I'm on information overload after attending so many writer's conferences this year. Since it's up to me to create a marketing plan and then work the plan, I decided to keep a list and share it with my friends. Whether you're a seasoned author or just getting started, I hope you will find something you can use. God bless you!
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #21 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#21. Here’s a new game plan. If you’re an author planning
to attend your next conference, you might want to reconsider that writer’s
workshop you’ve prepared to teach. Why? It’s not necessarily a new trend,
because RT Booklovers Convention has been doing it for many years, but recently
I noticed more conferences this year, since I’ve attended six, host fun
workshops geared toward readers. At RT, there are long lines every day.
Come on, who wouldn’t want to see s showdown between
Heather Graham’s characters and Cherry Adair’s? But that’s not all. Readers are
lining up to get the freebies and all the other give-a-ways for attending. How
about a Thrills and Chills workshop
with authors Lee Childs and Charlaine Harris? Other reader workshops had titles
like Romance: Wheels of Fortune; History Fan Fictionary; Clockwork Carnivale
Tea, and on and on. It is no small task to entertain the readers. How about
Reel Romance Trivial Pursuit?
At Romcon this year, there was more than enough fun for
its readers. Paranormal authors sponsored Battle
to Survival; another group of authors put on Candyman All Grown Up, and there was more.
Are you starting to get the picture?
Next year at RSJ, I’m hosting a reader workshop
called May the Best Man Win! This
should be interestingJ. Also next year, fellow author, LisaWatson, and I are teaming up to host a sweet romance night at Romcon, another
interesting endeavor indeed.
FYI, this could be costly, depending on the number
of readers who attend your fun workshop. That is why it’s a good idea to go in
with a group of authors to pull it off. Otherwise, you’ll be solely responsible
for coming up with the nuances of the games and the prizes. Oh, not to mention that
readers would probably want to walk away with a couple of free books too.
I hope this post has been a blessing. Until next
time,
Pat
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #20 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
Last weekend, I had an opportunity to teach an aspiring author workshop at a local library.
After compiling my notes from what I learned at this year's conferences, I created this handout for participates. Hopefully, this can help someone else.
Enjoy
The First Book workshop by Christian author Pat Simmons
Copyright
2014.
Organize:
A
great book has six vital parts: Narration, dialogue, memorable characters, plot and description.
How
many characters are too many characters? Keep an alphabetical spreadsheet of all
your characters.
Everybody
in your book should have a purpose to advance the heroine/hero’s agenda. If
not, delete them.
**How
does the FIRST LINE of each chapter
begin and the LAST PARAGRAPH end?
*Check
out Scrivener, a program many authors are using to store research, organize
their ideas and write their manuscripts. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php. Free 30 day
trial
Books:
Writing A
Romance for Dummies
by Leslie Wainger
Words You
Thought You Knew
by Jenna Glatzer
What Not to Say by Linda J.
Beam
The Most Common
Mistakes in English Usage by Thomas Elliott Berry
**Scholastic Dictionary of Synonyms, Antonyms,
and Homonyms: aunt or ant; grown or groan; wring or ring, etc.***
Invaluable reference handbook.
Challenge:
To
create an outline: List 20 major scenes that will happen in 20 chapters.
*You
need to know long it takes you to write a book before you sign that contract.
Moody
Publishers had three of my books released within one year. YIKES.
I
have a book due to Whitaker House January 1, 2015. I haven’t started. Another YIKES.
Marketing:
Military
bases—ask for the BX Base Exchange vendor manager. Dave Couture and Allen Maki
at Scott AFB are very friendly. They charge a commission rate from 12% to 25%.
Sign at bases that charge under 20%. If you sell nothing, you pay nothing. To
make the most of your time and money, stay all day to catch the morning, lunch,
afternoon and then after work crowd.
Social
networking: There are all kinds of writing groups on FB. Beware, the moderators
want you to be active and do more than promote your book. There is also LinkedIn
where I found librarians; Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs, etc. St. Louis Black
authors collective on FB
*Check
out my blog: http://conventionnotes.blogspot.com/
*Literary
conferences—always look at the workshops that are being offered.
There
are conferences for every genre.
Social
networks: Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Promotional
items: postcards: I use Next Day Flyers, use promo code
250
|
$18.73
|
FREE
|
F46Postcard250
|
Ink
pens: http://www.amsterdamprinting.com/
Search
for great deals by Googling “cheap”.
Two
people known in the industry for promoting authors:
LaShaunda
Hoffman. Shades of Romance Magazine, promotes more than romance in eblasts. She
also does online conferences. Reach her at sormag@yahoo.com
Ella
Curry, EDC Creations: blog tours online and promotions. She also hosts BAN
(Black Author Network) blogtalk radio shows. Reach her at ellacurryprez@edc-creations.com.
Editing:
DO
NOT use your mother, cousin or friend to give you the final edit. Most writers,
especially newbies, need a developmental editor, line editor, and proof reader.
Every
editor and publisher is different. Always ask for a free sample. Lately, I’ve
used *Fiveer.com, which will become
your BEST friend on a budget. Most
are professionals and freelances that offer great services on covers,
formatting and promotions, starting at $5.
Beware
before hiring any type of editors. Make sure they live within the US.
Otherwise, you’ll get someone who will edit in the Queen’s English. Such
examples are honor vs. honour; recognise vs. recognize.
My
first freelance editor was REALLY big on using repetitious words (she smiled,
he smiled, they smiled—use a thesaurus).This same editor wouldn’t give me a
break on weak chapter endings. I groan.
·
When
I was with Moody Publishers, I noticed the editor was big on transition from
one paragraph to another. The flow was seamless. I watch for that today.
·
My
editor at Whitaker Publisher is really big on timelines, no jumping back and
forth, such as a party in June, then going back to an Easter church service in
April.
Once,
I tried a freelance editor and when she got through ripping up my story—mindful
after I had already been published with eight plus books—my head was messed up,
causing me to doubt myself on that story for almost year until I could
clear my head.
Getting published
·
Secure an agent, which isn’t an easy task. Use
Writer’s Market Handbook, attend conferences, and check out blogs. My agency
has a blog that gives readers tips. http://www.chipmacgregor.com/
·
Get noticed by publishing eBooks. One indie
author success story is Bella Andre who earns $20,000 a month.
What is Writer’s Block? You can’t tell a story if you
don’t know it yourself.
Wake up your characters in your
head. Most of the time they come alive
when you’re about to go to sleep. Take the time and joint notes.
Ask them questions: Sara, your
mother just died. How do you feel?
Dave, you just got a promotion.
How are you going to celebrate?
Girl, your boyfriend cheated on
you. What’s your game plan for revenge?
If you start asking your characters
questions, you are forcing them to answer.
Happy writing!
authorpatsimmons@gmail.com,
@patsimmons, www.patsimmons.net
Look for my Christmas novella: CHRISTMAS GREETINGS Thanksgiving Day.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #19 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#19. We’re killing ourselves to meet those deadlines.
One common excuse I have when trying to meet
deadlines is I can’t stop to eat, wash clothes or clean my house, and the big
one is to exercise. Despite being a snack addict, I’ll be the first to admit
that weigh gain isn’t an issue for me. When I listened to the workshop FIT TO
BE TIED TO YOUR DESK from this past year’s RWA, I realized that it’s not the
eating at our desk that kills us, it’s being at our desk. For some of us, we’re
sitting 8-10 plus hours a day, tapping away.
The presenter, Angie, used to work with Weightwatchers.
She says everyone needs a good cardio workout for 30 to 60 minutes a day. Sounds
good, but I don’t feel I can spare that amount of time to walk the neighborhood
with my husband or go to the gym.
However, sitting at our desks disrupts our blood
flow and slows down our metabolism, which could cause a Writer’s Block. Okay, I’m
a not a doctor, although I did pay medical claims decades ago, but this isn’t
my diagnosis. I’m just highlighting some of my notes from the class. With our
legs bent for long periods of time, the blood can’t flow to our brain, causing
a lack of oxygen, which will result in headaches and exhaustion. Yep, I’ve been
there!
So according to Angie, our problems can be solved by
putting into place some easy tasks:
·
Take a 5 minute break to exercise for
every one hour we write. Stand up and stretch to energize our creative juices. Angie
says walk around the block, run up and down the stairs—do something. I started
jumping rope in my basement (yes, I have high ceilings). When asked which she
prefers, the treadmill or the elliptical machine, hands down Angie likes the
elliptical machine for full body workout.
·
Every 2 days, add one minute to the 5
minute regimen to build up to that 60 minute workout.
·
Prepare your snacks in advance before
you write. Angie says always add some protein with your veggies.
I have implemented the jump rope a couple times a
day and running down my stairs for any excuse, but only after I finish a scene,
which could take 60 to 90 minutes or longer. Hey, it’s a start.
What I really found informative was the pre-made
snacks. Well, that’s it for now. I guess I better go jump rope before I start
my writing marathon.
Happy writing!
I hope this has been a blessing to you until next time.
Pat
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #18 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#18. Are you where you’re supposed to be?
We’ve all heard that Smashwords is the one-stop shop
for eBook authors. Well…almost except they don’t have inroads with Amazon and Googlebooks.
But there is one more place that is gaining speed in
the eBook industry. At Penned Con, Mark Coker (Smashwords) said—and other have agreed—that
Scribd.com’s subscription service will be just as popular with eBook as Netflix
has been with movies. Really?
Authors have two choices to have books listed on
Scribd.com. Here’s the link about information on their subscription
service for authors to upload their eBooks directly. Am I the only one coming
to the table late on this?
Of course, if you’re not a do-it-yourselfer than besides
Smashwords, you can also go through Scribd’s other publishing partners—as they
call themselves—INscribed Digital, BookBaby, or Draft2Digital. I briefly checked out these
sites to find out what was it going to cost me and how much they were going to
pay me. I noticed they were not all the same except when it came time to
release payment…still quarterly. I should mention another site that seems to
becoming popular is Bublish.com Mind you,
in the world of eBooks, you can’t leave any stone unturned. Our books have to
be EVERYWHERE, but are you ready for the subscription concept? You have your
homework assignment, now get to researching!
I hope
this post have been a blessing.
Pat
Here’s a little inspiration today:
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #17 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#17. The plot thickens. With all the conferences I’ve
attended this year, I can’t remember where this latest tidbit came from, but
the concept is worth exploring. One presenter suggested clashing two different
story plots into one book. My first response was yeah, right. Once she
explained the process, I thought, hmm—why not. If—a big if—I could make it
work, the idea would enrich my story line and keep my readers guessing.
For example, you’re struggling to build a story line with a recently widowed mother of two children with no job. Now, I know this is
not going to make sense, but why not introduce a whistle blower with a company
allegedly responsible for toxic waste. One idea seems like the making of a
romance story; the other sounds like a suspense in the making. So how would you
piece those two completely different scenarios or genres into one story? The
possibility is endless. What the presenter was trying to accomplish was to make
us dig deeper to develop our story lines.
I hope this sparks ideas for the story you’re about
to write.
Be blessed.
Pat
BTW, WHAT GOD HAS FOR ME is out!
Friday, September 19, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #16 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#16. Audio books, books
on tape. Audible, ACX.
It seems like I couldn’t
escape this topic from three of the conferences I attended: RWA, Penned Con and
RT Booklovers Convention. Folks are calling audio books the new black, which is
the latest trend that is helping indie authors earn, I’m told 5 times more $$ than
eBooks. One author said her audio sales made up 25% of her monthly income.
Plus, ACX has a bounty program, which basically pays a $50 bonus per new readers
who sign up for ACX club membership as a result of wanting to download your
book. If you sign exclusively with ACX, which
distributes to Amazon and iTunes, your monthly royalty is 40%. Otherwise, your
royalty would be 25% to sell it elsewhere.
Here are some notes from
RWA. Self-publishing authors are using ACX and Audicle.com ( I think thery are
the same thing). The current stats show listeners are downloading 18 audio
books a year. KDP has a program called Whispersync for Voice-ready, which means
if your eBook is also an audio book, readers can seamlessly switch between eReader
and audio books without skipping a beat, page or chapter to finish your novel. Neat!
According
to authors on the panel, you don’t want anybody narrating your masterpiece. As a
matter of fact, most voice-over talents are particular about the projects they
take on. If you aren’t selling well on Amazon, the narrator may not want to
invest the time in a project that “isn’t going anywhere”. They also want to
advance their careers. You also are not limited to the pool on ACX. You can
reach out to actors and ask to hear their audition tape. If they aren’t on ACX,
they can apply. You create a profile, which will include an excerpt of what you
want them to read. For a sample audition script, one author suggested picking a
conversation between a man and woman, a critical scene and listen
how the narrator differentiates the characters. Make sure the narrator has the
personality of your characters, is a storyteller and can pronoun the names correctly,
even your name.
You can do a 50/50 split
with the narrator (from everyone I’ve spoken with this isn’t recommended), but you
wouldn’t be out of any $$, but it supposedly limits your chances of finding
somewhere to audition. If you’re willing to pay the flat fee—a lot of authors
go this route at first, you might get more bites. There was mention of Audible
paying an additional $400 pre-finished hour for the 50/50 option—but you better
check on the details. Narrators will line up to record your story based on YOUR
ratings on Amazon—I noticed it was based on your print rankings, not eBook.
Okay, so how much $$ are we talking about per
finished hour (90,000 word novel takes about 10 hours). Typical hourly rate is
based on 9300 words to one finished hour. You determine how much you are
willing to play. It could vary from $100-$300, especially if you use union
actors. Lastly, there was discussion of how to market them. One author had a website
page that listed her audio books page with sound clips. She said that helped
sales, because it gave people an opportunity to test and sample the audiobooks.
Oh yeah, you can also run a contest where you could give-away 25 free download with
a code, and the best part is you still get paid royalty on that.
So, I decided to test the market and I went on ACX.com, and did the whole profile thing. I picked
a novella, which had shorter word count. I offered to pay $100-$200 an hour and
picked an excerpt with three people in the scene. I offered $100 to $200 an
hour to see if I would get any bites. The profile calculated it would take the
narrator (they call it producer), 3.5 hours to finish THE
KEEPSAKE (34,000 novella)
Pat
Monday, September 15, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #15 of 100 things I learned from attending SIX LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#15. This is a switch.
Can you imagine agents/publishers chasing after you to offer you a book deal? This
really does happen. If you have never heard of international bestselling author
Bella Andre, my first question is, where have you been? Before I met this indie
author at RWA, I read about her success. She brings in $20,000 a month—no
exaggeration. This woman is so bad that
she had licensed the rights to a publisher to her print books while retaining
her eBook rights, which garner hundreds of reviews. “Wow.”
Another super star (my
description only, she would deny it) is NYT bestselling author Colleen Hoover
who I met this past weekend at Penned Con. She did the exact same thing with
one of her eBooks, licensing her rights on a print book. My mouth dropped and
my eyes blurred when I saw several of her books with 1,000 plus reviews.
Really? I thought only James Patterson and a handful of others hit the 1,000
and 2,000 reviews mark. I’m still trying to get to one-hundred on one of my
eleven novels and twelve novellas. Okay, what is their secret? Write a good
book, build a street team and promote. Colleen told me when she was an indie
author; she is now a hybrid (traditionally published and self-published), the
publishers came after her because her eBooks were doing so well, which
basically meant, she had a fan base that posted reviews. These two are proof indie
authors can be a force to reckon with.
COMING SOON Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #14 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#14.
Scrivener:
Rolling with the BIG dogs—I think. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m always
late on the scene when it comes to trying something new. I didn’t realize how
LATE I was until I sat in on a crash course on Scrivener at RWA. The workshop presenter asked how many authors use Scrivener to write their novels. It seemed like 75% of attendees’
hands went up. Then she wanted to know what was taking the rest of us that was still
using Microsoft so long? Good question. So for the last three days, I’ve been
trying out the Scrivener 30 day free trial that I downloaded from http://www.literatureandlatte.com/. If I decide to buy
Scrivener, it’s $40. Since I have a full length novel and a Christmas novella
to write, I welcome anything that can maximize my writing. I’ve gone to YouTube a couple of times
to watch tutorials, which have helped—and confused me. I’m learning by trial and
error. I’ve been outlining Book 3 of the Carmen Sisters series. The big feature
seems to be the index cards you can use on a corkboard. Today, I’ve labeled the
12 months of the year, so I would know where to begin my story; I’ve labeled dialogue
that I didn’t want to forget; and I’ve labeled the must-have scenes in the
story.A big draw for me is the research folder where I
have placed info needed about my character’s occupation, lifestyle, etc. There
is also an option that will help you set writing goals. I wouldn’t suggest
trying this program in the middle of a project. But I think this might work for me. I’ll continue to add scenes
and dialogue, then next week, I’ll begin to write. Let’s see if I can make my
deadline!
I hope this post has been a blessing.
Pat
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #13 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#13. Street Teams
Hello all. Every author
needs a support system. For me, I started the Guilty captains when my Jamieson
Legacy novels were released. At the time, I had nine women from across the
county who volunteered to take an active role to help advance my writing
career. Fast forward two years later, one woman remains my sidekick: Mia
Harris, or Mia Daniel on FB. She really is an author’s best friend. I asked her
what she thought was the most important thing for a street team, and here was her
response for the author:
Get the word out
without expense.
Get people involved.
Get involved on social
media
What I learned from a workshop at RWA. Mobilize your
street team with:
1.
Chapter Reveals—give them a tease
2.
Contest—offer weekly prizes
3.
Build anticipation, give direct links to
all retails that offer pre-orders
4.
Eliminate friction among the group
5.
Give incentives for positive actions
6.
Super fans will convince their friends to read your books
7.
Smashwords has coupons for you to use
for pre-order receipts
8.
List your street team under the
acknowledgement section in your books
9.
Give your street team a list with a
deadline to complete the tasks
10.
In the end, many people on your street team
aren’t there for the give-a-ways. They support you because of what you write***
I’m guilty of #9. In the past, the only thing I asked
of my Guilty captains was to post a review when my book was released and to help
pass out postcards. Last weekend, I asked members of my FB steam team to post, with
the Amazon link, their favorite book that I had written. Of course not everyone
did, but it was fun to see which book each reader enjoyed. I would thank them
and then share their link on my wall with a shout out to them. One strange
thing happened. A friend of one reader replied that Christian fiction wasn’t
her cup of tea and why should she read Guilty of Love. I replied, posted the
synopsis. The woman agreed to give me a try. How cool was that? I had performed
#6 from the above list without realizing it.
I hope this tip has been a blessing to you. Believe
it or not, I’m attending another conference—if the Lord wills—this week. I’ll
have notes from there.
Pat
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #12 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#12. Getting eBooks sales at book signings.
One thing I don’t want to hear when I’m at a book
event is, “I read all my books on Kindle now,” especially when I have 50+ books
sitting on my table to sell. Masking my disappointment, I give them a postcard that
lists my eBooks and tell them, “I’ll still get credit if you download, so
please support me.”
“I sure will,” is the usual response.
Unfortunately, when I get home and review my sales
report for eBooks, I find only a few follow through that first week or even by the
second week. One reason could be out of sight, out of mind.
There has to be an incentive for a reader to download
your eBook on the spot. I’ve been pondering a solution for that a while now. At
this year’s RT Booklovers Convention, I was introduced to a service that allows
authors to autograph their eBook covers on eReaders without leaving any
permanent marks and the signature will only show up on the screen when that eBook
cover is displayed. I haven’t investigated it for myself, but I’ve seen other
authors use it with ease. Check out http://www.authorgraph.com.
Another option I learned about from author Paris Love at the National Black Book
Club Conference is Book stubs. It looks like a playing card with the book cover
on the front and its QR code on the back for the reader to scan to download the
book. The author could sell the card, say for $5.00, and the readers can
download the book at any time. You’ve made a sale!! You can also use it for
free download promotions. Of course, you would have to work the logistics of
it, but I did a little research into this promotion, and this isn’t cheap. Check out this blog for more information:
http://www.yukionnapublishing.com/blog/2013/06/26/Promoting-Your-Book-with-Book-Stubs-A-DIY-Guide.aspx.
Thanks, Paris Love, for sharing! Until Next time, I hope this information has
been blessing.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #11 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#11. What’s
happening at the libraries? But first, I’ve reached out to Kiffer Brown who
taught the workshop on +1 and she agreed to answer questions for the blog. I
wanted to make sure I am as accurate as possible on these important tools for
authors that I am sharing, so I’m waiting for her responses.
At Romance Slam Jam (RSJ 2014), I sat in on a
workshop entitled Romance Readers Advisory: A Librarian Prospective with LaToya
Devezin. She said the top African-American romance genres checked out at her
New Orleans branch was urban fiction, Christian fiction and erotica. YA,
graphic novels and paranormal also made the list. She also mentioned Overdrive.org—the
first time I heard about this. It’s an electronic catalog system where library patrons
can borrow eBooks. So I logged onto http://overdrive.slcl.org
to see if any of my books showed up from my previous publishers—none at my
public library. But on a main database, I did see all three novels from Moody. You
can check to see if any of your eBooks under emedia at your local library. So now
I’m thinking, why not try to get some of my self-published titles on Overdrive?
But author BEWARE. My understanding is you sell one copy of your eBook for $2.99
to a library. That one copy can be download unlimited times from the library. According
to a local librarian, this is the way for new authors to get noticed. Since you
don’t earn royalties when someone checks out your eBook, you might not be worth
it to you, or you might want to look at it as a promotion. Either way, now you
know something I didn’t, or maybe you already knew and can add to the
conversation. Feel free. I hope this post has been a blessing to you.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #10 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#10 PRE-ORDERS.
I heard about pre-orders from Mark Coker and his
assistant, Jim Azeveo, at the RT Booklovers Convention, Romcon, and RWA. I spoke
with both of them one-on-one several times.
The concept is not new, because big publishers have
done this for years. Indie authors I met said this is where the $$ is. Until
last week, Smashwords was the only option for indie authors to upload an eBook
for pre-orders.
In the workshop at RT, Mark Coker seemed to be
flexible with the “eBook release” date. If the manuscript wasn’t ready, simply
push back the date. I could see this backfiring for new authors. However, life happens,
and that at times, we have to request an extension.
Mark said the key to success was having the eBook on
the pre-order status for as long as possible. Here’s why. Let’s suppose you
decide to release an eBook on October 1, 2014. Mark suggests you upload it on August
or September 1st because if you generate one pre-order sale a day
for 60 days, when that eBook goes live on October 1st, all those 60
orders will be applied on one day and that will immediately boost your sales ranking.
Sounds like a plan!
.jpg)
Okay, what happened last week? Amazon jumped on
board with pre-order options for indie authors—about time. HOWEVER, they have stricter
guidelines. The most important one is there is no flexibility on delivery date.
If I say my book will be ready on October 1st, I can’t push it back,
regardless of any unforeseen circumstances. If I don’t deliver it on that date,
Amazon will suspend me from the pre-orders program for one year. Yikes. That is
a serious offense.
So I uploaded TALK TO ME with the same discount
price. When I listed my September 2, 2014, release date, Amazon sent me a
notice that my final manuscript must be to them by 8/23/2014. These people are
serious. Although, I can’t see where I’ve generated any pre-sales, I did make
ranking yesterday, but it’s gone today.
So there you have it on what I’ve learned about pre-orders
at the conferences. FYI, Apple and Google Books also have pre-order programs. The key is to have it on pre-orders as early as
possible—the longer, the better—but you have to deliver. Make sure your eBook
is almost done before you sign on to this commitment.
Next up is #11. Why Google+ is the new Black (I’m
trying to reach the workshop speaker to send me one or two highlights), if not,
I’ll talk about street teams—my notes from RWA and an actual reader. Until then, I hope this has been a blessing.
Pat
Friday, August 15, 2014
Pat's Convention Note #9 of 100 things I learned from attending FIVE LITERARY CONFERENCES in 2014
#9. Free means $$. I decided after some recent
announcements from KDP (Kindle), I should discuss FREE TIPS before I tackle PRE-ORDER
TIPS. So here we go. I’ve been hearing the word “FREE” for years and until I
attended Romcon in Denver, I really didn’t know how to go about it without
enrolling in KDP Select—again, which I tried years ago without any success. I
don’t like the idea of Amazon having exclusive rights to my book and lose $$ by
removing them on other sites. However, the author at Romcon shared how I could
get around it by using Smashwords to offer the first eBook in my Guilty series
to all channels. I groaned. Not that dreaded Smashwords formatting—no! So I
turned to Bookaholic on www.Fiveer.com, and my problem was solved!! Thanks to
author Tiffany Warren who reminded me about Fiveer.com for covers.
I think this is Bookaholic’s direct link: http://www.fiverr.com/bookaholic/format-your-ebook-for-smashwords-to-pass-autovetter?funnel=201408151242529417459640.
She’s done 1722 formats.
Thanks to her, I uploaded GUILTY OF LOVE to
Smashwords with ease. Within minutes, readers began to download it before I
could even announce it on social media. So to date, here are my stats now after
10 days of being FREE on Smashwords, I had 600+ DOWNLOADS from readers and 27 DOWNLOADS
from the library. I thought that was decent, considering those were 600
readers, giving me a try.
Next, I notified Amazon that GUILTY OF LOVE was FREE
through Smashwords and could they match it. I was told they would look into it.
After about a week of “looking into it”, GUILTY OF LOVE was available on Kindle
for FREE. Look at my stats in just 5 days: More than 4200 FREE DOWNLOADS---wow.
That’s 4200 readers that have never read me before. GUILTY OF LOVE will be Free
until 8/24/2014. I’m hoping to get to 10,000 readers before then. Although it
is slowing up.
Okay, I’m sure you’re wondering about how my other
books in the series are doing. After all, that is why I’m doing this promotion.
·
Here
is GUILTY OF LOVE: Amazon
Best Sellers Rank: #130 Free in Kindle Store (See Top
100 Free in Kindle Store)
·
NOT GUILTY OF LOVE: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,294
Paid in Kindle Store (See Top
100 Paid in Kindle Store)
·
STILL GUILTY: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,792 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in
Kindle Store)
·
THE
ACQUITTAL: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,367 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in
Kindle Store)
Thanks
to different keywords (from one of my earlier TIPS), I ranked in different
categories.
Not
only that, Digitalbooktoday.com contacted me and advised that GUILTY OF LOVE was
on their website and invited me to be a featured author because of my ranking
on Amazon. Free eBookDaily.com also had me listed. Wow, now that’s more FREE
promotion that I didn’t count on. Look at Jesus as my church folks say.
I’m
watching to see in my sales will go into triple digits on each one and earn
more reviews. I’ll keep you posted.
In
case you want to download GUILTY OF LOVE while it’s free, here’s the LINK: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L9EGLEA?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B00L9EGLEA&linkCode=xm2&tag=autpatsim-20.
So,
as you can see, FREE has exposed me to new readers, only time will tell if
those readers will become fans who buy the rest of my books. I hope this post has
helped to bless someone’s business.
Stay
tuned, in Tip #10, I will talk about my experience with pre-orders.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)