Indie Marketing & Podcasts

In my search for marketing ideas, (Yeah, I know I should spend more time writing...) I went to YouTube. You can learn anything on YouTube. My daughter learned to play guitar there and she's quite good now. So, I figured I'd see if anyone there had Indie marketing ideas.

I found Joanna Penn and you can see her wealth of ideas on this video.
She talks about a lot of things, but one that caught my eye was Podcasts. I have a few short stories I don't know what to do with. Not enough to throw into a novella, but I wanted to do something with them. Podcasts? Would that lure people to read my other books?

My other Podcast idea is to read a chapter or two of one of my books. Then add, "To read Soul Mates go to www.jeannedonnelly.com." I only worry that it might piss people off. Would they see it as an interesting hook or a feel cheated? The Podcast would be free. Maybe put a note that says, "First chapter of Soul Mates read by the author?"

History lesson; When James Patterson was a new author he wanted to do a commercial. His publisher/agent said he was crazy. It wouldn't work and would be a waste of money. He did it anyway and landed on the New York Times best seller list. It worked and look where he is now.

Anyone out there Podcasting?

Romance! Suspense! Old boyfriends! Add in one crazy Rescue Dog and the fun begins! 

Editing, Editing, #*&(*@$%*(! Editing...

Editing & stress...so happy together.
Re-editing with the help of my daughter who a ruthless, unforgiving editor. I call her the grammar Nazi, but she also pounds me on those little technicalities in the plot. A degree in psychology with a minor in literature, she should have gone into publishing. And she killing my story!

Well, not really.

She's catching things that make me go, "How did I not see that?" or "How stupid of me." Don't get me wrong, I do argue with her. Explaining my point or the character's pov. What I wanted to say was....blah, blah, blah. But then she reminds me my readers wouldn't know that, wouldn't get it.

So, I'm back to a editing a story I'm kind of sick of seeing. Now I'll be sitting out in my car on my lunch hour with my red pen. Reading something I've read a thousand times. I park in the back of the lot so I can read out loud without people thinking I'm crazy.

Anyone got any editing tips they'd like to share?

Advertising and the Indie Author

I've heard that the best way to get noticed as an Indie author is to write multiple books. I'm working on that, but would still like to see better sales for the books I do have up. How many books are enough books? How many books are "multiple books?"

In one article I read that Hugh Howie knew he had to keep writing and getting more books done before he worried about promotion. Smart man. It worked.

So, should I be doing a little advertising? Make a budget?

Book Bub is supposed to give great results, but its a little pricey. I guess you get what you pay for?

Facebook ads can generate sales and some authors swear by it.

I did a freebie on Pixels of Ink and gave away about 80 something books. I got a few reviews from that, but nothing startling. However, that result did show me that Pixels has a good readership so I'll keep it on my list for later.

There are quite a few sites/email blasters like Pixel of Ink. I'd like to find a rating on these sites. Which ones preform better, which ones have the biggest audience, and which give you more bang for your buck.

I wonder if giveaways are worth anything at this point? I think a giveaway works better if you're writing a series that will make someone want the next book. I see Nick Pirog doing it and that's how he hooked me to read his series; 3 a.m.. I saw it on one of the ebook blasters that I subscribe to and since it was free, I grabbed it. It was a great surprise, very well written with a great story line. I went back and bought his other books.

Amazon has ads, too. Now that might be a better way to target an audience?

Twitter? I've tweeted a few, but not sure they produced anything. I just got the hash tag thing down better so that might change. Tweeting with hash tags does help my blog posts get noticed. I've had a few of them from Sidewalk Politics shared on independent newsy sites.  I think they found me through the hash tags.

Book Bloggers...this is an industry that's still out there. Amanda Hocking once said she credited Book Bloggers with the success of her vampire series. I met a couple of bloggers who do book reviews. Most don't charge anything to have a book reviewed by their site, but don't say it will definitely be reviewed. They have a group of reviewers who chose what they want to read and review. The reviewers will be honest on how they feel about the book.  These bloggers make a living with the ads on their site.

With all these options I think Indies need a marketing plan. Spend X amount on ads, pick a couple of bloggers, make a social media outline and stick to it. Organization! We need organization! Publishing houses have departments to handle this stuff. Do they have plans? Outlines to follow? (Not that a new author gets much of that.) I need a step by step plan for this advertising stuff. I know they have books on Marketing for Indie's but when I look up the authors of those books I don't see any reviews for their other books and the ranks on Amazon aren't that great. So tell me why I should listen to them?

What's your marketing plan?

Writer's Conference Update!

I'm a little late here with the Create Something Magical Conference update but that doesn't mean it wasn't great! We had a blast! My only problem...there wasn't enough time to see every seminar. There were a few times during the day I wish I could have been in two places at once.

First up was Scene of the Crime by Geoff Symon. A former Federal forensic investigator, Geoff gave us the run down on crime scenes and discussed a few of the more famous crime scene investigations. Check out his website!

Next up; The Line Between Good and Evil offered by Janice Gabie Bashman & Katherine Craft. This covered the POV character and how its the first relate-able thing to the reader. We also talked about the anti-hero or tormented villain.

While I was absorbing Scene of the Crime by writer friend went to one called; Draw Me a Story presented by Shiloh Walker. She snagged me a hand out. This covered Character Sketches and applying them to the plot of the story. What does your character want and what obstacles/conflicts are you going to put in their path?

From there we went to World Building presented by a panel that included Christi Barth, Stephanie Draven, Eliza Knight, Lea Nolan, and Kate Quinn. It was an interesting talk about in-bedding details about the world/town/culture and avoiding info dumps. They gave us the "sins" of world building

• Info dumps (better to layer)
• Glossary - depending on how detailed and different your world 
• Obsessing over details
• Forgetting aspects as you build your story. Don't let one aspect change another's facts
• Over reliance of dialog to impart details. Character saying things like, "As you know on planet X..."

One great tip of world building if you're writing a series; Make a series bible so you can keep track of the towns, houses, character jobs, etc. 

From there we had lunch with speaker Sylvia Day. She was a very inspiring author and gave us all her blunders and successes on the road to being a full time writer. One thing she did say was, follow your heart. When they tell you can't, don't listen. 

Raiders of the Lost Arcs was up next covering Structural Elements that create a story arc. Katheryn Craft was the presenter. This covered everything: the premise, inciting incident, motivation, high stakes for failure, complications through to the dark moment and climax. And of course, the resolution. 

From there I went to Marketing with Review Blogs with Joyfully Jay, Francesca Bensi, and Susan Lee. This was great insight into the other side of the review blogs and how they chose books to review, who does the reviews, and how to find the right ones. Basically, search blog tours or book review blogs and see if they did your kind of book. They said some of the  most successful author interviews are the ones that do giveaways of books or gift cards. They talked about Good Reads for reviews, too. 

The last seminar for Saturday was 5 Things to Start Doing Before You Get a Book Deal! The speaker was Donna Galanti and she was one of my favorite speakers of the day. 

• Connect with readers through book bloggers. She covered Google Alerts for your genre. Set the alert and find out where other authors are putting their books. Invite other authors to your blog to get traffic before you launch your book. 
• ID your reader and market. Does your book appeal to a certain group? Teens, mountain climbers, vegetarians? Find the groups on Twitter and engage in conversation. 
• Find 2 or 3 places to master on social media. Search for online reviewers, if you want an agent or publisher -follow them. (www.literaryrambles.com) 
• Promote others. Heartwarming or humorous posts get the most engagement. Find/follow pages that relate to your genre.  (www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/04/21/twitter-hashtags-for-writers/)
• Blog, Engage, and Run Contests (Rafflecopter)
• Join writer organizations & volunteer 

If you want the handout on this one email me and I'll send you a copy. She gives several good websites for marketing information. 

And that was my Saturday. Sunday was a short day. Three seminars; Beyond Spell Check; Self editing before submission, Tying it all Together, and The In the Know, How to Guide to Self Publishing. 

It was a great weekend with a lot of good information. Can't wait for next year! 

Writer's Conference in New Jersey! Yay!

Heading out tomorrow to the Liberty State Fiction Writers Create Something Magical Conference in Woodbridge, NJ.
I'm excited!
I belonged to Liberty State Fiction Writers a few years ago but I made a decision that I was not ready to share with my fellow writers. Writers that had been traditionally published. Not because I was afraid of their feelings on the subject (back them going Indie wasn't as accepted as it is today) but because I just didn't want to hear it. I made a decision. End of story. (or just the beginning of it?)
Either way, I drifted away from this awesome group of writers. Got a few books up on Amazon and went on with life.
Then I saw it...a traditionally published writer whom I respected put a book on facebook. When I clicked the link and saw the publisher....Amazon. This multi published author was putting her back list up on Amazon. Independent of the big five.
Was this a turning point? Did I see something on the horizon regarding Indies?
So I signed up to go to the conference and I can't wait to go to the seminars and rub elbows with people I respect in the industry. This time I'm not going hoping to meet an agent or publisher. I'm happy with my choice and want to keep on my Indie path. The Create Something Magical Conference has a "How to" seminar on self publishing. (hate that name! Is there anything wrong with calling it Independent Publishing?) A sign of the times? We'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.
Write on, my friends!

How to Edit Socially

I work in a place where I often see writing that needs a little help. Now, I'm no grammar expert but I think I have a basic handle on it. I've been at it for years and have been published here and there. Hopefully, that counts as something.

When I see mistakes, missing commas, repetitive writing, etc. the corrections sometimes just pop right out of my mouth. I went on a job interview once where the owner of the company was using a word wrong and he kept repeating it. Suddenly, in the  middle of the interview I blurted out, "You're using that word wrong." I couldn't help it. My mouth had a mind of its own and my poor little grammar lovin' heart couldn't take it any more.
Surprisingly, I got a call the next day with a job offer.
I turned it down.

Now back to work. My job is nothing spectacular. I answer phones, process mail, write stuff, and help everyone else in the building do everything. And I love it. There's always work to do, the people are happy, and the bosses are great. Everything my last job wasn't. Except for writing. My pet writing peeves take a hit almost every day.

Peeves;
1. Repetitive words. The home was devastated and needed repairs. The devastated condos were devastated. For God's sake get a Thesaurus...or hit shift F7.

2. Starting each sentence with the same word. When they fixed the home... When it was time for... When the family... Think outside the box. There are millions of words out there. Something else will work just as well as that one word.

3. Run on sentences. If you're sentence runs three or four lines and takes up three separate thoughts....Separate them!

4. And as the guilt washes over me from #3...pet peeve #4...No exclamation points in business writing. I once had a journalism prof tell me, "No exclamation points unless you're on fire." Good advice.

5. Almost as annoying as repetitive words is repetitive thoughts. Turning one sentence around and saying the same thing as the previous sentence. Same thought, different words. They worked day and night to get the job done. Everyday they worked long into the night and finished the job.

Enough of my peeves, what's yours? And what's the best way to bring it to the person's attention? Some don't like to be corrected. Then I vacillate between taking it to a manager or just forgetting about it. Not my circus, not my monkey.
But I like the company and want it to do well.
Dilemma.

Loss of a Dear Friend and Quantum Physics

  

I've been in and out of many writing groups in my life. Years ago a new Barnes & Noble opened in our town and a Woman's Writing Group formed. I was one of the first members and remember sitting in a circle, nervous, unsure of what we would do, where this little group would take us.  Another member was Bernice Roberts. A sweet woman, older than me but with the most inquisitive mind I've ever been blessed to encounter. Bernice would read everything. She shared books on everything from writing to Quantum Physics. She was enthusiastic about life and learning.

One day she came in and told us had she read that to accomplish anything in life you had to "Put your ego in the back seat." Meaning if you let the ego, the thing that worries about what others think, rule your life, you'll never get anywhere. Now, years later and with the passing of my good friend Bernice, I realize it's those words that gave me the power to go Indie. When I worry about looking like a fool or not being good enough, I think of Bernice's advice, "Put your ego in the back seat."
Don't let a worrisome ego be the barometer of your goals. I think the "ego" statement says it all. Don't let "ego" be your copilot, throw the damn thing in the backseat and put your foot on the gas.

Thank you, Bernice Roberts. You taught us many things and your time here on earth will always be cherished by those you left behind.

Now I'd like to encourage everyone to read a book on Quantum Physics in memory of Bernice.