Tag Archives: #self-publishing

The magic of words.

We all know by now that I’m on this writing journey with my pre-teen daughter, and I can confirm to you all that it’s been one of the best things I’ve done in my life. My girl turns 13 this year, and we’ve just spent the summer together doing a variety of things (which, I’ll admit, includes a fair amount of time spent re-viewing Gilmore Girls on Netflix), but most importantly, we’ve sat together and finished our first draft of the second book in our American Dream series. It took us a year to get that done (those are the realities of working with a hormonal adolescent who would sometimes rather watch Barbie furniture building how-to videos on YouTube than read through a section of a manuscript again to get it just right), but last night, as we sat in her bed under the Christmas lights that she has draped around her room, we emailed the edited draft out to our beta-readers, and it felt AMAZING to say we’d completed this project.

And by “completed” I mean we’ve written it and taken turns reading the chapters out loud, making our changes and haggling over word choice and description (the final editing will be mine to do once we get feedback). But that’s the magic, really: the words. The ones we wrote together, the ones I listen to her read, and the ones we debate over. They’ve kept us working together, side-by-side, like glue. They’ve kept us from drifting into a land where she holes up alone in her room like a typical teen, keeping her words to herself or only sharing them with friends. Instead, she shares them with me. As we write, we talk about other “stuff”–boys, mean girls, fashion, music. I mean, we talk a lot anyway, but this gives us a safe place to make silly jokes and to apply the situations we write about to real life. This book we’ve just finished gives us the chance to talk about what mean girls are like in middle school in 2016, and lets us ponder what sort of messages we want each book to impart. (For the record, she talked it through as I listened, and we ultimately decided that this book is about believing in yourself and overcoming whatever obstacles or limitations life throws in your path.)

Writing also gave us something to talk about on our road trips this summer. We sat next to pools in Buffalo, Wyoming and talked about our next book: who will our main character be? Where should she be from? (Russia, we’ve decided.) What state will she move to in America? (While driving to an abandoned gold-mining town outside of Bozeman, Montana, we determined that she’d definitely be moving to a horse ranch in the “Treasure State”.) And as we power-walked through a pool in Spokane, Washington like a couple of middle-aged retirees on a water aerobics mission, we even got to daydream about a time when we had enough books published that we could go on an indie bookstore tour, setting up tables and autographing books for our rabid fans. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?)

I know there are a few more weeks of summer and I shouldn’t be mourning its end just yet, but teachers go back to work three weeks from today, so…the end is near. I have some final editing to do on my own book, and I’m hoping to have both of our books out in early September (it always takes longer than you think it will!) The covers are done, the drafts are written and in their final stages, and–as always–I’m eternally grateful for the magic of words.

Christmas Key Book 2 cover reveal…

I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only June 28 and school’s been out for exactly 11 days, because I already feel like I’m behind with my summer writing (not to mention my reading)! In those 11 days, we’ve already traveled through six states, seen a slew of national parks and historic monuments, and I’ve been up early every morning, sitting in the hotel breakfast rooms working on my revisions and writing. I’ve even gotten past the car sickness that goes with reading while I ride shotgun so that I can make progress while we’re on the road!

Right now my beta readers have a draft in their hands to read (as time allows–no pressure, guys!), and Holly and I are working on our second book as we travel. I have covers done for both books, and I thought now would be a good time to reveal the cover for Wild Tropics, the second book in my Christmas Key series. With editing and the work I still have to do, I’m aiming for an early August release date, and I hope that Holly and I will publish the second book in our co-authored series before the end of the summer as well.

Wild Tropics picks up where There’s Always a Catch left off. Christmas Key’s intrepid mayor, Holly Baxter, is hosting a reality show on the island, and not everyone is a fan of the idea. What could be a successful way of boosting the island’s visibility is fast becoming a point of contention. Cap Duncan made no bones about his objections during the summer village council meeting, and now he’s taking Holly to task by challenging her for her seat as mayor. But worst of all, the producers of the reality show have invited Jake to participate as a competitor, and they’ve got plans to manufacture a made-for-TV romance between Holly’s ex and a buxom glamazon named Bridget. Now, with River’s return to the island for a Christmas-time visit, Holly’s mother demanding her stake in the island be bought out, and Cap’s annoying campaign slogans, Holly’s patience is growing thin. Will the islanders survive life under the spotlight, or will secrets and bad feelings push everyone to the brink?

I’m stoked to get this out there and to keep writing and working on other projects. Happy summer!

Advertising: money spent, lessons learned.

I’m playing hooky from work today because otherwise I might not make it to the end of the year so that I can work on the first draft of my next book. It’s going to be 85 and sunny today, and I’m on the deck pecking away, but I thought it might be a decent time to recap my first foray into advertising. I’m sure I’ve spent way more than I should have based on my ROI so far, but some things you just can’t learn without trying, so here’s what I’ve done lately on my latest book:

For There’s Always a Catch: Christmas Key Book One, I’ve run the following promos:

  • A BKnights Fiverr ad for $21 (the basic is just $5, but I went with the upgrades to see how that would work out)
  • Another Fiverr ad where the person promised to advertise in something like 80+ Facebook groups for readers. This was $5 (which is the premise of Fiverr, if you’ve never used it. Someone does a job for you for five bucks.)
  • On the same day the Fiverrs ran, one of my best friends, first readers, and all-around favorite people (Jaime!) wrote a post about the book on Facebook. Last year when Holly and I put out Iris together, her FB post gave us the best day ever in terms of downloads, so clearly she has some pull with her friends when she suggests things!
    • TOTALS FOR THOSE DAYS: 18 paid downloads. Since I was running the book at 99 cents, my take-home on those 18 purchases was a whopping $5.50 (give or take.)
  • I ran an Amazon giveaway that cost me $3.21 where people could click for the chance to win one of three copies of the books. The only caveat was that they had to follow my Amazon author page (which means that if I put out an announcement at some point, I’ll have a “fan base” to actually speak to via Amazon).
    • TOTAL FOR THOSE DAYS: I ran the promo for 10 days and gained 244 Amazon followers. I also sold a few books at $2.99 in that window of time, so I probably made $8.00.
  • The book was available for free on Amazon for 2 days (with really no promotion–I just wanted to see what would happen if I made it free for a weekend).
    • TOTALS FOR THOSE DAYS: 267 downloads (but still no reviews from those downloads, which is pretty much what you’re hoping for when you give a book away for free…gotta get those reviews!) Money made those days: $0
  • Another promo I’ve read a lot about is the E.B. Brown Facebook group. That one cost me $15 and is scheduled for May 1st, so I’ll have to wait to see if there’s an uptick in downloads after that.

I’ve also tried a few free/low-cost things on Iris: The American Dream Series Book One and @Robertopancake, but nothing has panned out there that’s worth mentioning (though I did drop $25 for a BargainBooksy ad–which other authors swear by) and I got a total of 3 downloads, so…$6 in the bank. Definitely not a great investment, but worth trying.

So far, my big takeaway is that the little blips on your book sales page happen when your friends are kind enough to rave about and tell other people about your work. I have another friend from high school (Hi, Elaine!) who has done multiple posts about my book and was even kind enough to chat with me on the phone about There’s Always a Catch. That was really awesome. I loved hearing her excitement about the characters and what might happen next…and I even used one of her Facebook posts about the book as the photo for today’s blog. It feels really good to have people supporting my work (special “hi” to other friends and moms of friends who have bought, reviewed, and talked about it!) and it makes me want to keep going when I hear that other people are curious about the next book.

And to that end…I’m off to enjoy my work-free afternoon on the deck–I’ve got some writing to do!

So it’s out…and I’m jittery.

Somehow putting out a book that you write with your young daughter feels fun and not the least bit self-indulgent, but publishing something on your own is mildly terrifying. I just texted one of my BFFs to tell her my new book is out, and she said, “I’d be nervous too…not gonna lie!” But she also swears that it’s a good read, so I’m going to latch onto that as I gnaw the nails off of all ten fingers.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I started working on a book called “There’s Always a Catch” back in 2008 or 2009, and I loved everything about the characters and place so much (it’s set on a fictional island in the Florida Keys called “Christmas Key”) that I’ve taken it out and re-tooled it a number of times over the years. I finally got serious about it last year and re-wrote the whole thing so that it’s less of a standalone romance novel and more of a start to a women’s fiction series, then I sent it off to several people to read and give feedback. I ended up doing a mind-numbing five drafts over the next six months, and just finally finished editing last month.

I’m trying to keep myself busy by thinking more about promotion and advertising than I have in the past, and I’ll have plenty to say about all of that in my next post after I see the results of spending my spring break doing research and placing ads. For now, “There’s Always a Catch” is set at 99 cents on Amazon (it’s available only as an ebook, but you can easily read it on any device by downloading the Kindle app) so that it qualifies for some of the advertisements that I’ve chosen. I’m really hoping the bargain price will drive some sales so that I can (hopefully!) garner some of those golden reviews that all self-published authors live for.

If nothing else, I can honestly say that I’m really enjoying everything about the indie-author process after a full year of learning and working at it, and I’m excited for every new step of this writing adventure!

The hero’s journey.

We’ve started a movie unit in my English classes that’s based on the idea that the hero’s journey is at the heart of every good story. We’ve got the 7 steps of the journey committed to memory, we’ve watched Big Hero 6 and talked about its important messages, and we’ll soon be watching some of the greatest movies of the 80s (Breakfast Club; Ferris Bueller’s Day off; Stand By Me; Goonies) so that I can feel like I actually brought something of substance to these young people’s lives when they leave my class in June.

But now that we’ve turned the theory of the hero’s journey inside out, I’m left wondering how I’ve been missing something so big for so long: my current WIP needs a stronger, more defined hero’s journey. I mean, I like it, it’s okay, I love the setting, the characters are nice enough, but…duh. I’m on the fourth draft, and I just hit the spot where I realized that this is my main character’s “call to adventure,” and it’s not very much of a call at all. She sort of stumbles through this story without ever completing a discernible hero’s journey, and that has to happen. Whether we know it consciously or not, we don’t invest in a story where no one grows and changes. We aren’t interested in a main character who (however flawed) isn’t even the hero of her own life story. So even though I have the cover done and had hoped to publish this one by February 1st (which clearly did not happen), there’s still more work to do. Before I can call it a wrap, my main character needs to slay a dragon or two and return home with an elixir. Her romantic interests and the other people in her life need to clearly be allies or enemies, and there need to be more tests and obstacles.

It’s kind of frustrating when you realize how much more there is to do, but it’s also a relief to discover what’s missing. Bring on the 5th draft!

 

 

New Year’s writing resolution: tie up all loose ends.

  1. A 75,000 word (currently) 3rd draft of the story I’ve been working on about a fictional island in the Florida Keys. The cover has been commissioned, my first draft readers (thank you, Jaime and Lyndsey!) have given me solid feedback, and my goal is to have it re-read, edited, and self-published by January 31st. (*Note to self: in the future, decide whether past or present tense is more desirable during the first draft. Combing through the third draft and changing everything to present tense is painstaking and horrible.)
  2. Draft one of the “American Dream” book Holly and I have been working on since summer. We’re halfway done. We can do this. The cover is made, we know what’s supposed to happen, but our engines stall when she decides that she REALLY needs to play Barbies today instead of writing with Mom–just this ONE. TIME. (The mom in me says, “Let her enjoy the Barbie-playing; it won’t last much longer…”)
  3. 30,000 words of a romance novel that I started in 2009 about a television producer who works on a reality dating show called Trial by Fire. Every time I re-read it, I pick it back up and peck away a little bit more. I really like it, but for some reason it hasn’t written its own ending yet. Huh. Go figure.
  4. Arguably the manuscript I’ve done the most research for, a 40,000 word work-in-progress called Year of the Rabbit. Set in early 80s Miami Beach, a pregnant teenager moves in with her uncle and his boyfriend, who is a drug dealer. I love this one…it WILL be completed!
  5. Book 2 in my Florida Key series. Book 3 in the series Holly and I write together. Intense self-marketing and promotion. Complete understanding of self-publishing. Eventual world domination. Naturally.

I love the start of a new year: it’s filled with days, and weeks, and months–so many blank, unwritten days on the calendar! I just talked to my students today about the difference between goals and resolutions, so I do understand that most of the above actually fall under the category of “goals” (given how much life gets in the way as the year evaporates before my eyes), but I want so badly to make 2016 a year that I look back on as a turning-point with my writing.

Last year I spent a lot of time reading and figuring out the nuts and bolts of self-publishing, and I also put a lot of energy into networking and finding people to do the things I couldn’t do, so this year I feel like my energy needs to go into the actual writing and promoting. So do I get up at 5am to write before work, or do I teach my kid to make dinner and drive herself to swim practice at night so I can spend my evenings writing? Decisions, decisions…Happy New Year, everyone!

Why I chose to use a pen name.

I’ll be totally upfront about this: using a pen name, putting it on my books, and creating a Facebook page for this alter ego made me feel like I was going to end up on an episode of Catfish. But I weighed the pros and cons of it, and decided that keeping my works separate would benefit me in a lot of ways, plus–once I got used to it–it was actually kind of fun to be two different people.

The works I’ve published under my pen name so far are a book of short stories, and a YA novel written from the male point-of-view. I do feel like there’s an edge to them that isn’t there in the work I’m doing with Holly. Even the romance/contemporary fiction series that I’m working on aside from all of this stuff is pretty tame, so it felt right to me to really distinguish between work that I don’t mind being linked to my child in some way, and things that I don’t think she’s ready for yet. If it has words, themes, or ideas that aren’t appropriate for my 11-year-old to read, it goes under my pen name, which has its own Amazon page and Facebook page. That’s been my line in the sand so far, and I’m comfortable not stepping over it.

That said, if you’re interested in reading either of them, as always I’d be honored to have you do so, and I’d owe you a debt of gratitude if you’d leave a kind review on Amazon or Goodreads. Both books are only available on Amazon as ebooks, and both are free today, August 16th, until midnight. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download them using the Kindle app (which is free!), and you can read them on whatever device you prefer.

Tiny Tales: A Book of Short Stories is available here, and @Robertopancake, my first YA novel, is right here.

Hope everyone is enjoying these last weeks of summer!

Self-publishing: red-headed stepchild, or golden opportunity?

The idea of publishing work sans any sort of professional assistance is alternately thrilling and horrifying. I recently got deeply immersed in researching and learning more about the world of self-publishing, and without further ado, I found myself deep in a state of flow. For those not acquainted with this New-Agey, term, “flow” is defined as a state of productivity also known as zone. It’s the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. (I stole that definition from Wikipedia.) But it boils down to being so lost in something that you’re trying to understand or master, that time passes almost unnoticed.

I’ve written, queried, gotten rejections/requests for partials/final rejections over and over for the past 15 years, and have always looked at self-publishing as a last resort. But with the access we all have to the internet, ebook publishing tools, and platforms like this little blog I’ve got going here, we have the power to make our own destiny as authors. I’m fully aware that it takes more than just writing a solid book (oh, believe me, the things I’ve read in the past few weeks have made it crystal clear that luck, professionalism, talent, and hard work are all equal parts of this equation!), but with some self-awareness, patience, and gumption, the possibilities are endless. There are some great resources if you’re interested in finding out more about people who’ve done it successfully (J.A. Konrath’s blog; David Gaughran’s blog as well as his excellent book for newbies: Let’s Get Digital), and lots of opinion and how-to info from others who’ve gone the self-pub route themselves.

In an effort to understand how to turn a word processing doc into ebook material, I compiled four of my own short stories that I’m fond of, and then I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I commissioned a cover that I liked from goonwrite.com (I’m a sucker for tropical colors and flowers), and attempted to put together a mini-ebook. I did it this way first because A) I had no idea what I was doing and a short book seemed like a good way to figure it all out, and B) I was hoping that by the time Holly and I were ready to publish our story together, I’d actually have it all figured out. (I’m sure I won’t have it all figured out, but hey–a girl can dream. And I’m lightyears ahead of where I started.)

After a full day of caffeine, confusion, and confounded frustration, I got my first book of short stories up in the Kindle store. I messed around with a bit, had some people download it, and then realized that I don’t love having it linked to the author page that I have with my daughter. I think I learned enough from the experience to make paying for a cover worth it, but I want to get our first collaboration up there and available, so I really need to focus on that!