Posted on 28/08/2024 in Dorothy Says, Front Page
Are You A Natural-Born Profiler?
So how you doing? Hope things have been all right for you despite all that’s been going on. Cos it’s been a LOT hasn’t it? I’ve spent a lot of time trying to regroup, and I think I’m getting there. Hope you are, too.
Anyways, I asked you a question about whether you’re a natural-born profiler? Do you think you are? Well, I do. Truly. There’s a bit in Every Smile You Fake that says: ‘We’re all profilers, we can all work out people with minimal information. It takes a while to be able to verbalise a person’s personality within minutes of interacting or observing them. But we can all do it. We all do do it.’
The more I researched that part of Every Smile You Fake, the more fascinated I became about the area of psychology – mainly behavioural science – that covers profiling. I’ve always been interested in psychology, the human mind and how people interact with the world as well as themselves; and I think I told you before how I sometimes wonder if I should have pursued the psychology part of my degree instead of the media/journalism part? Creating Kez, a character who lives – partially – the life I could have was a wonderful chance to explore that path not taken. And it added to my love for her and the other characters.
You know I’m all about sharing the love and helping others, so OBVIOUSLY, I want to share the fascinating insights I got writing Every Smile You Fake with a book event where you can learn to tap into your natural profiling skills and start to use them to understand and profile the people in your life.
That’s right, on Tuesday 3 September 2024 (next week) at 7pm, I’ll be joined online by profiler, therapist, behavioural analyst and crime novelist, Lesley McEvoy to reveal the psychology behind the book AND teach you how you can tap into and use those natural profiling skills you have.
Lesley was one of the many experts I spoke to when researching Every Smile You Fake, and she’s so good at teaching with humour, I know we’re going to have so much fun.
You can get tickets for this Learn To Be A Profiler event via Berts Books website: Learn To Be A Profiler The ticket pricing:
Event ticket & Book Bundle – £9.99 (Includes: a ticket to the event, a paperback copy of Every Smile You Fake and p&p worth in total £15.98)
Event only ticket – £2.99 (includes ticket to the event)
Do come if you can, it’ll be soooo good.
My hope for this book. . .
So, you probably know by now that in two days (Thursday, 29 August), Every Smile You Fake is out in paperback. It’s been a bit of a journey writing this book, so I hope you don’t mind me sharing my hopes for the book with you.
My hope is that it becomes the most talked-about novel on your shelf – virtual, audio and real life. Why? Because every day I turn on the TV or log onto the interweb and see one of the themes explored in the book playing out in the real world. Every day I see the things I wrote about happening in my immediate reality and I want everyone to talk about it. I want us to be aware of how the online world can absolutely effect and influence our real life experiences, even if we’re barely online.
Someone I spoke to over the weekend said she’d given a copy of Every Smile You Fake to a friend to explain to her friend why she should be cautious about documenting every moment of her child’s life on social media.
A person who messaged me after reading the book said: ‘I just finished reading Every Smile You Fake . . . It’s so terrifying to think that characters like [redacted to avoid spoilers] exist and can have that much influence over people, yet I do know they exist. I teach children in foster care and have had to do a lot of work recently with a young man where we’ve had many discussions about the real-life version of [redacted to avoid spoilers] (who I imagine you’ve based this character on) and how my young man is influenced by what he is saying. Like I said, it’s terrifying. . . Thank you for bringing these very current, relevant issues/situations to your story.’
And as a reviewer on Amazon wrote: ‘Aside from being a gripping read this was an intriguing look at the psychology behind some of the online figures pushing their misogynistic views. It showed how young men can be radicalised, even if they have never previously shown any leanings in this way, and how important it is to keep conversations open, particularly with the young people in our lives and keep an eye on what content they are consuming online.’
Like I say, I want us to talk about these things, I want you to think of Every Smile You Fake as your gateway into exploring how sharenting, online influencers and pressured family lives are being shaped in the modern world. These are important conversations we need to have and I want you to find where to start those chats via my novel.
Really hope to see you at the event next Tuesday, it’s going to be so much fun and I would LOVE for you to be a part of it.
If you can’t make the event, but want to pre-order Every Smile You Fake, you can do so here with this Link To Your Preferred Retailer or Berts Books or Amazon.
Hope all is good with you.
Dorothy x
