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A Reason to Live featured on www.emysterybargains.com!

Posted on April 1, 2013

emsyteryHey Folks –

If you’re over my April Fool’s scare, why don’t you head on over to www.emysterybargains.com. It’s the brainchild of frequent visitor to this blog, managing editor of Cemetery Dance magazine, and fellow writer Brian Freeman.

He’s got both a Mystery and a Horror blog that features one awesomely-priced book each day. The site has featured the novels of such notables as James Patteson, Dean Koontz, and Jeffery Deaver, all of them low-priced for a short time or, like mine, less than than the price of a grande skim latte at Starbucks.

There’s no cost to you; Brian makes a little bit of change of each sale by way of the Amazon Affiliate program. Give it a gander if you’ve got a second: www.emysterybargains.com

Posted in: My Books & Titles | Tagged: A Reason to Live, bargain, books, Brian Freeman, Cemetery Dance, cheap, emysterybargains, free, horror, literature, mystery, novels

Which Ducks? The Author’s Promotional Toolbox: Part II

Posted on January 27, 2012

(This blog post is the second in a two-part series. Read Part I here!)

In the first part of this post, I discussed the important of having blurbs or varying lengths for your book and a set of cover images ready for any occasion. You might also find the following handy to have around when you’re neck deep in promoting your newest title.

You
Almost every online opportunity to display a book also includes a chance to show off the author. Don’t miss this chance to sell yourself!

  • Short bio
    I haven’t seen any particular requirements here, but think of it like your book: having a one-sentence description of yourself as a writer can never hurt. If you come up against a “describe yourself in twenty words or less” request on a site, you’ll be ready. Bits like this can be useful for Tweets and Facebook posts, as well.
  • A medium bio
    This is handy for the Amazon “About the Author” section. Mine is 99 words long, is chunked into two paragraphs for easy reading, and mentions two of my novels (though both are currently unpublished. I would recommend having a “generic” bio that doesn’t assume your book title(s) are nearby, as mine are in my Amazon bio). You’ll find you’ll need this description for author bio sections on Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Librarything, ScribD, and many more sites.
  • A long bio
    Your medium bio will probably be your workhorse. However, I’ve seen interesting one-two punches on authors’ personal sites where they have both a short and long form. The more interesting the author, the more likely–and useful–a long bio might be. Use your best judgment: if you write spy novels and have twenty years of experience as a CIA operative, you can get away with 400 words on yourself. But probably not if you write cookbooks.
  • Awards and  testimonials
    Have your testimonials and award nominations ready. Check spelling, dates, and facts. If you are lucky enough to have multiple awards or testimonials, arrange them according to impact or length; you may not have the luxury of using them all.

Your Records
This is a little nerdy, but I have a .txt file of all the URLs that matter to my career or to my books. There are many occasions when you may want to include in an email or blog post not just the URLs where readers can buy your books but also your Goodreads profile, a positive reader review, or a place readers can review/rate your book directly.

Here’s an excerpt:

AMAZON/KINDLE
[Author page]        http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00642SZQO
[Three Shorts]       http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062OM416
[Hard Way]           http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062OMHD6
[Match]              http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062OMGBY
[Kind]               http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062OMW9A

The primary objectives here are convenience and accuracy: you don’t want to have to Google your own Amazon page or try to type these things from memory with the chance that you’ll screw it up and send valuable readers to a “404 Not Found”.

(Again, I use a text file to avoid unnecessary errors; since you’ll often be using this text file to copy and paste links into websites, don’t take a chance that hidden word processor formatting will mess up your links.)

(Also, make sure you keep the “http://” in the URL.: many sites do not add it for you, with the result that if you copy and paste just the “www.” part of the URL into an input box, for instance, it will error.)

Your Sites
As a former IT professional, I can tell you that this next piece of advice is normally a security no-no: keeping your usernames and passwords written out. But let’s face it: you’re going to have a half-dozen or more (maybe many more) accounts related to your writing career and its promotion that have nothing to do with your “regular” online life.

I didn’t have any of these accounts before I started epublishing:

  • WordPress
  • Web host and (separate) email address
  • Amazon KDP/Author Central/Amazon Affiliate
  • Smashwords
  • B&N
  • Wattpad
  • Scribd
  • Goodreads
  • Librarything
  • Twitter (separate from personal)
  • MeetUp
  • Bit.ly
  • Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Kindleboards
  • MailChimp/Constant Contact/TinyLetter (mail programs)
  • A half-dozen writer-centric accounts that existed before the epublishing jazz began (Sisters In Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Virginia Writers Club, etc.)

Many of them can use the same user/password combo, but others have different requirements. With this kind of madness, I ignore my inner IT Manager and keep accounts listed in a document* on a secure site with one strongpassword (a capital letter, a number, a symbol, and a minimum of eight characters,). As a backup, the passwords in the document are also just strong hints for myself, not fully written out.

This saves me immense time when I’m trying to do promotion: I don’t want to waste time and energy trying to find or remember my Twitter, Facebook, and website password to promote a simple blog post.

 *I treat sites that deal with my financials [Amazon KDP, where you have payment info] differently. I do not list these in the master document I describe above.

Your Results
This section is entirely up to you, but I find it handy to have a spreadsheet of any part of the promotion process that is iterative. For instance, I have a spreadsheet of all the book bloggers/reviewers I’ve discovered and keep running tabs on: Name, Date Contacted, Date Submitted, Queue (i.e., wait time), email, blog URL, Affiliations (do they blog for a group or just themselves), and Notes.

For my blog posts, I keep a running tally of the Title, Date Posted, and whether it was a Guest Blogpost or not. You get the picture. Anything you might likely lose track of is often best kept in a worksheet.

Summary
With promotion being a large chunk (some might say the larger chunk) of an epublished author’s job, keeping well-written, carefully constructed information about yourself and your books accurate, up-to-date, and accessible saves time…time better spent writing the next book.

Posted in: Tips for eAuthors | Tagged: author, ebook, electronic distribution channels, Kindle, librarything, novel, novels, promotion, publication, publishing

Tell…Don’t Show

Posted on January 15, 2012

Lately I’ve been finding myself sighing, flipping pages, and thinking about my fantasy hockey team while I read the latest New York Times zillion-copy seller. I’ve turned into a serial-skimmer, looking for the telltale short paragraphs and action buzz words that tell me there’s something worth reading amidst the reams of fluff.

Now, after the fifth or sixth unsatisfying read, I think I’ve figure out what’s striking an off-note to me in these novels. The investigation took a while, because it’s counter to everything I’ve learned as a writer.

These writers are showing, not telling. And I really wish they’d stop.

[Read more…]

Posted in: Excellence in Writing | Tagged: cherryh, craft, novels, plot, roerden, thriller, writing

You Speaka My Language?

Posted on January 12, 2012

I was in a store the other day, trying to spend a gift certificate I received from my mother over the holidays. After twenty minutes of picking things out, I was told at the register that the gift certificate wouldn’t work at this store.

I looked at the logo on the little card. It matched the one above the counter. “Why not?” I asked.

What followed was one of the stranger conversations I’ve had recently.

The woman behind the counter was trying to tell me that they were a) a franchise, and b) as such, they weren’t hooked into the Master System at National HQ, so they, c) wouldn’t be able to redeem my gift certificate.

I, in turn, tried to communicate that a) in this age of instant communications it was incredibly stupid they weren’t connected to the people that had my mother’s money, b) referring to the previous point, could she maybe talk to someone up the food chain into changing that policy? And, c) I probably wouldn’t be shopping there until they did.

This discussion ate up ten minutes of my life better spent doing anything else, like cleaning the litter box. Very little was accomplished. The cashier acted as if I wasn’t speaking English. She had one of those beaded tethers around her neck for her glasses and would take them on and off as she tried to make her point, as if lecturing a particularly dense freshman class. My own sentences became clipped and terse as I realized I wasn’t going to get one iota of satisfaction out of the encounter, but unable to help myself from digging in further.

Neither one of us actually communicated more than a fraction of what we wanted to say. I left the store, growling and grumpy. Eventually, however, I got to thinking about my writing.

How is it, I wondered, that I hoped to reach anyone with words when I couldn’t even get my point across to someone in person? Face to face, I had multiple chances to make myself clearer, hear the counterpoint, and respond…but I’d failed. What was going to happen when I had one make-or-break shot at a reader–a blog post, a short story, a novel–and missed?

After walking the streets of Old Town Alexandria for a while, trying to make sense of things, I came up with a two-fold answer: write the best story you can to not give the reader a chance to hate it and…you’re simply not going to please everyone all the time. The old saying might be trite, but it still holds. Some people are going to love your writing, some people aren’t going to like it, some people (maybe a lot of people) aren’t even going to get it. That’s life and the sooner you deal with it, the sooner you’ll enjoy what you’re doing.

Then again, some cashiers just suck.

Posted in: Excellence in Writing | Tagged: communication, novels, story, writing

The Point of Defection

Posted on January 6, 2012

I was at a New Year’s party, talking to one of the guests about favorite books. He mentioned some comics, I mentioned some mysteries. The conversation turned to ongoing storylines: what we liked and why.

“What series do you like?” he asked. “Like, a character that you really can’t wait to read again to see what they’re up to?”

I hemmed and hawed, and eventually chose Robert Parker’s Spenser character. “But only the first seven books or so,” I amended.

I went on to explain that, while I loved the character and the first half-dozen novels, Parker’s writing became so formulaic (to me) after a certain point that I read the rest of the 40-odd novels in the series only out of a sense of loyalty. Subsequent books had all the excitement of tucking into a favorite Sunday dinner: it was familiar, and comforting, but I wasn’t ever going to be wowed by it. And, far from being protective of the characters and plots, I would’ve welcomed a radical change (in the same way I could use a different side-dish on the table…or, hell, ordered Chinese).

My friend said he’d experienced the same thing with comics, but that–with few exceptions–he always kept coming back to his favorites. I agreed; I’ll never stop loving those first seminal Spenser stories, even though the vast majority of them are cookie-cutter renditions of those first few great ones.

“Why is that?” he asked. “What makes us stick with these series–or even a single book–if whole parts of them stink?”

So, right there on the spot, we cobbled together a pretentious academic theory: The Point of Defection. It goes like this:

At some point, a writer will interest a new reader in their story. The tale can be of any length: if it’s a series, maybe Book One does it. In a single novel, a particular plot line. In a short story, it might be the first sentence.

If the writer is skilled and careful, as the reader moves along he or she will become so invested in the ongoing life of the character/plot/world that they pass The Point of Defection. They’re hooked, and after this moment whole lines, chapters, and even books can be a disappointment and it won’t matter: the reader will stick with the author through thick and thin (i.e., won’t defect). Can you imagine any fan of The Game of Thrones not buying the next book just because they didn’t like A Feast for Crows…even though it’s one-fourth of the entire series to date? Or a Sue Grafton follower not buying the Z is for Zebra (or whatever the next Kinsey Millhone mystery is) because G though M didn’t tickle their fancy?

(Of course, it certainly helps the overall “health” of a series if the writer raises his game again: as many movie-goers know, “Sequel-itis” stings a lot less if Number Three delivers.)

After we were done admiring ourselves for codifying and naming this common-sense principle, I suggested an addendum: the more legs a story has to stand on, the less likely the defection. In comics and related short story collections, there are enough “legs” (mini Points of Defection?) that a reader is free to take or leave a number of them without defecting.

The original Conan series, for instance, are all collections of stories; Robert E. Howard never wrote a Conan novel. Same with Fritz Leiber’s immortal Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series; there is only one novella and one novel; the rest are short stories. Comics and graphic novels, the same: they often rely on an underlying premise to carry the life-story of the protagonist forward, but individual adventures can be dismissed or embraced without requiring the reader to “drop” the whole series.

My love of the Spenser novels can be seen in this light: I could only tolerate 30 mediocre novels if I’d already loved seven of them (a ratio of 1:6). Give me one great book and six stinkers and I’d probably walk away from the series (and maybe the author).

Reverse engineering a series’ success this way doesn’t really tell us much as writers, since the lesson seems to be: write a good story, hook your readers, and let yourself skate when they’ve passed the Point of Defection. Theproblem is, since you don’t know when that ‘Point is, you could end up really screwing yourself.

So, you’re left with something you already knew: just write a good story. Keep doing that and you’ll never have to worry about where your Point of Defection is.

Posted in: Excellence in Writing | Tagged: comics, crime fiction, graphic novels, novel, novels, plot, Spenser, story, writing
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