Category: writing

Finding Balance

Finding balance isn’t easy, and sometimes it takes someone else stepping in to make you realize what needs to change.

I want to be perfectly honest in this post. Balancing family, work, and writing is not easy, and I’m not very good at it. I tend to have an obsessive nature. I get very fixated on whatever I’m doing and ignore other things I shouldn’t. Maybe that means I get a lot of writing done, when writing is what I’m focused on, but it usually means I don’t take the time I should to spend time with my hubby and kids.

Lately, I’ve really struggled with that. I went from working full time to only working part time, and it wasn’t by choice. I felt a lot of pressure to make up for the income I wasn’t getting anymore, but really, that was largely an excuse to allow myself to put off more important things I should have been focusing on.

I was spending too much time on my computer either writing, working on marketing, or wasting time on social media. It was consuming my evenings and being unfair to my family. I really was becoming completely conumed with all of this book stuff and it was causing a lot of problems. My husband and I finally had to sit down and have a discussion about it.

My husband is one of the best people I know. He’s is extremely patient and supportive, more than I deserve most of the time. He’s stuck by me through a lot of really tough years and he’s the reason I haven’t given up on many of my aspirations. My argument for spending so much time on my writing has been that it’s my job just as much as my regular day job, BUT my day job has set hours. I go home when it’s over. Writing has to be the same way.

As much as I love writing, I love my family more. I’ll still be writing, but it’s going to stay within the confines of my “writing hours” from now on. If I’m not online in the evening or on the weekends anymore, it’s because I’m playing video games with my hubby and kids, watching soccer practices and games, trying to teach my daughter to sew without her getting her fingers poked by the needles, or just hanging out.

Finding balance has always been a struggle for me, no matter what aspect of life it is, but it’s now my top priority. It’s important to be passionate about something, but not to the point of shutting everything else.

The Joys of Editing…

I don’t know how most authors feel about editing, but it’s not my favorite part of the writing process. It can be tedious, and I usually end up feeling rather foolish when I get my edits back and see the same mistake pointed out over and over again.

At least, that’s the case when you actually work with a good editor.

It’s been a while since I’ve worked with an editor who actually knew their stuff. Cynthia Shepp, who not only has her own freelance editing business (Cynthia Shepp Book Reviews and Editing), she is also the fabulous editor for Clean Teen Publishing, one of my publishers. Aide from the lovely Phyl Manning, who passed away this year, I’ve had a heck of a time finding an editor who is thorough and truly an expert in their field.

I was thrilled when Wicked Power was recently handed off Cynthia, because I knew she was top notch. When I got edits back from her and I didn’t find an error free page until I got to page 95 in my manuscript, I had mixed feelings. Cynthia clearly did a great job and caught all my errors, but I was rather annoyed at myself because the errors she fixed were pretty much the same four errors over and over again.

So, to serve as a reminder to myself, and possibly to keep other authors from tripping up over the same things, here’s what I learned from Cynthia. 


Ellipsis

Three dots. Not too difficult, right? It’s the spaces that were getting to me this time. 
There should not be a space between the word and the ellipsis. Ex: I want to…
There should be a space after the ellipsis and before the next word. Ex: The kids are… somewhere.

There should not be a space between the ellipsis and final punctuation, but their should be a space between the last word and the ellipsis. Ex: How are we supposed to …?


Hyphens

“Compound adjectives and/or compound modifiers need to be hyphenated when preceding the word it modifies, unless one of the modifiers is an adverb ending in –ly. They don’t if after the noun.” ~ Cynthia
Ex: Three-foot platform, petal-soft, miniature-sized ballerinas

Also, I may be the only who frequently forgets this one, but five-year-old sister should also be hyphenated. 
I and Me

Poor Cynthia had to fix so many “you and I’s” and “me and my family’s” because I can’t ever seem to get this rule straight. 
I kept writing things like “With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and I.” 
  • Here’s what Cynthia had to say about this one: “
    • Easy way to remember whether to use I or me. If you take out the other person, the sentence has to make sense with either I or me. 
      • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and I. (WRONG).
      • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes I. (WRONG)
      • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes me. (RIGHT)
      • With that, the privacy window rolls up and secludes Ketchup and me. (RIGHT)
Another rule I learned, or maybe re-learned, is that the person who is speaking should be put at the end of a list of people whenever possible. 

For example: Aside from my siblings and me… rather than Aside from me and my siblings… 
Commas

On every other point, Cynthia was able to explain why what I had been writing was incorrect, and it made sense. I’m sorry to say, I’m still a mess on commas, and I fear I always will be. 
I don’t know why commas are so difficult for me, but they are. I’m good with commas used for series (I was taught to use the Oxford comma), and setting of introductory elements. Here’s some of what I get tripped up on when it comes to commas: 
1. Apositives and Parenthetical Elements. This trips me up a lot, because what is or isn’t essential to a sentence isn’t always easy to decide. I read a sentence one way, and it makes perfect sense, but my husband will read it and disagree. I’m sure most of that is because I know what the sentence means, so I’m reading it the way I want it interpreted, but it’s hard to read it any differently. 
  •  Although Andrew spent several years in Africa, he still found the heat of the desert overwhelming. 
2. Strong and Weak Clauses. Again, this seems open to interpretation, and for some reason, I seem to interpret it differently than other readers. 
  • Ex: If you’re not sure about the color, let me know VS Let me know if you’re not sure about the color.
3. Separating Strong Clauses. This one can depend on the length of the sentence, but it’s still be tricky, in my opinion, because sometimes the way I read it makes me unsure. Strong clauses should be separated by a comma when they’re joined by a conjunction. 
  • I have done all the laundry, but he has only vacuumed one room. 
I’m sure there were other rules I was breaking, and will continue to break, but I will do my best to send less commas errors to Cynthia the next time we work together! 

What grammar and punctuation rules do you find yourself breaking regularly? 

Marketing…???

Do you ever feel like you’re running a marathon that has no ending? That’s marketing, and that’s why…I’ll just say it…Marketing is really, really hard!

There are some authors out there who love marketing and are really good at it. I’m not one of those. I was that kid who never raised their hand in class or spoke if they could help it. I write my thoughts more often than speak them. I like it that way. It’s familiar and comfortable and, let’s face it, a lot easier. For the past few years, I’ve had the excuse of being up to my eyeballs in dental hygiene school to get out of marketing. It honestly consumed 90% of my waking hours and tormented my sleep regularly right up to graduation day. I could hide behind excuses as an Indie author.
Not so anymore.
I’m thrilled to have two really fabulous publishers now, Clean Teen Publishing and Limitless Publishing. With that comes a heavier responsibility to do marketing. I’m not the only one with a stake in my books’ success anymore. In fact, it was part of one of my publishing contracts that I heavily market my books for the first year. So, no more safe and comfortable. No more relying on my books to sell themselves.
As soon as you start looking into how to market seriously, your To-Do list starts looking like this! –>
No joke.
There are blog tours and cover reveals to set up, an even if someone else is doing the setup for you, you still need to answer interview questions, write guest posts, stop by every tour stop and say thank you, and share links to all the posts on every social media outlet you can find.
Then there is daily promoting on Twitter or Facebook, but not too much promoting because nobody likes social media spammer. Along with social media comes interacting with readers and other authors, because if you’re not interacting with the people who might buy your books, or the authors who can help you promote, you’re wasting your time on social media.
Promoting takes money, as well, and even if you have money to put toward that, trying to figure out which ones are actually worth it is hard, really hard! There are no guarantees in marketing. It’s a lot of trial and error. A simple tactic may pay off big, while a lengthy and time consuming effort produces absolutely nothing.
One of the toughest parts of marketing is convincing readers your book is worth the risk. If you’re not an author everyone knows, it’s a risk. Even if the cover looks amazing and your blurb is stellar, it’s still a risk. How do you give readers confidence that your book is indeed as awesome as you’re telling them it is?
Reviews.
How do you get reviews? I heard a statistic that said only 1 in 10 people who buy your book will come back and review it on Amazon. That seems pretty good, but I’m not sure that was a scientific study. I haven’t seen that with my books. I’d have way more reviews if that were true!
So what do you have to do? Find readers willing to accept a free copy in exchange for a review. Sounds easy, right? FREE BOOKS!!!
Not exactly. Spamming the book world for reviews doesn’t work very well. You need to build relationships with book bloggers and other authors. The types of readers who review regularly and have good reviewer rankings already have tons of books to read. You have to convince them yours is worth the time.
So when I sit down to do marketing, where do I start? Well, after staring at my computer for a while…I ask someone who knows more about it than me. Other authors.
I’ve learned about the many Facebook groups for promoting books from Holly Kelly (author of Rising), about tours and cover reveals from Angela Fristoe (author of The Touched Trilogy) through her awesome blog Turning the Pages, about giving presentations to local schools from Gail Wagner (author of Donegal Sidhe), from great articles on Huffington Post from authors like Kelly Anne Blount (author of The Necoh Saga), and Rachel Thompson (author of Broken Pieces) who also founded Bad Redhead Media and is in general just awesome at marketing and interacting with her readers. Apryl Baker is the queen of Wattpad, and she helped me figure out what the heck I was doing there, as well.

Now that you’ve learned a little bit about marketing your book, you actually have to put it to use. Some people are planners, some people are not. I’d love to be a planner, I haven’t had time to come up with a plan just yet.

According to Guy Kawasaki, for four weeks after the release of a book, you’re allowed to go crazy sharing links on social media. After that, keep “buy links” to less than 10% of your posts on social media. The rest should be quality content and interacting with readers, which I know Rachel Thompson will agree with. So, you have four weeks to really pimp out your book. Ready…go!

Jump in with both feet. Marketing should really start months before your book ever hits bookstores or Amazon (some say 9 months), but better late than never right?

Here’s what I have been doing (what’s worked and what hasn’t):

 

I share links and fun promo pics on Facebook when I have five minutes to sit down. Results still pending 🙂

I’m not really sure what I’m doing on Twitter. I post links about my books, but more often, I post links about other people’s books and and interviews and reviews on my blog. Somehow I ended up with 2K followers and I’m trying to keep them interested.

I scout out blogs and websites who are willing to share news about my book releases. GoodKindles shares free and non-free titles. I found this GallyCat article that shared a bunch of sites to promote on (some paid, some free), and I’ve been testing a few out. I’ll share which worked and which didn’t as soon as I figure it out!

Free Booksy has so far gotten the best results when posting about a free book and having readers come back to buy the rest of the series. One promo with them several months ago is still showing results.

I’ve done several Goodreads Giveaways, but I can’t say I’ve noticed a significant change in sales by doing them. I’ve gotten a few reviews from these, but not many, even though Goodreads winners are encouraged to write a review.

I tested out the KDP Select program with two of my titles. I know some authors say they have had phenomenal results through this program, but I haven’t seen it. I get only a few borrows per month and the free book promotions don’t seem to drive further sales.

I’ve done several blog tours with various companies, and so far the only one that has produced noticeable increases in my sales has been with Turning The Page YA Blog Tours. I’ll continue to do blog tours with Angela, but I’m on the fence about trying anyone else.

Reviews are always a great way to promote. I’m all for using big and small blogs for reviews. I don’t think ignoring little blogs and only going after big bloggers is a good idea, because many of the smaller bloggers will not only review faster, if they like your book, they’ll continue to share your book in the long term.

Promote locally. Gail Wagner, Amanda Strong, and I have teamed up and spent some time giving presentations to the local schools. We’ve had a blast doing it, but we’ve also sold books! The teachers, librarians, and students want to read the books we tell them about, and it gets them excited about reading and writing, which is an even bigger bonus!

Wattpad. There is good and bad that comes with Wattpad. You’ll get nasty comments from teen readers with no manners, but you’ll also find some of your most loyal fans there who will tell everyone they know (literally) about your books. One way Wattpad has been a big help to me, aside from being a great place to connect with readers personally, is gaining reviews. Even when readers read your book for free on Wattpad, they still love having an “official copy” to keep and show off to their friends. When I finish posting a book (either permanent or temporary) I’ll offer to send ebooks to the first ten readers who write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Also, I have several perma-free books posted on Wattpad, and if the readers want to continue the series, I’m happy to send them a free copy AFTER they write a review for the previous book. It’s really helped me boost my review numbers.

Connecting with other writers is probably one of the most beneficial things an author can do. We all know how hard it is to get our names out there and most are willing to help each other spread the word. Share their links and pins and posts, and they’ll share yours.

So…the point?

Marketing sucks. It’s hard, and half the time you have no idea if what you’re doing is working until much later, but it’s a necessary part of being an author. Don’t hide behind not knowing how or being afraid to mess up. A lot of what we try probably has little to no effect, but when we do find something that works, it’s like being handed one of these…

I’m not sure what these are, but they look yummy and fun to eat 🙂

So, hang in there, keep marketing even if you feel like you haven’t got a clue. Most of us feel the exact same way. Eventually, you’ll find what works for you and your brand will start to take shape. What has worked or not worked for you? Feel free to share in the comments!

 

That’s what those are for …

How many times have you been doing something on a regular basis, thinking you’ve got it down, only to realize later that you’ve been doing it all wrong? 

I’ve recently had one of those moments when it comes to choosing keywords for my books when I list them on ebook stores. 

Earlier this week, my new publisher, Clean Teen Publishing, sent all of us authors a link that gave a breakdown of Amazon’s Most Popular Tags. Now, this list isn’t just for books, it’s for everything searched for on Amazon, but it’s easy enough to pick out book related tags. And there are a lot of them. 

What did this link cause me to realize? 

I had been using keywords or tags wrong this whole time! Previously, my keywords were specific to each book. For my first book, Escaping Fate, I had chosen tags like “Aztec,” “Arrabella,” “Myth,” and so on. Seems logical, right? 
After looking at the tag cloud from Amazon, I had an epiphany — probably one I should have had years ago. What use are book specific tags if no one knows about my book? Why would anyone search for “Arrabella,” the MC of Escaping Fate, is they didn’t know anything about my book? I saw that I had done the same thing for my other books, choosing tags like Libby and Milo, and similar words that only applied to The Destroyer Series. 
What I realized after studying the cloud was that people are not going onto Amazon and searching for a particular book most of the time. They are searching for whatever genre they like to read and then perusing the search results for something that catches their eye. 

So what did I do after having this epiphany? 

I went and changed the keywords on all my books on the various sites I have my books listed. What did I change them to? Instead of sticking with book specific tags, I chose tags that will help readers find my books within the genres they like to read. 
I write YA fiction ranging from paranormal to science fiction and urban fantasy. So my new tags include words like “Young Adult,” “Science Fiction,” Paranormal,” and “Fantasy.” And because I love to add in a good romance to compliment each storyline, I also included tags like “Romance, “Love,” and “Paranormal Romance.” 

What now? 

Well, now I see how this realization pans out. Will better keywords that are directed at readers who have no clue about me or my books help get my books in their search results better than book specific tags? I’ll just have to wait and see. I’m excited to see the impact it will have. I love learning new things about publishing and marketing, and this one is so simple yet important. 
I’ve been learning more about using Pintrest as and author as well, so check back next week for a new post and some new ideas. 

Distractions…

“I use Grammarly for english proofreading because me and commas are not friends.”

When you’re an author, sometimes multitasking isn’t a good thing

In between graduating with my degree in Dental Hygiene and staring my new job, I had the summer to spend time with my family and get caught up on a few projects. Well, I planned to get caught up on a few projects anyway. 


With my To Do list looking something like this…
And my reading list looking something like this…

I didn’t get quite as much done as I thought I would. 

But, the real reason I didn’t finish as many projects as I would have liked was because I kept starting new ones! 

My main goal this summer as far as writing went was to learn a ton about promoting my new book, Wicked Hunger, and finish writing the sequel, Wicked Power. I did spend a lot of time figuring out how to market my book (the jury is still out on how effective it was) and got a lot done, but I made only about 12,000 words of progress on Wicked Power. 

Why? 

Because I wrote a completely different book instead and almost finished another one besides that. I thought taking a break from Wicked Power would help me work through a few plot issues I was struggling with. Instead, I got completely distracted. Sorry readers! I know you’re waiting for Wicked Power, and I promise I will get it done over the next few months. 

So what got me so distracted? 

My very first published novel, Escaping Fate, has been falling behind my series lately. As a standalone book, it just wasn’t grabbing as much attention. So, I decided to turn it into a series. Soul Stone is the second book in the series and follows Arrabella as she begins to realize her connection with Aztec gods has left her with an ability she’d rather not have and a new curse to figure out before someone gets hurt. Soul Stone is now going through beta readers and is planned to be published in early 2014. A third book, still unnamed, will complete the series, but will likely not be ready until 2015. Anyone who’d like to take a peek at Escaping Fate in preparation for Soul Stone can check it out Amazon, ibooks, and most major ebook retailers. 


The other project that stole my time away from Wicked Power was a story about an Invisible boy named Mason. After watching his family murdered in front of him, Masons tries to get help, but realizes no one can see him…except for Olivia. They become best friends instantly, but now as teenagers they begin to realize their feelings go beyond friendship. In the midst of trying to figure out the logistics of falling in love when one of them is invisible, Mason and Olivia become aware that a group of killers is hunting Mason, and if they find him, they have no intention of letting him live. The book is temporarily titled “Invisible” but I’m working on coming up with something better suited to the story. You can check out Invisible now on Wattpad! 
One last project to share, even though this one didn’t take up much time this summer since it was already written. You can check out my YA post-apocalytptic novel, Child of Destruction, right now on Swoon Reads for FREE! Swoon Reads is a new pilot project from Macmillan Publishing where readers and editors get to vote and comment on the novel uploaded to their site. The novels that garner the most attention may just be published by Macmillan! So stop by Swoon Reads today and check out Child of Destruction.