Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway! The final count was 719 people entered which was GREAT. I'm mailing them out now, and according to Amazon, the winners should get their books around September 28th.
Monday, September 7, 2015
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Giveaway on Goodreads
Woke up this morning to great news---28 people have already entered the giveaway for "Without Chase". Since this was my first giveaway for either book on Goodreads I didn't know how I was supposed to promote it. Then up until midnight last night, my giveaway was still "pending approval" so I didn't want to promote it just in case the giveaway wasn't approved at all, or approved in time.
Unless there was another reason I don't know about, the delay was probably my fault. Up until the last minute I was fighting with the CreateSpace bots who kept rejecting my book cover because there was white on the edge of the border covers. After hours trying to shrink, resize and who-knows-what-else, I just gave up and changed the border edge from white to black. Voila! The book is now available in paperback, and a day later, the giveaway was approved. If only half the other smart-ass things I've tried in life had solved my problems...
Anyway, the link to enter is on the left hand side of this page, or you can enter at Goodreads directly. A big thank you to everyone who entered, and good luck!!
Unless there was another reason I don't know about, the delay was probably my fault. Up until the last minute I was fighting with the CreateSpace bots who kept rejecting my book cover because there was white on the edge of the border covers. After hours trying to shrink, resize and who-knows-what-else, I just gave up and changed the border edge from white to black. Voila! The book is now available in paperback, and a day later, the giveaway was approved. If only half the other smart-ass things I've tried in life had solved my problems...
Anyway, the link to enter is on the left hand side of this page, or you can enter at Goodreads directly. A big thank you to everyone who entered, and good luck!!
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Things I learned from my book launch
Things I learned from doing a three day free promo on Amazon:
1. One day is long enough. I got most of my traffic the first day. By the second day downloads had dropped to less than half, and on the third day downloads were half of that.
2. Give yourself enough time to market your free days. The Author Marketing Club has a great list of sites that list free promos. Click for the Book Submission Tool. I listed my promo only on these sites, and got a good response---but after the promo started, and I began researching "how to promote your free days on Amazon" I found some other sites. By this time, it was too late, and I didn't even bother to write them down.
I didn't give myself enough time because: a) I was making editing corrections until the last minute and b) I thought I could rely on a contact list I had made from when I was promo'ing my first book. Unfortunately, most of those websites have shuttered, or started charging for listings. So, instead of the 15+ sites I listed with last time, I think I was able to list with just four this time.
3. Give yourself enough time to make sure you've proofed, edited and corrected. That was my big, big mistake last time, and fingers crossed, not something I did this time around. I didn't have enough money to hire a professional editor, so I put it through Word's spell AND grammar check (twice), and through an online grammar checking website (a google search for "online text editor software" should generate a list of sites to choose from). As always, you get what you pay for.
4. The numbers from 2012 are very different from 2015. With "Fame, Love and other Lessons", I reached as high as #1 in the Drama subcategory, but I had thousands of downloads. This time, my downloads were in the low hundreds, but I still reached as high as #4 in Sports Fiction. I forget where I read this, and I'm not even sure it's true, but I "heard" that as many as 4500 books are uploaded to Amazon everyday and that there are over six million books on the site right now.
5. Get your book categories straight! One thing I've read over and over again is how important categories are in selling your book. The key is to find the narrowest category (i.e., the one with the smallest number of books that you'll be competing with) to place your book under. I was able to do this pretty easily with "Without Chase". It IS a sports fiction book primarily and I'm glad I didn't have to compete in the Romance---Contemporary juggernaut. Judging from some of the other titles in the Sports Fiction list, though, it seems many other writers are following this category. And, judging strictly from the covers (which one should not do, I know!) there are a lot of writers who have accidentally/on purpose put their books in this much smaller list.
Finally...what hasn't changed is how all-consuming this process is. I told myself not to do it, but during the three days of the promo, I found myself checking the book stats and ranks...a lot. Like, obsessively checking. And I hated myself for it! But life went back to normal, "Fame," dropped off the best seller list like a rock off a cliff, and now I'm onto the next challenge...marketing "Chase" to the Top 100.
1. One day is long enough. I got most of my traffic the first day. By the second day downloads had dropped to less than half, and on the third day downloads were half of that.
2. Give yourself enough time to market your free days. The Author Marketing Club has a great list of sites that list free promos. Click for the Book Submission Tool. I listed my promo only on these sites, and got a good response---but after the promo started, and I began researching "how to promote your free days on Amazon" I found some other sites. By this time, it was too late, and I didn't even bother to write them down.
I didn't give myself enough time because: a) I was making editing corrections until the last minute and b) I thought I could rely on a contact list I had made from when I was promo'ing my first book. Unfortunately, most of those websites have shuttered, or started charging for listings. So, instead of the 15+ sites I listed with last time, I think I was able to list with just four this time.
3. Give yourself enough time to make sure you've proofed, edited and corrected. That was my big, big mistake last time, and fingers crossed, not something I did this time around. I didn't have enough money to hire a professional editor, so I put it through Word's spell AND grammar check (twice), and through an online grammar checking website (a google search for "online text editor software" should generate a list of sites to choose from). As always, you get what you pay for.
4. The numbers from 2012 are very different from 2015. With "Fame, Love and other Lessons", I reached as high as #1 in the Drama subcategory, but I had thousands of downloads. This time, my downloads were in the low hundreds, but I still reached as high as #4 in Sports Fiction. I forget where I read this, and I'm not even sure it's true, but I "heard" that as many as 4500 books are uploaded to Amazon everyday and that there are over six million books on the site right now.
5. Get your book categories straight! One thing I've read over and over again is how important categories are in selling your book. The key is to find the narrowest category (i.e., the one with the smallest number of books that you'll be competing with) to place your book under. I was able to do this pretty easily with "Without Chase". It IS a sports fiction book primarily and I'm glad I didn't have to compete in the Romance---Contemporary juggernaut. Judging from some of the other titles in the Sports Fiction list, though, it seems many other writers are following this category. And, judging strictly from the covers (which one should not do, I know!) there are a lot of writers who have accidentally/on purpose put their books in this much smaller list.
Finally...what hasn't changed is how all-consuming this process is. I told myself not to do it, but during the three days of the promo, I found myself checking the book stats and ranks...a lot. Like, obsessively checking. And I hated myself for it! But life went back to normal, "Fame," dropped off the best seller list like a rock off a cliff, and now I'm onto the next challenge...marketing "Chase" to the Top 100.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Book Launch
The sequel to "Fame, Love and other Lessons" is complete and ready to be uploaded to Amazon! I'm adding the exclamation mark not because I'm trying to "generate excitement", but because I feel like someone crossing a marathon finish line eight hours after the winners. I did it! Has it really been three years since the first book? Yes. Yes, it has. Anyway, it's called "Without Chase" and it will be available July 30th.
The truth is, I thought I was done with self-publishing. (I'm sure this is obvious considering how long it's been since I've even written anything on this blog.) I wrote the book, and it enjoyed a small amount of success, including a brief stint at #1 on the Amazon bestseller list for Sports Romances during my free promotion days. That turned into a #30 ranking on the paid list, which generated a very modest number of sales, and some nice reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
I was happy because after YEARS of wanting to be a writer, I could finally say that I was getting paid to write. I thought this validation would light the proverbial fire under me, and inspire me to finally get disciplined about writing everyday, etc. etc., but it almost had the opposite effect. Instead of being rejuvenated, I felt as if I had merely crossed something off my bucket list. Of course, if the book had been a huge success, and I didn't have to go back to my day job, maybe things would have been different. But writing, or more specifically promoting the book, felt like I had just taken on a second job that paid next to nothing. So I decided to forget about the sequel and spend my evenings watching Game of Thrones.
But the funny thing is, the book didn't die. With absolutely no promotion on my part, it's continued to generate sales every month. And I'm using the plural form of sales very generously---some months I would earn less than a dollar. But still...I'd occasionally check Amazon and read a review that someone had left. Even the lukewarm ones were encouraging because I'd think, how did they find the book after all this time? And, I'm glad someone is still out there reading the book. I'd pick up the book like a reader, and fall back in love with the characters I had created long ago. Then during a brief vacation last year, I worked on finishing what I had started from the NaNoWriMo (which, ironically was the last entry in this blog). I ended up re-writing it, but I liked the book a lot better this time, although I still couldn't finish it. Then, this summer, when I actually had a lot going on, I gave myself a goal of finishing the book. Mostly, I just wanted to let the readers know how everything turned out between Jamie and Chase, and that became my motivation.
So, it's here. I'm curious to see what happens next.
The truth is, I thought I was done with self-publishing. (I'm sure this is obvious considering how long it's been since I've even written anything on this blog.) I wrote the book, and it enjoyed a small amount of success, including a brief stint at #1 on the Amazon bestseller list for Sports Romances during my free promotion days. That turned into a #30 ranking on the paid list, which generated a very modest number of sales, and some nice reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
I was happy because after YEARS of wanting to be a writer, I could finally say that I was getting paid to write. I thought this validation would light the proverbial fire under me, and inspire me to finally get disciplined about writing everyday, etc. etc., but it almost had the opposite effect. Instead of being rejuvenated, I felt as if I had merely crossed something off my bucket list. Of course, if the book had been a huge success, and I didn't have to go back to my day job, maybe things would have been different. But writing, or more specifically promoting the book, felt like I had just taken on a second job that paid next to nothing. So I decided to forget about the sequel and spend my evenings watching Game of Thrones.
But the funny thing is, the book didn't die. With absolutely no promotion on my part, it's continued to generate sales every month. And I'm using the plural form of sales very generously---some months I would earn less than a dollar. But still...I'd occasionally check Amazon and read a review that someone had left. Even the lukewarm ones were encouraging because I'd think, how did they find the book after all this time? And, I'm glad someone is still out there reading the book. I'd pick up the book like a reader, and fall back in love with the characters I had created long ago. Then during a brief vacation last year, I worked on finishing what I had started from the NaNoWriMo (which, ironically was the last entry in this blog). I ended up re-writing it, but I liked the book a lot better this time, although I still couldn't finish it. Then, this summer, when I actually had a lot going on, I gave myself a goal of finishing the book. Mostly, I just wanted to let the readers know how everything turned out between Jamie and Chase, and that became my motivation.
So, it's here. I'm curious to see what happens next.
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