Tag Archives: tellwell authors

Book Marketing

How Tellwell authors are marketing their books during the coronavirus pandemic

Jennifer Chapin

The Poet & The Angel 

1. Describe your book in one sentence.

It is an elegy of love and redemption and tells the story of a little girl who sees the wounded spirit of a slain poet huddled near a fountain in Granada, Spain. She befriends him to give him his voice back.

2. How were you planning to promote and market your book before the COVID-19 crisis?

I had been approved by Indigo for a signing on April 18th in Victoria and had Tellwell create my promotional materials for that event.  I also had a reading set up at the Vancouver Public Library on April 19th and an event set up with the Victoria Public Library in May, as part of the emerging local author program.  All of these events have been cancelled.  Fortunately, I had an interview with Citizen’s Forum on YouTube before we were all told to self-isolate so I gained some traction there.  After many months of building online interest, the book was finally starting to take off; however, all of the events mentioned above are still available to me, when life resumes once more.

3. What are you doing now?

I’m still in the thinking stages of what to do next, but plan to set up my own YouTube channel to do readings and talks to post online, through my website and Facebook author page.  I am also planning to set up a series of podcasts.  Finally, I am building a community of authors around me whereby we read and review each other’s books and post them on Amazon by way of support.

4. Do you have any advice for authors?

My advice is to never give up.  If there is an obstacle in the river, float around it as there are always creative solutions available.  Also, form communities with like-minded artists to exchange ideas.  View this time as an opportunity for growth.  We are all in this together, globally.  If this crisis has taught us anything, it is that we need each other.

Read how Charlene Doak-Gebauer, Markus Matthews and Monique Gliozzi are adapting their book marketing strategies in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Author of the Month

Psychologist, professor and author Ronna Jevne on how to cultivate and find hope during the Covid crisis

TELLWELL APRIL AUTHOR OF THE MONTH RONNA JEVNE

Hope is a fascinating phenomenon. A day with it guarantees nothing; a day without it is very difficult. It can’t be injected. It can’t be x-rayed and yet we know when our hope is down.

Ronna Jevne has been a psychologist, researcher, university professor and leading authority on hope. She is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology and the Hope Foundation of Alberta, a research centre associate with the University of Alberta whose mission is to explore and apply the phenomena of hope. She is the author of several books, including the recently published Finding Hope: Ways of seeing life in a brighter light. Jevne, and her co-author, James Miller, invite new understandings about hope, how to foster hope in our own lives and offer strategies for finding and practicing hope.

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I laugh a lot, love deeply, and have a thirst for adventure. I believe life is not a problem; it is an experience to be lived. My pen and my camera are constant companions. I am passionate about photography, and I manage to stay fit while wishing it didn’t require exercise.

I loved every day of my life as a psychologist and professor.  I have had the privilege of working in education, health care, corrections, and academia. Over the years, I have seen extraordinary courage in the midst of life’s most serious challenges. 

I stepped back from the mainstream of professional life to be with my husband in the last chapter of his life.

I live now on eight acres of heaven, share my life with my husband, Hal Martin. Hal and I are lifelong friends who had amazing partners. In a brief window, we both lost our spouses. We now share our lives.

Life has given me new opportunities on all fronts. In this new chapter of my professional life, writing is central. My role in the Prairie Wind Writing Center, a partnership with my present husband Hal, is to take the lead in designing workshops/retreats, writing books, and promoting therapeutic writing with clients and professionals.

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2. Can you summarize what your book is about in a few sentences?

Finding Hope: Ways of Seeing Life in a Brighter Light (2nd edition)

Finding Hope: Ways to see life in a brighter light is a shortcut to hope. After an introduction to the value and qualities of hope authors Jevne & Miller offer time tested strategies to enhancing your hope. Each strategy is a one-page explanation and illustration of a “how to”. Written in a personal style and accented with quotations and photographs, Finding Hope is not only about hope, it is an experience of hope. 

3. You are a leading authority on hope through your work as a researcher, university professor and psychologist. What is it about hope that fascinates you?

Hope is a fascinating phenomenon. A day with it guarantees nothing; a day without it is very difficult. It can’t be injected. It can’t be x-rayed and yet we know when our hope is down. It is different than faith, coping, or resilience. People who have hope approach challenges differently than those who feel less hope. They achieve more, handle uncertainty with more confidence and have better health and well-being, Yet, hope was until the last couple of decades was virtually ignored by the scientific community.

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Author of the Month Uncategorized

Toronto-area doctor and author Lili Naghdi on adapting her family practice and author work in the face of COVID-19

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

I am a family physician and researcher practicing in Vaughan, Ontario and I published my debut novel, On Loving, last year. I was born and raised in Iran and continued my medical education and research after moving to Canada with my husband and daughter in 1996. My particular interests are women’s and mental health.

2. What inspired you to write On Loving?

I’ve been a huge fan of literature for as long as I can remember, and one of my dreams as a young girl growing up in Iran was to become an author one day! Persian poetry has always been intriguing for me, and Forugh Farrokhzad, the late contemporary Iranian poet, who was also a women’s rights activist, remained a great inspiration to me since the day I first started reading her works. “On Loving” is the title of one of her famous poems written in Farsi. 

My occupation has been another source of inspiration for writing “On Loving.” Working throughout the years as a family physician enabled me to explore the effects of different basic emotions on people’s physical and mental health and to assess the role these feelings play in controlling people’s interpersonal relationships. I finally decided to share my experiences in both fields by creating “On Loving” and focusing on a young woman’s complicated life journey, a turbulent journey full of twists and turns, which ultimately helped this strong yet fragile accomplished woman achieve self-awareness. 

I trust that literature can act as a sturdy bridge connecting different cultures, so by using this bridge and the pages of “On Loving,” I introduced my readers to the rich Iranian culture and heritage, its ancient history, and, more importantly, real Iranian people through the eyes of On Loving’s main protagonist, an adopted Iranian-American physician. 

3. What is the main message you share in your book? 

I’ve always been amazed by how we, as human beings, react in our unique and different ways in similar situations or circumstances in life. Many of us never know who we really are and what we really stand for until it is too late. In other words, we may never get to know ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our true potentials until the last day we live! Understanding the importance of achieving self-awareness – most possibly the hardest task to succeed in life- through working on our pure feelings and emotions, was one my main messages to reflect upon and share with my readers. 

You may remember Ayn Rand’s famous quote from The Fountainhead: “To say ‘I love you’ one must know first how to say the ‘I.'” In fact, for many of us, most “emotions,” such as love, hatred, jealousy, joy, trust, sadness, … are so difficult to process and act upon in proper ways. It is essential to understand where they originate from and how they can morbidly affect our behavior, mental, and physical health.

To say ‘I love you’ one must know first how to say the ‘I’.

Ayn Rand

4. How has your work as a physician impacted the story in On Loving

As a family physician with a keen interest in women’s and mental health,  I tried to draw more attention to the issues that I’ve found more prevalent and profoundly disturbing for most people. Common conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, suicide, homicide, bereavement, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), kidney failure/transplant, breech delivery, breast cancer, domestic violence, …  were among the topics discussed in this novel.

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Author of the Month

Award-winning children’s author, Kristin Pierce, helps both kids and adults find their “inner compass”

Award-winning author Kristin Pierce’s children’s books are full of empowering messages about finding our real-life super powers of creativity, imagination and intuition. And it’s that message the author, herself, has fully embraced by not only writing a series of children’s books, but taking the lessons learned in self-publishing and coaching others on how to bring their own story ideas to life.

“It has been a lot of work and a ton of learning, but it has been so much fun,” said Saskatchewan-based author and mother of two.

Children's author Kristin PierceThe inspiration to write a children’s story first came a few years ago when she was putting together a rhyming scrapbook for her son about his first six-months of life. The rhymes began flowing and the book ended with some empowering verses.

“I looked at those last couple pages and said to my husband, “Wouldn’t it be neat to turn these lines into an empowering children’s book?”

Pierce says she couldn’t believe she had said those words aloud. “For almost my whole life, I didn’t believe I was creative, so this idea didn’t align with who I thought I was, so I dismissed it,” she said.

But the rhymes wouldn’t stop flowing, and several months later, while her son was napping, she wrote the first draft of her first book, Your Inner Compass That Could, in an hour and a half.

You are the one who knows your true self the best
You have an Inner Compass inside of your chest
If you learn how to listen, it will be your best guide
On life’s wonderful, magical, adventurous ride

Your Inner Compass That Could - book cover Tellwell Publishing

Your Inner Compass That Could was published by Tellwell in early 2018. The story encourages children to connect to and trust their inner self to guide them in life. It teaches children that there are no limits to what they can achieve and to pursue their passions and share their unique gifts with the world.

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Author of the Month Tellwell Books

B.C.-based author Mark Lloyd wins top prize at IndieReader Discovery Awards for sci-fi novel

A Place to Stay Forever by Mark Lloyd -Tellwell

British Columbia-based author Mark Lloyd is quietly celebrating a huge win after his book nabbed top prize in the science fiction category at the IndieReader Discovery Awards.

The humble author was looking for feedback and submitted the book on a whim. “I was surprised. I didn’t expect the story would win anything,” he said.

The award winners were announced in May at the New York International Book Expo. IndieReader gave the book 4.8/5 stars rating A Place to Stay Forever “an imaginative and quirky story that simultaneously hearkens back to both Philip K Dick and Douglas Adams.”

A straightforward, absorbing tale that unfolds inside a beefy futuristic setting. – Kirkus Reviews

A Place to Stay Forever - Tellwell Publishing - Mark Lloyd

The concept of Lloyd’s sci-fi novel is a mix of the Matrix and Black Mirror’s San Junipero episode. The protagonist, Miranda Sage, is plugged into an artificial reality where she is living out her life peacefully as an old man, when a power surge abruptly awakens the crew in a spaceship hurtling back to Earth. The crew has to hack back into the alternate reality through its only access point – the town of Penticton – and awaken consciously to explore a way to end the simulation without harming their bodies.

“I wanted to write a story that makes the readers think about something they haven’t put much thought in before. This book is about immortality, and the perils of being immortal,” said Lloyd.

Despite the virtual reality/alternate universe premise – the story’s locale is very real. Lloyd who grew up and lives in the Okanagan town of Penticton, loved the idea of turning his hometown into the setting of a sci-fi tale.

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Author of the Month

Courtroom lawyer turned self-publishing success; Governor General’s Award nominee Leslie Hall Pinder on her life as a full-time writer

By Kate Bell

Tellwell author and Governor General’s Award nominee, Leslie Hall Pinder, puts her decades of experience in the courtroom on paper in her latest crime-fiction novel, The Indulgence. Learn more about the B.C.- based author’s career as a lawyer-turned-writer, how she got a testimonial from Margaret Atwood and why after traditionally publishing three books, she got decided to self-publish.

Photo Courtesy: The Georgia Straight

At age 12, Leslie Hall Pinder was told to write. She was encouraged by her school teacher and, following her teacher’s advice, Hall Pinder’s first short story was broadcast on CBC radio when she was 19-years-old.

Hall Pinder immersed herself into the literary world after high school and went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Saskatchewan and Dalhousie University. She then started a Masters Program in English at the University of British Columbia, however, her interest in school was beginning to wane; she often skipped class and eventually dropped out to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time writer. But the author’s plan was put on hold when she found casual work in the case report section of the Vancouver Police Department – the lure of the law became absolutely irresistible. She quickly enrolled back in school and, in 1976, she graduated with a law degree from the University of British Columbia. Shortly after, Leslie became the first woman litigator at a large Vancouver law firm.

After working nearly 20 years in law, alongside writing and publishing two novels (one of which that was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award), Hall Pinder decided to step back from the legal world and begin writing full-time. She has been a full-time writer since 2005 and the courtroom still plays a major impact on her work which focuses largely on characters who undergo the difficult and corrupting struggle of truth as defined by the law.

After traditionally publishing her first three books, Leslie Hall Pinder chose to self-publish her fourth book with Tellwell. The Indulgence is a story about what happens when love turns to hate and everyone turns to the law.

The Indulgence

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Author of the Month

Entrepreneur turned authorpreneur Del Chatterson on how becoming a self-published author is like running a business

mtl-pte-claire-del

Entrepreneur now turned authorpreneur Del Chatterson is approaching his new career as an author with the same dedication as running a business.

“The motivation and work habits are similar. It is necessary to have a process and a plan, to be creative, innovative, determined, disciplined and hardworking,” said Chatterson.

The Montreal-based author has taken inspiration from his decades of experience in the computer industry and applied it to his latest crime-fiction novel. “No Easy Money” is set in 1980s Montreal and follows young entrepreneur Dale Hunter as his computer business is attacked by gangsters and the Montreal Mafia.

“A lot of details of the entrepreneurial experience is based on my life,” said Chatterson, who grew his computer monitor distribution business from zero to $20-million in eight years.. “It includes some fascinating insights into the challenges of entrepreneurs.”

Del also named his protagonist Dale, a name similar to his own. But the crime, drama and suspense that make the book a more entertaining read, are all imaginary.

Chatterson was inspired by writers like Kathy Reichs and Ian Hamilton who also turned their business experience into crime- fiction.

“I thought, I could do that.’ He attended writing workshops, read a lot of book from his favourite authors on how to write well and began with short stories to flex his muscles.

Once he reached retirement, Chatterson was able to devote more time to his writing. “No Easy Money” started as an idea 15 years ago, but after two years of writing, he had a manuscript. Tellwell published the book in August 2018.

no-easy-money

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Guest Post

Local indie author tops John Grisham at Edmonton bookstore

Q&A with Adèle Fontaine, author of My Sundays with Normand, a book of poems about love and grief.  
Interviewed by Elliott Hockley

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Adèle Fontaine is the author of My Sundays with Normand, a dedicational poetry book available now with major online retailers. The book recently topped the bestsellers list at a popular bookstore in Edmonton, beating out John Grisham through the first part of August.

Firstly, could you tell us a little bit more about what, and particularly, who, this book is about?

My Sundays with Normand is a book of 77 poems that I wrote to honor the difficult process of grieving for my husband after he died due to complications from heart surgery in November, 2014. He was a father to our seven children, my husband of fifty-three years, a lover of music and above all an artist who wrote and painted for most of his life. I cherished him deeply and was not prepared to let him go so easily into the black night. These poems soon became a way for me to spend time with him, reflecting on our lives together in order to cope with the sadness I was feeling.

Every Sunday morning I sat down at our kitchen table, often after being inspired by a walk outdoors and wrote. Normand’s support and presence were constant, just as it was when he was alive. Writing the poems has been my creative way of maintaining our relationship, continuing the conversation as well as fathoming the depth of the love I received from this wonderful man. We used to wonder about what life would be like when one of us died; little did we know that I would stay on and harvest all the gold of our relationship.

My Sundays with Normand

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Guest Post

Learn about the self-publishing process from Tellwell author Frank Cardinale

By Frank Cardinale

frank-cardinalegift-from-above-2

Why did you chose to self-publish?

As a father of four young children and cyber security consultant with multiple projects on the go, I wanted to finish my book as soon as possible before it remained an idea on my computer for eternity. While one of the editors of my book recommended trying the traditional publishing route, I felt that it could delay it indefinitely if I were to get into a rejection and re-edit situation. Most importantly, as I feel strongly about the theme of the book and often found myself discussing it with other parents and students, I wanted to get it into their hands as soon as possible.

What inspired you to write your book? 

When I became a parent, the concept of education became important again, wanting to give my children the best education possible. I wasn’t the best student and after a little reflection, something stood out. While I was receiving bad grades for messy handwriting and the inability to sit still for long periods of time, my teachers were bringing in their computers for me to fix, and asking me how to install programs and write scripts. I was being graded on my ability to write reports on books I had no interest in, but not on the ability to configure MS-DOS, RAM and hard drives. My report cards began making me feel incompetent, and worst of all, I began to believe I was.

As I believe many students go through this experience, I decided to write a story that highlights the issue and wrote Gift From Above. My goal with the book is to reach students or parents with children that are struggling with school, and highlight to them that the education system isn’t a good fit for everyone and that there are many ways we can still obtain a high-quality education.

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Author Success - In the media, awards, reviews

Tellwell authors in the news

Congratulations to our Tellwell authors on their recent media coverage!

Luciano Nisi
Untold Stories of a Paramedic 

luciano-nisi-paramedic

The Abbotsford News
Abbotsford author Luciano Nisi has released his third book, which shares his experiences as a paramedic. Untold Stories of a Paramedic takes the reader right into the action of real calls.

“You will witness the heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping action of dealing with a stabbing, shooting or overdose,” Nisi says.

He said the book also shows the humorous side of the job, and he shares everything from the dialogue with his partner to his own thoughts.

Katrina LaPointe
Awakening Arorus

awakening-arorus

Vernon Morning Star

A Village of Lumby author is making strides in the fantasy world.

Katrina (K.M.) Lapointe’s Awakening Arorus, the first in the series The Clan Destayy Chronicles, marks the stay-at-home mother and Charles Bloom Secondary grad’s debut on the scene.

Awakening Arorus, in the beginning, was because of my love of reading. I mean, I get into a book and it’s a relaxing escape from the every day,” Lapointe said. “I remember ever since I was learning to read I loved stories and when I got into my teens I’ve always known that I wanted to write an adventure that hopefully one day, I could share with the world.”

Gordon Coyle
Open Road to My Soul

Gordon Coyle

Prince George Citizen

Gordon Coyle rides an iron horse, pulls the trigger of his lens and shutter, and like every lonesome cowboy he also has some sad songs.

Coyle is a photographer, and he rolls proudly from scene to scene on his Harley. The camera is one medium for his creative heart but he also puts pen to paper and arranges his impressions into structured words. He perhaps hesitated to call himself a poet, but now it’s irrefutable. He has the book to prove it.

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