they’re following, use their taste in following. If the person is loyal and trusted, you’d be
wise to use their lead.
2. Be sure to respond
when they thank you for following or when they simply send you a shout
out. It’s important to make connections,
so you don’t appear to be just a serial
follower.
3. Do not respond
to direct messages. Many Tweople
have their account set up with auto-tweets that are triggered by new
followers. If you spend time responding
to these, you’ll waste a lot of valuable time doing what they ask (liking their
Facebook pages, etc.) and chances are they won’t reciprocate. I recommend responding to requests only when
they tweet you; this way you have a better chance that they will reciprocate.
4. Another quick and
easy way to follow people is to scroll through a loyal follower’s recently
followed list. This can be found by
simply rolling through all their recent tweets and following those they’ve made
connections with. You can also do this
by following those that they’ve included in their recent thank you tweets.
5. Last, and frankly
the easiest, is to simply follow back those who follow you.
Note: make
sure you only follow those who do similar to what you do (writers, bloggers,
etc.) otherwise you’ll be following everyone and their mother’s uncle, so to speak.
Tip: A sure
way to get others to follow you is to put a blurb in your profile like mine “I follow those who, like me; eat, sleep and
breathe books”. This way you give people
a general idea of what you do and what you’ll do for them.
Want a new follower? Simply follow me by clicking this link. I follow back all writers, authors and just about anyone who has something interesting to say!
Sandy is the author of fiction and memoirs. Her latest release is a funny, kid-style memoir called No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday.
Subscribe and get Book One for FREE today! Click here for details.
To learn more about Sandy, please click here to go to her website.
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Writers: A Free and Easy Way to Advertise Your Books
I'm taking a bit of a break from writing for the weekend, and instead focusing on new and improved ways to promote my books, and I stumb...

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I'm taking a bit of a break from writing for the weekend, and instead focusing on new and improved ways to promote my books, and I stumb...
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We all have some kind of challenge, whether it be physical or emotional, or something else, and it's important to not let it define us. ...
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Eleven years ago I took a break from corporate life to raise my children. Approximately ten years ago I decided to do something I’d always...
