On Writing

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    Final (promotion) games people play …

    So I’ve talked about some promotional things that have and haven’t worked for me this week. Today, I thought that I’d share a few quick tips that have helped me along the way:

    1. Asking for discounts: I use the same company to print all my bookmarks. A while back, I asked one of the reps if I could get some kind of discount since I had used their services so much. She put me on her preferred customer list and now gives me a small discount every time I put in an order for new bookmarks. It’s not a huge discount, but it saves me a little when it comes to shipping costs for the bookmarks.

    So don’t be afraid to ask somebody for a discount. The worst thing they can do is just say no.

    2. Rewards cards: Authors buy lots of office supplies — envelopes, rubber bands, printer ink, books. So sign up for a rewards card at your local office supply store or book chain. I know some places like Office Depot will give you a couple of bucks (I think it’s $3) towards a gift/rewards card for every printer cartridge that you recycle. I usually buy enough ink alone to get a gift card every quarter with at least $10 on it, which I use to help pay for color copies or envelopes or whatever I need at that particular time. It’s not a huge savings, but every little bit helps.

    3. Become an affiliate: If you’re an author, make sure that you are an affiliate with at least one of the major booksellers or a good independent store. I’m an Amazon affiliate. That means that every time someone clicks on one of my book links, goes to Amazon, and buys the book, I get a commission of a few cents. Again, it’s not a lot, but a few times a year, I get an Amazon gift card, which I can use to buy books for giveaways or whatever.

    4. Find someone local to do the work: If you need to have something done (like creating a Web site) that you just don’t know how to do, try to find someone local who does. Look in the yellow pages or contact one of your local colleges and see if you can hire someone in your area to do the job. They might just be cheaper than trying to find a Web site or graphic designer online. A college student might design a site for you for a class project or just to be able to put it on their resume. It never hurts to ask.

    5. Do the work yourself: I do a lot of my work myself — everything from designing bookmarks to stuffing envelopes to booking ads. Yeah, it’s mostly grunt work, but it needs to be done — and I am far too cheap to pay people to stuff envelopes when I can do it myself.

    So there you have it. Some final thoughts on book promotion. Got questions? Ask them in the comments.

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    More (promotion) games people play …

    So earlier this week, I talked about some of the promotional things that I do for my books. Today, I thought that I’d share some things that haven’t worked so well for me:

    1. Print ads: When I was first starting out, I bought several print ads in various magazines, like Romantic Times and Romance Writers Report because that’s what all the info that I found online said to do — and I quickly had my eyes opened about how expensive these sorts of ads are. Even small, black and white ads can cost you a pretty penny depending on the publication.

    I’m not saying that it’s bad or wrong to buy print ads in these or other magazines, but I just didn’t get the return on my money that I thought that I would. These days, I usually only buy online ads, because with one click, a reader can go to my Excerpts page or to Amazon to buy the book — something they can’t do with a print ad. And let’s face it — as a society, we’re all about the instant gratification. That’s why e-books are becoming more and more popular. With one click, you can start reading right then and there.

    2. Book signings: Also when I was a newbie author, I went around and set up book signings at all the major book chains in my area. Some of them went okay, some of them did not. I once sat in a Books-A-Million for two hours on a Saturday and only had one person come over and ask about my books — and that was only because she was my old high school Spanish teacher and I recognized her and called out to her.

    In general, if you’re sitting there by yourself, more people are likely to ask you where the bathroom is than about your books. Seriously. These days, the only place that I do local signings is at my local comic book store because I know that I will sell several books there. Not a whole lot, but enough to make it worth my time. Besides, the owner has been great to me, and I have a lot of fun talking to the folks who come into the store, since they are mostly fantasy fans like me. I have always had a good experience at the comic book store. The chain stores have definitely been more hit or miss for me.

    3. Personalized stationary and business cards: I know, this seems a little weird. But in the beginning, I spent way too much money getting personalized stationary and business cards printed up, because again, that’s what I thought you were supposed to do. I did use the stationary to write to booksellers, and I did pass out the business cards at various places.

    But really, I think the bookmarks and flyers that I design myself are just as good, if not better than stationary and business cards. Certainly, I seem to get more use out of bookmarks/flyers — I just hand them out or stuff them in envelopes knowing that they have the most important info about my books and how to contact me on them. And I don’t have to worry about putting a bookseller’s address on them or addressing them all individually when I’m doing one of my massive mailings.

    So there you have it. Some promotional things that haven’t worked out so well for me. Got questions? Ask away in the comments.

    Coming up on Friday: Some final thoughts and tips about promotion.

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    The (promotion) games people play …

    9 Comments

    A couple of weeks ago, epic fantasy author Lisa Shearin wrote a couple of good posts about book promotion and what has and hasn’t worked for her. The posts really resonated with me, since I was in the middle of stuffing envelopes full of Venom bookmarks at the time. LOL. So today, I thought that I’d talk a little bit about what I do as far as promotion goes, since this always seems to be a popular topic among authors and readers.

    No matter which publisher you sell your book to, a lot of the promotion will fall on your shoulders as the author. Sure, the publisher will send your book out to major reviewers like Publishers Weekly or Romantic Times, and the publisher might buy an ad or two (if you’re lucky). But beyond that? Well, unless you got a huge advance, are a best-selling author already, or your book gets picked as a lead title, you will have to do a lot of the promotion yourself. In other words, the more the publisher spends on your book, the more they will push it so they can make their money back. The less money they spend, the less they will promote you — unless your sales numbers come back and your book looks like it is about to break out.

    Like most mid-list authors, I would say that I do the lion’s share of any promotion that gets done for my books. Here’s some of what I do:

    1. Bookmarks and flyers: Every time I have a new book coming out, I design bookmarks and promotional flyers for it. One, because I just like doing that kind of graphic/design work. Two, because I can use these things in several different ways, and it’s all about getting the most bang for my buck.

    For example, I can give the bookmarks/flyers to everyone from readers to librarians to booksellers. The bookmarks/flyers have my latest book cover on them, a catchy line or two from the book,the book’s  IBSN numbers, some info about the Elemental Assassin series, and my website, among other things. Plus, it’s just cool having bookmarks for my books. 😉

    I’m not going to kid you, though. These things can get expensive — up to several hundred dollars, even if you have your own color printer. I save a little money by doing the designs myself, but there’s no getting around the printing/ink/paper costs. And I order a lot of bookmarks — usually about 15,000 per title. It all adds up pretty quick.

    2. Mailings, mailings, mailings: I do a lot of mailings. Tons and tons of them. In fact, I’d say that one of my biggest expenses as an author is postage. The people at all the local post offices know me well. In fact, some of them visibly shudder when they see me coming through the front door with a sack full of envelopes to mail. LOL.

    Who do I mail? Lots of folks. I subscribe to Pat Rouse’s list of romance-friendly bookstores/reading groups. Every time I have a new book coming out, I pull out that list and send every single bookstore that is interested in urban fantasy and/or paranormal romance a packet that contains bookmarks for the folks in the reading group, a flyer with all my book info on it for the bookseller, and a signed cover flat or two if I have them.

    I also do the flyer and bookmark mailings through Romantic Times’ Bookstores that Care program. Basically, you mail 500 flyers and 500 packets of bookmarks to RT, and they distribute them to stores in the program. This is actually pretty reasonable to do — between $110 and $125 for each program depending how much stuff you send in — although it is time-consuming and tiring to individually wrap up 500 packets of bookmarks. But it needs to be done, so I suck it up and do it.

    Also, I do lots of book contests/giveaway, which means more mailings and more trips to the post office.

    3. Guest blogs and giveaways: I do tons of guest blogs (most with a book giveaway), especially around my release dates. I would estimate that I’ve done at least 50 so far this year and have several more already lined up for Venom in late September/early October. I know some authors hate it, but I really like guest blogging. It lets me interact with different folks and answer reader questions. Plus, I usually get some book recommendations from other folks out of it too. And I am always on the lookout for new authors to try. 😉

    And, of course, the great thing about this is that it’s free. All it costs me is a little time to do the post and a couple of bucks at the post office to mail the winner’s book out after the fact. I really do think that guest blogging is one of the cheapest and most effective things you can do as an author.

    And yes, I am always open to guest blogging. If you want me to come guest blog on your site, all you have to do is send me an e-mail and ask.

    4. E-ARCs: I send out e-ARCs to tons of review sites — basically, everyone who’s in my e-mail list who’s ever reviewed one of my books. And I’m always on the lookout for new reviewers and new places that I can guest blog. Do I expect everyone to love my books? Of course not. But again, this is something that I can do for free through e-mail — and free is always good.

    If you want an e-ARC, send me an e-mail. Note: I only send these to legitimate book reviewers — people with dedicated book review sites and blogs. Don’t e-mail me if you just want to read the book for free. That is not how this works.

    5. Online ads: I buy a few online ads, mostly at places like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books where I know the audience is into urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Yes, these can be expensive too, but on the bright side, they are almost always cheaper than print ads, and I think they are far more effective. With one click, someone can find my Excerpts page and read samples of my work — something that they just can’t do with a magazine ad.

    6. Social media: I’ve been a bit of a late bloomer with this. But this year, I’ve started a personal Facebook page, a Facebook fan page, got on Twitter, and started posting book reviews on Goodreads. All put together, I’d say I have a combined network of about 750 or so people.  That’s not much compared to some other authors, but I get a few new folks every week, so it’s slowly growing. I try to post a mix of book news, reviews, and just fun stuff on all of my social media sites. I also use these sites to direct traffic over here to the blog whenever I have a new post up.

    I also do an e-newsletter every month with my latest news, reading recommendations, a recipe, and a contest for subscribers. Right now, I’ve got more than 800 subscribers, and I’m hoping to hit 1,000 by the end of the year. If you want to subscribe, fill out the form on my home page.

    7. The personal touch: One thing that I think some authors overlook is adding that personal touch to things. For example, every time I mail a contest book out, I take a few minutes to personalize the book, obviously. But I also include several bookmarks for the winner and personalize those, as well as including my latest book flyer in with everything else.

    Why? Well, I think it’s the polite thing to do. If I was a reader, I’d want a signed bookmark to go along with my signed book. But more than that, I think it makes me a little more memorable to readers — that I took the time to go the extra mile. At least, I hope that it does — and that they remember me on their next trip to the bookstore.

    So there you have it. Some of the many promotional things that I do. Got questions? Ask away in the comments.

    Coming up on Wednesday: More on promotion.

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    First person versus third person …

    13 Comments

    As those of you who’ve read my books know, I write in what is called first person. Basicaly, it means that the story is told from one character’s point of view. In first person books, the lines are usually something like this: I went to the store. I drove home. I cooked steaks.

    On the other hand, third person books are (or can be) written from the view of several different characters: Jill went to the store. Jill drove home. Jack was glad that she bought steaks.

    There’s been tons of debate over the years about which is better, first person books or those written in third person. Some people love first person books, but they are others that won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.

    Frankly, I just don’t get what the big deal is. When I read, I’m looking for two things — interesting characters and a great story. I don’t care whether the book is written in first person or third person. I don’t care whether the author is a man, woman, or an alien from another planet. I want to be entertained — that’s it. That’s my only requirement. Make me smile, make me laugh, make me cheer for your hero, and curse your villain. That’s all that I want.

    So why do I write in first person if it’s so unpopular with some folks? Well, because that’s the point of view that speaks to me. That’s the one that lets me get inside a character’s head and really find her voice. That’s the one that just works for me. I always think that my books and characters feel flat when I try to write them in third person.

    I have to write in the voice that speaks to me, and for now at least, that voice is first person. I hope my books, my characters, my stories entertain folks. That’s all that I want as a writer. Well, okay, fame and fortune would be nice too, but I’m not holding my breath about those things.

    As for those who won’t read books simply because they’re written in first person, you guys really don’t know that you’re missing — great characters and great stories. I hope you change your mind and give first person a try. You’ll be glad that you did.

    What about you guys? Which do you prefer, first person or third? Share in the comments.

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    Spoilers, no more …

    6 Comments

    Spoiler alert: This post talks about spoilers for my Elemental Assassin books. So don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled …

    I think I’m going to have to implement some sort of spoiler policy.

    Now that Web of Lies is out, I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from folks who want to know what happens next — and mainly, who Gin winds up with in Venom (due out Sept. 28).

    For those of you who have read Web of Lies, you know that in addition to Detective Donovan Caine, there’s also a new love interest in town for our girl Gin — sexy businessman Owen Grayson. And given what happens at the end of Web of Lies, with Donovan basically dumping Gin and hightailing it out of Ashland, well, let’s just say that folks want to know who Gin’s going to be spending time with in the future. So far, most folks seem to be on Team Owen, although I have heard from a few Team Donovan fans.

    It’s very flattering that folks like Gin so much that they want to know what happens next — and they want to know right now. But spoilers are kind of a gray area for me. Personally, I like mild spoilers, like if someone has been cast on one of my favorite TV shows or if one of the characters might die before the season is over. I regularly troll over to Entertainment Weekly to get those kinds of spoilers.

    But I don’t like spoilers that ruin a big, big twist in a TV show or movie, like in The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects (which I think is a truly awesome flick). If the whole point of a movie is to surprise you, then, well, I want to be surprised.

    And I never know how much of a spoiler a reader wants. Do they want to know what happens in the next book? Do they want to know who Gin ends up with at the end of book 5? I just never know how much to tell people. Also, I don’t want someone who doesn’t want to be spoiled to come across the info online and feel like the book has been ruined for them.

    So from now on, I don’t think that I’ll be giving out any kind of spoilers at all. My lips are sealed. Although I’ll admit that the back cover copy for the books can be a bit spoilery at times. But there’s nothing that I can do about that. So for all you folks out there who like spoilers, read the back cover copy, which is posted here on the website, to get a hint about what’s coming up next for Gin. For those of you who don’t like spoilers, you may want to stay away from the description until Venom comes out … if you can. 😉

    What about you guys? Do you like spoilers or not? Share in the comments.