Christine Amsden's Blog: Christine Amsden Author Blog, page 20

Movie Review: Man of Steel

I think Superman is the best superhero. I’m not a comic book fan, and I don’t watch cartoons, but I’ve seen all the movies and TV show. (Well, I only watched the first five seasons of Smallville, but can you blame me?) But honestly when I saw the previews for this movie my first thought was, “Not another Superman movie!” Really, weren’t there enough?

The answer, for the record, is a decided, “NO!”

I got this on DVD from a Redbox, thinking it wouldn’t add much to the Superman Legacy. Wow, was I ever wrong.

This movie was awesome! It was described to me as a “darker Superman” in the same sense that the modern trend is for dark heroes, but that doesn’t really explain what they did here.

First, they began on Krypton with Superman’s parents. They added a whole cultural and political backstory to that planet which, by extension, added dimension to Genreal Zod (who has heretofore been a, ‘BWAHAHA!” sort of bad guy).

Second, they decided to heck with the idea of Lois Lane being brilliant and feisty in every way except the ability to see through a pair of glasses. This was hands down the best version of Lois Lane I’ve ever seen, and I don’t care that they didn’t stay true to her. She was what she should have been, instead of what she was shackled into being by long tradition.

Third, they took Clark on a different sort of journey in which, instead of starting up at the Daily planet, he spends over a decade of his life going from place to place, taking odd jobs, changing his name, and basically coming to terms with his identity. I wasn’t sure what I thought about this part at first but by the end I was totally sold into it. It made sense, and it made him more of a person.

Fourth, the ACTION was superb! Usually Superman manages to leave his cities intact when he fights, but someone must have thought to themselves, “How would the physics of that work?” because seriously, when gods start fighting, mortals get trampled. The destruction left in the wake of the fighting between Superman and General Zod upped the ante on the Superman experience.

And yet… fifth, somehow the humans in this show came across as more than lovable pets that Superman protected. Maybe I’m overstating how it’s been before, but there was something in this movie that made me feel like the human characters were more praoctive. Humans are even instrumental in eventually solving this crisis.

This movie would have been perfect if Superman had really jumped instead of flown. I almost thought they were going there at first… that his ability to fly was simply a matter of him extending his strength into a super jump… but then he hovered. Ah well, can’t have everything.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, what are you waiting for? GO on, get it!

Virtual Book Tours: Side-by-side Comparison of 9 Tours

Last week I posted an article entitled Virtual Book Tours: Wise Investment or Waste of Money? Of course the next logical question is: Which tour companies did I like best?

Generally speaking, the best tour companies were the ones who could COMMUNICATE effectively. Companies who responded quickly and professionally to my e-mails did a better job of organizing their tour stops and delivering a tight schedule. You better believe that if they’re not talking to you, they’re also not talking to their bloggers. Companies with ineffective communication skills were more likely to have missed or late stops.

When considering any tour company, try this simple test: Send them an e-mail and ask them something about their tours. It doesn’t really matter what you ask. It’s a test! If they take less than 24 hours to get back to you, that’s a good sign. If they take more than three business days to get back to you, run away.

VBT Recommendations

*Note: Cost is based on a one-month standard tour. Many tours offer different tour options — shorter or longer — but I tried my best to compare apples to apples.

Goddess Fish
Cost: $140

Highly Recommended

I mentioned up top that communication is the most important aspect of a virtual book tour. Well, Goddess Fish set a new standard for communication excellence during my November through January Secrets and Lies tour. I never had to wait long to hear from this company, and most days they were ahead of me when it came to stopping by a blog to thank the day’s tour host for posting. If a host didn’t post, they sent me an e-mail telling me so, and that they were working on it. The second it went up, I got another e-mail. They must have good communications with their bloggers too, because there were only a few delays. Posts were up as promised over 95% of the time.

I loved the packed schedule Goddess Fish offered me. Most tours have white space — a day or two that gets skipped. Not so with Goddess Fish. I had something every day (except the week of Christmas, which we all took off).

I highly recommend this tour company because the price is right, they are friendly, communicative, and professional.

The only negative thing I can say about this company is that their tour banners are not as attractive as those provided by other companies.

Bewitching Book Tours
Cost: $125

Highly Recommended

I just signed up for a second tour with this company beginning in March. Next to Goddess Fish, they were the best communicators and ran the smoothest tour. It was a close second, too. Very few stops missed, and their banners are gorgeous! I even love the name.

I do not recommend buying the package that includes radio show coordination. All they did was send me contact info for these shows, including their own radio show. I recommend their standard tours.

Reading Addiction Book Tours
Cost: $90

Highly Recommended

I have worked with this company three times because the price is so competitive, Melissa is very friendly, they deliver what they promise, and there are few hassles. Communication was good — before I worked with Goddess Fish I would have given them top billing in this category. Even now, they’re a close second.

They’ve been inconsistent with their banners… I hope this means that they are getting better at it because my Cassie Scot (book 1) banner was not nice at all, but my Secrets and Lies (book 2) banner was nice.

For the price, you really can’t go wrong!

Innovative Online Book Tours
Cost: $95

Highly Recommended

 

I may have quoted the price for a one-month standrad tour (to make the comparison fair), but what I love about Innovative Online Tours is their review-only blitz. Talk about a great way to get some reviews! Vickie is awesome, and I might add that this is one of the few companies that is willing to help you promote an audiobook.

This is another tour company that may be getting better at banners over time.

The only rela problem I have with this tour company is that they do not have individual tour pages like most companies offer. Current tours are all listed together on one page. But in terms of value for your dollar this is hard to beat, especially if what you really need are reviews.

 

Fiction Addiction Book Tours 
Cost: On Request

Tentatively Recommended

 

I hired this tour company for a one-day blitz in July. The event went off without a hitch and I have nothing negative to say about them. I simply don’t have enough information about them to highly recommend them. I have considered using them again, especially because they have a lot of UK blogs (their price sheet was in pounds), which would give me exposure to a slightly different audience. But again, one day isn’t a lot to go on.

Virtual Book Tour Cafe

Cost: $150*

Okay

I had to star the cost here because they do not offer a one-month tour. The $150 is for a 2-3 week tour.

I had some trouble with this company in July, when I signed up for a three-day blitz. BK said there was a technical malfunction and made it up to me by giving me a free three-day tour for Secrets and Lies, which went fairly well. I respect companies that own their mistakes and try correct them like this. They are professionals.

But I have not used them for a tour lasting longer than three days because their relative cost is high and they do not offer a tightly packed schedule. Communication and appearance are respectable but not phenomenal.

 ATOMR
Cost: $100*

Not Recommended

Cost is starred because it is not posted. This was the approximate cost for 20 stops back in August when I used them.

I signed up for a one-week “get me as many tour stops as you can” deal. They were booked months in advance, probably because when I signed up they were only just beginning to charge for their services. (They had previously been a free or by-donation service.) They didn’t get started organizing my tour until a few weeks in advance, even though it was booked months out. There were some communication difficulties when they finally assigned me a tour organizer. There ended up being quite a few no-shows the week of. And their billing was weird — half up front, half two months after the tour was over (by which time I had assumed that they were not going to charge me full freight because we only barely got enough stops to warrant it). I think they forgot to bill me and sent it later… but it struck me as being oddly unprofessional. And it was annoying.

My honest sense for this company is that they’re new and don’t have their legs under them yet. There’s a chance that they could improve, but I can’t recommend them based on my experience.

Pump Up Your Book
Cost $299

Not Recommended

 This company sucked me in with the idea that they somehow had access to higher quality blogs than other companies. (To be fair, their blogs do average more followers than those on many other tours.) When Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective sold very well during its release, I attributed a lot of of its success to Pump Up Your Book. (I even left a review to that affect, which I have since removed.) I rehired them for Secrets and Lies, despite the fact that they are expensive and frankly a headache to work with.

Communicating with PUYB is like pulling teeth. They are disorganized, often losing or not responding to e-mails. Almost half of their stops do not go up on time, and quite a few do not go up at all. When I follow a link to a tour stop each morning, it is with no expectation that I will see my book featured as promised. Their tour schedule is chaotic — you may have a stop a day for a week then nothing for a week. Most of their scheduling is done at the last minute, making them stressful to work with.

For those who would still consider this company, I don’t recommend using their longer tours. Tours longer than a month are only scheduled one month at a time, and again there is stress each month as I wonder whether or not my tour will be filled. At this point I have one month left for my Secrets and Lies tour with them and it is not full.

Review requests sometimes come in with little notice, and I often have to e-mail them back to ask for mailing addresses. Also, once book two in my series came out, I constantly had to ask whether the reviewer needed both books or just the second. In many cases, I never received an answer to that question.

They always try to make amends when things go wrong. The people who organize this company are perfectly friendly. But oh, the stress! The chaos!

This company is one of the oldest in the business, which could be part of the reason for their success. But against the many other options that are available today, I simply cannot recommend them.

Book Monster Promotions
Cost: $135

I included Book Monster for the sake of completeness — I said I worked with nine companies and this si the ninth. I am not going to make a recommendation regarding this company because the owner/coordinator was hospitalized several times during the tour and the months leading up to it. Obviously, things didn’t go off without a hitch, but I am human enough to accept that bad things can happen. I did get a partial refund. I wish the owner of this company better health in the future and would add that even when times were tough, she gave it her all.

Book Review: Werewolf in Alaska

I’m being more critical of this book than I probably should be because quite frankly, it’s time for this series to end. I’ve never been hugely fond of Thompson’s take on werewolves. I went with it anyway because she has an engaging style and makes me laugh, and I’ve always felt that was the intention. I didn’t even go into reading this book with particularly high expectations, I just wanted a lightly amusing read. But this book forgot to bring the funny, and I have rarely felt more like I was reading the exact same book all over again with the exact same set of character and circumstances. “I shouldn’t be dating you because you’re human and I’m a werewolf” doesn’t work five times straight. The concept has played out. Time to move on.

I’m certainly not sure why these two people needed so desperately to get together, or what, exactly, made them soulmates. Actually, I hate to say it but I was feeling pretty compelled by WARM (werewolves against random matings) by the end of this book and I’m completely buying that humans and werewolves shouldn’t mate. I’m ready to become an active member. Where do I sign up?

Rating: 2/5

Title: Werewolf in Alaska

Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

Published July 2013

Mind Games Cover Reveal

Whodunit: Obvious or Unguessable?

Lately I’ve been reading a few mystery/suspense books in which the “whodunit” aspect was utterly unguessable. No, I didn’t see it coming, but on the other hand, how could I have done? There were no clues. No red herring. I had no guesses at all, and when I found out it was the baker, it could just as easily have been the butcher or the candlestick maker for all the impact it had on me.

Now, let me preface that by saying I don’t read straight mystery/suspense. I read romantic mystery/suspense, which may make a difference even though it shouldn’t.

Tonight I finished “Paradise County” by Karen Robards, a book that was very suspenseful, but at the end it was just, “Oh, okay sure. If you say so.” When I put the book down I thought I’d honestly have preferred it if I’d spotted the identity of the bad guy a mile away, or if he’d been named in his point of view chapters, instead of being referred to as “The Predator,” as if knowing or not knowing his identity made the slightest bit of difference to the ending.

The book, and other similar experiences, made me wonder if we’re so caught up on the idea of the surprise ending that we don’t correctly lay the foundation for that surprise, lest someone guess it. I figure that in a properly laid-out mystery, at least 10% of your readers (the ones who know how to pay attention) should guess it. And in a well-done romantic suspense, the fact that they guessed it shouldn’t diminish their enjoyment of the story.

So let me turn my original question over to you guys: Obvious or unguessable? In an imperfect world, where you can only have one or the other, which is better and why?

Virtual Book Tours: Wise Investment or Waste of Money?

Across the Internet and around social media the word is out: Authors, virtual book tours are the key to success! I bought into this in a big way last year when Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective came out. I was desperate to make a splash, especially since there’s an entire series behind that title. Since May of 2013, I have worked with not one, not two, not even… but nine different tour companies. Since I rehired a few, paralleling and overlapping along the way, the total of separate tours comes to a whopping fourteen in less than a year!

Was it worth it? I must have thought so at first or I wouldn’t have kept hiring them, but my views have become more reserved after concluding most of my tours for Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot #2). Both books have done reasonably well (they have certainly been well reviewed), but I cannot draw a straight line from VBTs to success.

This doesn’t mean that VBTs are not a useful marketing strategy, but as with so many things in life the correct answer is “everything in moderation.” I’m afraid the “especially moderation” addendum does not apply here.

At this point I do not believe virtual book tours are great for *direct* sales. There is no straight line between a book’s appearance on one blog or sixty and subsequent sales.

HOWEVER, there do remain two truths about virtual book tours that tempt me to continue using them in the future, as a significantly lower percentage of my total marketing budget:

1. Virtual Book Tours get a book reviewed. I’ve sent direct e-mails to hundred of bloggers, posted for reviews on some key sites, and failed to get blogger interest. (I’ve literally spent over a hundred hours on fruitless direct appeals.) At this point I do have a long (and growing) list of bloggers who know my work and are more likely to review my books in the future, but the only reason I got these people to look at my book in the first place was that they signed up for a VBT.

2. Virtual book tours make noise. Interviews and guest blogs give me things to talk about on social media aside from direct appeals to buy my book. And there is something to be said for the sheer repetition of your name and book title.

I’m readjusting my thinking on virtual book tours. I believe they provide a framework that I can then use to draw in sales through direct advertising. For example, before Cassie Scot came out it was unknown and unreviewed. Today there are 90 Amazon reviews, and every time I purchase an advertisement, it mentions this fact: “4.6 out of 5 stars on 90 reviews.”

The problem with my original thinking on virtual book tours was that I thought they would make direct appeals to readers, thus drawing in sales. But even “well-read” blogs are not cornucopias of interested readers. A lot of people sign up to “join” a blog but never really look at it, and much of what filters through social media is so much noise.

Yet connecting with bloggers puts information about you and your book on the Internet where it is widely and readily available. It also increases social media contacts.

There is no “magic pill” for marketing. The first thing every author must do (marketing 101) is have a web page, but this web page does not create sales. Then you need to join social media groups, once again creating a framework that leads to indirect rather than direct sales. Almost nothing out there creates sales directly, though there are some advertising options that get you a nice short-term bump and a thrill of seeing cause and effect.

So, should you hire a virtual book tour service in the future? Should I?

I don’t know. How is your current blogger contact list? Is it solid? Do you have dozens of reviewers you can more or less count on to read your book? If the answer to all of these questions is “yes” then by all means, save yourself some money!

If you think you could use more reviews or more exposure, however, then look into virtual book tours. But do so with the right expectations and with these general guidelines in mind:

1. Reviews are invaluable. If your tour doesn’t include reviews, it’s useless to you. These reviews should be independent. That is to say – you are paying for the coordination of reviews, not for the reviews themselves. Bought-and-paid-for reviews are not useful. (Many tour companies ask that a blogger who cannot give a book an honest three-star review post a guest blog instead. This is fine.)

2. Guest posts and interviews are only as good as you can write them. This isn’t always easy, especially if you have a boring interviewer. Try to come up with one-liners that zing and guest posts that will stir conversation.

3. Spotlight posts are typically not useful. These are posts that simply post your book cover, blurb, and autho bio. This is basically an attempt at direct advertising on a single blog, which will not have a big enough readership to make such an endeavor effective. Spotlights do not encourage conversation, do not build blogger contacts, do not build social media contacts, and they fill the Internet with useless noise. They can help with name recognition through sheer repetition, but others types of posts do this and more. Try to find tours that grow the conversation at every stop.

4. Don’t let yourself get fooled into thinking that high-dollar = high-value. Many high-dollar tours suggests that they have access to better blogs — higher traffic, for instance, or more genre-relevant. In my experience they rarely deliver; the stops you get through these companies are not inherently better than the stops you get through cheaper companies. (Although do watch out the other way — if a tour company only has blogs that have been in existence for less than a year, that’s not a good sign.)

5. Look for tour companies that deliver a tight schedule, without a lot of dead space. If they advertise for 20 stops, this should happen in 4 weeks, not 2 months.

6. One virtual book tour at a time is fine. 

7. Do not spend your entire budget on VBTs, or even most of it. I don’t have a specific percentage to recommend at this time, but I personally plan to try 50/50 for my upcoming releases of Mind Games (Cassie Scot #3) and Stolen Dreams (Cassie Scot #4).

One last note about virtual book tours, at least if you skip the high-dollar ones, is that the cost is about $75-$150 per month for your average tour. There are dozens of companies out there — I haven’t used them all and can’t vouch for them all — but they pretty much provide the same thing and can be used back-to-back for a fairly reasonable price. (“Reasonable” does depend upon your budget.)

When you but into a VBT, know what you are paying for: Contacts and coordination. Know too what you are not paying for: Advertising and sales. A virtual book tour is a framework only. A part of your social media outreach.

Note: Next week I will do a side-by-side comparison/review of all the tour companies I worked with.

Book Review: Stonewiser, The Heart of the Stone

Stonewiser Saraiah was raised to believe that the Stonewiser’s Guild stands for truth and justice. But when she nearly dies wising twin stones no sane person would touch, she learns that the stone truth may not be as it appears. Deception surrounds her and the rebllious Sariah sets off on her own desperate quest for truth.

The Heart of the Stone is a difficult story to describe. It’s high fantasy that steps outside of cliched genre norms to tell the story of a woman hungry for both love and truth, cast adrift in a world full of selfish deceit and manipulation. I suppose there’s a certain uncomfortable truth to that: It isn’t safe to assume that the things we’ve been taught our entire lives are true just because someone told us they are.

This is an imaginative, thought-provoking tale. Sariah is easily sympathetic, even if her need for stones sometimes felt strange or alien — that was a part of the other worldliness of the story.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. Melissa Reizian Frank did a very nice job with the story. She has a strong voice for story-telling.

I recommend this book (in audiobook or text format) to fantasy lovers looking for something a little outside the mold.

Title: Stonewiser, Heart of the Stone

Author: Dora Machado

ISBN: 9780979968204

Originally published in June of 2008

Tips for Writers: Thank You

There is a good reason that we call “please” and “thank you” magic words. The hold within them the simple power of politeness and the fathomless power of professionalism.

Whether you’re an amateur or published pro, you need to get used to saying the words “thank you” and then stop talking. The part where you stop talking is important. Though you may have to grit your teeth as you say it (Behold the power of the Internet, for no one can see the expression on your face only the words on your fingertips!), saying thank you even when someone just belittled your life’s work scores you points in the end.

You may find it hard to believe, but any publicity is good publicity. The fact that someone is talking about your book, even in a bad way, means that it was worth talking about. People are more likely to remember that they’d seen your book somewhere before than that some reviewer didn’t like it, especially if other reviewers do like it. But there is one thing they will remember if you rise to the bait — YOUR lack of professionalism. If you argue with the reviewer or say anything other than “thank you,” it will be noticed.

There is a growing trend of hot-headed authors out there misusing the power and anonymity of the Internet. Yes, it gives us unprecedented abilities to connect with our fans, but with great power comes… yaddah yaddah yaddah. You know what I mean.

It may interest you to know that years after I’ve had some of my books reviewed, readers have remembered me as being “a nice person.” Even reviewers who gave my book a lukewarm 3 or 3.5-star review have said so, and been interested in reading more. Why? What magic did I perform?

Thank you. And I stopped talking.

Book Review: Alif the Unseen

I really enjoyed this story. It begins with Alif, who helps people hide from the government on the Internet, suffer from woman problems — a rich girl he fell in love with is marrying another man. When she says it’s best if she never sees him again, he takes this to heart — he writes a computer program designed to keep her from ever being able to get in contact with him again. This leads to interesting complications and suddenly the government takes an unhealthy interest in what he’s been doing.

This book had philosophy, religion, magic, stories that are not just stories, and even a little romance. It is set in the Middle East, and it was refreshing to read something that wasn’t American-centric.

This is a stand-alone fantasy, which is rare in this genre. I haven’t read it and then immediately needed to go track down another book, although I will be checking out other books by this author because it was well-written and well-characterized.

The only reason I went with four stars instead of five is that there were parts of this book that I had trouble following. There was a sort of fine line between computer programming and magic that I had a hard time identifying, and that at moments didn’t quite ring true. But these moments didn’t define the story, and I mostly really enjoyed this.

I recommend to any fantasy fan who wants to try something a little bit different — this is unique!

Rating 4/5

Title: Alif the Unseen

Author: G. Willow Wilson

Published June 2012

Movie Review: Timeline

This 2003 movie is available for streaming on Netflix.

I found this movie to be lifeless. Plot and characters were thin, without enough supporting details to fill in a complete picture of what, precisely, was going on by the end.

In this movie, a professor goes back to 1357, gets trapped there, and 7 people end up following him on a rescue mission. The company that is responsible for this time travel, ITC, is having some internal struggles of its own, but these struggles were not well depicted and I find myself unclear about the motivations of the people running the company, what they hoped to accomplish by any of their actions both leading up to and during the story, or why it ended up concluding the way it did.

As for the people who went back in time, their story was clearer, but also thin. The characterization was weak and the acting subpar, especially when it came to the leads Chris and Kate. I honestly didn’t care whether or not they escaped the 14th century to return home or not.

My first words after watching the movie were, “That was stupid.” It wasn’t awful. TO be honest, I imagine it will end up being forgettable. And it was definitely stupid.

All in all, 2 out of 5 stars rounding up. I don’t recommend this unless you are seriously in love with time travel and Medieval warfare and even then… watch at your own risk!