KDP Select and My Three FREE Days Experiment.

Hello Scribe’s readers. What a crazy week and a wild ride I’ve had. First, let me thank everyone who either downloaded SAVAGE CINDERELLA or helped spread the word that it was available for FREE for three days last week. And if you missed out, I’ll be using my two remaining “FREE” days at the beginning of June just before I pull the book down from the KDP Select program to upload it to Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. What does all of this mean? This post might be a bit long, but bear with me and I’ll explain.

Kindle Direct Publishing Select program is available to authors who upload their books to Amazon and agree to exclusively sell only on Amazon for a ninety day period of time. I won’t get into all the details of KDP Select since I’ll be covering it in depth soon on Market or Die with Jennifer Fusco and I want to focus this post on the results of the promotion. In short, one of the perks of being in the Select program is the ability to offer the book for free for up to five days during that ninety day period. The benefits of this are numerous. Allow me to share my experience with you.

On Thursday, April 19^th, I joined fifteen other children’s, middle grade and YA authors who put all of our books for free for that day only. I used the momentum of that promotion and added two more free days for my book. Thanks to the organizational genius and diligence of our “fearless leader” Stacey Juba, the books were listed on dozens of sites that showcase FREE books. Stacey assigned each of us five sites to contact regarding the promotion. That means at least seventy-five sites potentially carried our free promo. It cost us nothing and was very easy and manageable. I also listed my book on the following FREE Book promotion sites:

E-reader News Today, Indie Book List, Pixel of Ink, Free Kindle Books Today, Your Book Authors.com, and Kindle Nation Daily, most of whom kept my book listed on their front pages for the entire three days. It might interest you to know that I had just come off of a ten-day Blog Hop with seventy-four other authors and had the opportunity to promote the event to the dozens of people who “hopped” by my blog to check it out or leave comments. We implemented a massive tweet and FB campaign as well with our social networks. 

My goals for the FREE promotion were as follows:                                                                                     

1)      Increase visibility/discoverability (Top 100 lists)

2)      Expand my readership/reach new readers

3)      Boost sales

4)      Get more reviews (I had only two reviews, both 5 stars before the promo started. This will become important later.)

I was stunned at the results and I’m still floating on the residual effects. Before I started the FREE days, I was feeling a bit discouraged. January, February, and March sales had climbed steadily and I half expected April to continue to climb since I had just released SAVAGE CINDERELLA (SC) in mid-March, thereby expanding my backlist, which should, theoretically increase the sales of all of my books. Not so much. Truth be told, April brought on a big fat stall in sales and I hadn’t sold a book in three days. As of April 18^th I had sold 11 copies of SC on Amazon for the month. My Amazon ranking was somewhere around 80,000. Pitiful, I know! Sales of ON THIN ICE have consistently been good and I was at 58 sales for April. Not bad, but not nearly as good as the previous three months.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up on April 19^th (three hours into the promotion) to 57 downloads and a ranking of 7,842 in the Kindle  Free Store. I watched throughout the day and was mesmerized as I saw the numbers soar. By midnight that night, I had 4,954 downloads and was #89 on the Free Kindle Books list. I’d broken into the TOP 100 list that would gain me the exposure I was looking for.

I won’t bore you with a blow by blow of the numbers over the next few days, but by the time the promotion was over on Sunday morning, SC had 26,688 US downloads, 1,031 in the UK, 76 in Germany, 6 in France, and 1 in Spain (my first Spanish reader!) My book was #7 in the Kindle Free Store. There are other lists that are important to note here. Books are categorized into many sub genres when you list your book on Amazon. Authors get to pick these categories so it’s important to choose wisely. SC stayed in the #1 slot in my categories for the full three days.

The only downside I discovered is that I’ve gotten a few less than stellar reviews which has lowered my starred ranking from a lovely 5 star average to 3.8 stars. This is not an uncommon occurrence according to many indie authors who believe that this is due to the large cross section of readers who may not, in fact ,enjoy the genre but download anything FREE. There is also the belief that anything FREE is of lesser quality and value. 

The upside is that I met all of my goals and exceeded my expectations. Since the promotion ended on Sunday, I’ve sold 120 copies of SC with 45 borrows (for which I will be paid 2.04 each), and 30 copies of ON THIN ICE. HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES has sadly fallen off the radar with only 13 sales this month, and will have its own promotional resuscitation very soon. These are my current stats in the Kindle Paid Store as well as in my categories:

• ·         Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • o    #33 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Children’s Fiction > Literature > Love & Romance
  • o    #45 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense
  • o    #49 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

 Overall, a resounding success! It’s likely that the numbers will settle down again over the next days or weeks, but the boost has been encouraging and I am absolutely thrilled with reaching 28,000 potential readers. You couldn’t buy that kind of exposure and it really cost me nothing but a little time and effort. As always, thanks to all of you who continue to support my efforts and make this crazy ride such a blast to share.

 Questions? Comments? Do you appreciate FREE books as much as books you’ve paid for? I’m curious to know.

 

RT Recap

I’m back from the windy city, and it was…well…windy.

PJ in the Windy City

After a four day whirlwind trip to the Romantic Times Booklover’s Convention in Chicago, I thought I would share the highlights with you. I had the great pleasure of seeing some friendly faces from the CTRWA. My roomy Katy Lee, Jordan K Rose, Doc Jess Andersen, Corrina Lawson, and Sara Humphreys were all on deck to make me feel welcomed and to point me in the right direction when I got lost in the chaos. Thanks so much Ladies! It wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Sara Humphreys

I went to RT with three goals in mind.

 1) Networking

 2) Learning some new marketing strategies

3) Connecting with readers.

To that end, I took several self-publishing and marketing workshops, sat in on author panels, and enjoyed the many parties hosted by fabulous authors and the various publishing houses. I’ll start with the fun stuff first. With kilted men, winged women, and shirtless cover models, I must say the entertainment kept me dancing until the wee hours most nights. Being a YA author, I’ll admit that my favorite party was the YA slumber party, hosted by about a dozen of my YARWA buddies. In spite of the fact that the party started very late at the end of a long day, I had a blast. The highlight of that event was a hilarious game of truth or dare which resulted in Lea Nolan having to perform ten animal noises in twenty seconds and someone running around the room screaming her undying love for her favorite YA hero. We were all teens at heart dressed in our pajamas and funkiest slippers. I still can’t believe the pink flamingos didn’t win the slipper contest! Best of all was putting faces to the names of all the amazing and talented women who have helped me in a hundred ways on our YARWA loop. You gals rock!

On the self-publishing front, Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords did a workshop analyzing data that revealed some interesting trends in the industry. His data showed that the highest sales occurred with e-books priced between $2.99 and $5.99, FREE promotions work to move sales and drive books up the best sellers lists thereby improving sales once a book is put back up for sale, and that long tale sales are what authors need to focus on. Bottom line–E-books are forever and it takes up to eighteen months for most books to find their audience. He was kind enough to admit that the Smashwords sales reports were not very user friendly and promised that his staff is still working to improve the system. He was very nice, super approachable, and encouraging about the future of indie-publishing.

I also had the privilege of hearing Bob Mayer and JA Konrath give their take on the future of self-publishing, and I found it all extremely interesting. Bob Mayer talked about how to sell your book/product. His advice: Great title, great cover, great content, and then more of it. He suggested linking your product to something else that is already selling and that people are emotional about, networking and relying on other authors for reviews and blurbs to help sell your book, and building community. He believes in multiple streams of distribution, being consistent with whatever form of social media you choose, and using what you know and who you are to create name recognition. Become an expert at something and sell that!

As conservative as Bob Mayer appeared in suit and tie, Joe Konrath came across as being a bit radical. He had similar advice in terms of having a great cover, offering your book at a decent price, creating a killer description, and putting out quality books—lots of them! He sees the future of e-books leading toward interactive content or “user aggregated content.” That includes adding video, music, author commentary, fan fiction, forums, and even live chats, all included inside your e-books. The idea of a book as a destination with Enhanced e-books is already happening with programs such as V-Look. We now have the ability through Autography and Kindlegraph to do virtual signings and further connect to our readers. He also sees advertisement becoming part of our e-books in the very near future. I heard from several panelists in various self-pub workshops that the Global market is opening up and translation is the next big step. Although costly (at $5-8,000) it seems a worthy investment for those with big sales in that market.

 According to Liz Edelstein, trad-turned-indie-author and Senior manager of the St. Martin’s Press website, Heroes and Heartbreakers, there are basically four choices these days. Do it yourself, small press, Digital Imprints, and major houses (NY Big Six). She talked about the acronym TEMP being the criteria that authors needed to explore when deciding their publishing route. Time, Energy, Money, and Patience. Essentially, how hard do you want to work? She also answered the tough question, “Do you think there is a self-publishing bubble?” Her answer was a reluctant “yes.” With the hordes of new indie-authors jumping into the pool, anyone who started this journey over the past six months has probably had marginally less success than the trail blazers that hit the scene two years ago. Her advice was that if you’re going to do it, now is the time. In other words, he who waits to dip their toe may find the waters a bit infested. The good news is that there is always another bubble…those foreign markets again and the great big world of audio books. Technology is likely to keep offering new opportunities for those willing to brave the waters.

My favorite marketing tips from various workshops:

1)      Sell your hook, not your book when talking to media outlets and trying to set up interviews.

2)      Don’t look at numbers; look at who you are reaching.

3)      Don’t go overboard with self-promotion. Instead, focus on creating and promoting your Brand.

I didn’t even mention the craft workshops, amazing author panels, or my first Expo, but let me assure you, it was all informative, fun, and educational.

PJ and Jordan K Rose at the Expo

The long and the short of it is that I met my goals for the conference. But I have to say that the greatest highlight for me was when a teenager who won my book in an online contest recognized me and gushed about how excited she was to meet me.

Of course, I was an even bigger fan girl when I met Ally Carter, author of The Gallagher Girls series. Fun times!

Hopping with Authors in Bloom

Hey gang, PJ Sharon here on this second Tuesday in April. I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday weekend with lots of good food and time with family. After such a “hoppy” weekend, it seems only reasonable to suggest that April is the best time of year for a spring blog hop. For those of you who have only heard the term Blog Hop, and have wondered, ummm…what the heck is a blog hop? Well, I’m here to fill you in.

A blog hop is a way for many authors to join together to cross promote. Some dedicated and organized soul (thank you Dianne Venetta), sets up the main landing page with all of the instructions, rules, and links to all of the participating author’s blogs/websites. There is usually a grand prize, (Kindles, Nooks, and I-pads are popular), with a set of rules as to how to enter for the grand prize. For instance, the Authors in Bloom Blog Hop requires that entrants go to each of the participating author’s sites and “collect” phrases that add up to a complete story. If they collect all the phrases and go to the AIB landing page they can enter to win the grand prize.

Of course, as they stop at each participating site, they can also enter to win prizes from each author as well. I added this Authors in Bloom icon to my home page of my website with a link to my promotional blog where I’m giving away a prize pack that includes signed copies of my books, tee shirt, mug, pen, book marks, World Wildlife Fund water bottle, national Wildlife Fund tote and stuffed polar bear. In other words, SWAG. Since we are trying to draw in the largest crowd of our target audience, who are mostly Romance readers and adult YA readers, we added a favorite recipe (a yummy and super easy Sunny Delight pie) and/or a gardening tip (Manure tea, anyone?) for all of our readers.  As a way to increase my visibility and reach, I gave lots of opportunities to stack up entries by leaving a comment, “liking’ my FaceBook page, following me on Twitter, tweeting about the blog hop, or signing up for my mailing list. For each effort, I add another entry into the drawing for that person. Isn’t it great how everybody wins here?

The general idea is to give folks incentive for visiting each authors site. There are seventy-four authors participating for a ten day blog hop, so there are literally hundreds of prizes to be won and tons of wonderful recipes and gardening tips to be had. There’s lots of interactive fun and  a blog hop is a great way to connect to readers.

The cost to each author was $5.50 which we voluntarily pitched in to buy an e-reader. The winner will have a choice of which type they’d like. The grand prize also comes with a $25 Amazon gift card.

The idea is to get people to visit your website or blog, help you grow your reader base and spread the word via FB, Twitter, or signing up for your mailing list. I’ve hear that increasing your visibility and extending your sphere of influence are the keys to a good marketing plan and this way, you have a whole team of authors working on it together. EVERYBODY WINS! I’m excited to see what the results will be! I’ll keep you posted.

Any questions about Blog Hops?

What is Middle Grade?

Hidey-Ho Scriblers – J Monkeys here.  How are ya?  I’ve been thinking about my Livingston-Wexford Series lately as I’m gearing up to start writing the 3rd book in the series.  It really is a Middle Grade series because it is at its heart a quest story, an adventure for the 14-year old main characters.  The series deals with some potentially dark issues (the main characters’ entire families seem to have been slaughtered by dark forces pretty much unknown) but that happens off-screen (at least so far).  The series doesn’t tackle gritty YA issues of sex, drugs and eating disorders.  But Middle Grade is so wide a genre, that I don’t want my books to get lost.

Consider this.  The following books are all in the Middle Grade genre:

• The Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
• Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys
• Charlotte’s Web by EB White
• JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books
• The 39 Clues series
• Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series and the Kane Chronicles
• CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer

a page from Captain Underpants

Here’s the problem. Captain Underpants is a great series for kids in grade 2-4. It’s very engaging and funny with wonderful pictures on every page.  It has a straightforward story with few if any subplots.  It’s a Middle Grade Book.

The 39 Clues series is for kids 8-12 years old.  That’s 2nd-6th graders.  It’s a fast paced adventure series where kids travel the globe on a quest to win their late grandmother’s estate.  All their relatives are trying to kill them.  It might be a little dark for an 8 year old, in my opinion, but hey, I’m not your kid’s parent.  It does have a lot of great history and geography in the series.  Each book is pretty straight forward, there aren’t a lot of subplots, but there is an arc that holds the series together.  It’s a Middle Grade series.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is intended for kids in grade’s 4 and up.   We all know that series get’s pretty dark, and the books get pretty thick.  The subplots are complicated enough to have spawned a zillion websites.  It’s also considered a Middle Grade book.

The Enola Holmes Mysteries are fun, quirky mysteries where Sherlock Holmes younger sister is solving crimes and avoiding capture by her brothers in Victorian England.  It’s also a Middle Grade series intended for kids in grades 4-6. 

Here’s a sample paragraph from page 43 of The Case of The Gypsy Good-bye:

“This modern metropolitan dungeon was not only chokingly dense and shadowy, but also dank and dripping.  The tunnel was even darker, and I had no lantern.  Still, that must be the way she had gone…confound my own daring, which might one day be the death of me.  As a child, I had always been the kind to cross a river not by walking on the bridge, but by balancing atop its balustrade.”

The whole series is written in lyrical, but somewhat complicated, language/grammatical structure.  And there were a number of words that I had to look up…pulchritude for example.  It means beauty or comeliness.

When you compare one end of the Middle Grade spectrum (Captain Underpants) with the other (Enola Holmes) it’s hard to imagine that they could be classified in the same genre.   Nancy Springer’s style of writing alone almost makes the series Adult Literary Fiction, in my opinion.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s a wonderful series.  I just can’t imagine that I would have understood much of it when I was eleven.

So what am I to do with my books?  I’ve been calling them a ‘Tween Adventure series with elements of the paranormal.  That’s quite a mouthful, I know.  But I want to appeal to twelve-year olds.  Do you remember being twelve?  I wouldn’t have been caught dead with a little kid’s book like Captain Underpants when I was twelve.   Today’s ‘tweens are even more status conscious than ever.  I guess I’ll stick with ‘Tween Adventure and hope it takes the world by storm.

Today’s secret: if you don’t like the genre your book fits into and you are Indie Published -  make up your own genre name.  If you are confident enough about it, hopefully people will assume you know what you are talking about and maybe it’ll catch on.

Today’s question: what’s your favorite genre?

Terry Spear – Research in Writing—How Do You Make Werewolves Real?

Happy Friday everyone! Casey Wyatt here.

Today we have a special guest blogger  – Terry Spear.Terry is an award-winning author of urban fantasy and medieval historical romantic suspense. Her novel, Heart of the Wolf, was named in Publishers Weekly’s BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR, NOR Reader Choice for BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE.

And she’s also a USA Today bestselling author courtesy of A SEAL IN WOLF’S CLOTHING. Congratulations, Terry!

Let’s hear what Terry has to say:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How Do You Make Werewolves Real?  

Or anything real, fantastical, imaginary, or real life real for that matter?

You must create the world that feels real. Then it needs to be populated with people, or other creatures, and they must seem real. So how can we do that with research?

Even if we’re writing about a real place, how will anyone “know” it unless we do research? The climate, the demographics, the buildings, the plant life.

When I wrote Ghostly Liaisons, a YA paranormal tale set in Florida, I lived in the house the heroine lives in as a teen. I explored the rattle snake-infested and alligator-filled swamp and jungle-like forest across the street. I swam in the water moccasin-infested canal until I knew better. I climbed the sand dunes out back of the canal. But even though I “knew” the place, I did research. I’d lived there as a teen and didn’t remember all the kinds of plants that existed in the jungle. I researched about ghost sightings in the vicinity, and about pirates and their pirating path in the area. Research then made the story more real, even though both teens have psychic abilities.

The same with when I wrote Seduced by the Wolf. I had lived in Oregon, but when I wrote the story, I hadn’t remembered how cold the lakes still were late into the year. Frozen in some areas! So I had to revise my idea based on that. One of the places my hero and heroine in Heart of the Wolf end up is at Wolf Mountain in Oregon. I actually printed out topographic maps to study the elevation of the terrain, where water was located, the vegetation, and the chances of sighting a bear in the area. I also used Google Earth to determine the layout of the wolf’s pen at the zoo in Seduced by the Wolf. I used the same zoo in Heart of the Wolf, but it had been renovated significantly since then.

I also researched how frequently wolves are spotted in Oregon. When I wrote Destiny of the Wolf, I learned that deer were destroying the forests, and wolves were needed to keep the impact down. That the new growth was beginning to make a slow come back. I love doing research because it can add realism and details to the stories to make them richer.

When I wrote Dreaming of the Wolf, I had the problem of the heroine turning wolf at a motel. Would a guest be allowed to have a wolf in a room, even if the hotel allowed dogs? What are the laws concerning wolf ownership? Also, I researched the qualifications of bounty hunters and read up on what bounty hunters have done while doing their jobs.

In Wolf Fever, I researched whether a wolf’s saliva would be different than a dog’s. I’ve researched werewolf lore also, and real werewolf trials and talked about them in some of my books. I also researched about passing viruses from one species to another, from humans to pets.

So wolves and werewolves are now real. What about places? They can be, or they can be made up. Silver Town, Colorado is run by a wolf pack. It’s not a real place. It’s based on Telluride, and some other old Colorado silver mining towns, and just a werewolfish kind of place.

In To Tempt the Wolf and A SEAL in Wolf’s Clothing, I researched different areas along the Oregon coast, where I visited a number of times when I lived in Tigard, Oregon and made up the cabin resort that Meara and Hunter Greymere inherited. But Finn’s home was a real house offered for sale on the coast, and I used the description of the forest, beach, patio, barbecue, vegetation, security system, and the interior of the home, only I changed the color scheme to make more of an impact and to have a deeper meaning for the hero.

In Seduced by the Wolf, I did the same thing, found a home, country ranch in Oregon, that was offered for sale, and it became my pack’s digs. There were several out buildings including a couple of extra homes for pack members, a bigger building like a barracks for bachelor males, and timber, cattle, a river, everything a pack could want. It even talked about other animals that often grazed in the area, great for hunting! The place was real, and it was fun turning it into a home for fantastical creatures!

Looking at pictures of people can help to give ideas for the story characters also. In the popular YA fae series, The Winged Fae came into being because of the whimsical picture of a winged fae drawing graffiti on a wall. She seemed perfect for the role of a mischievous fae.  I’m just starting to work on Dragon Fae—my daughter found her picture. She’s Goth looking, eyeing something in a treasure box, dragons love to hoard treasure, so it’s the start of a new character and book.

Of course, research is necessary for historical pieces also. In A Ghost of a Chance at Love, I emailed the Stagecoach Inn staff in Salado to learn if the hotel had a bathroom back in 1870. But they didn’t! Everyone had to use an outhouse. Ewww…

I visited Scotland and have used some of the research I’ve learned in my stories also in Winning the Highlander’s Heart and my other Highland stories.

If I get stuck on my story, I often will do some research. And often will come up with a new angle I had never thought of before!

Let research make your stories real!

Terry Spear

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry Spear has written a dozen paranormal romance novels and two medieval Highland historical romances. An award-winning author, Terry’s Heart of the Wolf  was named a Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year in 2008. A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry Spear is a librarian by day and spends every spare moment writing paranormal romance as well as historical and true life stories for both teen and adult audiences. Spear lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on new paranormal romances! For more information, please visit http://www.terryspear.com/.

 www.facebook.com/terry.spear

www.terryspear.com

www.myspace.com/terryspear

http://terry-spear.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/TerrySpear

Thank you so much Terry!

Well, Scribes fans. Your turn – how do you use research to make your stories come alive. Or if you have a question about Terry’s books – ask away!

YA Love

Happy Valentine’s Day Scribes fans! In honor of romance, I’ll be giving away double the love with an e-book copy of each of my books, On Thin Ice and Heaven Is For Heroes to one romance-loving commenter to be chosen at midnight tonight! Also in honor of good old Saint Valentine, I’d like to talk about YA love.

I’ve been asked several times why I write Young Adult fiction, specifically, YA Romance. When I began writing for publication, I started by writing adult romances, but I had some issues with it. Other than needing to learn a lot about the writing craft, I was also incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of people I knew reading my romantic scenes. I’m a massage therapist by day and my clients were very supportive of my writing from the very beginning, but thinking about them reading the steamy scenes I was putting on the page had me breaking out in hives. Ironically, that was the best part of my writing and like most of my own adult relationships, my adult stories all seemed to lead to…well…sex. So what’s a die-hard romantic to do?

Oh Dear!

As any smart girl will tell you, romance novels aren’t just about creatively writing sex scenes. Romance novels are about capturing the emotions, building the tension, bringing those romantic moments to life for the reader. I wanted to do that with my stories, but I wasn’t comfortable with the down and dirty details. Once I realized that my “voice” (that elusive quality that makes each writer unique), was best suited for first person narrative and that I had a rather “young’ perspective, I realized that my heart was in sharing “extraordinary stories of an average teenage life.” I had loads of teen experiences to draw from and it was a way for me to share some valuable lessons I’d learned along the way.

Perfect Love

As a wonderful bonus, it turns out that the inspirational life lessons that come through in my stories are as meaningful to adults as to any of the teens who might read my books.

Let me be clear in saying that I have nothing against those that write the higher heat level books. I love a good rogue Duke or Chaps-wearing cowboy. Even in YA romance, the steaminess level runs the gamut. There are graphic scenes in many YA novels on the shelves these days. Even though the topics in my own books are mature, they lean toward the sweeter side of first relationships. I like offering an option that fills a gap between young adult and adult romance.

Sweet Love

I’ve also come to realize that it’s not always necessary for adult romances to draw the reader a blow by blow (pardon the pun) description. In fact there are many romances that are sweet and romantic and very successful without that (ie: Kristan Higgins’ novels and our own Katy Lee’s upcoming release, Real Virtue).

I enjoyed writing those steamy scenes, but I needed to find a way to tone down the intensity for my own comfort level, so I started thinking about my own life and who I was BS (before sex). I was immediately struck by all the first times that came to mind. I love writing YA romance because I get to travel back to all those first times and in some ways re-write them. You remember that first kiss, your first Valentine, and maybe even your very first date? Everything for teens is so immediate, so crucial, and so DRAMATIC!

Eternal Love

Romance in YA fiction is all about falling in love, mending a broken heart, finding that one person who completes you and makes you feel whole—much like adult romance, but with the freedom to end on a hopeful note rather than attaining that ultimate HEA ending. I like the idea of leaving my characters room to grow up.

 How do you like your romance? Hot and heavy, or sweet with a little steam? Have you read any YA romance? If not, you might find it surprisingly satisfying.

Big numbers and Blog Tours

Since you folks seem to like seeing the numbers, I thought I would give you an update. This is totally in the interest of helping others to see what indie-publishing has to offer and to encourage those who might be considering it. Or maybe this is a deterrent, depending on your expectations. Either way, these numbers reflect my personal experience and are being shared because I consider you all to be my friends. Without your help and support, none of this would be possible. So thanks a million guys!

While preparing to do my taxes (which is as far as I’ve gotten), I was adding up my numbers. Sales numbers that is. I reported back in November that I was pleased with the progress in my indie-publishing journey and that sales of HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES were on a steady path of growth. With the release of ON THIN ICE, and a few promotional efforts through the holidays, I’m happy to say that I’ve met one of my big goals for my first year of publishing. 1,000 books sold!

I’ve often heard the statistic that says most new writers will never sell more than a thousand books. Yikes! So when I heard that statement, I decided that would be my short term goal. I knew that if I could sell a thousand books, I’d be on my way. I originally gave myself a year to do this, but once I started seeing how the numbers climbed on my Amazon sales reports after each blog tour or advertisement that I did, I realized the potential to surpass my goal. It’s been a lot of work, but if I include January sales of 165 books so far, I’ve reached 1,000 books sold in four months! 

I published my first novel on September 24^th, and the second on December 15^th.

Sales have gone something like this:

September:            October:         November:    December:HIFH/OTI January:HIFH/OTI

Amazon      22            13                 198                     239/36                              23/114

BN               7              3                    29                      14/5                                  10/5

Hardcopy   28            39                   40                      14/12                                1/12

Createspace has sold a total of 28 copies in 2011 and 7 in 2012. Smashwords: 42 of HIFH and 59 of OTI since the books were released. In addition there have been 72 free downloads of HIFH and 29 of OTI. I’ve also donated books to libraries and sent out review copies and contest prizes.

Both books have received consistent 4 and 5 star reviews and I’m getting excited e-mails from readers who are looking forward to SAVAGE CINDERELLA in March. I haven’t yet figured the exact revenue from all of these sales because HIFH was up for sale for six weeks at .99 cents which I’m sure, in part, accounted for the boost in sales. I also advertised on Pixel of Ink, The Frugal E-reader, Super E-Reads, and a few free sites.

 I found blog tours more successful than book signings, and cross-promoting with other authors for the Booklovers Buffet to be helpful. Although, at .35 cents a sale at the .99 cent price point, I would have had to sell a heck of a lot of books to make real money. I know I’ve made enough to cover the cost of the first book and some advertising, but my budget is still running in the red. My goal for this year: 10,000 books. That breaks down to about 900 books per month, or 225 books per week, or about 30-40 books a day. Sounds doable when I put it that way, right? I’m hoping the release of SAVAGE CINDERELLA in March puts that goal within reach.

I’m beginning another blog tour this week, and would love for you to drop by and leave comments, tweet, or share my posts to your Face Book pages if you find them interesting or entertaining. You can find out where I’ll be and what I’ll be talking about on my calendar page of my website. I’ll be posting the specific links to my FB Fan page  as soon as I have them. If you want to follow along, just “like” my Facebook page or follow me on twitter @pjsharon. The tour starts this Thursday, Jan. 26^th on Author Eileen Cook’s website where I answer interview questions that will definitely let you all get to know me a little better. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Savage Cinderella Cover Reveal

Good morning Scribes fans! Today I’m doing my big cover reveal for my next book, SAVAGE CINDERELLA, due out, March 15^th. I’ve mentioned before that my husband makes my covers so I’ll give you the skinny on how he does it, in case you’re curious.

First, we talk about the book and my vision for what I want the cover to project. Then we peruse the stock photo sites looking for that one picture that screams at both of us, “I’ll tell the story, pick me—pick me!”. I found both the front and back cover photos for  this book at Big Stock Photos. After much research, reading the fine print, and following several discussions on the Indie Romance Ink loop, I realized I didn’t need to pay extended licensing fees on the stock photos for book covers unless I was planning to sell over 5000 print copies or use the photos for merchandising, neither of which seems likely. I can always change the cover later if I need to. So compared to the $300 we spent on Heaven Is For Heroes,

Heaven Is For Heroes

the $100 I spent for On Thin Ice,

On Thin Ice

and the $13.98 I spent on Savage Cinderella, I can safely say I’ve cut my production costs by several hundred percent. That’s what I call a bargain! I can use those savings for editing services or advertising. A learning curve, indeed!

Once I pick out the photos, my husband–the creative genius techspert–takes control of the next step. He downloads a template from CreateSpace that is based on the size of the book (in my case 5.5×8.5). I chose this size because it puts my 80,000 word young adult novels at a manageable width for readers. The print is large and readable, there is adequate white space on the page, and they are distinct from the typical 4.5×6.5 romance novel sized book. Anything I can do to have my books be reader friendly and stand out in the crowd, is a good thing. The spine width is automatically determined by the page count of the book.

Next, he sets up the template on Power Point and starts fitting the photos onto the template and adding the layers of text. I’d love to give you all the specs of step by step processing, but I’ve watched him do it three times now and the details still befuddle me.  He alters coloring as needed, we agonize over fonts for a while, and finally, when it’s as perfect as we can get it, he saves it to a PDF which is the format required by CreateSpace. Voilà! Hubby crops and saves the cover photo as a jpg. or png. file so I can use it for blogs, advertisements and on my website.

So there you have it. Above is the front cover and to the right is the back cover. We’ve added a QR code with a link to my website and Createspace will add the UPC with ISBN number. I’d love your feedback about how you think we did. We’re still learning and are open to constructive criticism so we can keep improving with each cover. I love each of them for different reasons but it’s fun to see the evolution.

Dusting off the old manuscripts?

It’s Tuesday again, Scribesters, PJ Sharon here. I’d like to talk today about revisiting those old manuscripts. You know…the ones you’ve got under the bed next to the old Pink Floyd albums, in the closet, or hiding at the back of your hard drive? Most writers, when they first start putting pen to paper, have no idea how to…well…write. Something compels us to record these crazy stories in our heads. We work our butts off, and are so excited when we write “The End,” that we ignore the fact that our stories have plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon, head hopping that even Nora would cringe at, and stilted dialogue that makes our characters sound like they just came out of a Cracker Jack box. Until we have someone read them for us, and they say kindly—or not so kindly—“you’ve got a lot to learn about the craft of writing.” At least that was my experience.

I actually have four such manuscripts, all of which have point of view problems and more –ing words per page than a do-it-yourself manual. My first novel, a 100,000 word fantasy erotic romance (although a fun tale that taught me a dozen ways to describe the act of sex) will sadly never see the light of day. My second book though, was a paranormal romance called “The Amulet” about a witch and a witch hunter. It was a ton of fun to write and had a lot of promise. After that, I wrote two romantic suspense novels. One of which is complete at 100k and the other which is three quarters finished—all great stories, but none written particularly well.

While revising SAVAGE CINDERELLA, I realized how much I’ve grown as a writer even over the past year. I’m still wiping out those -ing words and anhilating the passive voice issues left and right, but at least I spot the problems and know how to fix them. Now that I’ve learned a thing or two about the craft of writing, what’s to stop me from resurrecting these fabulous tales, revising them, and putting them out there? As an indie author, I can if I want to (that’s my rebellious inner teen talking again).

For one thing, I’m now branded as a YA author, so switching genres at this point would require a lot of work. Since I don’t want my teen readers picking up my adult books, I’d have to create a whole new persona and brand myself all over again in order to sell my books. This sounds like way too much work to me. I also have to consider the fact that I have lots of YA story ideas and books planned for the next year, so it would seem that my dance card is full…unless…

Well don’t you know,  I’ve seen a bunch of indie authors coming out with novellas and doing quite well crossing genres and selling a ton of these short novels under different pen names. I’ve also seen some authors use these novellas by offering them for free to increase the sales of their other books. It seems to be quite an effective marketing tool.

Hmmm…this has me thinking about all of those fun and interesting manuscripts that I’ve already written. I believe they are salvageable if I cut out all of the unnecessary words and straighten out the craft problems. I might even be able to turn them into YA stories. A major overhaul and I could have three or four novellas to add to my cyber bookshelf. What about a book of short stories?

I’m seriously considering this option and would love to hear what you all think. Great idea, or nightmare waiting to happen? What about you? Do you read novellas? Like short stories? Do you have a novel you could dust off and resurrect? Maybe you could indie publish and see what happens? You’ve really got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Conflict is King

Leave a comment below and enter to win a free e-copy of ON THIN ICE. Contest ends Thursday at midnight and is open to US and Canadian entrants.

While preparing for a writing class that I teach for teens at the public library, I realized that the essence of good story telling is conflict. Without conflict, there is no story. My fabulous and brilliant teens wanted a class specifically on “How to start a story.” We’ll be discussing where to begin and in my opinion, every story starts with a conflict. A vivid and compelling character might come to mind, but if they don’t come to you with some problem to solve, the story ends before it begins.

So what constitutes a suitable conflict to create an engaging story? In my mind, internal conflict rules the roost. There has to be some major dilemma happening in the mind and heart of my main characters and it has to be related to their fatal flaw or greatest weakness. In On Thin Ice, Penny’s fatal flaw is her perfectionism. She so wants to be loved and accepted, that she tries to be perfect (or at least appear perfect), so she forms a habit of lying which leads her into lots of trouble. Of course I had to give Carter, her big crush, a fatal flaw that fed into Penny’s big weakness, so I set up a backstory for him in which he hates liars. His father was an alcoholic and a liar and abandoned him and his mother and sister when he was little. This sets the scene for lots of potential conflict between my main characters, both internal and external.

Which leads me to external conflict—generally provided by villains and horrible circumstances. What story would be complete without the main characters having to overcome some huge hurdle or win out over the bad guys? I’m afraid I threw the kitchen sink at Penny in terms of external conflicts, but they were all integral to bringing about the changes in her character and forcing her to grow into the person she was meant to be by the end of the story. Knowing what I know now about storytelling and writing, I would not create this dynamic again, but Penny’s story needed to be told as is. One of the reasons I chose to indie publish this book. We’ll see if it stacks up in the world of contemporary YA romance.

And since we’re talking about romance, I’ll mention the importance of romantic conflict. The romantic conflict is basically the thing that keeps your main characters apart until the end of the story. In Penny and Carter’s case, the fact that she is only seventeen and that he is twenty-one creates an insurmountable obstacle, especially when he finds out the truth about her age and her father threatens to have him arrested. Not only did she lie (a Cardinal sin in his book), but her lie has threatened his security and his goal of working and saving money to go to college and help support his mother and sister. From Penny’s view, she has failed in her attempt to gain Carter’s love and approval and must deal with her father’s rejection as well. All of this conflict is what keeps readers turning the page to see what happens next. Will Penny find her way back into Carter’s heart? Or will her quest for perfection lead her down a dangerous road that has no happy ending?

 You’ll just have to read the book to find out.

What’s your character’s problem? Is there enough internal, external, and romantic conflict to keep readers turning the page?