Denae Christine's Blog, page 3
March 31, 2016
Discounts without promotions?
After selling a pile of books last timethat Royal Deception was marked at $.99, I thought I’d try it again. Only this time, I did not advertise. What’s the difference?
At the time I started this post, I had sold zero copies today. Now, I’m proud to announce the sale of one book around 4pm.
Are promotions worth it? Probably.
Still, many of them seem to cost more than they’re worth, especially since it’s difficult to track which promotion sold exactly which books. I’ll keep trying free promotio...
March 20, 2016
Excitement
Books
I knew I was in trouble when I found myself reluctant tosell people papercopies of my book. Oh, I would still talk about the series and the writing/publishing process, but I inwardly gave a small cringe when I showed them the hard copy version. It didn’t have a fancy back cover. I knew it had several typos, but, by golly, I wasn’t going to just throw away sixty copies of the book!
Months passed before I noticed my reluctance. Finally, a couple weeks ago, I ordered a new batch of books....
March 10, 2016
Surprises
Logged into kdp last night (with minimal hope of finding anything interesting in the reports) and discovered I sold 5 books in 2 days. ?? (I also sold 3 books last week with 5 new fb likes, also unsure why.) As a self-published author, I’d really like to know what sold the books so I can keep repeating it.
Here are my current guesses:
1, I recently joined a facebook groupled by the successful indie author Susan Kaye Quinn. Maybe some in the group found my profile and blurb interesting? I do t...
February 22, 2016
Types of writing and ebook news
First, I got to work on book 3 a bit. It’s so hard to switch gears from editing (where the story is all laid out and you just need to check flow and grammar and consistency) to staring at a mishmash of notes and ideas that don’t yet fit together. I had estimated my book 3 progress at 60% first drafted, but it’s hard to say. There are scenes that I want to go back and rework, characters I want to add/remove/change, but I also really want to finish the first draft first. It’s a mistake I made w...
February 1, 2016
Documenting Promotions This Week
Jan 31st:
First one is up. Bargain BooksylistsRoyal Deception Sunday morning.
Next is Ebookstagearound noon. Within an hour of their email going out, I got four sales. True, this coincides with me posting about the sale on Facebook, butI think most of the people there already have a copy. I haven’t sold 4 books in one day since I did an author signing at the Farmer’s Market last September. This was in one hour. Basically, promotions going well so far. :)
End of day 1: 6 books sold. I’m happy...
January 27, 2016
Reviews and edits
Runaway Deception comes out Monday! Physical copies are in the mail, and ebook files have been submitted for a week. I estimated 100 hours of writing in one month. That’s a lot for someone with a full-time job. It was exhilarating, but it burned me out for a few days.
Had an author interview, which isalways fun. I’m not sure how interesting they are to read, but I like talking/writing about my books. This is from the person who sort of winged herHonors presentation in college (not recommended...
January 16, 2016
Free Writing Resources
Final editingRunaway Deceptionthis weekend. Woot! Several resources have been very helpful. (And they are free!)
1, hemingwayapp workedgreat for theRoyal Deceptionpolished draft, and I started using it this week on book 2. It highlights difficult sentences, adverbs, and passive voice. Then the website crashed, and I switched to
2, prowritingaid, which has been even more useful. I highly suggest it, particularly the “sticky sentences” check. This basically looks for hard-to-read sentences (lik...
January 6, 2016
Write it down – memory
Arrogant as I am, I tend to think I’ll remember everything important. For instance, I bet I remember every dragonI’ve met. (Taking the IQ challengeand having it tell me I’m top 1% for memory certainly didn’t help my ego.)
“I’ll put this special thing in this special place so I’ll be sure to find it later.”
Or, at school, “I promise to do everything during the planning period and won’t forget a single thing.”
Or, lying in bed, “I’ll remember the brilliant story idea in the morning.”
Nope. I ca...
December 27, 2015
Deadlines, curse and blessing
This time of year, we have lots of deadlines. Soon, we’ll have New Year’s resolutions to make up for the deadlines we never met. We have books we want to read by the end of the year, recipes we want to try, rooms to clean, family to see, presents to buy/wrap/unwrap/return, Bible verses to memorize, places to go, and mountains to climb. Writers are no different, except with more writing. (Now, this is a tricky topic. Most of the deadlines I have are ones I’ve given myself, especially in writi...
December 10, 2015
Lots of updates!
1,Runaway Deception alpha reader copies came in
! These are uncorrected proofs and have weird covers, but I’m still ecstatic. Whoop! I’ve already handed out 4 of the 5. At this point, I’m asking for help finding plot holes and boring chapters and confusing scenes and unnecessary characters. And I want to slim it down by 20 to 50 pages.
2, Author interview HERE. Cool thing is; it’s a video interview! Hopefully I don’t talk too fast. (Or seem too serious, goodness.) Only later did I think about...
