A Day in the Life of an Indie Writer!

Today is Sunday, and even though I am watching the Chiefs beat the Eagles and will definitely watch the Cowboys play the Broncos, I'm also working. Now that I am a full-time writer, I have to use every moment I can when I'm not "momming" to work on writing and all of the other stuff that goes along with attempting to be a successful Indie author. So, here is a look at my day so far!

1) Check email--get rid of all that junk I don't need but haven't unsubscribed from. See an email from another awesome writer who wants to do an email newsletter swap, email her back, set up dates, reduce price on Cordia's Will: A Civil War Story of Love and Loss so that it's a good price for her readers on Sept. 22. (Incidentally, it's now 99 cents for you, too! You can pick it up here.)

Cordia's Will is only 99 cents for a limited time!

2) Check on my Prelude Kindle Scout campaign. See that (surprisingly!) we are still in Hot and Trending!

Nominate Prelude on Kindle Scout and you could get it for free!

3) Check in on KBoards and comment in response to a witty post by the amazing author Steve Vernon whose Kelpie Dreams is awesome, and you can find it here.

4) Check on my Facebook, Amazon Marketing Service, and Bookbub ads (no, I didn't actually get a Bookbub, but I have been approved to run ads with their peeps, so I do that a bit.)

5) Re-price 1000 keywords on an AMS ad because it's not working too well. (This takes a loooong time.)

6) Check my email subscription and the report from my last newsletter.

7) Check my Instafreebie links. (I just listed The Doll Maker's Daughter at Christmas for FREE last night, and you can get it here!)

Download Doll Maker on Instafreebie! Read the whole novel for free!

8) Set up a FREE promo for Transformation for Oct. 7-10.

Transformation will be free October 7-10. Read it for 99 cents today!

9) See that Illumination is now life for pre-order for only 99 cents through October 15, and post that to Facebook. Tag my incredible editor.

Pre-order Illumination while it's only 99 cents!

10) Send an email to the incredibly talented JC Clarke at The Graphics Shed about some upcoming book covers she is working on.

11) Decide that some people might not realize how hard Indie authors work so write this blog post!

This is about four hours worth of work, and I haven't written a darn word that counts! My plan is to start writing Melody's Christmas tomorrow and to have it available in November for pre-order. It's my first contemporary romance, but I'm excited about it. I am a huge fan of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, and this one will go right along with those storylines.

Melody's Christmas will be available this winter! The amazing cover is by The Graphics Shed

What are you up to on this Sunday afternoon? Whatever it is, I hope you get to spend some time with your family and friends!

Advertising Through Amazon is Working for Me!

I've been running adds for my Kindle published books through Amazon for over a year. Most of the time, my ACos (Advertising Cost of Sales) runs around 400%, but I set up some new adds at the beginning of this month, and they are doing really well. One of them is actually at 75%, another at 102%--which means they are actually profitable. People are seeing my adds, clicking on them, and buying my book!  I know that's how it's supposed to work, but it hasn't been working that way for me, until this new set of adds.  So what did I do differently this time? Good question! Let me see if I can explain!
First of all, I took advantage of all of the room I've been given within the add without repeating anything.  I didn't restate the title, as I have in the past. I didn't include information they can get from the title, the cover, or anything unimportant.  I tried to compliment the synopsis so that, once a potential reader clicks through, they can find out different information from the book blurb, not a repeat of what I already said.  I think this has helped!

My current add for Transformation

I'm also not running ads for the second and third book in my series. People are probably not going to buy those books until after they buy the first one, so I may as well sink my advertising money into that first book instead of the second and third.
The books that are doing the best have the most professional coves as well. They are the two that I paid the most for. Most of my books do have professionally designed covers, but when it comes to that initial image, you get what you paid for. Look at these three books. Can you tell me which cover I paid the most for?

The answer is Ghosts of Southampton. I paid $30 on Fiverr for the cover for Resurrection, and I did the cover for Doll Maker myself. Transformation is selling really well with these new ads, and I definitely think the professional cover is helping!
I've seen a huge boost to my sales this week, and even though I'm still not a "Best Seller," it's nice to see my books climbing the charts!  I'm having more luck running ads through Amazon Kindle than anywhere else I've ever tried!
Where do you like to advertise? What works for you?

Why Reviews Are Stupid (Sometimes)

Recently, I received two 3-star reviews on my book Cordia's Will: A Civil War Story of Love and Loss. Don't worry--this blog isn't a rant about how everyone is being mean to me and judging my writing too harshly. In fact, the second review was actually quite helpful.  I appreciated the writer's candor and his insight. You see, it is possible to write a review and do it in such a way that you are not only helping readers decide whether or not they want to read the book, you are also being helpful to the writer.  The other review, however, retold the entire book, including plot twists, and included comments that were supposed to be derogatory that were actually compliments, such as this gem:
"[The scenes that depict war] read like they were copied from the history pages..."
Uhm, thank you? It is historical fiction after all....

How many stars must a book get for you to choose to read it?

This got me thinking. What have readers had to say about other books--best sellers and the like--that, if the authors read them, would make then laugh or cringe?  After all, one little 3-star review on Stephanie Meyer's page is not that big a deal. Put it on my page amongst my other three or four reviews, well, it tends to stick out.  So, I did some research and I found some examples of ridiculous reviews for literatures heavy hitters.  See if you can identify what book each reviewer** was talking about and check your answers at the bottom.

1) "I have to give it a one star because the book in its narrative is lacking so much in basic reality that it is flat-out sloppy.  The 'unreliable narrator' style, typical in books written from the perspective of children, mentally challenged individuals, substance abusers and others of this sort is what I'm referring to."

2)"This book is quite possibly the most insipid novel I have ever read in my life. Why this book is so highly treasured by society is beyond me. It is 345 pages of nothing.  The characters are like wispy shadows of something that could have been interesting, the language that could be beautiful ends up becoming difficult to decipher and led me more than once to skip over entire paragraphs because I am tired of having to stumble through them only to emerge unsatisfied and the plot is non-existent..."

3)"If I'd enjoyed the book more, I would have found it easier to suspend my disbelief, but as it was, I was constantly irked by questions and inconsistencies."

4)"[The author] is not a bad writer. She has the ability to string words together. Unfortunately, she lacks any kind of flair. There was no original description; no truly evocative language.

5)"[The book] aimlessly stumbled about, tripped over its own feet, and then proceeded to face plant into the ground like a drunken frat boy at a keg party. I was not amused."

6) "... as the book wore on...I began to realise that I was growing more and more bored and found myself struggling to read on. "

7)" ... it's just so f--ing dumb....If you happen to be a 40-50 year old (white) man, and like reading about '6 figures,' then I'll understand you liking this book."

8)" I don't care if it is some great story about surviving in a war zone or some [bs] like that. None of these characters really expressed the complexities or debated the moral dilemmas involved in surviving the Civil War."

9) "As always, I like the author's narrative voice, but as a character sketch of a marriage, this wasn't quite sharp enough or funny enough or emotional enough for my taste."

10)"There were too many characters to keep track of. And for each character, I only knew them through their work.  There was no emotional development of characters, no seeing their feelings."

11)"This book was utter failure to me in respect of a horror novel.  Didn't scare me, nah, not at all, didn't even make me wince."

12)"I'm not going to comment on the literary shortcomings of this book, the cliches, the painfully long narrative, the fact that the characters will not think about an issue for months, but then suddenly it becomes important again. Smarter people than me have already said all this."

Okay--how many of them did you figure out? Some had some pretty obvious clues, others not.  Here are the answers: 1) Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 2)Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 3) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 4) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer 5) Divergent by Veronica Roth 6) The Fault In Our Stars by John Green 7) The Firm by John Grisham 8) Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 9)Landline by Rainbow Rowell (Goodreads fiction book of the year) 10) The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy 11) The Shining by Stephen King 12) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling

So, what's my point?  Well, for writers it's this: Don't let one annoying review get you down. If you getting the same sort of comments over and over again, then it's probably something to pay attention to. If it's just one person's opinion, as another brilliant writer, Taylor Swift once said, "Shake it off, shake it off!" For readers, let me just say this, the person who wrote that book is probably going to read your review. Would you say it their face?  Would you say it in those words?  With that tone? If you are reading a book by a little known author, chance are writing is not their full time gig. They might be a firefighter or police officer, or pastor by day--or a teacher, like me--just trying to get their heart and soul out there for the world to see.  So, while I would never ask anyone to alter their opinion, if you feel it is necessary to be negative, do so in a classy way.  You'll get your opinion across in a way that both the writer and other potential readers will appreciate.  And there's nothing stupid about that!

**All of these reviews are from Goodreads.com and the opinion that they are stupid is solely my own, though you may agree. I left the names of to protect the anonymity of the poster, even though they are posted in a public domain.**