Worth Keeping by Susan MacNicol blog tour {Review, Guest post & Giveaway}

A portion of the proceeds of this novel will be donated to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children - http://www.nspcc.org.uk

Title: Worth Keeping
Author: Susan Mac Nicol
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
Release Date: 23rd December 2013

Nick Mathers pulls Owen Butler from the freezing waters off the Norfolk coast, but Owen’s love can carry Nick back from the edge of oblivion. 
Abused horrifically as a boy, Nick Mathers has come to terms with his existence as a man. Mostly. Other days life seems a little much. Especially when Nick knows he’ll always be alone.
On those days his thoughts turn black. He walks the Norfolk coast and considers the frigid embrace of the waves. And then, one stormy night, he finds someone who’s tasted just that. The beautiful stranger on the beach is near death, and Nick rushes him home to slowly nurse back to health. As he does, he finds a love unlike any other. Owen Butler’s body is as warm as the sea was cold, his heart as big as an ocean. And Owen is a man who swears to repay the favor. Nick can yet be saved from himself, and he will see that he is indeed a man…

WORTH KEEPING

 ”We have to re-iterate that this Author will always be an automatic one-click for us. Her writing is flawless and her flawed characters are completely lovable. There’s always something quirky and fun in her stories as well as drama, angst and heaps of passion! We can highly recommend!!” – Gitte & Jenny – Totally Booked Blog
“The cast of supporting characters adds depth and color, and the subplot of impending danger is artfully woven into the fabric of two men learning to overcome their own limitations, to open to the possibility of love and to redefine who they are. … this is a novel… Worth Keeping.” – Beach Bum Books
“Susan has written what I found to be a truly wonderful story about two damaged men that fit together in a way that gives them a relationship that can be everything they never dared to dream of.” – T. Kurtz, Book Addict
“…it is a beautiful story of survival. It is a story of two men who fought for their lives and there are times they can trip and fall, but somehow they do manage to pick themselves up and face life. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Love it.“- Johanna Alba Bilbao
“Susan has been hailed as a genius writer of male/male literature. Her Saving Alexander has been nominated for several awards and has been reviewed widely. Congrats on all your success, Susan. You have earned it.” – Gay Lit Authors

Susan Mac Nicol was born in Leeds, UK, and left for South Africa when she was eight. She returned to the UK thirty years later and now lives in Essex. Her debut novel Cassandra by Starlight, the first in a trilogy, was published last year by Boroughs Publishing Group in the US. Sue’s latest story, Worth Keeping is her third m/m romance.
Sue has written since she was very young, and never thought she would see herself being a Romance writer, being a horror/psychological thriller reader all her life. But the Romance genre is now something very close to her heart and she intends continuing the trend.
Sue is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Romantic Novelists Association here in the UK.

To learn more, visit Susan on her website and blog on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest.
Susan Mac Nicol is also author of The Magick of Christmas, Confounding Cupid, Cassandra by Starlight, Together in Starlight, Stripped Bare and Saving Alexander.

Nick Mathers.. dark and brooding, artist and light house keeper in his small corner of the world. To say his past is the stuff of nightmares is an understatement. Violated and abused as a teen, his own mother was the enabler. And then in his confusion he mistook a controling and domineering man for love. His body, both inside and out, carry the weight of the hard life he's lead, and he remains isolated in his light house, pondering ending it all. Until he meets Owen.

Owen Butler is no stranger to heartache himself. His lover was killed in random act of violence and he's never quite recovered. He does a little more than ponder an ending, and winds up washing ashore on Nick's light house beach. The energy between these two is electric, and they act on it immediately. Nick decided long ago that he was better off alone. His scars run way too deep to even consider a lover. His emotions are so out of sync that his mind sometimes blurs the lines between reality and the past. And he refuses to hurt anyone, or let them in.

Both men are stubborn, strong willed and determined. Owen has fallen in love and will do whatever it takes to gain Nick's love in return. The push and pull at times is extreme. The question is, can they find a balance between the push and pull. When your entire life has been a series of nightmares, self loathing and pain; can you find a way to love again? Owen is more than willing to draw him a map! 

I'm reminded of a movie quote with these two, "Don't say we may not be right for each other. Because the way I see it, we may not be right for anybody else!" 

This is a dark love story with a lot of mystery and suspense. I loved the six degrees of separation aspect to the story line as well, in the end, all things were connected. People, places and things that were seemingly random throughout, actually converged for a tumultuous ending. There was passion, steam and just the right amount of angst for these two lovers as well. The shower scene alone makes this book a must read! The fact that the story itself is well written and the characters have depth and a certain reality to them is just a bonus. 

Susan Mac Nicol

Guest Post for Worth Keeping Blog Tour

How I Market My Work

To all intents and purposes, even though I have a number of books published, I am still, in my eyes, and probably most others as well, a ‘newbie’. I have not been writing professionally for a long time. My first book was released in August 2012 and this when I truly had to put the shoulder to the wheel and develop an author platform. I had no idea I needed to do this before so I was a late bloomer.

But, finally, I see the fruits of the hard work done in investing in social media and finding every medium I can to get my name out there for people to see and find. I was quite proud of myself really - I'd never Googled myself before I started writing and now I put my name in and the first 10 pages are dedicated to Susan Mac Nicol - moi. How cool is that?

But oh, how I wish I’d known what I was getting into when I started. There’s an expectation nowadays, quite rightly, that authors need to self promote and build their own ‘community.’ Social networking is my necessary evil but it’s taken me a while to come to grips with it all.

So I thought I would give anyone thinking of writing a quick heads-up on what they can do to make their networking and community building easier rather than have to figure it all out from scratch like I had to...not being a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , tumblr or ‘blogging’ individual.

My top tips to create your Author Social Network profile (based on my experience)

Get yourself a twitter name - if sallysmith is taken, why not have something like 'sallysmithauthor' or' a variation of author/writer with your name? It starts to set the mood that yes, you're an author- perhaps unpublished but still an author.

Start building a 'community' – most e-publishers are big on this and even though they may be a full service publisher they may want their authors a little established before they begin their promotional activity of book blog tours and interviews/reviews. Find people to follow, convince one or two to follow you and you have started building.

Tweet often, maybe once or twice a day at max - the more you regularly tweet, I find the more people start following you. I don't know how this all works but it does. Tweet relevant stuff, something interesting or about something else you're interested in or that will even help other authors - this makes people realise that you're not just telling them what you had for breakfast...

Build your Facebook page using your existing contacts and find other authors who will become your friends, via associations like the Romance Writers of America, Romantic Novelists Association here in the UK, anywhere you come across.  The more friends you have, the more people you're reaching out to.

Build yourself a profile on Google+ and on sites like Smashwords, Goodreads - these are popular sites for people to connect plus when you search your name on Google it comes up with more results.

Get yourself a blog - I use Wordpress but tumblr is good too. Start writing on your blog, telling people what you're doing, and keeping them updated on your progress. Obviously every time you update your blog, let everyone on FB and Twitter know about it.

Start building a simple website of your own- this will be critical once you get accepted for publication :>) Let's be positive! - I found Wix fairly easy to do myself.

Other things I do- Pinterest where you upload pics you like, i.e. the cover of your first book. To manage all your social networking sites, use something called Hootsuite- it’s a great tool to keep an eye on everything in one dashboard.

My fellow authors were all fairly well established with a couple of exceptions - they all got into the habit of reading other authors books and reviewing them, again building their web presence which is what it’s all about. I am an official reviewer for The Romance Reviews and find this is a great way to get my name out there.

Also, I participate in Blog Hops, blogs that showcase various author's works on a main site and then re direct them to the specific author site. I've found this is a rewarding way of growing my readership. H D Thomson has a wonderful site where she showcases a lot of blog hops you can participate in. http://www.hdthomson.com/

As for e-publishers themselves, here’s a quick guide as to what to look for in your writing before you submit, direct from the horse’s mouth. I had a heap of rewrites to do because of my bad formatting and I was lucky they saw through it to the story beneath.

A little titbit I will share with you - the very next month after I signed my contract, my publisher had a blog article on the ‘importance of submitting a properly formatted manuscript’ which I’m convinced was written as a consequence of my MS :>)I may be wrong but it was good advice anyway.

·         Every paragraph needs to be indented.

·         Add a header with the book title and page number

·         Each character's dialogue gets its own paragraph

·         Internal dialogue from the point of view character gets its own paragraph if it follows another character's dialogue.

·         I suggest you take a favourite fiction book and re-read the text, paying attention to the formatting being used.

·         POV –Point of View. This means that each scene should be written from the key player’s perspective, not multiple POV’s.

I've learnt a vast amount about the technical side of writing. I never realised writing was such a technical pastime until I went for publication. The link below will explain more about this tricky area of writing.

http://www.novel-writing-help.com/point-of-view-in-literature.html

I hope that some of these tips help you get established in the mire of social networking and growing your presence in the online world.

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