Using Amazon as a Marketing Tool

...before they use you.

Kindle Unlimited—started in July and conceived by Amazon—is for die-hard readers. Participants pay a monthly fee of $9.99 and can read as many books as they want. The catch is, not all books are included in the program.

How does the program help authors?

Payout started in the $2.20 range but has dropped since to 1.43 in December. It had declined to approximately $1.33 until the last month's bump. 

Readership is up. The author can rake in new readers and get name recognition in that way. 

It is voluntary. No one is holding a gun to the authors’ head and insisting on their participation. I used it as a marketing tool for my prequel to The Magic Withheld series, Out of Magic, because the novelette was never intended as a money-maker. 

But the other books I've written...eh, I’m not so willing to do this.

Some are happy with KU. Others are not. Some are pulling out of KU due to a massive loss of sales. 

The problem? Too many books. Amazon tends to market for their own benefit. The company is geared for profits and getting that monthly $9.99 fee is gravy. The number of e-books especially self-published has exploded from 600,000 in 2010 to 3 million in 2014. Amazon has an endless supply of books. 

They don’t really need yours.

Depressing? I’ll say. But it is a fact that some writers fantasize so much about the words published author that they take a few short cuts and publish before crossing the molten lava of critique. Their books go into the caldron with authors who have gone through the fire, formatted correctly, polished their grammar. Kinda dilutes the mix in a way. Plus creates a skeptical public who notice poor writing.

Amazon highlights their Kindle Unlimited and that goes for the books in that program. Where does it leave those who don’t participate? Their sales show the same dip that KU authors report. 

The only way to combat the trend is to keep your name and brand in front of readers. Examples:

Author page on Amazon. Make a page. For Pete's sake, take the time to make a doggone page.

Social networks. Yep, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are becoming wall-to-wall ads. But get your name into them anyway. New books and authors have caught my eye more than once and I’ve bought a lot of books that way.

Connect the two. Set up your author page on Amazon with your social networking.

And for heaven’s sake, blog. Post occasionally and link that to your FB page and Amazon author page.

There are ways to use Amazon and service them as well as yourself. Don't let them call all the shots. 

Manuscript Wars – The Writer’s Block Strikes Back

Or, “...come into the light, Carol Anne”

• Words, mix-mastered into a jumble of nothing.
• Ideas that fail to ignite.
• Commitment is a bad word.
• An engine that stutters and dies.

So many euphemisms for the miasma of writer’s block, that loud screech of tires on pavement coming to a full and

complete stop. It’s not a matter of if it happens, but when. And what to do when it does.

I’ve given and received much advice. When I hit the fog of manuscript blues this time, the tried and true solutions failed me. Walking, driving, writing it out in long-hand: Nothing worked. And I stopped creating. 

The words of JRR Tolkien come to mind, in speaking about the long process of writing:

“...and I plodded on, till I stood by Balin’s tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while...”

Mine is not such a journey as his and I do not in any way pretend it is. The mental picture he paints is rather cool though.

At any rate, the third book in The Magic Withheld series is roaring along now. Fresh ideas are stirring and boiling. Book two, Mage Revealed, is in the oven while Spirit Mage is coming on with grit teeth and fire in its words.

Thank the Lord for those half-asleep moments when strange ideas pop into a writer’s head. It's the only thing that broke me from the dungeon of Writer's Block.

IWSG - The Accidental YA Author

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group, coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

I like the YA genre. My bookshelf proves that. But I am not a YA author. Writing for a younger audience is different from adult.

Or is it?

I've said before that genre designations are confusing. Take mine, the speculative fiction/urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy genre. Yeah, that one. The Magic Withheld trilogy is set in modern times, in the real world, in urban and rural settings about characters doing impossible things.

It is an adult novel. Little cursing, no explicit sex. But I wrote it for an adult audience.

So why are fifteen-year-old boys falling all over themselves to read it?

I marketed it to adult men and women. I didn’t try to use YA lingo or follow the normal well-traveled path of popular youth-oriented novels when I wrote it.

So why are kids in Middle School reading it and writing book reports?

Holy Jehoshaphat.

I had a young man come up to me and blurt out how much he loved it. How he'd read it so many times that he knew every line. I sure my expression was the epitome of surprise/shock listed in The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi:

the mouth falling open, a hand flying to the chest, fingers touching parted lips, an incredulous stare or dazed look. 

Not that there is anything untoward about my storyline. I felt RL Stine was iffy when my daughter was in school and I don't think my books cross that line especially in Wilder Mage.

But that’s the first book. Things kinda heat up in the next one in the series, Mage Revealed, to be released October 24^th.

Uh, eek.

So how do I face parents or the winking school kid when it comes out?

* * * *

Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.

Marketing—When, Where, How

Book cover reveal. I've been sitting on my cover reveal for nearly a month, doodling around like a kid anticipating a merry-go-round ride. Which it surely is.

Next week, a new book trailer and the cover reveal. I hope plenty of my blogger buddies will pass the word.

Marketing. Selling your book begins the day your manuscript is ready for representation. The query starts the game, the sentence or two that entices another person to enter your world.

Not unlike the Carrion flower that emits a foul dead-meat stench to attract pollinating flies. (yeah, I know. It's a gift. My brain at work)

Some say luring that first visitor is the hardest part of the journey. I agree, but it is only one stop on the road to Published. Many junctions lie ahead. Some are perilous. Especially to introverts such as myself.

Shouting, Hey, Look at me, scares me more than anything up to date. The Introvert gene, no doubt.

Back to the journey. You have an agent or, in my case, a publisher who wants to take you on. Edits add more to that ms than you ever thought possible. And so begins the real work.

How to sell yourself. Well, boy howdy, it’s another query of course. Just in a little different form.

• With bling and book tours.
• Broadcast the news far and wide.
• Facebook author pages, social networks, blogs. And their upkeep.
• Book trailers.
• Press release to the local papers.
• Magnets. Postcards.
• Pens and posters with your book cover on it, ready to distribute at book signings.

There is lots to do. But the best part is coming, the cover reveal.

Next week. Be here for the first look at the cover for Wilder Mage. Sincerely—no bias here—it is amazing. 

The Thrill of It All, Tara Tyler

Blogfest!

Tara Tyler and Heather M. Gardner are sponsoring The Thrill of It All blogfest today. 


In line with their rules, I am posting an excerpt from my current wip, book two of The Magic Withheld:

Darcy gasped. “You know,” she whispered. “How?”

“That you’re a mage?”

She nodded mutely.

“Easy,” Bert said. “I can see the colors.”

“Colors?”

“Oh, that’s right. You can’t see them can you. Well, let’s see.” He tipped his head and looked at the swirls over her head with narrowed eyes. The tempo had slowed into lazy arcs now. “You are proficient in Water. That’s the red. The blue is Air. And that sparkly stuff looking like tinsel from an old-style Christmas tree means you got a smidge of Spirit.”

“You’re human.” Her eyes shifted and she lowered her voice. “You can’t see magic.”

“Funny how that keeps popping up,” he said cheerfully.

This is its first outing. Like a baby in a carriage, it isn't exactly potty trained yet but so far the storyline is writing itself.

Check out the blogfest over at Tara's house and help celebrate her book, Pop Travel, coming out in July.

The Earthquake Wasn't his Fault. Not this Time

Please tell me, when did it become real for you?

After you sign the contract? 
Saw the cover?

Or get the release date?

August 30, 2013

Reality hit me last week. Until then I figured I'd wake up soon, discover that it was a good dream but definitely a mistake. Then I'd find another reason to write.

The Magic Withheld - urban fantasy, release date 8-30-13 by Musa Publishing, Urania Speculative Fiction.

Book Trailer:

Holy Talking Cats, I'm gonna be a Published Writer.

To Sequel or Not to Sequel

Budding authors hear all kinds of advice in the beginning. What to do and what not to do.

You've probably heard this before:

"If no one picks up your manuscript immediately, don’t bother writing a sequel. It is a waste of time"

For my first ms, I ignored this advice and wrote another 50K words in the storyline and outlined a third and fourth as well as the ending. After several partials and full requests, it didn't garner an agent, mostly I think due to the writing not the storyline. Someday I will return to Of Oak and Dragons to test that theory.

I took the “no sequel” advice to heart on my second ms and although I knew there was more to the story, I left it and went onto the next project. My notebooks and Post Its that continued The Magic Withheld were put in a folder and set aside.

At that time, the characters in The Adamant grabbed me and I followed them, happy as a dog with a Frisbee.

But a funny thing happened. Musa Publishing, Urania Imprint picked up my novel, Magic. And they wanted a second and possibly third book in the series.

Holy Talking Cats! What great news!

I turned my focus from Adamant and back to Magic. Well, boy howdy, I found I didn't KNOW the characters, Justus and Sable. I had to re-introduce myself to them.

We treated each other like vague strangers for weeks, polite and formal. Well-bred discussions followed about the weather and we served teas with white gloves and icy façades.

   

Note: The above paragraph is for writers only since they know what the heck I’m talking about. They are the ones nodding their head and murmuring, “yep, yep.” The other folk are thinking that I heard voices, was talking to myself, and...oh, wait. Actually, they're right.

I needed to get back to the characters’ inner demons and conflicts. I pulled my notes from the corner of my file cabinet, blew off the dust, and rolled up my sleeves. It was a difficult slog though. It was like I was reading someone else’s notes. I skimmed the top like a pond skater bug where it was all polite smiles. The information I needed wasn't on the surface but down deep like buried treasure.

It wasn't until I took a three-hour drive that my characters dropped their inhibitions and revealed themselves again. Now I’m on track. Now I see through their eyes, feel their passions, fears, and goals.

Bottom line, advice is great but only you know what is *really* going on in your head. Stick with the manuscript if your heart is in it. Finish the sequels if you believe in your MCs. Because finding them after a time period is difficult.

Have you ever “lost” your character and storyline after a little downtime? Did you “find” them again?

How *not* to Use the Internet and *big* News

The internet is the biggest time suck of them all. Just think if the internet were available when Einstein was around. 

He formulated his theories of gravitational forces and the relationships between mass and energy during his Dude! years, late twenties and early thirties. If he’d had the ‘net, he'd been cruising websites and making Youtube videos of dogs eating peanut butter rather than working on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory. 

And Heaven only knows where we’d be today if that'd happened.*tongue firmly in cheek*

Time suck aside – or ignored in my case – I love the Urban Dictionary. It is a wealth of timely phrases, crude and rude words, and teenage-speak that sometimes does a flyby.

Examples:

Clicker’s Remorse –

“The internet analog of buyer's remorse, wherein one comes to regret having clicked on a link of interest after they look up at the clock minutes or hours later and realize that they have invested an inordinate amount of time reading an article, playing a game, conversing with someone, looking at photos, etc. which they would not have spent had they resisted the impulse to "check it out"...

Upon looking up at the clock and realizing he'd spent the last 2 hours choosing the cuter kitten after clicking on the link his sister had emailed him Danny developed a strong feeling of clicker's remorse for not having resisted the urge to click on the link.”

Sneeze Freeze –

“The frozen and contorted, usually mildly retarded looking, facial expression one makes for a few seconds before they let out a sneeze or when experiencing a "Sneezus Interruptus".

Check out his Sneeze Freeze. Take cover, it's going to be a BIG one! Dude, you have an extreme squishy face you're sneeze freezing! Bob: You were going to sneeze but it got away, huh?  Dave: How did you know?  Bob: I saw your sneeze freeze.”

Sincerely, the examples would fill a whole city. I could go on forever with these monumental…

Time Suck –

Something that's engrossing and addictive, but that keeps you from doing things that are actually important, like earning a living, or eating meals, or caring for your children.

"Ever since I got on Facebook I haven't been able to stay away. I'm spending hours on it each day -- it's a total time suck, but I can't stop! Grocery shopping and laundry will have to wait."

*must resist temptation*

Drum Roll. Time for my *Big* News.

Messy Magic in the Making

It took me over a year to call myself A Writer. Now I can add the label Published Author to my brand.

I signed with Musa Publishing, a small pub in Ohio, for my urban fantasy, The Magic Withheld.

Confetti anyone?