Happy new year and welcome to 2017...
This post today is just to let you know about our new blog schedule!

We will be uploading every Friday instead of Thursday.

There is no reason for the change other than the fact that we will have that #FridayFeeling!

So we are excited to welcome this little change to our blog and we will see you next Friday with a more exciting post.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Now we have got that little sing song out of the way we want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Here are ETA Publishing House we want to thank you all for the great year of 2016, we can't wait to see what 2017 has in store.

Thank you to all our guest bloggers who featured on our blog during 2016 this, we loved your posts and would love to have you back here again in 2017.


Enjoy your Christmas everyone.

Lots of love, ETA.

Here at the ETA Publishing House blog we love to have guest bloggers post for us, one particular blogger who we love and want to have back all the time is Laura Bourne.

Laura has written for us before and everyone loved her post so today... She's back!

You can find Laura's social medias here:
Twitter         Blog

Why Books Are  A Great Present...

1. It’s the gift that keeps on giving
Books mean different things at different times in your life. I have had a totally different          experience reading the same book at 30 as I did to when I was 25 or 15. The right book can be a lifelong gift that the recipient returns to again and again from childhood through to old age. Whilst there is always space in my life for new books, I am as enamoured now by Matilda by Roald Dahl and The Wind in the Willows as I was at six years old, and every time I read these special books I get something new from them.

2. They don’t take up too much space
Okay, so for us book lovers our collection of books might take up a lot of space, but a book as a gift would be welcome for those amongst us who are living with a lot of stuff. This is particularly true when buying gifts for children who have so many bulky toys which need to be kept somewhere. They’re also immensely portable, you don’t need a large bag to carry a book around with you and you don’t need any other kit to make them work.

3. Books last forever
Books can become heirlooms. A beautiful book will be treasured by its owner and passed down the generations. Historically this has always been the case with family Bibles, but there is no reason that a favourite work of fiction or biography couldn’t become a much loved and cherished family artefact. In fact, I have a leather bound copy of Jane Eyre that my mother used to study A Level English. I hope one day that I will pass it down to my daughters and that they will love the story as much as the previous generations of their family have.


4. They’re easy to wrap
Even the clumsiest of wrappers can manage to wrap up a book and make it look presentable, however few skills they generally have in that area! In fact, they’re such an easy shape that they might even be able to add a bow!


5. They don’t need charging
As wonderful as Kindles and iPads are, there is nothing more frustrating than sitting down with a cup of tea and the anticipation of a good long session of reading, only to find that your device has no charge! With traditional books there’s none of that fuss, all you need is a comfy chair, a mug of something delicious and a lamp on, in order to settle down to a little bit of magic.


We want to thank Laura for yet another great post and we hope to have her back on our blog in the future! (Psst, Laura, Youre welcome back anytime!)


Here at ETA we pride ourselves in publishing great quality reads, if you think a book would be a great gift for someone you know this Christmas (by the way, it would be a great gift) then you can shop some of our favourites by clicking on the picture down below or you can click here to shop our full range of books!

Hello ETA Blog readers,


My name is Amber and you might know me as the Book Reviewer Team Co-ordinator but my main role with ETA Publishing House is called an Editorial Assistant. 


Today I thought that it would be interesting for you to have an insight into my day, what I do and you can see the behind the scenes of certain parts of my role.


I want to start of by saying that Editorial Assistants get involved in all aspects of the Publishing World and all Editorial roles are a little different even here at ETA Publishing House. So what I do in my day could be completely different to what you do in your day, even if you are an Editorial Assistant too, but hey if it works it works!




Check emails


First of all I always check my emails to see what's going on today, if there are any changes needed or if someone needs a little help with something.
I speak to Bloggers and reviewers via email and I also communicate with colleagues too.




Go on Twitter


Then I head over to Twitter, we have a separate account on twitter for the ETA Book Review Club (@etabookclub) where reviewers can connect and we can also find book lovers looking to review books.


I follow back anyone who has followed us and I reply to any tweets or DM’s, I also send out at least 1 tweet a day about our books, becoming a reviewer or exciting announcements.




Update Instagram


Our Instagram (@etapublishing) is where I share short videos from our YouTube channel, book covers and relatable quotes and pictures.
We also use our instagram story quite a lot so keep an eye out on there…




YouTube 


We have a series on YouTube about our book club where I share my review on the book that month, I film myself talking about the book, if I enjoyed it and I give away spoiler alerts so if you haven't read the particular book yet don’t watch the video! 


I then edit the video I've just filmed using iMovie. I add our social media names on screen and leave the link to everything you’ll need in the description.


Fortunately uploading the videos doesn’t take that long because I keep the videos short and sweet.




Facebook and LinkedIn


I share every blog post, youtube video etc on FaceBook and LinkedIn too, so if you haven't got a twitter account you can follow us there, so you’ll never miss a thing.




Blog


I get to connect with Bloggers and throughout November and December we have a lot of exciting guest posts booked in, I arrange with the Bloggers the titles and what they’re about and we set a deadline for the post to be in.
A lot of months in advance go into planning these blog posts and we are really proud of them.
Once I receive the blog posts I then proofread them for any spelling mistakes and then send it over to my wonderful boss Cauline ( shoutout to you, Cauline ) and she proofreads them too.
Then we upload the post every Thursday but I usually write them up, edit if needed and add hyperlinks to everything a few days before.




Updating Databases and processing orders


I get to update any book databases with the current up to date book information and ISBN numbers (there is a lot of technical talk here so I won't go into it all) and I put orders of books through and send them to very important people!




Competitions

We have recently decided to run a monthly competition called Reviewer Of The Month, this competition is for our Book reviewers only so if you want to be in with a chance of featuring on our website, being named our ROTM and receiving a little prize then sign up here.
How ROTM works is we set a deadline for all book reviews to be in by, we then choose 3 of the top reviews with most detail and explanation in and we then pick our favourite one. (Sometimes the authors are going to help too, how exciting!)


And then I like to finish my day with a hot drink, preferably a hot chocolate and reading one of ETA’s brilliant books, you can find our books here.

Hi I'm Laura, I’m an English teacher from East London and married to Phil, who is a Geography teacher.
We have two daughters, Sadie who is two and Esther who was born in September 2016.
I’m often told that I’m funny, but don’t always mean to be.
My interests include reading, watching cult TV, eating seafood and messing around on the Internet.
​ I am not very interested in housework, cooking toddler-approved meals or CBeebies, but unfortunately seem to do more of those than of the pursuits that I actually enjoy. My favourite book of all time is the much-underrated Time for Bed by David Baddiel.
I blog here  and tweet here .

I got to interview Sue Whitaker about her books 'Remember Remember' and 'Dear Anyone'.

Q. What made you get into writing books? Was it something you had always wanted to do? 

A. " I think that I was so unhappy with my own life at the time, that I felt the need to escape, so I began creating the life of the main character of the book, living her life so that I didn’t feel my own personal pain. The book was rejected by the publisher, but it was good therapy for me. It was as if I had given my pain to someone else and by doing so I could create different ways of dealing with the pain. "

Q.  When did you write your first book and how old were you? What was the thing that got you started with the first book?

A. "I began writing in my late twenties for the reasons I have mentioned above."

Q. Both of these books utilise the first person voice. Why did you choose to write them in this way? What does it add to the story and what does it make harder as a writer?

A. "I find it easy to take on the role of a character, and when I am writing I become that person, so writing in the first person feels natural, as if I was writing my own diary. When I am writing I am terrible to live with as everything else takes second place, as the main character of the book takes over my way of thinking. It can be difficult to switch that person off and be myself, and I guess sometimes I lose my own identity."

Q. In Remember Remember Carla is disfigured after an incident involving fireworks.
She then has to overcome the stigma of disfiguration. What was your inspiration for such a hard hitting story?

A. "Around bonfire night, when the darkness is intermittently bombarded by invading sounds of exploding fireworks, I always feel uneasy. I worry about the safety of wildlife and hope that my grandchildren (if they are out) are safe and acting responsibly themselves. Alas, every year not everyone’s children and grandchildren are safe, and this should not be the case. Even though we are all supposed to know the firework code, in the midst of November 5th excitement, warnings can be forgotten. I wanted everyone to think, just for a minute, what would it be like if we were at the wrong end of someone’s excitement. What if being at the wrong end changed our life forever."

Q.  In Dear Anyone ​the story is told through letters. This must make it difficult to tell some elements of the story, how did you overcome this?

A. "They began writing their letters with no intention of ever meeting face to face, so the letters had to become the conversations that they would never have. They had to be frank, honest and full of hope."

Q. You include a lot of detail about the medical side of Carla’s disfigurement and of her encounters with medical professionals in Remember, Remember. How did you do your research?

A. "I trained as a nurse and I come from a medical family."

Q. In Remember, Remember Carla is lucky enough to experience kindness from an unexpected source, which ends up making a huge difference to her life. Is this something that you have experienced in your own life?

A. "I believe in the bonds that unite a family, and I am lucky enough to have a very supportive family of my own, but what I have never had is a friend who can give me a similar kind of support. Something I have wanted but never been able to achieve."

Q. In Dear Anyone, the character of Ava has been diagnosed with cancer, is this something that is close to your heart?

A. "Cancer is close to the hearts of many, and yes I have known my fair share of people who have suffered the ordeal, but sadly not anyone who has beaten the disease."

Q. In Dear Anyone Ava and her pen pal manage to create their own little universe where death isn’t constantly hanging over their heads like it is in real life, and we as the readers get to see that world. How did you, as a writer, make sure that we got to know the characters well enough that that was possible?

A. "I have always been bewildered by the fascination of women to write to men on death row, in fact I am one of those women and this is something that I am considering doing. However, I have always told myself that when I do write to someone I would try to help them leave their circumstances behind and starting with a blank canvas, create their life again, like a collage of everything they never had. I intentionally made both of their lives unbearably painful so that their fantasy world would become their therapy. I hope I got this across."

Q. What feedback have you had from readers about Remember, Remember and Dear Anyone? Did they have any questions about the characters or story?

A. "I have often been asked how can I write about matters so painfully tragic. I guess it’s because, like a lot of people, I have had a lot of pain in my life, so I have empathy and understanding for the pain of others."


We want to thank Laura and Sue for their questions and answers, which make a very interesting interview.
If you want to purchase Sue's books Remember Remember and Dear Anyone please click the links below.

Dear Anyone eBook
Dear Anyone Paperback


Remember Remember eBook
​Remember Remember Paperback







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