A Question for You Series Writers

February 9, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 14 Comments

While browsing through the links we’ve collected for sites to promote your books, I came across an article by Michael Gallagher of Free Kindle Books & Tips, explaining why he does not promote any books in a series, other than Book 1. He had some very good points, if you’d like to read them here. Further, he doesn’t recommend running them for free anywhere else, either.

Now I am rethinking my “official” launch of A Boy Named Rabbit, which is Book 2 of my Wake-Robin Ridge series.

How do you folks who have series out there handle this? Do you promote each book in the series the same way as you did the first one, freebies and all, or do you come up with alternate ideas? Or do you just start putting together Boxed sets, and promoting them that way? I’ve got a boxed set already up. Maybe my best bet is to run promos on that, and let A Boy Named Rabbit sales grow organically, via Mail Lists, special offers on my personal website, etc. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine that being nearly as successful as that first free run, but I don’t want to alienate readers, either, by the fact that Rabbit is not really as effective as a stand alone book. I do make that pretty clear in my book descriptions, but we all know how often people buy without reading those carefully.

Thoughts?

Question on Boxed Sets for Kindle

January 28, 2015 / Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

Well, here I am with my first two books in the Wake-Robin Ridge series out, and I want to offer a special deal on a boxed set of the two. I have them all saved in one document, everything matchy-poo and pretty, and a lovely boxed set style cover. I’m ready to upload, but I’m stumped right out of the box (ed set). I can’t figure out how to do the title to show this is a series, and a set that includes Books 1 & 2, and the names, and whatever else I’m allowed to put in there.

I spent some time online looking at other boxed sets (good golly, ollie, there must be a ginormous market for multiple werewolf/vampire/demon erotica!) but that was really no help, no matter the genre. I found titles as short as “Boxed Set: The Naked Vampire Series” to titles that had 30 or 40 words in them. None of that looks like it’s allowed, but there it was.

Now, if I wanted to list my set as “Boxed Set: Wake-Robin Ridge Series, Books 1 & 2: Wake-Robin Ridge, A Boy Named Rabbit” well…anyone know how I would go about doing that? Is it one title? Should it be a title and subtitle? And what about that rule that says every word of it must be on the cover of your book? I didn’t find that to be true in very many cases, and I looked through hundreds. (Only half of which had naked vampires on the covers!)

Have any of you done this? Do you have any ideas? I looked through the Help files and found nothing useful. 😦 I’m stuck!

Quick Question?

January 9, 2015January 9, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 2 Comments

Quick question while I’m vertical. Does anyone know if there is a template available for those Boxed Set style graphics on Kindle? My designer says she can draw one for me, so I can offer Books 1 & 2 of my Wake-Robin Ridge series at a discount price, but I thought if there was one already out there, I’d send it to her. Thanks for any help you can give me. Off to lie down again, now…

Bag of Cats

December 2, 2014 / Jenny / 10 Comments

Sometimes my brain is a bag of cats, and you know if you put cats in a bag (do not do this thing, it’s very cruel, but I’m sure you already know that,) those cats get agitated and start shrieking and clawing and squirming around. It’s all chaos and insanity, and before you know it everything’s scratched up and bleeding and there are headaches. Oh, so many headaches…

And I’m sure you’ve guessed by this point that by bag of cats I’m really talking about ideas, not cats, and at the moment my mind is overflowing. I have too many cats in there with a single ball of yarn, and they’re all clawing and making it really difficult to grab a single thread and just start tugging on it until everything falls into place.

Can’t concentrate… can’t think clearly. Must find a way to go on…

I’m in the middle of finishing an urban fantasy novel that I love to pieces and want to see stuffed between a lovely cover and put upon the shelf, but the other ideas are crowding it out. They’re so loud I can’t hear myself think if I don’t pay attention to the new things.

It’s annoying. I feel scattered, unable to commit to myself, but at the same time I know if I don’t answer the cat that’s screaming the loudest, it will just get louder and louder until I go crazy—er, crazier, than I already am.

I blame the short attention span internet life inspires. Everything is shiny and new and exciting, and I want to touch it all! All of it, all the time, but you can’t touch everything all at once. We only have so many fingers, so I have to find a single cat and start placating it, or the chaos will just continue to grow.

So, my question for you this morning is how do you keep yourself in check? Do you keep yourself in check at all, or do you answer the loudest cat when it screams because you know it’s going to guarantee the best results for a time? What do you focus on when everything is so loud?

I’d love to hear your methods in the comments section below, if you have methods. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you love the chaos, which would be really cool to hear about it!

Question, Anyone…

November 24, 2014 / Marcia Meara / 2 Comments

After reading about bundles and funnels for building sales, I think I really like the concept. I want to do something along those lines. Trouble is, the book I’ll be releasing next is only Book 2 in the Wake-Robin Ridge series, so I’m not sure how to go about it. I think what I want to do is offer Book 1 free in conjunction with Book 2. But that’s hardly a bundle. How would I go about doing this? Would I combine both books in one document, making clear that Book 1 is being included at no extra cost? That seems like the easiest way, but I’m not sure if it’s the best way. What am I overlooking? Anyone?

We all know we need to build a platform, but how many planks does it need?

November 23, 2014 / mizyank / 13 Comments

I had lunch one day last February with my brother’s boss, a high-level marketing guy for a company whose product is wildly popular. He also co-authored and self-published a business book that did so well the Big Bookstores picked it up, so I wanted to pick his brain about what I could do to get my writing out into the world beyond my blog. I explained that, though I blogged fairly regularly, I didn’t do much to try to promote it. The real focus of my writing efforts was a quasi-memoir that revolves loosely around my relationship with the first house I owned. I wanted his thoughts on how to pitch the quasi-memoir, which at the time was 70% complete, to agents, publishers, etc.

He held up both of his hands and said, “Wait a minute, Karen, you haven’t published anything yet, have you?” I shook my head. “Then you’re doing this all wrong.” He went on to tell me I needed to build a platform and find a way to generate demand for the quasi-memoir even before it was written. This seems like such obvious advice, especially since my minimal efforts to promote my blog guaranteed that it hadn’t been seen by anyone who doesn’t share my DNA. He suggested that I read a marketing book that’s oh-so-helpfully called Platform.

I greet business books with the same enthusiasm as I do tax returns, so I won’t lie and tell you I read it in great detail. I skimmed it, focusing on the areas that interested me most and skipping right over duh counsel like “create great content.” The insights I gleaned from the book led me to crank out the collection of humor essays that I self-published on CreateSpace and released on Nov. 4. But doing all of that still isn’t enough, because you have to promote it.

Which is how I find myself staring down Day 23 of Shameless Self-Promotion Month. (Happy SSPM, everyone!) I understand that, no matter what you’re “selling,” you must have a social media presence. But how do you figure out where to allocate your time without cutting into your precious writing time, especially if you, like me, have a non-writing full-time job? Do you choose only two or three outlets –facebook, twitter and Goodreads, for example–and focus on those? Or do you try to touch them all and then stick with the ones where you get traction?

And I would especially love to hear from anyone who has figured out how to make sense of what feels like cacophony to me on Twitter. I know people form relationships and connections there all the time but I don’t quite understand how that happens when so much content is flying around so quickly.

Hoping to hear from all of you wonderful folks out there!

To Plan, or Not to Plan?

November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 / Marcia Meara / 6 Comments

That is my question. A certain part of my brain thinks planning is very uncreative, and that writing, like any other form of art, should be a spontaneous thing, like mold growing on an old shower curtain. (Okay, eeww.) Another, more practical, part of my brain says having a Plan…capital “P”…is usually a good idea. Trouble is, I’m at war over the issue.

Without a Plan, I tend to flounder, wait until the last minute to do things, get off track and spend too much time doing other, non-productive, stuff…things like that. Yet, with a Plan, I immediately rebel, and start to drag my heels, feeling forced to do one thing, when I really want to do something else. Having a Plan tends to stomp all over my enjoyment of things, like writing. So it’s a Catch-22 thing for me, and mostly I’ve been ignoring the whole issue. But recently, I realized my whole life was out of control. Too much freedom was actually keeping me from being as creative in my work as I wanted to be, because it was keeping me from focusing on anything. So I decided to write out a 5-year Plan, based on my personal needs at this time of my life, and incorporating some of the things I’ve been reading about.

My Plan is simple. It consists of Two Parts:

Part 1: Write ten decent books in 5 years.
Part 2: Learn some marketing techniques and tactics that don’t keep me too busy to accomplish Part 1.

That’s pretty much it. Simple. Direct. Easy. Doable. And yet, I immediately felt the pressure. When I say I work anywhere from 8 to 12 hours a day writing or doing writing related tasks, I’m not kidding. And that’s a lot of work for most of us, but especially for those of us who are feeling the effects of the aging process more each year. Sitting that long at my computer is difficult at best, and downright painful at worst. No need to go into all the aches and pains in detail, but believe me, they are there, keeping me awake at the end of the day. And don’t even get me started on my vision issues.

The point is, I end up trying to do more and more, faster and faster, in less time, so I don’t have to spend so long at the computer at one time, yet hoping I still have a chance to meet the goals laid out in my plan. And then…surprise!…I get tired, frustrated, and stressed, and fall even farther behind.

My solution was to accept that my Plan is merely a goal–something to aim for, not something carved in stone that can’t be deviated from. I can allow myself to work toward this goal, yet stop punishing myself when I fall short. I think my Plan is a good one, doable at a rate of two books a year. But I can’t set myself up for failure, by insisting I work ridiculously long hours that exhaust me both physically and creatively.

My Plan is now a flexible one, which gives me a sensible, attainable goal to work toward, with room for improvising built in.

Do you have a plan? If so, is it working for you? Keeping you on course, yet allowing for detours in the road? I’d like to know what’s working for you guys, and what’s not. Hope you’ll share some thoughts with us.

Help With Mailing Lists

November 2, 2014 / Marcia Meara / 14 Comments

I know a Mail List is an important part of marketing tactics, but for the life of me, I can’t get Mail Chimp set up on my WordPress blog. Does anyone have any ideas that might help? Do you use Mail Chimp with WordPress? How?? Have you found another service that is easier to set up with WordPress? Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

How Important Is Your Writing WorkSpace To You?

October 9, 2014October 9, 2014 / Marcia Meara / 9 Comments

One corner of my writing area. Nothing fancy, but it makes me love my workspace.

I’m always curious about where writers work. Can you write anywhere you happen to be? Jotting down dialogue or scene descriptions on an old envelope, beside your meal at dinner? Do you plop down with your laptop, in front of the tv, or out on your patio, ignoring the distractions of game shows or bird songs? Or do you, like me, prefer a work area designed for comfort and conducive to concentration? And if you have a designated work area, are you compulsive about keeping it organized, or a bit on the haphazard side? Do you like to be surrounded by things that make you smile, or soothe your senses? Or are you so involved in your work, you don’t notice your surroundings?

I have a writing table/desk that is part of a floor to ceiling bookshelf my husband built for my library. (It sounds so grand, but it’s really very non-formal and casual. I love it because it’s the first place I’ve ever lived with a room that could be an actual dedicated library. No rolling ladders or leather-bound first editions, but plenty of shelves on every wall, and no tv or other distractions.)

My desk isn’t large, but it accommodates my computer in a nook covered with cork, where I pin photos of places and people that inspire me as I write. And I’ll confess, I like “pretty.” So I have a lovely framed photo of a rose given to me by my friend and cover designer, Nicki Forde, with a quote by Emerson on it. And I have a little vase beside it where I almost always have a fresh cut rose or other flower from my garden. I found some smallish “mercury glass” vases to hold pens and pencils, and some gorgeous boxes at Michael’s for stashing all manner of other stuff. It’s flowery and shiny, and it makes me happy. And I definitely get more writing done when I’m happy. (BTW, those really aren’t naked men under glass and on the bulletin board. Or at least, they aren’t totally naked. But how can I be expected to describe my hero’s bare chest if I don’t have an image nearby for comparison? It’s RESEARCH, you know!)

Now this might not be a look or feel that inspires you to write, but I’ll bet if you take the time to make your workspace comfortable and fill it with things that make you smile, as well, you’ll enjoy working there a lot more. If you’re going to be sitting somewhere eight hours a day, shouldn’t you be surrounded by things that make you happy? And inspire you?

What’s your writing area look like? Does it make you feel good as soon as you sit down? Or are you able to function just fine with the bare necessities, whatever those are for you?

Question?

September 24, 2014September 24, 2014 / Marcia Meara / 10 Comments

Is anyone else having trouble viewing the cover photo of Patti Fiala’s book, Dog Days of Summer , in her post below? It shows up fine for me, but I’m still tweaking the blog, and since Patti can’t see it on her end, I’d like to know if I’ve done something wrong somewhere. Thanks!

You should be able to see it in the center of her post, and it looks like THIS. (I was just looking for an excuse to post it again, anyway…grin)