Blog Archives
You can now get my novels in print!
Shift Happens and Gym Dandy are now available in hard copy.
I’ll have a few copies with me at the upcoming Toronto Book Fair.
Lost Boys 2.0 will follow shortly!
New and improved
As I learn more about indie publishing, I go back and improve the eBooks I’ve created. Today I uploaded new and prettier files (content not changed) to Kobo, Amazon and AllRomanceEbooks.
I also uploaded to Barnes+Noble via Draft2Digital. Still waiting to find a friendly Mac I can borrow to upload to iTunes.
Then I headed over to Createspace. Hard copy coming soon!
Cue STRIPPER music for the BIG REVEAL!
Here’s the first of my new book covers… for fan-fave SHIFT HAPPENS… drum roll please…. And sing it with me now… Da da, da da, dum duh dum dah…
Take it off, baby! Let’s see what ya got!
Can’t see. Bigger is better. I can’t wait!
Ta da! Cue the big finish! SHIFT HAPPENS: A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A QUEST!
Is that not awesome? Cover artist Willsin Rowe outdid himself.
More info on the book, here.
To pre-order on Amazon, go here.
Marketing without Annoyance!
MARKETING MADNESS! For months–years even–I’ve been shoving anything I find about marketing into a folder (3 actually: email, hard copy, downloads). So now I’m reading through it all and making notes of what I need to do to achieve: PROMOTION SANS ANNOYANCE*! (I don’t want to annoy you or me. You’re welcome. 😉 )
So here’s something I came across today. You can download Guy Kawasaki’s book on self publishing (APE) for FREEEEE! from BookBaby today. He’s got a lot of interesting info on selling directly that I hadn’t come across before. Oh, and about 400 nicely laid out pages of other useful stuff.
I also purchased all the RWA 2013 workshops (audio) on self-publishing (you can purchased just that set for US$55.00) so I can listen to them as I get my Fitbit steps in. Today on the way to Weight Watchers (lost another .6 of a pound!) I listened to the first session:
Self-Publishing Roundtable: Marketing Speaker: S.R. Johannes. Is your mind spinning with marketing ideas, but you don’t know where to start? Join marketing pro and best-selling author S.R. Johannes in an interactive roundtable discussion that gets down to specifics.
Joannes has a strong background in marketing, and after 2 years of failing to sell to trad publishing, she spent 6 months bringing her book to market where she quickly rose to best-seller-dom. While listening to her lecture on my iPhone, I switched over to a little productivity ap called Paperless and dictated a few notes to myself. Here’s what I wanted to remember:
Pick your top 3 to 5 target markets. In her case, she’d written a teen thriller involving environmental themes, so she googled the hell out of “green teen” and related terms. For me, say, my B.O.O. series, I’d google m/m-GBLT, shapeshifters, funny. And variations thereof. Then I need to figure out where the people who like funny paranormal books featuring GBLT themes hang out. Go and post–give stuff–worthwhile content, free books, etc. NEVER JUST PUSH YOUR BOOK!
Figure out other authors who write like you. See if they want to do something cooperative, or just write: “If you liked Andrea Speed’s humorous books, you might like mine…” Something.Set up a blog tour. Never say no. Sometimes blogs with a smaller following have a greater trust factor so are more likely to reach a receptive and engaged audience. Give away a free book on every stop. Create a series of blog posts with topics and offer themes: for example, ask the blog host: “do you want my post on marketing, or the one onGBLT, or my post on Jaguars, etc?
Since marketing is my background, I think I’ll make this a series. Is that a good idea? Yes? No? Something else you’ll tell me in the comments?
#1 with a bullet
This is what the Amazon listing pages for THE RELUCTANT REAPER look like for both the US and Canada: (I added the red burst.)
#1 with a bullet
THE RELUCTANT REAPER IS NOW #1 on Amazon Canada’s contemporary fantasy list! I’m on the same page as greats like Neil Gaiman and Patricia Briggs!
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon.ca Bestsellers Rank:
#101 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#1 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary
And at Amazon.com:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #366 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#5 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Urban
#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Humor & Satire > General Humor
#7 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary
Climbing the ranks with a bullet!
Thanks to YOU, THE RELUCTANT REAPER is shooting up the Amazon ranks!
Amazon.com Best Sellers Rank:
#1,492 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#20 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Humor & Satire > General Humor
#20 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Urban
#22 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Humor
#242 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#3 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary
#3 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,100 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.
