The Magic Formula for a Best Seller.

This past Saturday I attended an excellent workshop by Dennis J. Smith on social media. There are new ways to self promote on the Internet every day, it seems. And since I've jumped into the eBook world with my entire cyber body and soul, with quite a bit of success, I've been following other writers' journeys and thinking about the whole "How to sell? What should I be doing to become a best seller? Do I HAVE to do every social network? Do I need to go to every conference? Do I--" You know the drill.Then there's the whole "this person did nothing and sold millions" and "this person did everything and sold tons" and then "I'm driving myself crazy trying to do everything and selling nothing."

The problem is that there is no magic formula for selling. There are far too many variables to say with certainty "if you do so and so you'll sell X amount." Now granted, my mom was right and "If you don't tell people, they won't know." And Dennis is correct that the other writers are doing social media, you bet. So no promotion is a mistake. Social media is a wonderful tool. But there's no way to tell if being on Google+ will sell more books or less than being on Facebook. Or if being on both will sell more of your title.

So how to have a best seller? Here's the secret, here's the magic formula: The writing always comes first. Let me repeat that. The writing is first, always. ALWAYS. The more you write, the better writer you become. The more you write, the more and better product you have to sell. The more you sell, the more you can cross promote. Etc. This doesn't guarantee a best seller. But the wonderful magic is: you'll be writing. You'll be doing what you love first. And wouldn't that be best?

How do you, dear reader, balance the need to promote with the need to write? Are you sometimes completely unbalanced like me? Any suggestions for what might be most effective for promotion? Or do you run screaming at any hint of that word?

Happy Valentines Day

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Above is a picture of Bruce's moms kitties having a Valentine's moment. And I wanted to remind all my creative friends out there that it's passion that creates!

So do you love or hate or don't care about this holiday?

An Eville Review and Why There Are No Evil Reviews

     

From the cover of EVILLE by Holand Peterson

EVILLE is a hoot of a read. I mean that literally, I hooted laughs several times while reading this spoofy fantasy adventure supernatural novel (think a more imaginative and fresh Young Frankenstein). Holand creates a wacky world of supernatural beings. When Mr. Average Guy and this world intersect...it's funny and fun.

Granted this is a good review, but it easily illustrates why there are no evil or bad reviews. I enjoy oddball spoofs and takeoffs of genre fiction. But there are people who dislike or even despise that sort of thing. And are very vocal about it, sometimes on reviews. This is where the writer needs to put on a "reader" mindset. When looking for something to read and browsing the reviews as a reader, I experience a bad review differently. Many times, I'll read the one star reviews first. They are often good for a laugh. An example: a one star review for a novella, that gave it one star because it wasn't novel length and the reviewer didn't like novellas! Now, the novella was stated as such and priced accordingly, in fact was pretty cheap for an eBook of that length. Another review of an anthology of four novelettes gave one star because each novelette was written within the author's well known world. Again, it was clear from the cover that was what each novelette was. And that's what I enjoyed most about that anthology. So a bad review may generate a sale or several.

But what about a review that specifically attacks the writing? OUCH. Again, as a reader, I may discount the review if it's badly written. Even if well-written, I may like what the reviewer dislikes, "too complicated and convoluted a plot" for example. I don't believe there is such a thing. And I may want to read the book to see if I agree or disagree with the reviewer's review.

As a reader, the only review that turns me off a book is one that talks about bad or sloppy writing. Bad is weak characters, a poor plot, or little or missing conflict, and sloppy being too many grammar and spelling errors. And that's something we authors have control over.

Now, I know bad reviews drop your Amazon ranking and that's not good, and you may lose sales, and that's not good. But when you consider reviews as only a small and necessary part of a writing career, and that everyone gets bad reviews, it's not quite so painful. Remember the famous saying: "I don't care what they say about me, as long as they spell my name right" (readers, who said that first?).

Finally, bad reviews can also generate good ones. I've written more than one good review after reading a book and disagreeing with the bad reviews. So, try, try to relax a little, dear writer friends, about reviews!

Feedback? Review my post? Give it a bad review? A good review?

Speak up and Succeed...

...without panicking.

Into every author's life comes the moment when you'll be asked to participate in an event, whether it be a book signing, a talk, sitting on a panel or doing a workshop. People love to meet the author. I've done a lot of events and will be doing many this year as part of my promo for my upcoming novel releases--the first one February 24th!

Here's a few tips that will help guarantee a successful whatever and help take those anxieties away.

First, practice beforehand. Keep notes on what you're going to say. If you're giving a read, read your pages out loud several times until you're familiar and comfortable. Practice looking up from your pages. Speak out and slow down. If your audience can't hear you or understand what you say, then enjoyment is lost. Try not to worry about it being "perfect," we all flub up and many times the audience doesn't notice!

Be brief and to the point. My mom always said, "Stop talking before people stop listening." Consider what you would like to hear from an author. Remember there's no reason to prove to your audience that you have succeeded as an author by telling about every step of your journey, your struggles and every single failure and success. The fact that you're in front of an audience means you've succeeded. Pick one to three stories and keep it brief. Less is more and leave them wanting more. Both cliches because they're true.

Think outside the box. For example, I'm going to be at an event at the Ada Community Library. This event will be by the Pixie Chicks' Writers (a group I belong to) and will be about An Eclectic Collage I and II, anthologies written by the Pixie Chicks. Instead of reading from my work, I'm going to demo the exercises from my article in An Eclectic Collage I.

Most important, relax as much as you can. Remember, the people in the audience are on your side and people too. The more you relax the more they will too and then everyone will enjoy!

Readers, any other suggestions?

It's that time--resolutions that work

 

The cover of my upcoming novel release on February 24th.

 Yes, yes, it's that awful time of year, resolution time, ugh. But, it doesn't have to be painful and we don't have to fail. With three general tools success will be the key word for 2012.

First tool: PRIORITIZE. Instead of trying to: lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, eat only fresh food cooked yourself, write five new novels, learn Spanish and French, grow three inches taller even though you're 55 years old and ... well, you get the idea ... instead ask "What's most important to me to accomplish in 2012?" Focus on that one thing. That's why I have the cover of my upcoming novel as an illustration. My most important priority is to write the second in this trilogy: THE MALL FAIRIES: WAR.

Second tool: ORGANIZE. My mom called this "clearing the decks." There are a lot of ways to stumble and fall off the ship if your deck isn't clear. While organizing, refer often to your #1 priority and set up systems that will support that priority. For example, I like to work to self-imposed deadlines, so a calendar with those deadlines noted helps. Which brings me to the final suggestion ...

Third and perhaps most important tool: BREAK IT UP. Trying to do everything all at once is an automatic failure. Imagining writing 300+ pages for the new w.i.p. makes it seem an impossible task. Break up your first priority into manageable pieces. For myself, I can't write an entire novel in a month, I've done NaNoWriMo and never turned out 50,000 words total. BUT, I can often do 1000 words a day, or one scene a day. So I compute how long it will take (and give myself a little wriggle room) and impose my deadlines accordingly.

I hope this helps with everyone's resolutions. Readers, any suggestions? Any stories of what has worked for you?

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

SEE YOU IN 2012!

Merry Christmas! TAKE A BREAK!

Three views of my blooming Christmas Cactus!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! 

 

The title of this post comes from my noticing that several stores are OPEN Christmas Day--oh, for heaven sakes. Then I realized that us creative folk also often "stay open" every day. That only leads to fatigue and an empty well of creativity. So everyone, I suggest you take tomorrow off, regardless of your beliefs. Just cause.

 

And here's a video Christmas card starring Puck, our rat terrier, Puck the Puppy's Christmas Wish.

New Venture! New Market for Writers too!

Above is the logo for my newest venture, Barbarian Books.We are an eBook publishing company. 


Why would a well-published writer, with contracts with other great publishing companies, L&L Dreamspell, Muse It Up Publishing and Freundship Press, for example, open an eBook publisher? Am I insane? I'm a writer, so of course. But not when it comes to Barbarian Books. My permanent boyfriend Bruce came up with the idea to answer several important questions. E-readers mean that it's a new world for writers. With, I believe, some tremendous advantages for us writers.


Since I'm certain the majority of my readers know about the publishing world here's a couple of thing in brief: The big publishers are no longer taking newbies, or often even trusted mid-listers. Anyone can self-publish for e-readers. And many, many do. How does an author stand out in such a crowd? Unless you're someone like Jim Murdoch and you have a great blog such as The Truth About Lies or Dennis J. Smith and know all about social networking, it's a struggle to promote your self-pubbed e-book. 

And who do readers trust to find good reads at a reasonable price? 


The answer is: small publishers. There are a number of legitimate small publishers out there. If you've written a good book, there'll be a spot for it with a good small publisher.


This is the great thing about this new world--you can write what you want and it'll find a place. Every publisher is looking for something somewhat different. For example, Barbarian Books is looking for genre fiction (no children's or erotica). We're looking for novel length crime (including mystery), horror, romance, science fiction, westerns and cross genre. We'll open soon for other lengths and genres. And we're looking for that great, unclassifiable and unusual novel that might fit our philosophy that there are a great many readers looking for great reads.


So, if you have a finished product, do your homework (i.e. read the publisher's websites and contracts, go to Duotrope, Absolute Write and Preditors and Editors) and then submit!