Month: November 2019

Marketing 101 #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

November 25, 2019

We’ve touched on this in the past, but it bears repeating. What’s the best way to market your books?

It’s the eternal question for those of us struggling to sell books, looking for a break, trying to find how to reach the right audience. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of time and energy. And I’m no expert.

What I do have is some experience. And I’m happy to share. Take it with a grain of salt, because I certainly haven’t found the magic formula.

Before I begin, I’m going to refine the question a bit and answer in two different sections—what I enjoy doing, and what sells the most books.

Me at the Deadly Realities book signing.

First, what I enjoy doing. I love going to events. Book events, cons, heck, this year I attended a chili festival. Anyplace where I can look the public in the eye and try to sell them my books. And talk to them about my stories and what they like to read in general. I consider it a win if I make enough to cover my table fee and what I paid for my books. Everything beyond that is a bonus.

Of course, one of the great parts of going to events is meeting other authors and vendors. Even if they don’t buy a book or two, it’s fun hanging out with new people. Or ones you’ve met at other events. I’m looking forward to the Bizarre Bazaar  in Loveland, CO this weekend (Saturday Nov. 30th). This will be my third year and it’s always an entertaining day.

What sells the most books? Paid ads in various readers’ newsletters., especially when the book being advertised is on sale. (I don’t do free books, but that a discussion we’ve had before and I won’t get into this time.) There’s a bunch of them out there. Some of my favorites are The Fussy Librarian, Book Doggy, and of course, ENT- EReaders News Today. I’ll be trying a new site next week, that came highly recommended by another author. It’s called Book Rebel, and we’ll see what happens. I haven’t even tried for a BookBub ad because their price is too steep for my pocketbook.

I understand the boost you get from those sites is temporary, but gosh darn it, if feels good to see the numbers go up on Amazon and other book selling sites. 

What doesn’t work for me? I can’t use Facebook to sell a book no matter what I try. Ads, posts, groups, I get crickets. Blog tours don’t do me much good either. And Twitter? Does anyone sell books on Twitter?

What’s on my to-do list? I want to try an Amazon ad. I’ve done my homework, and I think it has potential, although some articles say the ads are past their peak. We’ll see. I won’t hold my breath.

I’m hoping my fellow authors have additional wisdom to share. And if you know something I don’t, please tell me about it in the comments!

P.S. For those of you in the Unites States, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

November 25, 2019

We’ve touched on this in the past, but it bears repeating. What’s the best way to market your books?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Deadly Reality Photos

  By Uncategorized

Just a few of the pictures from my stay in Estes Park, CO for the Deadly Reality book signing on November 9th.

How Long? #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

How many hours a day do you write? How long on average does it take you to write a book?

There are authors out there that aim to write book a month. We’re not talking NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where the goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of November, we’re talking about kicking out a complete book each and every month including editing. I have no idea how they do that. Writing that many words in one month is tough, (and I have done it) but to throw in a comprehensive edit? Wow. Just wow.

But I guess they have more time to write than I do. During the week, I’m doing good if I get two hours a day to write. I spend additional time taking care of social media and publicity. In those two hours, I’m lucky if I get 500 words written. Weekends, I can get more written. If the characters are talking to me, I can write 1000 words or more in a day.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

At that rate, it can take me five to nine months to write a book. That doesn’t include the editing. Editing is easier, but it is also dependent upon other peoples schedules. (Especially when you consider how many rounds of editing one of my books goes through!) And it may be easier, but it’s also the part I despise. It’s so easy to miss things no matter how hard you try and how careful you are. That’s why my books go through three or four rounds of editing.

That means I typically release a book a year. (Okay, a book every ten months or so.) I’d love to write faster, but it is what it is. I’ve got enough ideas to keep me busy, and new genres I’d love to try. I’m leaning towards a hard core female PI or an action-adventure-thriller. Which do you think I should tackle?

I don’t like to compare my output to other writers, but I’m curious to see how fast the others on this blog hop write. Join me in the journey by following the links below.

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.

2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.

3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.

4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.

5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

 

Spirit Animal #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

November 11, 2019

As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

Wolf. How many of you said wolf? Come on, raise your hands and let me see. Keep them up for a minute so I can get a good look.

And the answer is … not a wolf.

But yes, I will still graciously accept the various wolf-related gifts that people like to give me. I know, I’m hard to buy for. Wolf T-shirts, statues, and note cards are great gifts. I have no  problem with them.

But my spirit animal is not an animal at all. 

It’s the dragonfly. An insect. I’ll even accept it’s cousin, the damselfly. Most of us can’t tell the difference, anyway.

I’ve felt an affinity with these marvelous creatures since childhood. Their

variety of sparkling colors. The delicacy of their translucent wings. The way they own the air as they dart about, seemly without effort.

I’ve known people who are creeped out by dragonflies. Not me. I’ve been known to rescue them  when they accidentally get stuck inside a building, encouraging them to land on me so I can take them back outside. 

And yes, I am aware that at their core, they are deadly predators. Those amazing aerobatic maneuvers are executed in  not to entertain us, but to catch and eat another insect. but with mosquitoes and midges being their meals of choice, they serve a helpful purpose to us humans.

Why do I think a dragonfly is my spirit animal? I don’t know the answer to that question. I didn’t have a dream or vision that revealed it to me, the answer just came to me after watching a Star Trek episode. Yeah, go ahead and google that.

And what does a dragonfly have to do with writing? Well, maybe it’s that we, as writers, have to snatch at words that dart through our imaginations and capture them to feed our readers’ souls. 

I’m curious to find out what the others on this blog hop have as spirit animals or mascots. You can find out, too, by following the links below. Or, hang around for a few minutes and share your spirit animal in the comments.

November 11, 2019

As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.

2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.

3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.

4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.

5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Strange things in research #IWSG

  By IWSG
 
November 6 question – What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever googled in researching a story?
 
The awesome co-hosts for the November 6 posting of the IWSG are Sadira Stone, Patricia Josephine, Lisa Buie-Collard, Erika Beebe, and C. Lee McKenzie!
 
Good question! This week I googled myself for a blog post, and that was pretty strange. I’m fairly boring, but I did find people who shared my name that were more interesting. (See Monday’s blog post.)
 
I google a lot about guns for both of my series. But that’s not really strange.
 
More interesting, to me anyway, are the fancy driving stunts I search for, and how do do them. Not that I would ever try, but a couple of my characters do, as a hobby of sorts. And to evade pursuers, be they the bad guys or the good guys.
 
Then there’s the self-defense techniques the heroine in my mystery series uses. Thank heavens because she’s always getting herself into trouble.
 
But even those aren’t strange. You know when I get into really interesting topics? 
 
When I get off track. 
 
When I see something shiny and go down the rabbit hole. My blog post about googling my name led me to a page about about bridge jumping. (Bridge Day in West Virginia). And the report of two political opponents who had a gun fight after a meeting.  Looking up information on jet boats in Oregon led me to the web page of a lodge in Oregon you can only get to by boat. 
 
Then there’s the stuff that comes up at work. We have interesting discussions. Like the gradual salt intrusion into the fresh water aquifers of Florida. Or the logos of car manufactures no one has ever heard of. Or the farthest geographic compass point location for each direction for the continental Unites States. (Hint- at least one of them you would never guess!)
 
Still, I don’t know if I’d rank any of these as  strange. I’d call them fascinating. 
 
How about you? Google anything strange lately? 
 
 
 
 

I See Dead People #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

November 4, 2019

Do you Google yourself?

I admit, I have Googled myself. And the results for my pen name are rather boring. My Facebook page, my Amazon listings, this blog, and lots of blogs I’ve had guest posts on. I don’t believe there is anyone else using this name and that limits the potential for exciting finds. I got all the way to page 7 of the results before I gave up. (I did find a poem I published in a literary magazine before I started writing books. That came as a pleasant surprise.)

Googling my given name is more interesting. There’s a former middleweight fighter in Canada that shares a form of my name. And a hip-hop artist, although most of the information about him isn’t in English. (I think he’s French, but couldn’t find his bio. And his Instagram account only has two posts.)  Then there’s a bridge in Tennessee that bears my name, although it’s a memorial to someone else. I know it sits at an elevation of 594 feet, but I couldn’t find any information about the person it was named after.

We’ll skip all those people finder sites. They don’t count.

Then there are the obituaries. More than I anticipated. It’s fascinating reading the stories of people who shared your name but are are gone now. All of the ones I read seemed to be your standard salt-of-the-earth type people. And that’s an okay legacy to leave. “Loving mother.” “Dear sister.” “She was baptized on a winter day in Storms Creek in the early years of raising her children.”

I did find a record of someone bearing the same name as me being involved in a shooting at a political gathering in 1902. He survived, his opponent was expected to die. There was also a census record from the early 1900’s that I suspect is tied to the bridge I mentioned earlier. (Same state and city, so now I know his parents’ names but not what he did to deserve having a bridge named for him!) 

A few months back, we talked about names on this blog hop, and I mentioned how I frequently search for the names of my characters so I don’t accidentally use a real person’s name. On one of the comments, it was suggested that Harmony Duprie, the main character in my mysteries, probably has a namesake out there in the world somewhere. 

That comment sparked a subplot in my current WIP. Yes, Harmony is searching for herself. With good reason. I won’t reveal the results, but she, too, sees dead people. (And at least one person who is still alive!)

So, how about you? Do you Google yourself? Are your results any different than mine? Let’s talk in the comments.

Until then, I’m going to go check out the other authors and their results. You can come with me by clicking on the boxes below.

November 4, 2019

Do you Google yourself?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter