Sunday, November 30, 2014

Seduction is Available for Pre-Order

Quick post today -- THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE is available at these three e-tailers for pre-order. Coming soon to itunes, Kobo, and everyone else. It will be published on December 24, 2014.

Amazon 

Nook

Smashwords

The last book in the Reluctant Grooms Series.

American shipbuilder, Stephen Summerville has a bit of a dilemma when he meets two very beautiful English sisters. However, when Stephen is confronted with the aristocratic father he never knew, deciding on a wife seems like a small task in comparison to what he must decide for his future.


Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Writing a Series -- Marketing/Publishing Part 3



Today we're going to discuss all the ways we can market our book. To recap from my previous posts -- We have our books ready to publish, we have our covers, our cover copy, we have our future first chapters in the backs of the books. We have a blog or FB site on which we post regularly. We have some followers. We are ready to click that tab that says "publish".

No matter if you're self-publishing or with a traditional or small press publisher, you have to do your own marketing. Where do we start? With our social media sites. Social media means being social -- it's where you INTERACT with people.

Phase One -- Social Media Sites

Blog 

If you've been blogging regularly, your followers will know what you're working on, and if you have set up the email app in the side bar for fans to follow you with email in their inbox, they'll know too. I love that email box. It's so much better than a newsletter. Why pay for something, or build something, when it's built in for you. 

Also, buy links are important. I have them on my sidebar, but one fan wrote me a few months ago and told me I should have them on every single blog post I write. (Honestly, I haven't had time to set up a perma-link but I will.)

Announce the big day on your blog. If you have a few blog friends, ask them if you can guest post, or if they will help you announce it. Like a blog tour but a mini-version. Perhaps one a week for six weeks. You don't want to overwhelm people with much more than that, and assuredly, if they see your book every day for six weeks, they'll tune it out. 

Some people ask for review requests on their blog or FB pages about a month before publication. I've done that, and have not met with success. Of course, I write Regency romance, and it's a niche market, so my pool of reviewers is very low to begin with. However, a few reviews to start never hurts.

Twitter

I only announce new publications once or twice on Twitter. I don't do a massive scheduling of Tweets. (I tried it twice and my sales actually went DOWN. So I don't do that anymore.) I Tweet that it's out, and post a picture of the cover. I also say where it's published. If I'm everywhere, I say "across the board", if I'm only at Amazon or B&N I'll say that and have a buy link. Sometimes my friends take it from there and ReTweet for me and that's always helpful, but I don't expect it and don't ask for it. And then I'm done.

Face Book

I know nothing about FB, I'm not on it and have no care to be, so you're pretty much on your own there. I'll say, post once with the cover and cover copy and call it good.

Google +

I'm on this site, but don't use it very often. It's tied into the blogspot blog, so it's just an easy click away, but to me it's redundant. If you have followers on your blog, they've already seen it. If you have the same followers on Google +, they'll see it twice. If you have a Word Press blog, it might be to your advantage to utilize this option.

Phase Two -- Stagnant Media Sites

Pinterest

I love this because it's visual. If you go to my Pinterest page, I have the cover picture, the cover copy, and then pictures of who I think my characters are. You can utilize this any way you want, which is great. (Just remember to post the original link where you found the pic.)

LinkedIn

I consider this a stagnant site because I don't go there very often, only to update my content. However, I know some people who use it like Blog/FaceBook/Twitter combined. (Honestly, I don't have time to mess around with it.) I'm there if you want to find me.

GoodReads

This is another site that could go either way. I have all my books listed there, but I don't socialize. I've heard too many horror stories about trolls and bad reviews and author meltdowns. I don't have time for drama so basically stay away from there. However, if you're also doing paperback versions of your book, this is a great place to to do a give-away. They also have "Ask the Author", where a reader poses a question, and you, as author get to answer it. I have never utilized this, but I think it could be a great marketing tool.

Tumblr/MySpace/Shelfari/Wattpad/Scribd/Whatever else is out there

I have no idea how many sites you're on, but whether they're stagnant or social, you should try to update them when you have new books out.

Phase Three -- Links

Blog Links

Now, some people I know have linked their blogs to all of these sites so whenever you go to any of them, you see the post. I used to do this, but again, to me it's kind of redundant. If they've clicked the email link on your blog, they've already seen your post. And again, some readers are just that, readers. They don't care what you're doing as long as you're writing the next book. Other readers are fans who are mildly curious and will only check out where you are once. And then there are those fans who want to know everything you're doing. 

Buy Links 

I have them listed on my sidebar on my blog. (I'm missing a few and will rectify this shortly.) I also keep them handy for Twitter and I use Bit.ly for that, a shortening link service. (Why waste 140 characters when you can get it down to 20) There are others out there but I can't think of them right this second.

Back Matter

Back matter is the stuff you find at the end of the book. Generally a short author profile, where you can find the author (what social media they use), and a list of their other books. Some authors have their other titles hyper-linked to buy. However, you need to have separate back matter pages for each of the publishers you use. Amazon won't take kindly if you have links to B&N or itunes. Smashwords won't allow it at all. You can't cross-pollinate as it were.

And this now brings us to WHERE we are going to publish.

Phase Four -- Publishers

Amazon

Quite honestly, I think Amazon's hey-day is over. I'm sure you can read other author's opinions on this, but my opinion is that they set up their empire to turn traditional publishing on its ear by giving self-published authors a place to be read. The Kindle was new, and needed authors and Amazon built their billions on self-publishing. They gave us the world (great royalties, great algorithms, great author ranking) but then once they made their money, they turned to traditional publishers and gave them those same opportunities and pushed us indies out.

I told you that to tell you this -- Some authors swear by Amazon and won't use another publishing aggregate (Nook, Kobo, Smashwords, BookBaby, Google Play), but in my opinion, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. We're writers first, wanting to get our books read. Why limit your audience? There are English speaking people all over the world who have access to different types of e-reading devices. Don't limit yourself. (And just so you know, Amazon's terms of service to some of their countries don't allow easy access to our books. I have never sold one book in Japan, Brazil, Mexico, or India. Very few in Canada, Australia, Spain, and Italy. And only a handful in Germany and France.)

Their interface is very easy to use, and you can upload a Word document, or a mobi. version. (For a mobi. version you need the Mobipocket Creator which you need to download to your computer.)
Royalty rates are 30/70%  30% for anything under $2.99 and over $9.99 70% for anything between $2.99 and $9.99 I have never used their Countdown or their Kindle Unlimited services so I can't tell you anything about that. They also have special requirements for some of their stores (India Japan Mexico Brazil) Read the fine print.

Amazon will also link your blog posts to your Author Page. And if you don't have an Author Page, set one up.

Nook

Barnes & Noble is the publishing company. Nook is the e-publishing arm of that company. You can only upload an epub version, which gets tricky, but I use Calibre which converts a prc.doc (which is what you have after you use the Mobi Creator). Now, with the latest version of Calibre, you can also make other versions of your book for other aggregators. PDF, LTF, Mobi, Epub, Plain Text, etc. etc.
Royalty rates are 40/60 same price points as above. They only cater to US and Great Britain.

Smashwords

I love Smashwords. It's the easiest way to get your books to everywhere all at once. Nook, Amazon, itunes, Kobo, Scribd, txtr, Blio (for libraries), and a few others I can't recall. This is also the easiest one of them all to use. Upload your Word document and you're done. Smashwords will convert it to every single e-book file you need. The book companies they have are global.
Royalty rates are 60% across the board. 

Smashwords has a Profile Page which allows you to create your own interview. Questions are interchangeable, and you can make up your own if you like. You can update it any time.

itunes

You need a Mac to publish with them. I know nothing else about it. I use Smashwords.

Bookbaby

I also know nothing about them. I believe they have the same stores as Smashwords plus or minus one or two.

Kobo

I am set up to use Kobo, but I don't because they only pay out every six months with $100 balance (Which they may have changed. I don't know for sure.) I use Smashwords for them as well

Google Play

I just recently decided to publish with them, but I'm jumping through hoops to get it done. Set-up is tricky, conversion for epubs is decidedly difficult, and their interface is kind of a nightmare. Which is why, I believe, no one but traditional publishers are publishing there. However, I never say die, and if I actually get a book published with them I'll let you know what I did.


Phase Five -- Keywords

Keywords are the words that you plug in on the interface when uploading your book so people can find it when they search. Some of my main keywords are "traditional Regency romance, Jane Austen, clean regency romance, historical romance". Each of my books has other keywords that are specific to that particular book -- pirates, espionage, divorce, etc. 

Some authors twist themselves into knots trying to write cover copy that also has their specific keywords in it. I don't do that. Probably because I'm overwhelmed with all the stuff I need to do to begin with. But more power to you if you can. I hear it helps in SEO. (Search Engine Optimization.)

You also want to get keywords onto your document file as well. (Notice I said onto and not into) When you open your Word document, click File and then Properties, which has a place for keywords (among other things). When using Calibre, you can also add keywords to their property page as well. I'm finding this is very important.

******

Now, I've given you the basics, the rest is up to you. I'm sure if you wanted to do a search for any of the topics I've talked about you can find hundreds of other blogs and website postings to help you along your way. As we say now, " Just Google It ". That's how I found all of my information. 

Writing a book is hard work. That's no lie. There's nothing easy about it. Publishing and Marketing is even harder. My only advice is just write the best book you can. Find a couple critique partners and maybe beta readers, and allow them to help you make it even better. Take baby steps when you dive in. Once you do it a couple of times, it gets easier. And utilize your blog friends, your Twitter peeps, and FaceBook followers if you need some help. That's what's nice about social media -- it's like a giant cocktail party and you never know who you're going to meet.

And I think we're done. Questions and comments are always welcome. Thanks for sticking around.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Writing a Series -- Marketing/Publishing Part 2

This post is more about Marketing and Branding than it is about Publishing, but they all tie in together. However, to clarify
Publishing is what you do with a manuscript so readers can READ it.
Marketing is what you do with a published manuscript so readers can FIND it.
Branding is what you do with your name so readers can find YOU.

Publishing

We've already decided we're going to write 5 books in our series and one novella. We're going to publish 5 books at $setprice, and the novella is going to be our loss leader set at free. We have the first three books written, working on #4, and have the outline done for #5. Because we've gotten the writing thing down, we know it takes approximately 6 months to write** a book. We're going to use my 6 week timeline as the publishing model for the first 3 books, which gives us approximately 5 months to finish book 4 and begin book 5. We're well on our way to the big time. Yay.

Now what do we do? We sit down, take a deep breath, grab a pen and paper, and decide on our marketing campaign.

(**I say write a book, when what I really mean, is write the first draft, revise, rewrite, send out to critique partners/beta readers, implement their feedback, revise, rewrite again, another round of critiques, and polish, polish, polish, and finally call it good.

Again, some writers write a crappy first draft, then revise the whole thing. Others write a crappy first draft and revise and edit as they go along (I do this) so that when the book is finished, the first draft is actually the tenth or so. It makes for easier reading for the critique partner. But everyone has a different way of doing things and none of them are "wrong".)

Branding

I want to dip into this first before Marketing. You can't really market a book to people if no one knows who you are. (And if you wanted to try to acquire an agent, this is a good place to start.)

Back in the good old days (about 5 years ago) when I first started blogging, I was told that you needed to have 1000 followers on any given social media site for you to be taken seriously by agents, other authors, publishing houses. Bloggers were having blog hops every other day, it was like a giant networking party. You would participate in the blog hop, follow every blog in it, and hope that people followed you back so that when/if an agent stopped by your blog they would see you had XX amount of followers. It didn't matter if you interacted with them, only that you had them. Same went for Twitter and FaceBook.

I never subscribed to that notion. I started my blog as a way to connect with other writers. I didn't care how many followers I had. As long as someone commented I was happy. (Because the more followers you have, the more you feel the need to comment in return. Blog commenting can suck up a whole afternoon of writing if you're not careful. Which is why I only blog and comment one day a week.)

Some writers don't blog. Some writers don't Tweet. Some writers don't FaceBook. Some do all three and more. My advice is to pick ONE social media site where you feel most comfortable and make that your home base.

I blog so we'll use that as an example. On my Piedmont Writer blog, I blog about my writing experiences, trials and tribulations in the publishing world, and sometimes my personal life (but very rarely). Nobody likes a Debbie Downer, so I try to stay upbeat. I don't harp on bad reviews, I don't get into controversial subjects, or join crusades (like the Amazon - Hatchette thing). If I have nothing to say, I don't blog. But that's just me. You can blog about whatever you like.

Here on my Anne Gallagher blog, I discuss my books, my research, my characters, whatever I feel is important to my subject matter which is Regency romance. It's not as grand as some other blogs I've run across, but I'm not going for grand. I'm going for what I feel is comfortable enough for me.

I'm going with the assumption that we've all been been on social media for awhile now, but if you're new to the writing game, you may ask "How do I find other bloggers?" Here's how I did it. See the little box on my sidebar that has all my followers on it. Click on the first picture. It will take you to that person's blog. If you like what you see, click Follow on their little box. Hopefully, they'll follow you back. You can do this as many times as you like. And once you get their blog into your feeder, then you comment. Hopefully, if they've followed you back, they'll comment on yours. Blog hops are also another great way to get readers.

Because that is what this is all about. You're a writer first. All writers want to be read.

(Anne R. Allen wrote a fantastic post all about blogging. You really need to follow her anyway.)

So, back to branding. We have our blog. Our topics mainly concern our books that we're writing, our research, and in the case of Susie and Bob, romance. When I first started writing, I didn't have a tagline. I do now -- Timeless Romance... Modern Day Dilemmas. All my books have subject matter that concerns 20th century women/men even though it's set in the Regency period. People are people no matter what era they're from. Emotions are basically the same. Love Hate Jealousy Pride Prejudice etc.

A friend of mine's tagline is Crime Fiction with a Kiss. (I love that.) It pretty much tells everything you need to know right there about her books.

If you've been around awhile, you probably have one already. If you've written stand alone novels before, but nothing ever tied in to a series, you might want to think about one now. Then again if you're widely read, you probably don't need one. Some authors swear by them, some don't bother. It's up to you.

One other point I'd like to make about blogging is that when you set yours up, use your author name, not a subject matter like MyBunnyBlog. Or RamblingsofaMusingWriter. You want the search engines to find you. Hence, AnneGallagherWriter. (And the reason I am Writer instead of just plain Anne Gallagher is that there are several other Anne Gallagher authors who have blogs with their name. Writer distinguishes me from them.)

Also, when blogging, make sure you label your posts. This also aids in Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO is very important to the branding process. On almost every post I write, I label it Anne Gallagher, Regency Romance, Reluctant Grooms Series. The bots pick this up, and when someone enters Anne Gallagher into a search engine, my blog posts, my books, my author pages at Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads, Barnes&Noble, and sometimes LinkedIn pop up. For the first couple of months after I published, the Anne Gallagher who writes about Human Trafficking used to be there as well, but she's not anymore. There's also a chef in Chicago, and another Anne Gallagher who's a voice over artist. But if you're looking for me, there I am, usually taking up the entire first page of the search. THIS is what you want. You want to be on the first page, not page 27.

One other fine point, is that whatever you decide to do for your main social media site is to stick with your schedule. If you blog on Monday, stick to it. If you FaceBook on Sunday, stick to it. That way, if someone looks for you on Tuesday, they know you've already posted. But if you're willy-nilly about it -- "Oh, this is kind of neat, I'll think I'll post on Thursday night" people might not be aware of it and miss it.

To recap our Branding -- We have our main social media site we post regularly on (and that's not to say we don't have others, but more on that later), we label our posts, we have our author name, and our tagline (if we feel the need to have one), we have our schedule, we have our books ready to go. On to Marketing.

Marketing

This is the hardest part for me, and other writers I know because most of us are really introverts. We don't like being social, we just want to write our books and publish them. I am a Quiet Marketer. I don't splash and blog tour, I don't Tweet incessantly "Buy Me", I don't really even think about the books once I hit "publish". I look at it this way -- people will either buy my books or they won't. If I shove them in reader's faces, it's not going to make a difference. No amount of marketing will sway them either way unless they're looking for what you're trying to sell. I'm not going buy the next Stephen King novel, no matter how much it's hyped because I don't read his genre. And, no amount of hype is going to get me to buy the next Jo Beverly novel either unless I like her cover copy.

As I said before, word of mouth sells books, not social media. Sure, social media is how they find out about them, but you can't get a horse to drink just because you lead him to the stream. He'll only drink if he's thirsty.

Pre-Marketing 

I'm going to digress here, and discuss this for a minute.

Let's talk about covers. The first thing readers see when they're looking at books is the cover. You want a cover that looks nice. However, we're writing a series now, so you want to be able to tie all your covers together. For that, you really do want to hire a cover designer. Some are cheap, some are expensive. Shop around. If you're good with design, you might be able to do your own, but try not to make them look homemade. You want them to look "professional". (Find a cover designer who has a blog. Follow them. Ask other writers who designed their covers. Blogging is about networking, as well as being social.)

My covers all have the same "look". An old portrait surrounded by feathery things and the font in block letters.



When I first started publishing, I decided I didn't want half naked men and heaving bosoms on my covers. I don't write sex, so I didn't want to lead my readers on thinking that's what they would be getting. Hence, my "period" covers. (I see more and more "period" covers in my genre so I think I hit that nail on the head.) To get a clearer picture of what you want, go to Amazon, type in your genre in the search engine and take a look at the covers.

If we use the example of Susie and Bob and the arsonist, I know that I would definitely want some sort of fire element in the background. Maybe a fire truck. I would discuss it with my designer to see what they come up with.

The next part about the cover is the back "cover copy". You want that to entice the reader to read your book. If on Susie and Bob's book I said

Susie meets Bob at the hospital where he's just been hurt by a fire started by an arsonist. They fall in love and find their happily ever after...

You would put that book down so fast it would make my head spin. However, if I wrote something like

Susie's running out of patience with her wicked stepmonster's cloying ways. She needs to find a place of her own, but waiting on her father's inheritance is killing her.

Bob's a confirmed bachelor who doesn't need domestic tranquility to be happy. He's perfectly content playing the singles scene. Until a mishap in a burning building leaves him blind.

Susie gets the short straw and draws Angry Bob on her weekly visiting nurse schedule. Between his grumbling about bumping into furniture, and the fact Susie's perfume makes him sick, she wants to throw in the towel. Bob just wants to see again so he can return to work to catch the arsonist who put him in this position in the first place. Can these two work out their differences to find their happily ever after.

Okay, not the best cover copy but I'm writing on the fly, and it's just an example of what cover copy should be. Enticing. Short, sweet, and to the point. Notice the adjectives. Adverbs. Yes, you can use these to your advantage. (The rules of writing generally don't apply here.) Entice. Draw a quick picture. Leave the reader wondering what is going to happen.

Usually, once you have your cover, you do a "cover reveal" on your blog. Now some people go way overboard and every single person they've ever come in contact with also has your cover reveal on their blog as well. That's overkill in my opinion. I generally skip right over these blogs in my reader. I've seen it once. I don't need to see it again. And for one or two of my books, I forgot to even do a cover reveal. I've even forgotten to say I had published a book. But that's just me. (Once you get into the "business" of writing, you tend to forget some steps.)

So to recap -- We have our books ready to publish, we have our covers, our cover copy, we have our future first chapters in the backs of the books. We have a blog or FB site on which we post regularly. We have some followers. We are ready to click that tab that says "publish".

Unfortunately, this post is already way too long and I don't want to overwhelm you. So next week, we'll discuss all the different ways to market once we're ready to publish.

Twitter, Goodreads, Blog links, Buy links, SEO, Metadata, Back matter, Keywords

Hope to see you.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Writing a Series -- Marketing/Publishing Part 1





Marketing and Publishing go hand in hand these days. You can publish as many books as you want, but if you don't market them, how will people know they're out there unless they stumble across them somehow.

Looking back on my own series, I can see where I made mistakes, and will now share them with you. I didn't know what I was doing when I first started writing so I had no idea where I would end up. (Here.) If I had, I would certainly have done things a lot differently.

I'm going to look at Publishing the series first, because that is the BIGGER picture. Once you have the big picture, then the Marketing aspect can be broken down into littler pieces.

Let's begin with our friends Susie and Bob, the firefighter and nurse. We know we're going to write 5 books in the series. We have all our characters, our antagonist, the settings, we've done our research, and found all of our plot lines. Our poster boards are hanging on our walls, and we've written the first book.

The first book is fantastic. It's everything a book can be. Everybody says so. And you want to publish it right now because, well, because the book is fantastic, everybody says so. And once you publish that first book, you'll have hooked the readers to the rest of your series.

Here's the problem. How long did it take you to write that first book? Two years? Six months? It doesn't matter. If the book is part of a series, you will want to have at least 3 books written and polished before you publish. Because as I said before, once you hook your reader, you want them to continue reading, and you also want them to tell their friends about it. (Word of mouth is still the BEST way to market your book. We'll touch on that later.)  If you only have one book, and it takes 6 months or a year to write another one, by the time that second book gets published your readers will have moved on to the next hot thing. (Attention spans don't last very long in these days of instant gratification.)

Also, as I found in writing a series, things change the further on in the series you go. For example, in MASQUERADE (the first book in my series), Lady Olivia walked with a cane. She was elderly, or so I had imagined her. Over the course of the next 5 books as I wrote the series, she was not as old as I first thought, nor did she walk with a cane any longer.  I self-published so I could change the earlier versions whenever I wanted. Say for instance, you find out in Book 3 that the timeline in Book 2 is off, you can change it before anyone notices. However, if you publish right away and you need to change something, let me tell you what a pain in the neck that is. You really want to make changes BEFORE you publish. (For those of you who ship your work out for formatting this can become very expensive. Especially if you keep making changes.)

So the more books you have ready to publish, BEFORE you publish, the better off you are.

Loss Leaders. And FREE.

So, let's say, for the sake of argument, you've written the first 3 books in the Susie and Bob saga, and you're just about to publish them all, but then you get sidelined by the arsonist who wants to be heard so you write a short little something-something just to get him out of your head. He's not supposed to be in the books until the very end, but he just won't shut up.

This is what I call BONUS material. It's not anything you want to use in your story lines because that's all about romance (more or less), but it's an integral part of the story. What do you do with it?

Naturally, you would polish this and publish it as the loss leader. (A loss leader is something you want to lure your customers with. Stores do this all the time. "Come look at our super cheap TV." But then they put the most expensive one right next to it and the sales associates tempt you into buying the more expensive one.)

In my own example, I had already written MASQUERADE, FATE, and COINCIDENCE, but then Winsbarren wouldn't shut up in my head, so I wrote down his story. It came in around 19K. More than a short story, less than a proper novella, but it had a beginning, middle, and end. I decided when I published THE LADY'S FATE, I would publish A WIFE FOR WINSBARREN at the same time. Fate went out at $3.99, Winsbarren for .99 cents. That way, those who wanted to try my writing could, for the fabulous price of .99 cents, and if they liked that, they could then buy the more expensive one.

This had been my marketing campaign. Publish a novel, publish a novella at the same time. Somewhere between publishing the first set of books and the third, I wrote a short companion piece to A WIFE FOR WINSBARREN called A HUSBAND FOR MISS TRENT. I decided at that time to market this book FREE. This would be my loss leader. MISS TRENT is still free. But, free is not what it used to be. (We'll also touch on that later.)

Now, some authors I know, write the whole series first, and then when they finish it, write that little something something that they will use as a loss leader. I found mine in the middle. You might not want to write one. However, I think it's a good idea. A short something for free or .99 cents will allow the customer to get a feel for your voice, and your story. They won't feel bad about spending .99 if they don't like it.

Publishing

To get back to Susie and Bob -- Let's say, we have 3 books and a short introductory novella ready to go. What do we do? Publish everything at once? Publish one a week over the course of the month? Publish once a month and hope something sticks?

My suggestion would be to put out the novella free (or .99 cents with the caveat you're not a new writer. If you're brand new, I would set the price to free), and then publish the first novel. At the end of the first novel, place the first chapter of the second novel in the back. There's your HOOK. Just make sure that first chapter is polished and will entice the reader into reading. (And for every consecutive book make sure the first chapter of the next novel is in the back. I did NOT do that and found it was a HUGE mistake. ALWAYS give the reader a taste of what is to come.)

I would then wait six weeks before publishing the second novel. However, now that Amazon and Smashwords have the pre-order option, I would use that for the second book. Once the second novel is published, I would do the same with the third novel. Again, six weeks with pre-order option. You might ask, "Why can't I just publish everything at once and just change the dates on the pre-order option?" And the answer is, you will frustrate the reader that they can't buy it now.

Look at it this way... I made a decadent chocolate cake and put it in a store window for display. However, I gave you a cupcake to taste for free. It's delicious and over the course of the the first week after the cupcake tasting, you come in and buy a slice of that chocolate cake (Novel #1). Every week you come in and ask when you can have another piece of that cake (Novel #2). I tell you six weeks, but if you pay me now, I'll hold your order for that cake. Your mouth waters for those six weeks. On the day you come into the store, not only is the chocolate cake ready, but I also made an apple pie (Novel #3). You want a piece of apple pie now. But you have to wait six weeks. Again, if you pay me now for the pie, I'll have it ready and waiting for you when you come back in six weeks. You want to build supply and demand. You want those six weeks to work for you. (This is part of the marketing plan for Susie and Bob's books.)

For example

Jan 1 Free novella
Jan 1 Novel #1
Feb 15 Novel #2
April 1 Novel #3
May 15 Novel #4
June 30 Novel #5

Using the pre-order option allows the reader to know there is more coming. And if the first chapter of the next novel in the back of the book hooks your reader, they may pre-order it, which is a guaranteed sale. (I've used the pre-order option recently, and although it didn't raise my standing in the ranks as some of the big name authors said it would, it was a nice bonus in my paycheck.)

You may ask, "Well, if the first three books are ready, why can't I publish them all at the same time?" Because you want to keep the momentum of your readers looking forward to your next book. If you give them what you have all at once, they'll read the first 3 books in two days and then have to wait how long until you finish book #4. By that time, they've moved on. If they eat the whole chocolate cake in two days, they'll want more, but if there is no more, they'll switch to vanilla ice cream. If you publish every six weeks, your momentum builds. If you can only have a piece of cake every six weeks, it tastes much better. You look forward to it more.

Marketing

Now, here comes the hard part, once you publish something, you have to market it. Agents say you need to be on social media to sell books. Every author I know (and some of the big name authors too) maintain that social media does NOT sell books. It doesn't. I see Twitter campaigns and blog tours, and give-aways, and all kinds of foolishness going on over the interwebs, but it doesn't work. Word of mouth is still the best way to market, which is where I think the Twitter campaigns originally started, but then they just got to be spam.

I have never done a blog tour. Nor a Twitter campaign. I am what is known as a Quiet Marketer. I don't push people to read my book. I don't nag, or campaign. I'm not everywhere. I announce the publication once on my blog, and once or twice on Twitter. That's it. I don't believe in ramming my book down anyone's throat. It doesn't sell books, and only annoys people. And if you annoy people they won't read you. (And this is only MY opinion. You can do whatever you wish for a marketing campaign.)

There's also a thought out there that having as many reviews of your work as possible ready to go as soon as you publish will bring more sales than if not. In my experience that's not true either. When I first published, in the back matter was a little line that said, "If you liked this book, I would appreciate a review" or something to that effect. I didn't get any. For two years. So I took it out. It didn't make a difference. (I have very few reviews, but that doesn't keep people from reading my books.) People will either write a review or they won't. However, if you do have some people who will read it and write a review, by all means, have them ready. (And just so you know, one or two bad reviews won't bother your sales. Unless they're all bad and then you should rewrite the book. Some books with bad reviews even make it to the bestseller lists because people want to read it out of curiosity. Like rubbernecking a bad car wreck.)

Back to word of mouth for a second. One of the best ways to market, I've found, is to let people see what you're writing. I used to put scenes on my blog to let people read what I've been writing. But then the big name gurus said you shouldn't because of plagiarism. I then figured I would put cut scenes and polished first drafts on the blog to be read. However, now there's WattPad. I don't know how it works, I've never been there, but I hear it's a great way to be noticed. (I actually know of 3 people who found agents from using that site.) Word of mouth sells books. If your writing is good, people will talk about it.

Back to FREE for a second. Now, there are some people who think the first BOOK in a series should be free. I don't subscribe to that notion. Why should I give something away I worked so hard on? If I were a wedding cake maker I wouldn't give away the 7-tiered creation with the little roses and birds and fondant candies that I've been working on for the last month. If I wanted to entice people to buy my wedding cake, I would make cupcakes and give those away.  If you're going to go free, the littler the better. Here's why. I would rather give them a throw away book, ie. the arsonist's story. Because, if you give away the BOOK you've lost a sale you otherwise could have had. If you give away a LITTLE something something, you're not really losing anything, and potentially gaining customers/readers. Like the wedding cupcakes. They were made using leftover batter. You don't want to throw the batter away, but you can't really use it for another cake.

My Example -- A HUSBAND FOR MISS TRENT was a single POV novella I wrote to offset A WIFE FOR WINSBARREN. After I published it, readers commented that they wanted to see Davingdale's POV as well. So I then wrote LOVE FINDS LORD DAVINGDALE. Somewhere along the line, readers commented they wanted BOTH of those stories put together. So I mashed them up. I published Davingdale with both POV's for .99 cents. However, with Miss Trent, I kept her single POV and set the price to free. To entice those readers who wanted to try me out before buying anything else. Cupcake anyone?


*****

Having said all that, and using the example for Susie and Bob, you might say, "Well, my series is nothing like that. I'm writing novellas and going to publish once a month until the conclusion of the series." Okay, so how many novellas are written? How long does it take you to write one?

Or, "My series won't take long to write. I can write 4000 words a day."

Or, "I'm just going to write and publish, write and publish until the series is finished. I don't care how long it takes to finish it, but I'm going to write and publish as I go along."

Okay, so you've finished the first book and published it without a hitch. You're moving right along and then your kids come down with the flu, the washing machine floods the basement, and your in-laws are coming for Easter break all on the same day. What happens if your husband finds another job across the country and you have to pack and move in less than a month? What happens if your computer explodes and you didn't back up your files? (God forbid. Back everything up! Twice!)

You cannot foresee the future. You don't really know how long it will take to write the second book, or third, or last. You only have the first book written. And here's my final argument for having three books written in the series BEFORE you publish.

If you have 3 books written, and you publish according to my timeline above, if Fate decides to slap you upside the head, you will have (hopefully) enough time to recover from that and settle down to write the next book. And because you have 3 books published, (or on their way), your readers, (who will hopefully become fans) will wait just a little longer for the next book to come out. Fans will endure the wait if they know it's coming SOON.

In my own career, I published a novel and a novella every four months or so.(Because I had already written 3 of my 5 novels.)  I published THE LADY'S MASQUERADE in June 2013 and THE CAPTAIN'S COINCIDENCE was supposed to be published in September. Everything was going according to plan when Fate stepped in and said, "Uh, no." It took almost nine months to get back to COINCIDENCE. When it was finally published in March of 2014, it was not SOON enough. It didn't do well. I cannot tell you why but I have my suspicions that the readers who became fans got sick of waiting for it.

Attention spans are limited these days, and if you don't have new writing every few months, readers will move on to someone else. Oh sure, they MIGHT come back when you publish again, but it's not a guarantee. Would you rather overhear this conversation --

"Oh, did you hear, Anne has a new book out. Number 4 in the series. Have you read it yet? It's fantastic."
or
"Anne has a new book out. I'm not going to bother with it though. I've already lost the gist of the storyline and I don't want to go back and reread the whole series."

In publishing, it's all about the hook to get them to read in the first place. In marketing, it's all about keeping the reader coming back for more.

Next week, I'm going to discuss marketing a series a little bit more. Hope to see you.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Writing a Series -- Research






No matter what kind of genre you write in, you will have to do some sort of research. Whether about zombies, or murder, or even downtown Kansas City, you will have to do research.

Back in the old days, before computers, I bought books. I would go to library sales, and garage sales, and scooped up whatever I thought might be relevant to my research. Now, I do 99.9% of my research online. Some authors might say that's cheating, but I don't care. I don't have time to read 3 biographies on Napoleon to know he was a cruel dictator. I don't have time to read Shakespeare's plays to find the right quote. I just don't have the time to read period.

And sometimes, being on the internet is a time suck as well. I can't tell you how many writing hours I killed
with research for THE CAPTAIN'S COINCIDENCE. It was all about ships and boats, and traveling time and knot tying, throw in a little American history as well. Nine months later I had a story. Problem was, when I first started writing this story, there was going to be an abolitionist theme to it. The second time around, I had to delete all that. Some research you just can't use without your story sounding like a 7th grade history project.

And sometimes, for all the research you do, you can't use ANY of it. I once spent 5 hours researching boats/ships looking for the perfect boat for Richard to use. I spoke to a learned sea faring man about it, and he told me I couldn't use any of them. They were either too big, or too small, or wouldn't be able to carry the gun load I wanted. So, I built my own ship. I drew up makeshift blueprints and everything. (Another time suck but well worth it.)

Yes, sometimes you can fudge the research, I've done it on numerous occasions. BUT, there's always truth behind the fudge. In THE DUKE'S DIVORCE I found out that gaining an annulment was harder than getting a divorce. So I tweaked my story to fit the research because Robert was going to get rid of Fiona one way or another.

So, what do we do with the research once we find it?
As I mentioned in previous blog posts, there's Evernote, and Scrivenir, and Google Drive, and let's not forget my favorite "Favorites" on my dashboard. You find something on the internet and just click on the "star" at the top of the page. (On Internet Explorer it's near the little house. On Google the star is at the end of the search bar.) Once you have it "starred" it remains on your "Favorites Bar" until you put it into a "folder". I have almost 50 folders and cannot even tell you how many "pages" I have in those.

Organization is the key here. Folders are labeled according to "stuff". I have --

Army
Nautical
Napoleon
Parliament
Regency
Maps
Foreign Office
Home Office
to name a few

So, if we go back to our series about Susie and Bob, the firefighter and the nurse, where do we start? Well, I would start with what shift Susie was working when Bob was brought in. Second, third? And what unit is she in? Critical care, emergency, surgery? What hospital does she work at? Is it real or imaginary? What town does she live in? Is it real or imaginary. If she works in ICU and Bob comes in with burns, what kind are they? 1st, 2nd, 3rd? What does he need to survive? Who would treat him? Doctor? Burn Specialist? ER doc? What exactly does Susie do for Bob?

Okay, so you can see how this scenario would spiral out of control. However, if you don't know at least a little of what you're talking about, the writing would sound flat. "Bob was rushed into the hospital with burns, and brought right upstairs to the ICU."

or

"Bob was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital with second degree burns on his hands and face. His breathing was shallow, sweat dripped into eyes, and he trembled uncontrollably. X-rays could wait. The attending physician in the ER sent him to the ICU without a preliminary exam, and had the nurse call upstairs to the burn unit requesting Dr. Traeger, the burn specialist, to take a look at him. He also had her call the optician on staff to take a look at Bob's eyes. They were unfocused. Could he have burnt his corneas?"

And in the second paragraph, I ask, could he have burnt his corneas? I have no idea. I wrote it out like that, but in keeping it real, I would have to look it up, (or ask somebody) if a firefighter could actually burn his corneas, OR is it retinas? I don't know. Do you? Research. It will make or break your book.

So, in my Favorites Folders, I would have subjects such as

Town
Hospital
Fire Station
Medical equipment
Arson
to name a few

Now, once I started writing my story, I will naturally have to do more research. Here is where "real" people are your friends. With the Susie and Bob story, I would get in touch with my local fire department and see if they have someone I could talk to about, not only firefighters, but arsonists. Perhaps the Chief could recommend a retired firefighter to speak with. Same with a nurse. I might know one who could take me around the local hospital to check out how the shifts work, which department handles what, etc. (Because hospitals are pretty much zipped up now, you can't just walk around by yourself. You need a tour guide.)

In speaking with Real People, you need good questions. You don't want to take up their time with nonsensical ruminations -- you shouldn't really play the "what if" game with them. Write your story, do your own research, and then, when you feel you need "more", ask the tougher questions.

One thing I will tell you when you're looking up anything on the internet that has to do with firearms or bombs or arson or murder, will set the spam bots onto you, and if you do too much research in one area, or land on a secure site too many times (like the RN and USN) you might get a letter, or a visit perhaps, from the local constabulary. (My story was a little easier to explain away, I was doing research for a Regency romance and needed the history of both. Hence my need for cannons, weapons, and gunpowder research.)

And research can happen anywhere, not just in libraries, or on the internet. On my vacation this summer, I met a man who played the bagpipes. We talked for maybe 20 minutes about his bagpipe playing skills. Do I need a bagpipe player in any of my stories? Not at this time, no. But perhaps later, I may need to know the exact key one begins playing Amazing Grace. OR how many tubes there are? OR where the wind comes from to make the pipes sing. Or just how much pressure does it take to make the bellows operate?

Everything is research, and sometimes you just don't know it.

I always keep a notebook and good pen in the car. If I'm stuck at a soccer game, doctor's appointment, whatever, and there's 45 minutes to kill, I'll whip out the notebook. I won't necessarily write, but I will take notes, make up names for characters, places, perhaps eavesdrop on a conversation and jot it down if it works within my story. I'll flesh out a plot, or write down a character sketch. I'll play the what-if game.

If I'm at home and have 45 minutes to kill before I have to go somewhere or do something, I'll get on the computer and search for characters (remember I'm a "visual" creator) on Pinterest or IMBD (the movie site) or go to ReMax and search for houses and neighborhoods, use Google Maps to look at a city.

I love Google maps because not only do I have correct street information, I also have the "street view". For instance, yesterday, I needed to find another parish in London besides St. James. I plugged St. James's Parish into London, got the map, and then moved my cursor until I found another smaller parish in Grosvenor Square. I looked at the street map of the church (after looking it up on Wikipedia to make sure it was in use in 1812). The church looked exactly as it had in 1812, right along with the neighborhood and street corners. Now I can write my wedding scene using the visual of the church, and not have to worry about where the horses will stand, or how the bride and groom will exit the church.

Another example -- Everyone knows Hyde Park in London. Then there is also Regent's Park. Did you know that Regent's Park wasn't there until after 1812. It was called Marylebone Park.Yes, it is sort of a no-brainer, George wasn't named Regent until 1812, but I did not know that it was called Marylebone Park, and that its history went back over 400 years and that it belonged to the Monarchy as a hunting ground. Did you know that?

Of course, we all do research our own way. Some people research at the beginning. Some after the first draft. Some not until the book is finished. It all depends on how you work. There is no right or wrong way. However, what you need to know, is that research is crucial for every story and you will have to do some.

Next week -- Mash-up of Marketing and Publishing. Hope to see you.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014