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The Writer Blog Prompt Project – Content Warnings

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Week 3 of the prompt project sees us tackling the subject of Content Warnings, which is not something I’ve given much thought to.

Over the years I’ve read widely in horror, thriller, psychological thriller, crime, fantasy and romance. Most of these genres you expect dark and sometimes grisly themes, so the idea of content warnings seems unnecessary. However, in recent times I’ve noticed it becoming more accepted to offer these warnings.

I’ve had reviewers mention things in my books that might be a trigger to others. Sometimes these are small plot points that don’t seem relevant to me as an author, but clearly they could be issues for readers. I’ve entered competitions where they ask you to list all triggers that might affect the judges. The same goes for book review sites. These all make sense as having the wrong readers for your books will only hurt both parties. But doesn’t having content warnings take away the mystery of picking up a brand new book and just diving straight in?

I’m really on the fence about this and haven’t put content warnings on my books yet.

What do you think as a reader or an author? Are these warnings necessary?

I can only think of one time when the content of a book stopped me reading on. Not the book itself, but I didn’t continue with the series after book 1. It was Mark Lawrence One Word Kill. The teenage character is dying – which it states in the first line of the blurb, so no surprises there. But at the time of reading my son was the same age, and I just found it too uncomfortable imagining him going through cancer treatment etc. It was a good book and well written as are all Mark Lawrence’s books (and some of his books have very DARK themes) but this one was not for me.

Would a content warning have stopped me picking it up? No. I didn’t realise I would be triggered by anything like this and I probably wouldn’t be now. It was just how I felt at the time.

Do you have triggers that you’d rather not read about? Or do you go into a book open minded and take what the author throws at you?

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Thanks for Ari for suggesting this interesting topic in her Writer Blog Prompt Project. Here is a link to Ari’s post on content warnings where she will also add links to any other blogs that decide to take part this week.

The next topic up for discussion – D is for Drop Caps.

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The Writer Blog Prompt Project B is for Book Trailers

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Last week the prompt from Ari Meghlen was Book Trailers – now that is a subject I didn’t expect to be writing about at the moment. But I want to take part in the weekly blog challenge so here goes…

I don’t see many book trailers. I guess I don’t hang out where they are shown and I don’t go out of my way to find them. But they do have a place and, done right, can be a real game changer for authors. There is no doubt the world of social media has become very visual, so authors need to move with the times.

When I bring out my romance series later this year I will be using all forms of promotion to reach readers and that will include book trailers.

My son is a music production graduate. He makes amazing music so I will be commissioning his help for that. My daughter is learning digital art so I’m also hoping she will be able to help in some way as well. It would be great to work on the project as a family – though not just for the free labour! (only joking, I would pay them for their time.)

I have dabbled with book trailers in the past, well I had one made for me to promote the audiobook of The Lost Sentinel. The narrator’s wife put together a video on Youtube. It was fun to see my book brought to life in a different medium, but it’s no longer available to watch so I can’t share the link.

I don’t feel very qualified to talk about book trailers but I’m excited at the prospect of doing my own and seeing what works.

As I planned out this blog post I listened to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and one line in the song stands out ‘…welcome to the new age…’. I suppose that’s how indie authors need to look at book trailers and everything involved in publishing our books.

Later this week the topic of choice is Content Warnings.

Here is the link to Ari’s post on Book Trailers. She shares some great tips, so it’s worth having a read.

Until next time…

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See my book catalogue on the Suzanne Rogerson Collection

The Writer Blog Prompt Challenge – A for Achievement

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This is the start of a 26 week blog challenge set by Ari Meghlan. I think it’s a great idea and have decided to play along. This week’s word is Achievement.

My big achievement is the fact I’ve been an indie author for 10 years!

This milestone passed by very quietly on 16th November 2025. I suppose I wasn’t feeling very successful and didn’t want to advertise the fact that I’m not yet a big name in the book world, nor am I able to support myself with writing alone.

But now I am ready to celebrate it, because although there have been a lot of challenges, it can’t be denied that I have achieved one of my dreams…

I am a published author with 4 full length novels and 4 short story collections to my name.

I have plans to write and publish a lot more over the next 10 years. My books have been downloaded by thousands of people and I’ve hit a few bestseller lists on Amazon, albeit briefly. My books have had lots of wonderful reviews, and I’ve even had the amazing experience of being called a reader’s favourite author. In 2021 I was a finalist in the book bloggers novel of the year with The Lost Sentinel, and the opening of my romance novel Secrets and Love Songs at The Mermaid Hotel came second in the flash 500 novel opening competition in 2023.

One of the biggest achievements came early on when I was contacted by a publisher and had my debut, Visions of Zarua, translated into Czech. I travelled to Prague, visited my publisher and the local bookshops to see my books on the shelves.

The last 10 years have involved a lot of learning, and plenty of tears, but I wouldn’t go back and change it. This is my achievement and I am owning it today.

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Thank you to Ari for starting off this challenge. Here is a link to her post on Achievement where she shares her thoughts on the subject and also links to anyone else who has decided to take part. Please take a look and join in if you feel inspired.

Next week B is for Book trailer.

A new look for the website and questions on an author rebrand

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I’ve been messing around with the website headers and how the site looks on WordPress. This is a snippet of its current new look.

It’s temporary because I will hopefully have some romance covers to share soon. I love all shades of purple, so this appealed to me and the sunshine reminds me of the happiness of spring.

What I’m finding really difficult is getting a look that says I’m a writer of both fantasy and romance. Maybe I need to split the header into two and showcase both sides of my writing. It could end up looking messy, so I will do some experiments and maybe share the results here to get feedback.

The next few months will be all about defining my author brand ahead of the launch of The Mermaid Hotel Series.

Whilst experimenting on Canva with graphics, I will need to ask myself: should I come away from my fantasy books completely for now and rebrand as a romance author? Is it viable to do both on the same website? Should I have two websites dedicated to each genre? These are hard questions, and I’d love to know what other authors have done.

Also, what other softwares are out? I’ve dabbled with the free versions of Canva and Book Brush. Is it worth the monthly subscription?

I thought it would be fun to look back on the banners my website has used over the years, starting at the beginning. When I first started out, I used my own pictures to make banners. These were a couple I played with.

When I started publishing books, they took centre stage for a while.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the evolution of my website. It’s been fun looking back, especially seeing all the pictures I’ve used and being reminded of the posts they relate to. I hope to do a post looking back at those favourite images soon.

Until next time…

1k blog followers! #indieauthor #blogger

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I’ve just reached a huge milestone, one I would never have imagined possible when I joined WordPress and started blogging 5 years ago. It all came about when I decided to self publish my debut novel, Visions of Zarua, back in Nov 2015.

I had no clue what I was doing or what to blog about but I had a lot of fun experimenting. I’ve blogged 573 posts, had 24k views and 14k visitor across the world.

I’ve conversed with lots of wonderful readers and writers over the years and greatly enjoyed being a part of the blogging community.

1,000 Follows!
A huge milestone for Suzanne Rogerson Fantasy Author blog

This has actually come at a time where I’ve just started getting back into blogging, so I’m really happy to be able to celebrate 1000 followers today.

Thanks for being there and I hope you’re still with me in another five years.

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic and heroic fantasy

You can follow me on

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A little update and blogging break #amwriting #amwritingfantasy

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Just to say that I’m still around but I will go quiet on the blogging scene (again) as I plan to concentrate on my next three writing projects. I don’t make it easy for myself do I!

I also have a couple of Christmas events to prepare for and I can’t wait to get out in the local community. I’ll be selling my signed paperback books, which make the perfect Christmas present by the way. If you’re in Ashford Middlesex on 4th December or Wraysbury on 14th I hope to see you there. I’ll update other social media platforms with more details so don’t forget to follow me with the links below.

I hope to bring you some updates in the new year and share my plans for 2020.

Until then, keep reading, writing and enjoying every moment. And have a wonderful Christmas.

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic and heroic fantasy

You can follow me on

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Wrap up post Pt 1 – The Sentinel’s Alliance Publication day push hosted by @rararesources #fantasy #newrelease

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A bit later than planned, here’s part 1 of my wrap up post to highlight all the great blogs who helped me on the launch day of The Sentinel’s Alliance on 6th July.

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There were quite a few people involved on the day reviewing, interviewing and posting promo posts so I decided to do 3 separate posts to make it easier to share the information and to thank the bloggers involved again.

Today I’m sharing the 3 interviews I took part in. If you haven’t seen them yet, please click the links.

The Magic of wor(L)ds – find out which character I would like to invite for tea and some of my writing rituals amongst other things.

A story about a girl – find out where my story idea originated for Silent Sea Chronicles and who I would love to play my characters in a film or tv adaptation.

B for bookreview – find out who I would love to co-write a book with and where I would love to travel to.

I still have lots of promo posts and reviews to share in other posts so look out for them.

And of course the whole trilogy is still on sale until the end of the weekend, so please consider taking a chance on the books whilst you can still pick up the whole trilogy for less than the cost of one book!

The Lost Sentinel      The Sentinel’s Reign       The Sentinel’s Alliance

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Suzanne Rogerson – Author of epic and heroic fantasy

You can follow me on

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#WWWBlogs Update and Goals for Autumn 2018 #amwriting #selfpubtips

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I have been very quiet on the social media front these past few months, hoping to work hard on my draft of The Sentinel’s Alliance. That has not gone to plan but I have been doing lots of other exciting things and thought I would share them with you. Maybe you can pick up some tips for things you can be doing with your self published books.

Note – This whole situation came about because of Rebecca Howie’s post on The Backdoor to Bookstores. As you can guess it’s about getting your books into the bookshops, something I had thought impossible and didn’t bother researching. Her post has led me to;

  • Register all my books with Nielsen via a simple emailed form. This means my books can now be found on the website of most bookshops like Waterstones.
  • Ask my local Waterstones branch about stocking my books. I am waiting to hear from the relevant department.
  • Contact my local library. Again I am waiting to hear from the relevant department but the librarian was hopeful it would be accepted. If not I still have the option of donating copies for them to lend.
  • I already had a PLR account but my books weren’t on file. As I’ve now registered the books with Nielsen I can apply for my books to be added to my account. Again I am waiting for them to be processed.
  • Today I am posting a physical copy of each of my books to The British Library. Once deposited, there will always be a copy and a record of my work, though they did warn me the backlog was 3 or 4 months.

 

My next steps

  • Contact local indie books stores – I already have a list to work through.
  • Print some leaflets with LOCAL AUTHOR and hand them out around my local towns.
  • Look into book festivals for 2019 with a mind to having a book stall.
  • Look into having an audiobook produced for Visions of Zarua through ACX. I can go with the 50/50 split with a producer and pay nothing up front so there is nothing to lose. My main concern is the voice – I have 4 VP characters 3 of which are male. I think I will have to request a male narrator, though I’m not keen on men doing female voices and vs versa. Varnia is such a strong character, I would hate for her to lose that edge in an audio version.

 

Other news

I have just switched my paperback books from Createspace to KDP. It was a very simple process and took just a few minutes with the automated programme KDP have developed. Rather than try to explain it myself, I read a great post about it yesterday on Nicolas C Rossis’ blog.

 

Now onto my writing challenges for Autumn 2018

  • Finish my draft of book 3 asap, though I’m still coming to grips with the mess I made of it during Nanowrimo last year!
  • I want to try to plan the Prequel of Silent Sea Chronicles whilst writing book 3, ready to start work on it in 2019.
  • Write the draft of a new novella during Nanowrimo. I want to aim for a word count of 30-40k.
  • Enter at least 5 short story competitions. I have 5 stories edited, critiqued and ready to go and I think I have picked some good competitions to try.
  • Enter a few first chapter competitions.
  • Look for Self Pub novel competitions to enter that don’t cost loads of money
  • Work on new short story ideas for a possible anthology in 2019. I’ve already seen a couple of covers that I would love, but I can’t jump ahead that much, can I?

 

Other things I need to focus on in 2018

  • Promos for all books, including working on my AMS ads which I’ve heard is now changing anyway.
  • Contact reviewers – look for new opportunities and contact previous reviewers. It’s been a difficult summer for many reviewers so I’m hoping to reconnect with some of them during autumn/winter.
  • Write up my book reviews and post weekly. I like to do this on a Tuesday with the #tuesdaybookblog tag set up by Rosie Amber.
  • Study writing fiction for YA and decide if I want to head in that direct at some point. Some readers already class my Silent Sea Chronicles trilogy as YA so I’m interested to see why and if I should be targeting that market.
  • Finish my Goodreads reading challenge, which I am just about on target for.
  • A future goal I want to think about for 2019 is setting up an author newsletter. I know I should, but it’s one of those jobs I’ve been putting off.

 

It feels good to write down my achievements and my goals. I shall print off this list and pin it to the wall by my desk for inspiration and to keep me on track.

This list will easily take me to the end of the year. I just need to focus and stop getting distracted. I did find this post from Ari really helpful about her own September 2018 goals and working towards them each week. She shares lots of great advice and her site is well worth a visit.

Lastly, if you are looking for motivation you really should read this book – Overwhelmed Writer Rescue by Colleen Story. I reviewed it last year and it is packed with advice. I must revisit my copy.

I hope I have given you some ideas and if you have any tips to share or other routes I can follow as an indie author, please comment. I feel as though I’ve been out of the blogging loop for ages, so I’d love to reconnect with people.

 

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Belated mid-year review #amwriting #amreading

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My big news is of course that The Sentinel’s Reign – Silent Sea Chronicles Book 2 is now published.

It’s available here in ebook (99p for a few more days only), paperback and free to read on kindle unlimited.

That’s the sales bit out the way.

In other news, The Lost Sentinel (Book 1) is entered into SPFBO 2018 competition and has been given to Lynn’s Books to judge, which is funny as I had planned to contact her to review the book this year. There is also a cover competition going on right now. Of course I love my cover, but there are lots of great covers in the running from my group of 30 so it will be interesting to see which ones get put through to the next stage.

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2018 has seen some major steps forward for me – landing a publishing contract with a Czech publisher for Visions of Zarua and having a full manuscript request from a UK agent for the same book. These are milestones I’ve been dreaming of, but we’ll have to see where they lead. I’m learning that everything takes time in the publishing world and you need to have a lot of patience!

 

My 2018 goals in review.

At the beginning of the year I set myself some goals (post here). Today I am revisiting them to see how I’ve done.

Writing

Publish book 2 The Sentinel’s Reign = Achieved.

Finish first draft of book 3 The Sentinel’s Alliance = Nope, but I have planned 2/3’s in a rough draft.

Look at WIP to see if I want to send to agents = Still to do. I have a draft almost finished that I would love to edit and polish and send to agents. I am also thinking on an idea I would like to try out on Wattpad. I have no idea how to go about this so I need to research it more.

Writing in general

Attend more writing events = I’ve attended 1 this year.

Contact book reviewers = I have done very well with this so far and have a new batch of reviewers to contact very soon. If you are a blogger interested in reviewing my books please use this contact form.

Learn more about marketing and get my books in front of more readers = I entered SPFBO (self published fantasy blog off) along with 299 other entrants, which will hopefully give The Lost Sentinel some much needed exposure. If you have read The Lost Sentinel, please consider leaving a review on Amazon / Goodreads, it helps with the ranking of the book though won’t have any affect on how far the book gets in the competition, that’s down to the judge of each group. I’ve run a mildly successful kindle countdown deal for The Lost Sentinel and it will go on Netgalley for a month starting 9th July.

Blogging

Tidy up blog, create banner and landing page = The blog is better but could still do with a tidy up, and I have a cool new banner. The landing page is something I still need to look into.

Blog more and focus on books about writing = I have reviewed a few writing books.

Feature more guest posts and get involved in more blog tours = I have featured Susan Leigh Noble and Ari Mehlen, but there is always room for more.

Lifestyle

Healthier diet and walk more = I lost almost 2 stone with Slimming World in 4 months, so that was a great success at the start of the year and I have been maintaining my target weight. I bought a treadmill and used that through winter but now it’s gathering dust.

Get more sleep = No chance! The hot weather and the book release don’t add up to a good night’s sleep. Maybe one day I’ll catch up on my beauty sleep.

Be more positive = I’m trying to be positive and take things as they come. For me being proactive helps, but when nothing comes of all the hard work I’ve invested it’s difficult to keep upbeat.

Reading

Read more fantasy = Yes.

Post more book reviews = Nope, I am way behind and have given up keeping my book review page up to date.

Read at least 35 books in 2018 = I’m trying but I’m behind schedule, total to date is 16.

My reading has been very slow. Editing and promotion has taken all my spare time and I’ve even struggled to find any audio books that hold my attention. My tbr pile grows almost daily and I am not making a dent in it.

I am still reading my book group choice Senlin Ascends (a previous SPFBO contestant, now traditionally published) even though I missed the group meeting last week due to a mix up with the day on my calendar! I believe it was enjoyed by all.

I did have a list of books I wanted to read and a couple of trilogies I wanted to finish, but for now I’m just going to wait and see what books take my fancy.

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What’s to come…

I hope to feature on a few blogs over the coming weeks and see some more reviews go up for The Lost Sentinel and The Sentinel’s Reign. Then I plan to throw myself into writing and make lots of progress. Fingers crossed anyway.

Because of this I will probably take the summer holidays off from blogging to focus on writing book 3 – The Sentinel’s Alliance. It worked well last year, though hopefully I can keep my hand in with a book review or two.

 

How’s your year shaping up?

 

Last plug for The Sentinel’s Reign – don’t forget to pick it up for 99p as I will be putting the price up at the end of the week. And add it to your Goodreads shelf.

publicity ebook and paperback

Only 2 days to go! The Sentinel’s Reign out 29th June 2018 http://mybook.to/sentinelreign

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On 29th June, The Sentinel’s Reign will be released into the world and I hope you will all help me celebrate the second book in the Silent Sea Chronicles.

publicity ebook and paperback

I made the decision not to run a proper blog tour this time around. Last year it exhausted me and took the shine off the publication of The Lost Sentinel.

I do have a few guest posts, interviews and mini excerpts lined up over the coming weeks and hopefully a few reviews will be going up very soon as well. I hope to write an update post each day with links to the bloggers who’ve agreed to help promote my new release.

And here they are;

Rainne over at Rainne’s Ramblings has posted an exclusive look at the prologue of The Sentinel’s Reign.

And Ari Meghlen interviewed me on her blog today. It’s always fun answering questions about my writing journey. Please check out both these lovely ladies blogs.

That’s about it for today’s update.

I would love to get a few more pre-orders in and see The Sentinel’s Reign hit the kindle charts hard on release day, will you help me? You can pick it up at the bargain price of 99p, just follow the link here.

Thank you for your support.