Sitting in Cars With Girls

My granddaughter is spending six weeks in the area. A miraculous turn of events that has proven to be even more of a gift than I'd expected.

There was a movie a long while back called "Riding in Cars With Boys." I don't remember anything about the movie, but when I realized it was my turn to blog for the R8, the first thing that came to mind was an evening I spent with my granddaughter a week ago.

I know, it looks like the car was moving, but fear not. The car was off and we were in the parking lot waiting for someone to run a quick errand, and the wind was blowing. What does this have to do with writing? Only this—I realized, sitting in that car with that girl—just how different she is from me.

That's right, she was hanging out the window shouting at the top of her lungs: "Hell-O PEOPLE! Hey! Hi! Hi BOY!"

Never. Ever. Not in this life or the next would you catch her grandmother doing anything like this, or anything even remotely similar.

I have no idea where this little extrovert came from, but it looks like she's having fun, doesn't it?

That's because, um, she IS. LOL. She didn't care if THE PEOPLE hollered back. But some of them did. And almost all of them waved.

Meanwhile, her grandmother has trouble just updating her author page on Facebook...

I never know what to say—because every time I do it, it feels like I'm shouting: Hell-O PEOPLE! Hey! Hi! Look at ME!

Of course, it doesn't feel like I'm being shouted at when an author pops up in my Facebook feed.* And when one does, I react the way the people in that parking lot did. Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I wave back (hit the like button). And sometimes I leave a comment.

So why does it feel like I'm shouting when I update my page? I don't have the answer for that yet. But my mentor (see darling child above) is working on convincing me that if I try doing it more often, it will feel less shouty.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Meanwhile, here's a little shoutout for the brand new hardcopy version of the anthology that includes my novella, The Psychic Detective.

One day soon—I PROMISE, Emelle Gamble—I'll link to it on my Facebook page.

In the meantime, I'll be Sitting in Cars (and elsewhere, sometimes called a splash park) With A Girl...

I hope you all are having a wonderful shouty summer! And if you take the time to shout back, by leaving a comment on this post, you'll have a chance at winning a paperback copy of the Once and Forever anthology.

Love,
Evie


*Well, all right, sometimes it DOES feel like authors are shouting at me. But I ignore them and if they don't go away, I hide them. Usually they go away on their own. Your mileage may vary.

One Writer’s Tale of Self-Publishing and Free Giveaways

Hello and Happy Monday! I am pleased and proud to be posting my very first blog with the Rockville 8. It’s such a thrill to be a part of this group of unique, talented and lovely ladies. So without further ado….

A Little Bit of Background

My first two novels, Homesong and Still Waters, were originally published by a small press. My third novel, Her Secret Bodyguard, was self published on Kindle.  I enjoyed the experience of self publishing so much that I reacquired the rights to my first two books, and now all of them are published under my own banner, CWC Publishing (named after my father).  All of my books have been enrolled in a program called KDP Select.

What is KDP Select?

“KDP” is short for Kindle Direct Publishing, and it’s the part of Amazon where authors publish their books on Kindle.  “KDP Select” is a program which allows authors to promote their books by doing free giveaways in exchange for digital exclusivity. Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

An author who enrolls their book in Select is giving Amazon exclusive digital publishing rights for ninety days. During that time, the book may not be available in digital format anywhere else, including the author’s website. (It can still be distributed anywhere in physical format.) In exchange for the exclusivity, the author can make their book free for any five days during that 90-day period. The book is also available to borrow from the Kindle Lending Library, and the author receives payment for the borrows.

Within the indie author community, there’s a certain amount of debate surrounding the use of the Select program. While there are definite drawbacks to exclusivity, my personal experience with Select has been pretty good. 

Here’s a breakdown of the four giveaways that I did in 2012 and how it affected my sales:

First Giveaway: Still Waters 
(Romantic suspense set in 1956.)  

Note: this is the only giveaway where I did a heavy promotion beforehand. The promotional steps that I took are detailed later in this post. The book did make it into the Pixel of Ink newsletter, which obviously gave things a big boost.

Free days: Tuesday, September 26 – Thursday, September 27, 2012

Total giveaways: 23,893 (US 23,672; UK 191; Other markets 30)

Sales results: Up to September 26, I had sold 12 books for the month, with no borrows. By the time the month ended, I had sold 412 books and had 102 borrows. The following month (October) I sold 301 books and had 240 borrows. I also gained thirteen reviews (mostly 5-stars) on Amazon.

Second and Third Giveaways: Her Secret Bodyguard
(Contemporary romantic suspense set in Los Angeles.)

Note: Of the three books, this is the only one where I used all five of my free days. The first giveaway, as you’ll see, was much more successful than the second. I definitely scheduled them way too close together to take full advantage of all five days. I didn’t do any promotion for either giveaway, but by a lucky break the book was still picked up for Pixel of Ink.


First set of free days: Monday, October 1 – Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Total giveaways: 24,200 (US 20,496; UK 3,419; Other markets: 285)

Sales results:  Although this book had hit Amazon's bestseller list several times since its 2010 release sales had definitely slowed. In September 2012 I sold 108 books, and had two borrows. This giveaway took place at the beginning of October, and within two days after the end of the giveaway, I’d almost doubled September’s sales. I sold 611 books and had 108 borrows in October.

Second set of free days: Tuesday, October 16 – Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Total giveaways: 2,692 (US: 1,717; UK 975)

Sales results: No appreciable increase in sales after this second giveaway. (Cue the “wah-wah” music.)

Fourth Giveaway: Homesong
(Contemporary romance set on Caribbean cruise, with interwoven generational stories set in small Virginia town. Little bit of a mess.)


Note: Again, for this giveaway I did no promotion except a few personal tweets and posting it on Twitter and Facebook. Homesong wasn’t featured in Pixel of Ink, but I still got lucky with a lot of downloads.

Free days: Monday December 17 – Thursday December 19, 2012

Total giveaways: 15,826 (US 14,688; UK 1,052; Other markets: 86)

Sales reports: By December 16, before the promo started, I’d sold eight books By the end of the month (twelve days after end of promo) I’d had 383 sales and 415 borrows. I’ve also gained eight new reviews, five of which are five-stars.

Promotion

Here are the promotional steps I took when preparing for my Still Waters free days:

1) I used the forms provided by the wonderful people at Author Marketing Club to submit my book to almost a dozen different websites where free books are listed.

2) Paid a total of $15.00 to Kindle Book Review for a guaranteed cover display and 15 custom tweets to a total of 14,600 followers.

3) I made blatant (and probably piteous) announcements on three different Yahoo loops where such things are allowed, asking for downloads, tweets, etc.  I provided sample tweets to make it easy for my friends to share the news.

4) I made announcements on Facebook, including posting to a couple of groups. (But only on the groups where this type of announcement is allowed).

5) Coincidentally, I’d already scheduled a two-day ad on The Frugal eReader. The first ad ran on the last day of my free promo, and the second ad ran the first day my book returned to its regular price.

Summary

Because my books are so different, I didn't see a lot of carryover from the sales of one book to the sales of the others. I think I would have seen better sales across the boards if I were writing a series. But generally speaking I was thrilled with the results of my giveaways. As I mentioned before, not all writers like the idea of the Select program. Personally I plan to utilize it as long as it's available, but like anything else, a writer has to weigh the pros and cons before enrolling.

As a reader, have you downloaded and read many free books on Kindle?

And if you're a writer, what's been your experience with free giveaways?

Courtney Milan Spends the Day with the Eight... and You

The Rockville Eight is pleased to host 2010 RWA® RITA® Finalist Courtney Milan as our guest blogger for March's Last Monday of the Month.

Courtney earned RITA's nod this year with her novella, "This Wicked Gift," featured in The Heart of Christmas. Her debut historical romance, Proof by Seduction, is in stores now. For more with Courtney, visit her website, www.courtneymilan.com.

Right now, though, she's all ours... and yours. The Heart of Christmas and Proof by Seduction can be yours, too. Courtney will pop in throughout the day to chat – and she'll select one commenter to win a copy of both books – so keep those comments coming!

And now, take it away, Courtney...

PROMOTION BEFORE YOU'RE PUBLISHED by Courtney Milan

We've all heard the horror story about the person who sells and then discovers they are so busy writing books that they don't have time to do promotion. I have to admit, the person who tells this story is usually someone who sells promotional services. But honestly, I think this is an urban legend, and I think that people can focus to much on promotion before publication. I have not met a single published author who discovered that she did not have time to do promotion, if she started taking care of things when her book sold. (Promotion can take lots of time--but the vast majority of it is not things that you can frontload prior to publication. For instance, I spent 5 hours this morning working on new bookmarks--but you can't make bookmarks until you have a book cover.)

I did worry about promotion before publication, though--I worried about it a lot. And in my mind, I spent too much time and money on it.

So, here's how I see things:

1. Do the free stuff now. Start a facebook page (but please, dear God, do not ask all your friends to be fans.) Get a blog--most are free. (And if you enjoy blogging, blogging can be good practice writing on a schedule--just make sure that it's not cutting into book-writing time!) If you want, find a place with cheap hosting and put up a wordpress site, using a free template. When you publish, you can get someone to design it--just make sure that you're on the ball about that, because good web designers have a backlog (this is the only place where people get in trouble, I think: failing to realize that good web designers have 6 month to 1 year backlogs, and so you need to get on their schedule as soon as you've accepted an offer of publication). But don't freak out about any of this. Some bestselling authors use nothing more than a free blog as their entire web presence, even after they are published. See, for instance, Kristin Cashore. Her first two books hit the NYT list in hardcover; her debut novel, now available in paperback, has been sitting on the NYT children's list for 21 weeks. Her web presence is a free blog--and she writes YA books, and young adult readers are more likely to want to interact with the author online.

2. Get cheap business cards. Vistaprint is great for unpublished authors. You'll find that you adjust your card based on the book you're writing, so 100 of them is all you need. I bought business cards in the 1000s, printing my book on the back, and paid lots of money for them. I gave out about 10 of them.

3. The only thing that I think you do have to spend money on now is this: if you know the name you will be using (for instance, because it is your own), or if you think you know the pseudonym you want, buy your own domain name. They are cheap ($9.95 a year) and it's better to have it than not--it sucks to be known on the contest circuit or by your free blog by one name, only to discover that the name is unavailable. You want to be able to get yourname.com, and it's cheap to lock it in.

4. Other than that, I believe in the cheap. Do not buy personalized stationary. You don't need it. Nobody will think less of you for using the regular old letter paper from Office Depot. It's true that you should dress for the job that you have, but authors wear yoga pants. Act professionally, and use clean paper (and don't use blinking graphics on your website) and you will be just fine.So where should you spend your money, if you are burning to spend it? Spend it on conferences--networking and meeting authors who might introduce you to agents and editors will help more than personalized stationary. You'll also get to know people who may one day provide blurbs for your debut novel, and that's always a good thing! I got some great mileage from author critiques that I won from contests, and Brenda Novak's Diabetes Auction has a huge number of author critiques available.

It is really easy to fall prey to the notion of sympathetic magic: that if you spend a lot of time or money on something, that it must help. There is so much uncertainty in the publishing world, and so little that authors can control, that we look for anything to think "if I do that, I will get published." But it is simply not true that a pretty website or personalized professionally printed stationary will help you get published. If you write a good book, and carry yourself as a professional, you're doing enough promotion.

But speaking of promotion: I have a novella that just finaled in the RITA. One commenter will get a copy of both my novella and my debut novel, PROOF BY SEDUCTION. Who wants it?