Saturday, December 28, 2013
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Guest Post: Debbie Browne and her book Amethyst Eyes
Marketing and Your Author Platform
As a recently published author, I ran head on into the reality known as marketing. The more authors I meet, the more I realize that on some level we’re all in the same boat. It really doesn’t matter how your book was published, the reality is the same. YOU have to promote your book.
I had gone over some marketing points in earlier blogs, but this one sums it all up.
Marketing your book should start as soon as possible, even before the book has been published. Talk about it. Let your friends and family know. Ask them to spread the word as well, word of mouth is valuable. You should lay the groundwork in advance so people will be looking forward to its release.
Let’s break this down into simple steps:
- Define your target audience. This will allow you to prepare your marketing strategy. If you have written a YA novel, you might save yourself a lot of wasted energy promoting it in all the wrong places.
-Create an email for your author/book related business. You will appreciate this later on.
-Create a Goodreads account and include an author page. Take time to explore all offered groups and pages. I honestly think Goodreads is endless…I’m still discovering stuff.
-Use social media like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Separate your book page from your personal page on facebook, keep it professional. You can also create a separate author page.
-Ask your friends on facebook to share the link to your book page at least once (no one likes to be harassed).
-Search for pages that would be helpful, such as publishers, fellow authors, book clubs etc. Join these book pages.
-Create an author and/or book website.
-List a book giveaway through Goodreads and on blogs or facebook, but not all at the same time.
-Let your local newspaper know they have a new author living in the area, or that their local author has yet another book on the market.
-Ask those who have read it to post a review...not as easy as it sounds ;o)
-Give (yes, give) your book to friends, to blogs or other websites that offer to post reviews (such as Great Minds Think Aloud). Yes I know authors have to pay for the books given, but in the end it will be worth it.
-Make a book trailer (video). Your computer probably has a program such as Windows Media Maker that you can use. You can go on book publishing sites or on YouTube and check them out to get some ideas. There are quite a few posted on the net. Pictures and music can be found on public domain sites if you don’t want to get out there and take pictures.
-Create a blog. Visit other blogs, share comments, information and good news. Post their (other authors) book link in exchange for them posting yours. Participate in a blog tour.
-Link everything together, so your trailer, website and facebook page can be found on Goodreads and the other way around. Write “Click Here to see…” next to your buttons, remember –not everyone is computer literate, so keep it simple for everyone.
-Join local author groups, review groups and literary groups. If you wrote a sci-fi novel, join a sci-fi group as well. These often have fees, but in exchange they organize author signings, presentations and such.
-Go to your local library. If a citizen requests a book they will get it. Donate a book to a school library. Ask about doing an author presentation with the students; make up a quick giveaway…the best 500 word story gets a book. If the book is not school material, look into book clubs or reading clubs as well as community centers.
-Offer your book to local bookstores on consignment. Most of the bigger chains will have to go through the head office before being able to accept it.
-See if your local or community TV/radio station won’t give you a brief interview or at least share your good news. Offer to give a book away here too.
Time for a breath of air…
I suggest you do these one after another so that you can pace yourself. Once you create these pages or sites, it is your responsibility to maintain them. Watch your page stats and keep traffic flowing. After you have one working, add a second one, then a third and so on. Keep a pace that works for you; better to have one great page than half a dozen bad ones. As for content, do you really want to just "copy-paste" the same stuff everywhere? If not, then you need to work at a pace that allows you to create material for each page.
-Most of all, enjoy the process, and don't forget to breathe. Go at your own rate because it can quickly become overwhelming...and remember -you are NOT alone!
Amethyst Eyes by Debbie Browne
Over the years I have worked as a nurse, a school teacher, a martial arts instructor, baseball, figure-skating and gymnastics coach as well as an artist, selling my paintings in an art gallery. I have been part of an orchestra, flown planes and gone on wilderness hikes. I am an officer in the Canadian Forces, and though I have taught on different military bases, for now I work primarily with cadets. Writing full time is my next goal.
Here is where you can connect with Debbie
The biggest thing on 15-year-old Tommy's mind is convincing Mom to let him go to the drive-in, but when an accident claims his mother's life and puts him in the hospital, the arrival of his estranged, alien father brings more changes than he had bargained for. It doesn't take his father long to figure out that Tommy knows nothing about who or what he is. Without any explanation, Tommy finds himself onboard his father's spaceship where he is forced to trust a man he does not know in a world he knows even less about.
Adapting to his new life seems overwhelming, and his father's solution may prove to be Tommy's finest challenge yet...Jayden. A few months younger than Tommy, high strung and always in a mood, the doctor's daughter definitely didn't like being 'told' to help Tommy fit in. Jayden is not the most welcoming or patient of tutors, let alone a friend. As fate would have it, Tommy quickly learns that none of these things compare to the peril that comes from being born with amethyst eyes.
Links to purchase:
3 e-copies, Please this giveaway should be linked to the post. If you use the html code I've send earlier, they not to worry, it's already in there.
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Thursday, December 19, 2013
Guest Post: Joe Schwartz and his book A Season Without Rain
“Are You A Writer?”
There are probably a million good reasons to write. Could be the next Gone with the Wind is burning inside you or simply a story that you want to preserve for your children i.e., The Shack. To write a novel, something so good that it lives on to become something of a symbol, is a long and winding road. Only time will tell if you did it. In the meantime you should do your best and let it rest. Not everybody will write something great, but rest assured that there is no deeper satisfaction than having written a novel, to have put your hand to the plow and done something equal in accomplishment to single handedly building a home or assembling a race car. This is a task for those with both talent and skill. A book, start to finish, could take years to write up to a lifetime. This is not a something you do casually on weekends in between going to the beach and watching TV sports. It is something that robs you of your sleep without mercy or remorse. But what is the acid test? How can you unequivocally know if you got ‘it’ whatever it is? I offer you the following three points to ponder.
1. There is only one you.
This is self-evident yet it is the most under rated quality that popular writers fully understand. The trick is to find your niche, that quality of writing that first entertains you as creator and then organically finds an audience. Mark Twain and Stephen King couldn’t be two more different writers. While Twain is a snake charmer with words and Uncle Stevie is doing his damndest to scare the bejesus out you the thing they have in common is that they both have their own, unique writing voice. There are many imitators but there is only one original.
2. You can speak English.
I didn’t know I was writer until someone finally told me, explained it to me. My theory was anybody could write. You can speak English, so why can’t you write it? The thing is writing is like dancing, or acting, or singing – everybody thinks they can do it. That is why I subscribe to the theory that a writer without readers is worthless. You must open yourself up to the world that is criticism by the most important, valuable critics a writer can ever have, readers. The greatest novel ever written will perish with its author if he fails to publish it. With a few clicks of a mouse anyone’s work can be in print today. The question is, do you have the guts to do it?
3. A story can change the world.
Sounds so simple, that it is almost cliché, but it is the truth. Revolutions have begun and wars have ended because writers have dared to put down their thoughts, an explanation of the world as they see it without trying to condone or excuse the conditions. I think immediately of George Orwell, a writer with unmatched vision penning manifestos like Animal Farm and 1984, that still reach into our social consciousness as a guide post warning of what is all too possible when, as Edmund Burke said, “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.”
When I was a boy my mother used to tell me the bedtime story of Georgie the Monkey, in hindsight a blatant rip-off of Margret and H.A. Rey’s beloved Curious George. Still, it was the best thing my five-year-old mind had ever heard. To this day she laughs that I remember it, but despite its obvious foolishness, she can recall it word for word. The thing is her story lit the fire in me that burns today, to tell a story that will never be forgotten. And isn’t that what every writer wants, not to be a celebrity, but to be remembered always for writing one hell of a story?
A Season Without Rain by Joe Swartz
A Season Without Rain is Joe Schwartz’s first novel. His previous short story collections Joe’s Black T-Shirt, The Games Men Play, and The Veiled Prophet of St. Louis have been acclaimed vulgar as Bukowski and visceral as Carver. Joe lives and works in St. Louis happily writing stories exclusively about the Gateway City.
A St. Louis native, I write exclusively about the Gateway City. I prefer the style of fiction deemed transgressive fiction. That is my stories protagonists generally find a solution to their problems through either illicit or illegal means. I personally prefer stories told through a criminal's point-of-view. It is never the crime that fascinates me so much as the motivation to do it and the terrible, almost predictable outcomes to such actions. Just as I have an expectation of writing to be read I believe that it is as important, if not more so, that you as a reader should have the expectation of being entertained as you read. Anything less is such a disappointment.
Life is short. Stories are forever. –Joe
Jacob Miller is angry with himself, the world, and God. Life seems so unfair, so cruel, that he can’t imagine why anyone even tries. After having a nervous breakdown, selling his business, filing for bankruptcy, having a baby, and finding out he owes over twenty grand in taxes, he is hardly happy to be alive.
In the span of a year, Jacob will discover three very important things about life. Things can always be worse. There really is a God. And if you wait long enough anything can change. A Season Without Rain explores that gray area between poverty and middle class life, the struggling underclass for whom there are no advocates. A powerful story told in a modern, everyday voice that will entrench readers in Jacob Miller’s black world of anger, hate, resentment, lies, and violence.
Giveaway!!!
A Season without Rain's Tour Dates
Wednesday the 4th of December Crossroad Reviews http://www.crossroadreviews.com A spotlight with Jessica
Friday the 6th December: Paperback Hero Aaronhttp://paperbackheroaaron.blogspot.com/ Spotlight and Guest post with Aaron
Thursday the 12th December: Adrienne Woodshttp://woodsadrienne.wordpress.com Review and spotlight with Adrienne
Tuesday the 17th December: Indie Author: How Tohttp://indieauthor-howto.blogspot.com Spotlight and Excerpt with Kisha
Thursday 19th December: Have You Heard Book Reviewhttp://haveyouheardbookreview.blogspot.com/ Spotlight and Guest post with Melanie
Tuesday the 24th December: From the Land of Empyrean http://empyricaltales.blogspot.com Spotlight and Guest Post with Mark
Thursday the 26st December: The Dragonian Serieshttp://thedragonianseries.blogspot.com Spotlight with Adrienne
Tuesday the 31st December: Fantasy Ultimatehttp://www.fantasy-ultimate.blogspot.com/ Spotlight and Guest post with Grace
Giveaway!!! 3 e-copies of A season Without Rain.
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Monday, December 16, 2013
Guest Post: Adrienne Woods and her book Firebolt
What does 2014 hold for You as an Author?
I have a couple of challenges as an author in 2014.
I really want to publish the second, Thunderstruck, and third, Frost Bite, of the Dragonian series. I’m really looking forward to what people are going to think about this series. Those very close to me that know how it ends can’t wait. They absolutely love this series and I do hope that the readers out there are going to like it as well.
I also would like to publish my first book of the Zodiac Series, called Blaze. It’s a paranormal New Adult fiction about Aswang’s (half vampire – half werewolf.) The first book is about a monster of a vampire, called Blaze. How she became a vampire and her struggles to how her entire demeanor changed after she became one. Her reason behind it does remain a mystery but other books will have more of her in it, that will explain these mysteries. It also ends with a war between vampires and werewolves and half breeds are caught in between.
I also would like to publish my first Woman’s fiction called The Ebb Tide. It’s part of the Pregnancy Diaries. They are love stories that have a pregnancy twist in all of them. The first part of this novel is a two part series. Starting with Holly and how she met the man of her dreams, Jake. She becomes pregnant while Jake is still studying to become a doctor, and he ends up leaving her while she deals with a very difficult pregnancy that almost costs her life and the lives of her babies. The second part carries on four years later.
Then I have a Mythology Series called The Watercress which I’m planning to release 2015. It’s about Triton, the sea god’s son and king of the mer – people. The first one takes place on board a cruise line, where Morgan finds herself falling for the mysterious Jason.
So with four books coming out in 2014 and more books in 2015, I do wonder where I’m going to find time to breathe. Hehe.
However I do have to say, everything works out the way that it should and if I’m not going to reach this goal, I will just move on and publish them as I can.
I just want to thank all the readers that are hopefully going to become fans, and thanks for joining me on this journey, who knows where it’s going to end.
Kind wishes,
Adrienne Woods.
FIREBOLT by Adrienne Woods
I was born and raised in South Africa,
where I still live with my husband, and two beautiful little girls. I always
knew that I was going to be a writer but it only started to happen about four
years ago, now I can’t stop writing.
In my free time, If I get any because Moms
don’t really have free time, I love to spend time with friends, if it’s a girls
night out, or just a movie, I’m a very chilled person.
My writing career is starting with
Firebolt, book one with the Dragonian Series, there will be four books in total
and two to three books that is about the stories taking place inside The
Dragonian Series.
I do write in different Genres, I have a
woman’s fiction called the Pregnancy Diaries, but it would be published under
another name. And then I have a paranormal series, called the Watercress
series. There are about ten novels in that one.
I was born and raised in South Africa,
where I still live with my husband, and two beautiful little girls. I always
knew that I was going to be a writer but it only started to happen about four
years ago, now I can’t stop writing.
In my free time, If I get any because Moms
don’t really have free time, I love to spend time with friends, if it’s a girls
night out, or just a movie, I’m a very chilled person.
My writing career is starting with
Firebolt, book one with the Dragonian Series, there will be four books in total
and two to three books that is about the stories taking place inside The
Dragonian Series.
I do write in different Genres, I have a
woman’s fiction called the Pregnancy Diaries, but it would be published under
another name. And then I have a paranormal series, called the Watercress
series. There are about ten novels in that one.
I hope you are going to embrace the
Dragonian Series as much as I loved writing them.
Kind Wishes,
Adrienne Woods
Author Links
Dragons. Right. Teenage girls don't believe in fairy tales,
and sixteen-year-old Elena Watkins was no different.
Until the night a fairy tale killed her father.
Now Elena is in a new world, and a new school. The cutest
guy around may be an evil dragon, a prince wants Elena's heart, and a long dead
sorcerer may be waking up to kill her. Oh and the only way Elena's going to
graduate is on the back of a dragon of her own.
Teenage girls don't believe in fairy tales. Now it's time
for Elena to believe in...herself.
For the love of blueberries, Elena Watkins was destined for
greatness, even though she didn’t know it. Forced to travel from home to home
every three months Elena’s life was a never ending blur of new towns and new
faces, that is, until the night her father was killed by a creature she thought
only existed in fairy tales – a dragon. With her father’s death leaving her
orphaned, Elena is whisked away to her true birthplace, Paegeia.
Arriving
at Dragonia Academy, the premier school for young Dragonians, she begins to
feel a sense of belonging in this strange world; a school she was never meant
to attend because her father was a dragon. Elena is soon swept up in the rigor
of her new life and the new set of skills she now needs to survive: Latin, Art
of War, and Enchantments.
Entranced by her new reality Elena learns about the dragons
and humans who inhabit her new home. There are two classes of dragons that soar
through Paegeia distinguished by their instinctual pretense for either good or
darkness. The distinction between these two very different species is vital to
Elena’s success in her new world because she has been marked as a Dragonian, a
human preordained to ride and tame a dragon of her very own.
With
the help of her new friends, Elena is able to navigate the complexities of her
new home. Her new roommates Becky and Sammy are even more amazing then she
could have ever imaged and to top it all off, Sammy was a dragon. Sammy’s is
also the devoted sister of Blake, the most attractive boy at school and the Rubicon;
the only dragon of his kind with the abilities of all the dragon species with a
pretense for evil. Elena soon finds the love she always wanted with Lucian, the
Prince of Tith, who actively pursues Elena throughout her time at Dragonia Academy, winning her heart
with his absolute adoration and unshaken dedication.
When the sword is stolen Elena doesn’t think twice about
seeking it; knowing deep down that it is her destiny to save her new home. She
travels to the Sacred Cavern, and discovers the nefarious actions of an unknown
man lead to the swords destruction as she follows the trail revealed in the
prophetic waters of the cavern.
Elena
and her friends engage the mysterious man revealing their existence to Goran
and fighting for their very lives.
3 e-copies
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Friday, December 13, 2013
*** ATTENTION*** Introducing Author ~ NONNIE JULES' highly anticipated debut novel
"DAYDREAM'S DAUGHTER,
NIGHTMARE'S FRIEND"
New Release now on Amazon, Createspace & B&N.com.
To check out an excerpt of this riveting, spell-binding story which is set out of the beautiful city of Houston, Texas, click here.
To read more about Author ~ Nonnie Jules, visit her author page.
This novel is currently being looked at as a screen-play possibility but you all can help turn that into a reality by simply spreading the word and getting your very own copy! Ms. Jules is hoping for a phone call from the execs of Lifetime Movie Network any day and she truly believes it will happen. The story-line is too great for it not to.
Let's put this story on the map by forwarding and sharing this email with EVERYONE on your email list, with text messages to friends and family from your cell, with post and shares on your Facebookand Twitter as well as simple, yet very effective word-of-mouth.
You may take a glimpse inside the covers by clicking the Amazon links for the title anywhere on this page, but I must tell you, the really good stuff lies well past the preview Amazon offers.
This book would make an awesome Christmas Gift. How about an autographed copy for that avid reader in your life? Just go toNonnie's Book Store.
Thank you so much for your support and once again, let's spread the word!!!
Nonnie Jules, Author
"...and her words breathe life onto paper"
"...and her words breathe life onto paper"
CONTACT:
General Blog
Nonnie's Book Store - Signed Copies & more
Twitter: @nonniejules
BOOKS:
"The Good Mommies' Guide to Raising (Almost) Perfect Daughters,"
100 Tips On Raising Daughters Everyone Can't Help But Love!
www.amazon.com/dp/B00CP62O56
www.createspace.com/4355124
"Daydream's Daughter, Nightmare's Friend
www.amazon.com/dp/B00GLM2VVM
TRAILERS:
Monday, December 9, 2013
The Hanging Tree by Michael Phillip Cash
Eerie, mind blowing and terrific, this book is one to read! It's written in such a style you'll learn all about the tree and it's "family". I found each story to be sad and tragic, but couldn't understand why these people were treated as badly as they were. Mr. Cash pulls you in and keeps you right in your seat until you are finished.
I found no issues.
I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because it's a perfect spooky read.
How I Taught My Kids To Improve Their Memory & Remember Everything In Less Than One Hour! By Justin Kregger
Mr. Kregger makes this so simple anyone can do it. Using a GPS like technique you can begin to remember everything. Mr. Kregger writes in a simple, easy to uynderstand style and you can begin the minute you open this book. I found it wonderful help for my failing memory. I know you readers will know someone who could benefit from this book.
I found no issues.
I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because it works!!
A Witch's Aura by Devon Volkel
Terrific! This book is extremely well written and the characters seem like old friends. I enjoyed the first love, first kiss and friends aspects but I enjoyed the family secret even more. You'll zip through this book because it's such an easy read. It will take you back to your first love and first kiss. Well done Devon Volkel!
I found no issues.
I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because it really captures your attention from page one.
If I Told You So by Timothy Woodward
Fantastic! Smashing! A wonderfully, well written book with characters who leap off the pages. I applaud this author for his excellent work in showing how one teen deals with the uncertainties of the teen years. Being a teen is hard enough without having no one to share your dreams, decisions and most of all your love with. I love that this book shows it's tough at times but you have to be tougher. You have to be a fighter. Bravo Mr. Woodward!
I found no issues with this one.
I gave this one 5 cheers out of 5 because it's about time we address and learn about the trials and tribulations of being looked at as an outsider!