Critics, Critics EVERYWHERE!

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they are unable to do it themselves."~~B. Behan

We like that quote, don't we? Gives us a giggle and makes it (somewhat?) easier to ignore critics. But...

Should we?

Well, yes. 

And, no. Let me 'splain.

There seems to be two camps in writer-land. Either people say they never listen to their critics and critics are just failed writers anyway, so who gives a hoot? Or they are of the 'one hint of criticism and I shall shut myself from the world and die a lonesome painful death and never write again' mindset. Like most extremes, both are kind of lame.

Not everyone is going to love your stuff. Yes, some people hate just to hate, but, heads up, Pollyanna- that doesn't mean some of what they say ain't true. And some will SAY they love it, 'cause they love you, but that isn't helpful either. Personally, I don't mind constructive criticism, but I also think you should take it with a grain of salt. Don't change your writing based on every review for goddsakes, but don't ignore it if everyone and their second cousin are telling you your dialogue sounds sounds more canned than an '80s sitcom laugh track.

Now about GETTING critics, 'cause baby, you need critics, because you NEED reviews. 

The more of ^^those you get^^, the more you will sell, that is just the cold hard truth. But for newbie, self-pub writers reviews can be....shall we say...hard to come by????? 

But it is NOT impossible. You just have to work it a little. First off, friends and family, friends and family are good. We love them and they love us(most of the time, right?!) But to be honest, people can spot BS pretty quick. So no gushing, lovey-lovey goofage. If they offer, wonderful. Certainly asking is fine, hey, we are all a little desperate here. But if you go that way, choose a reasonably honest friend/family member who will give a review some thought and care. 

Hopefully, you already have a couple of friends/aquaintances/coworkers who have read your stuff and liked it. This is good, because hard-core readers can spot hard-core reader's review a mile off(that's one of my peeps!) So these are awesome first reviews. 

Other options, the ARC. Here's another acronym, Grasshopper, learn it well, you will see it EVERYWHERE! Most commonly this is Advanced Review Copy. I have also heard it called Advanced Reading Copy, Author Review Copy, yada yada. Bascially, you give someone your book for free and they agree to review it, honestly. 

   First off, the mechanics. How do you give away an e-book copy? Well, there are formatting sites that will convert your ready-to-upload to KDP Word doc into a .mobi or other ereader friendly file and you can send that to said-interested-party. You can also, if your book is already in KDP, gift a copy. (the royalities go back to you anyway, so your out-of-pocket is minimal).

  Now the REAL kicker---how do you find these hungry reviewers? Ahhh--that is the question. First off, genre is going to play a HUGE role in this. If you write bodice-ripping romance novels, you are obviously going to find a lot more fish out there than say someone who writes about building cement walls(do people write about building cement walls? IDK, I am tired and that is the best obscure thing I could think of, okay?!?)

  Try various sites, WLC though I haven't been overly successful with that. And I also mentioned STORY CARTEL before, they are a pay site, you buy credits and that earns you the right to request reviews within the community. I believe you can also earn credits by reviewing yourself.

Which brings me to another option on a host of writing/reading websites, and YES, here it comes, yet another acronym. R2R. This is Read to Review. You just basically beg someone to read your book and review, sometimes offering a free copy, sometimes not. There are also R2R exchanges(I read your book, you read mine, we both review). That, IMO, is a little dicey. I am doing this with one person at the mo, but she approached me and I looked up her book and it's actually sounded interesting to me, so I was okay with it. Plus, we are in very different genres, which I view as a good thing. No one can be nastier than a competitor. I haven't started her book yet, nor her mine(I agreed to start this coming week, as I am just a WEE bit bogged down lately) But we will see how it goes. 

I also participated recently in a pay it forward R2R. This one was a little more unusual and interesting. I belong to several groups on  goodreads and one of them proposed that since it is a group of mostly self-published writers, everyone would throw their books into the mix, you could pick two or three that appealed to you and promise to read and review. Everyone would do this, and hopefully that meant everyone would get read at least once. Its a fairly good idea and I have 1 amazing find *GREAT YA urban fantasy novel, if you are interested* to show for it, and also the one I am currently on has been a treat so far, but not done yet-- and a couple reviews for myself and a couple more coming. But...

Oh but.

I had one loverly person buy my book(the agreement was we all bought the books, though mine was free during part of the challenge, and that was no biggie, IMO), but they bought it....then returned it when they were done. Sweet, huh? Personalities and general snippiness or drama can be a drag.

And another thing, is you may find yourself reading some...well, seriously BAD writing. Honestly, nothing I have read so far has been without some merit, other than some really cringe-worthy dialogue. But some of it was not good. Guess what, though? 

Some people may feel the same way about YOUR stuff. (gulp!)

So my advice is be honest, but kind if you go this route. Personally, I like to go for the 'shit sandwhich'. Write what you liked best, tuck your worst criticisms in the middle(and keep them constructive: eg,  'dialogue needs work', 'characters felt wooden', 'paragraphs ran on and on', etc.) I also don't post the rating on Amazon if it is particularly 'constructive'. Then end with the main reason you liked it---even if you have to dig deep.

I haven't had one that was awful yet, but if I did, I would advise a private message to the person advising of your opinion, no hard feelings, and if they want you to go ahead and post it fine, if they decline, so be it. Also if you really loved it, feel free to say that, too. Sometimes, there just is nothing bad to say, so don't dig for it. 

Mull it over and choose wisely. Also, be advised you may not be happy about some of the opinions you get. It's up to you to decide if they have merit or not. If you plan on doing this for any length of time in the real world, critics are not going to go away. If anything, the more you step away from your inner circle and farther and farther into the real world and allowing total strangers who have absolutely NO concern about your feelings to read your babies, the more they may get stomped on. If you feel anything like me about some of your characters, that is going to bring out the mama bear in you. DON'T EAT THE CRITICS, even if they are crunchy and good with ketchup! ;)

And sorry, but we will have to save the #1 secret thing I actually would spend $$ on--if I had it, in self-publishing, for next time.

You all are special to me, but I do need some sleep! :D

Happy writing!

ISBNs, Tweets and Freebies, Oh MY!

Hey there. SO I still kinda have a 3-day freebie promo hangover, forgive me if I wander a bit.

What were we gonna talk about first?? Oh yeah, ISBNs, you know those handy little numbers you can look up every book in the universe by? 

Except mine.

And guess what? I don't care. Seriously. You do NOT need this, at least not at first. Is it a good idea once you have built an audience and the like? Sure. Go for it. Otherwise, fuggedbout it.

Unless you want to shell out $125, then you can go here Golden ISBN . But for me, I will be honest, I am not in this as some vanity project, nor can I afford to be spending money on things like ISBNs for a book that may never sell over a couple thousand copies. KDP gives you an ASIN number for free, here's mine for Shivers: 

• ASIN: B00JX8U9KG

And even Goodreads, which swore to me when I created my author page over there, that we will NOT add your book without a valid ISBN, mysteriously did list my book by DAY two of my promo. 

**Oh and a quick aside, make an author page on Goodreads, mine is Here. It's not too fancy, but it's important for people to be able to connect and find out more about you. As I said before you would be surprised at how many people LURK. Also create an Amazon author page if you use KDP and sync up your blog feed per RSS, twitter if you so choose and upload a PIC, for god's sake, too. HERE. Sorry, but shameless self promotion is the name of the game. Do I like it?

Hell NO, it's exhausting and sometimes it feels about as effective as trying to shimmy up a well-greased flag pole. I am a unrepentant introvert and pushing my stuff so shamelessly is exhausting and draining for me--- but does it work? 

YES!

Pretty much.

Let me explain. Every time I tweeted during the promo (and mind you, I do NOT have a lot of followers, only about 200), my downloads took a small upswing. I fb'd as well, at least 3 times a day and had friends and fans amazing enough to share my links, one friend alone got me over 150 views!! I put my promo up on my author page on Goodreads as well, and did a few other sneaky things I will share with you.

First off, you can do research for your self, there are a lot of sites that take self-promotions, for a fee. I think I mentioned I am cheap, so I didn't use any of those sites. I DID promote on WLC's freebie page-WLC. You have to create an account to join, but they are worth some(not a lot, IMO) but SOME time. I also promoted on fb pages:

1  2 3

You have to join the groups and be respectful, please of their rules. 

There are also the tweeting services. You will see them on Twitter if you have joined the madness yet. "TWEETing promos, reach thousands!!"And yada, yada. Do THEY work?

Honestly, probably. At least a little. I know I personally have clicked a few of their promos for authors and even downloaded a time or two from links in their tweets. BUT, as warned previously, if you are going to give someone your $$---shop wisely. The one I like the best is 

@TweetYourBooks

They seem the least obnoxious and the most author and reader-friendly. But I didn't use them for my book. Like I said, me cheapskate. I did everything on my own and didn't pay anyone a dime.

Could I have done more? Absolutely. But I am not that energetic. 

And all in all, I completely exceeded my goals. 

I hear of people who downloaded 3-4000 books in a promo the length of mine and some who don't crack fifty. I was somewhere in the (lower) middle of that, but let me tell you, there is NO greater thrill than seeing your book getting dowloaded all over the world! It was a serious high. I had books downloaded as far away as Japan and Australia and Indonesia and while the UK was heavily my 2nd biggest market, I was also shocked by a strong showing in the German/Austrian/Dutch market.

It was extremely, extremely cool and frightening and exhilarating and exhausting. My highest rankings In Amazon's Free rankings were #23 in paranormal romance/werewolves/shifters and #32 in horror and I did crack the top 1000 over all. 

What does that mean? Well not a whole hell of a lot. The #32 in horror is the best one and even that isn't anything to get hugely excited about(even though I assure you I DID!! lol) But it did give me a goal, I want to crack top ten in a PNR catagory with my next release, a novella coming out in June. (pssttt- it's called PHOENIX RISING)

It may seem stupid to give away so many books, but I assure you it is NOT. If you think you are going to become independently wealthy at this, you are almost certainly fooling yourself. I am doing this because I love to write, I write anyway and I want to polish my craft. Do I want to make money?

Hell YEAH! Do I think I will? Ehhh, maybe, someday. But you have to think LONG term. Build an audience, get your book into the hands of as MANY people as humanly possible!!

Even if half those people NEVER read it. Yep, you heard me right.

Some people are just freebie addicts and their Kindles are full of stuff they never look at again. Some people will read part of it and abandon it. Some will hate it, or it simply won't be their cuppa tea. But some....some of the freebie people WILL like it and they will remember your name....

Build on that. 

Next time in blogger land--- critics, critics everywhere. And you already know I am cheap, but what is the one thing I WOULD actually TOTALLY recommend you spend moolah on? You might be surprised......

Until then---

A Little Flash and something up and coming...

Just some flash fiction tonight, I will post more about release week and what happened with the freebie promo soon. In the meantime, Shivers is  HERE, no longer free tho. And PHOENIX RISING is coming soon. In the meantime, a little nighttime tale from awhile back, enjoy ~

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. I didn't always think that, though. As a child I was terrified of the dark, it was only when I got older and put away childish things, that I realized what beauty walks in the night. Darkness holds no fear when you embrace it.

So I wrap myself in the night as if it were a velvet cloak, decadent and warm against my skin. My feet sink into the soft dewy grass, the mist rising slow into the starlight, tendrils tickling the moon that shines a wicked grin down at me and I can't help but wink back. Out of the shadows I hear giggling, the high erie sound of the tiny night fairies like the keening wind. I know I passed the last exit to hell sometime ago and I don't care. The brimstone and the smoke are behind me now and I laugh and serenade the moon with the Doors...

'The time to hesitate is through No time to wallow in the mire Try now we can only lose And our love become a funeral pyre...c'mon baby, light my fire...'

Ahhh, love. Love made me what I am, you know. Love has made more monsters than every curse ever told. Love when pure and strong is a sweet melody, but when weak and tainted is more insidious than poison and more discordant than shrieking demons. Though I was never false, my lover let the worm of unease fill his heart until it ate away all his love and left nothing but a rotted black fester behind. His weakness cost us both our lives, mine in blood and fire and his in prison and madness.

And as I slip thorugh the gates and locks and into his cell I can hear him crying....crying in terror because he knows it is time for my nightly visit. The sight of his tears in the moonlight trickling through the bars make me smile. I know it's cruel, but whoever said love hurts was dead on.

And as I start whispering in my lover, my murderer's ear, I let him know, as I do every night... 

I want to make damn sure it hurts forever.

If I Had It to Do Over Again....Release Week Tips!

So I had my 'release day' for my first Kindle ebook this week, Shivers, 9 Dark & Twisted Tales. And even though I did a crap TON of research before I started this little journey, there is PLENTY I could have done better. But instead of keeping these little secrets to myself (my precious, mine, mine, MINE!) I am going to be generous and share them widely. Because I said I would and I have been asked for help and advice more than once in the last few weeks and because who can't use some good karma more than a first time author?!

So here ya go!! (Aren't I awesome?! (writers are a shamelessly needy lot, you know)) :D

First, what I DID do right. (yay, me!)

Join KDP--immediately. I have said this before in my blogs, but it bears repeating. Obviously, you can look at  BookBaby, Smashwords, etc. You need to do your own research for your own needs. But I maintain for your first time, get-feet-wet experience, this site is the way to go.

Join Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Twitter is kind of optional and personally I found it way annoying, particularly at first. Basically it's just shameless self-promotion, but hey, that is what you need to do to get some exposure.

*And some basic Twitter newbie tips, don't, I repeat DO NOT follow back everyone who follows you. There are too many spam accounts out there. Only follow other authors, people you are genuinely interested in hearing from, or people who post stuff that can educate or help you in other ways. Look at their page blurb first. Also, even though you don't need to post every hour, I recommend 4-5 times a day minimum during the week and at least 2 times a day on the weekend. You need to know your own audience though and use trial and error. A good guide to help you start out is Social Media Frequency.*

**oh PS, do not follow ANYONE who uses TrueTwit and do not use it yourself, for godsake. It is the mark of a total spammer.**

Facebook, you know all about this already, right? I am going to assume you do, but to make an author page, or not to make an author page, that is the real question. You can use your own personal page and that is fine. I, personally, made a separate author page. My writing can be very racy and dark and I want to keep some privacy, so that is what works for me.

Goodreads. A MUST in my opinion. Join the groups that interest you and reflect your writing genre. And PARTICIPATE. These people are your potential audience and they can be an amazing resource of feedback and inspiration.

Also, you have a blog, right? You need a blog, even if you feel like no one is reading it at times, keep it up. You'd be surprised at how many people lurk.

Now, what I could have done better.

Formatting, argh! I WISH I had read through KDP's community boards a bit more before going ahead with my publishing. My book looks fine (previously I posted about formatting and how I handled it with Word only, see 'I AM doing this' for details). But it could look better.

I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THIS BOOK FIRST> The Kindle Bible (no, it's not really called that, but it should be.) It's free, natch. And AMAZINGLY helpful. Get it. NOW!

Next, publishing shares options-basically how you get paid. Kindle offers two. The 70% option sounds amazing and it is(who doesn't want to keep as much of their royalties as possible, right?) Plus, you get to hold countdown promotions and have free days(more on that in a bit). Sounds great and it really is, but first you need to think about your book. My book is not a full-length novel, its 9 short stories. I really wanted to offer it for .99 cents. At this point in time, I am much more interested in building an audience that making money.

But with the 70% option, I can't list my book for less than $2.99, except for the countdown deals. That kinda sucks. With the 35% option, you can go as low as 99 cents.

--FYI, I am not going to get deeply into things you can read about in depth on KDP youself, but countdown deals allow you to temporarily reduce your book's price several days in a row. This can boost sales and is a good ad trick, but I really think it only benefits those authors who already have a broad audience.

Free days though, are pretty cool, IMO, but I just wished I had used them more effectively. When you join KDP and choose the 70% option, you are given the option to choose to join KDP select. DO THIS. Yes, you have to give Amazon exclusive rights for a month or two(you promise not to publish anywhere else, ie. Smashwords, etc.). Read about it yourself, but I think it rocks. Free days are the best part, IMO. But you need to use them effectively.

What I WOULD have done, had I to do this over again is to schedule a couple free days BEFORE I did my official release day. Maybe a week before and promote it like crazy to all my Goodreads and  fb friends and try to get reviews BEFORE doing the official release. I still am working on getting reviews for Shivers, and that was a definite misstep on my part. You can get reviews on Goodreads by doing what's referred to as R2R(read to review) requests up. Bascially, you offer the book free and someone agrees to give you an honest review within two weeks. Be respectful of self promotion rules of individual groups, but don't be shy. Other sites include Story Cartel and others, some you pay for the privilege, others are free. Do NOT under estimate the power of a good review!!

Last but least, for this session, the cover. Personally, I love my cover, my sister did the photography and it is unusual and eye-catching. However, I used the cover creator on Kindle and while it was easy and looks good, it doesn't have the pizzazz I want when I go full-length novel. I am still going to use my sister's images, but I will use a professional cover service. They're all over, you will get hit up by dozens your first few days on Twitter, shop around and do your homework. Fees range from $45-$200 and more.

***PSS, Twitter is FULL of people who fed off newbie authors' insecurity and naivete. There are all sorts of Twitter accounts who exist just to try and sell you things you don't need. Don't be this guy:

That's it for now. Next time, I will go over ISBN numbers (do you REALLY need one?), tweeting and promotion services(scam or actually helpful) and staying positive and focused on the writing when you are trying to promote. (No, it is SO not easy!).

But we CAN do this!!