Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 7
August 26, 2019
State of Writing
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I’m half a dozen chapters deep on revisions for Dekker’s Dozen. I like to give it an initial revision right after completing a rough draft. It’s always interesting to see where i was initially going a different direction with things until the story presented something different/better. I find that an early revision while things fresh helps snip off frayed edges and loose ends like subplots that never developed or foreshadowing that isn’t quite right for how things actually turn out.
On the other side of the writing world (the less fun business/production side,) I have most of my cover art ready for Shadowless and I’m only waiting on art now for my comedy. I want to get banners for both and redo all of my graphics, etc.
This week, I’ll keep plodding along on these edits. I’m not pushing anything major at the moment–I’ll be at MN Renfest slingin paperbacks all weekend, so that will take a mental toll on me. Feel free to drop by for a visit!
August 19, 2019
State of Writing
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My blog has been a little more light than normal on content, I’ll admit. There are good reasons for that. I have been both finishing books as well as selling like a madman. I spent all of last weekend at the region’s largest renaissance festival selling books… and every weekend before that, too, for the last month or so. I did finish Dekker’s Dozen 3 and I am in the process of wrapping up final touches on several other books (cover art, editing, etc.)
This week, I’d like to work on an outline of my next story that I want to write this fall. I have lots of ideas, but I need to start whittling them down and focus on what story lines I must begin to tie up as I conclude a trilogy and close out one of my book series (while also injecting enough emphasis on another series that I’ll write that also takes place in this same universe).
August 5, 2019
State of Writing
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So I had a big weekend. I flew to Indianapolis and helped staff a gaming companies table for the weekend (more news on that in my mid-month newsletter,) at GenCon, a huge gaming convention. I picked up a couple cool items while there as well.
On the writing front, I didn’t have as much time to write as I’d hoped–but I AM in the last chapter of Dekker’s Dozen 3. There isn’t any real reason to think it won’t complete this week (probably by the end of monday or tuesday, depending on how much catch-up work I try to accomplish on monday.
July 30, 2019
Review: Beren and Luthien (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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I feel like an idiot for not having really leapt into Beren and Luthien before now! There are shadows of LOTR written all throughout the book. I have had this book since it released and only now got around to reading it after intending to pick out the passages from the Silmarillion in the past.
This is the show that they ought to be making for the upcoming Amazon series!
Everything about this story increases the intensity with which one reads the Lord of the Rings with (for instance, how Elrond feels about Arwen’s devotion to Aragorn—Elrond is the son of Tinuviel/Luthien who gave up her immortality for Beren.)
This reads like a massive foreshadowing for the events of LOTR and involves some far nastier creatures than even Sauron, who gets his butt kicked as one of an even darker lord’s lieutenants. Also, there’s a bunch of werewolves in the book (and Sauron becomes a vampire/precursor to the necromancer for a time).
This really is a must-read for any Tolkien fan! Also, this is essentially the fictionalized account of JRR’s epic love story between he and his wife—pick it up… don’t wait for the next age!
July 29, 2019
State of Writing
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I just got back from my vacation last night, hence the late post. I didn’t have much for internet connection and didn’t spend a lot of time writing… it wasn’t the time (or especially the place) for it. I have trouble writing when away from home unless I’m alone and have access to a good chair. Still, I did get a few thousand more words and I’m firmly in the climactic final moments of Dekker’s Dozen 3: Austicon’s Lockbox. I would be greatly surprised if I did not finish it as I travel to Gencon this week. I tend to write a lot when I’m flying solo at cons… and that puts me on target (or just a few days over) from my goal to finish the 1st draft by the end of July. It’s really my only goal: to finish DD3 before saturday evening. If you’re in Indy and doing the con, come and say hello and maybe do some game demos at the SFR gaming booth (they manufacture the old TSR game Dragon Dice which is still alive and kicking!)
July 24, 2019
Why Whitelisting Matters
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We writers can live and die by our mailing lists. I wish I’d have known years ago what I know about them now—I would have started building and maintaining mine right away! But a mailing list is only good if people read your newsletters/posts.
I could talk all day about crafting content that matters or how to engage with/acquire new subscribers (you can search through my archives for more) but there’s a little key that you ought to know about to improve visibility: the whitelist.
The chances are high that some of your messages are going to your readers spam or promotions folders. Filters have gotten very aggressive in order to battle spam; this is a good thing—it has brought something of a renaissance to email which seemed like it had almost left the sphere of public interest as a communication medium due to the deluge of spammers, bots, and general junk mail.
Behind all of these automated systems and online resources there are algorithms. Math, meh. Your email service providers measure, weigh and assess all of the mail received and sent to pick and choose what most belongs in the spam folder and promotions folders. If you repeatedly open messages from a sender it will probably be assessed as worthy of the main inbox. If other service providers (they share limited information) report things as spam (or if you report it as spam) it will be rerouted appropriately. Getting a reader to add you to the protected sender list will ensure that your messages go to the inbox all the time. The method is different for every sender, however, so it might be difficult to walk new readers through every method since you can’t possibly be familiar with them all.
There is a handy, free tool I discovered that helps authors with this. In my first couple of emails with new subscribers I push the white-list with a simple link. I host a page on my website that allows a reader to pick his or her provider and get step by step instructions that will walk them through how to add you to their protected sender list.
You can check it out here: Email Whitelist Generator
(if you want to get a similar one page for your own purposes, you can get it here: email delivery Jedi)
The best way to keep your emails listed as relevant to your readers, whether or not they have you whitelisted, is to make sure that you write engaging, relevant content that is worth reading and building relationships with your readership. If you need some help and guidance with that, I highly recommend Newsletter Ninja by Tammi Labrecque… but definitely offer your readers the chance to whitelist your address and encourage them to add you.
July 23, 2019
July 22, 2019
State of Writing
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I did two things this week that were huge in the way of increasing my productivity. 1. I left my phone in a different part of the house during my writing time. 2. I brought my laptop to the county fair with me to write while in my booth. (I run a nonprofit and was starting conversations with our target demographic, but that still leaves lots of downtime… I had power but no wifi, so I got tons of writing done in those random pockets.)
Last week was my group’s biggest fundraiser of the year and so I was swamped and my writing ground to a near halt. This week I rebounded quite a bit so I’m pretty happy. Hoping to split the difference this week when I go on vacation on Wednesday. I’ll do some writing, but also hope to spend a bunch of time with the family.
Sidenote: art is in progress for Dekker’s Dozen 3… and Wolves of the Tesseract 3. DD3 is roughly 3/4 complete in its first draft. ARC?Review team, that’s your cue to expect something in the coming weeks 
July 17, 2019
How to Use StoryOrigin to Grow Your Email List
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Perhaps you’ve heard of BookFunnel or StoryOrigin. These are two similar services that do a similar thing: handle direct distribution for your book giveaways and reader magnets (a book you give away in order to gain a reader/fan’s email address and add them to your newsletter.) I won’t delve into why you should be doing this and will assume you’ve already made decisions to do this as part of your marketing strategy.
Services like these have built-in, collaborative features that allow you to join bundled giveaways so that when a reader from John’s newsletter checks out the bundle (or Jills, or Jack and Jerry’s,) they will see the shiny covers from all of the offered books and have the option to join a list in exchange for the book(s) he or she likes.
I will focus my how-to-guide on using Story Origin.
Story Origin is free. Yes, totally free. Book Funnel has a small cost and some limited features without the full version. I hadn’t used either of them before getting involved after some folks referred me to an online group where people were discussing SO giveaways. I was in the process of getting my newsletter to grow and this sounded like an intriguing idea. Until that point I had been using some older methods that weren’t very effective and some paid ads (Facebook) that were both expensive and had a high unsubscribe rate. I had about 550 people on my list and about 225 of them were people I’d paid several hundred dollars in FB ads to acquire. The program was free, so what did I have to loose but some time?
My list grew hard and fast enough that I bypassed the mailchimp max list size for free services, making me switch to a provider I liked better and began culling lists for my newsletter to zero in on the more engaged readers. On average, when I’ve stayed engaged in newsletter shares with other authors I’ve grown my lists 100+ people per week (and trimmed out some/had unsubs). BTW, unsubs are fine—let folks give your stuff a test drive. If it’s not for them, don’t take it personal if they leave the list of their own accord. After enough growth, those people are doing you a favor by not eating up list space (money per sent email they won’t open) and not skewing your data on send/open/click rates so you can see how engaging your newsletter is.
So, if you’re like I was and have never used something like these services, here is a step-by step guide to getting setup and joining your first Group Promo (book exchange/giveaway bundle).
Visit https://storyoriginapp.com/ and register for an account[image error]
In your account page, enter your affiliate tags if you have an amazon affiliate account. Story Origin allows you to collect revenue on a percentage of your clicks and buys. It won’t buy you a vacation, but it can add up.
The main dashboard will give you a mostly guided checklist. The next step is to integrate a mailing list provider. Link your Mailchimp, Mailerlite, etc.
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Create a Giveaway/landing page. This should feature your book’s files, description that will hook a reader (sell them on it), etc. Enable it to capture the email addresses of those downloading the book (if you don’t want that, create a Direct Download Page instead). The end result, for the reader, looks something like this:
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Next, create a Universal Book Link (UBL). You will need this for joining giveaway/promos.
The final major part is to click on Group Promotions Joined. There won’t be any at first, but click the blue Find a Group Promotion button. You can filter between different keywords for genres to find the kinds of promos that interest you. There are Giveaway promos for newsletter building (our goal) but you can also try to find reviewers, net KU pagereads, or join timely sales promotions. The details for each promo will be within the link.
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Inside the promo application page you can find a link to email the organizer, preview the current state of the promotion itself, get info on the promo and discuss it with other writers in it, or click to apply.
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Once you have been accepted into a promotion it will show up in your Joined section. It’s important to remember to use this tracking link so that your promo organizer can see how effective your traffic has been. If you go through the entire promo without sending any clicks you might have to explain why… what you should NOT do is join promos and then not share them (also, don’t join too many. If your newsletter is nothing but a bunch of share links, you won’t get much traffic and your open rates will fall to nothing. Don’t commit email suicide… be patient with it. If you aren’t getting clicks and you’ve got a few hundred subscribers, try pitching it better, use better images and copy text, and make sure your newsletter offers a reason for its readers to follow it.) You will get an email from SO reminding you on your share date. Either set an alarm, or make sure that you whitelist it so you remember.
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Things you will want to have a handle on BEFORE you take this step into mailing lists:
Make sure you have an account at an email marketing service (Mailchimp is free up to 2,000 signups)
Make sure you’ve set up your automation/onboarding email sequence
Have an included Call To Action (CTA) in your book(s) frontmatter and/or backmatter to generate organic registrations to your list(s)
It is smart to have a few hundred folks signed up already and be sending regular newsletters. Decide if you will send weekly or monthly. You can get a handful of registrations via FB ads or other ad services to get a foothold at first. I prefer to meet folks face to face and go to book signings, literary events, etc. to generate signups
I recommend reading Newsletter Ninja if you haven’t yet. It’s an easy read that will walk you through all of the finer details of how/what/why with author’s newsletters.
