C.R. Misty's Blog, page 4

How to make Advertisements with a $0.00 budget

C.R.Misty, the author of the soon to be published series, International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair writes about creating image advertisements.
 

I save money where I can. Expenses can quickly add up when you are trying to market a product. You are passionate about what you are selling and you want the best you can give to allow your product the most visibility as possible. Are you with me?

Okay! So this is what I did :-)

I wanted to create image advertisements to use on various social media sites and I needed to do this with a small budget. I could have used a stock image site to purchase some stock images but the only thing with that besides costing a bit of money is that those images are re-sold, so the chances of it being used elsewhere is likely. It was important to me to have images that were unique, so what do you think I did? I got creative and did it myself.

I sense some rolling of the eyes, that obvious. Let me elaborate. ^.^
 

I created adds to promote my new Romance Novel that was featured on Kindlescout for the month of March. You can still view the submission on KindleScout. The images that I would have loved to have had would have been a sexy male & female model locked in a heat of the moment scene. Sure, I could have used a stock image but again I wanted the advertisements to be unique. So in recognizing that I had limitations I got creative and recognized what I did have to work with.


I have a camera, I have a computer with photo software and I have a home full of things. In working with little to no budget this is what I mean, get creative, figure out and focus on what you have. Maybe you don't have a camera, but do you have a smartphone? Maybe the objects in your home weren't what you had in mind and you really wanted sexy models, then I urge you to think hard! Maybe you have sexy neighbors?


 
Well in case you don't have sexy neighbors who would agree to a photo shoot there are other ways to get sexy. Take that book turned movie, “50 Shades of Grey”. Do you remember the book covers? A grey tie on one, handcuffs on another and a fancy mask :-)

I knew I couldn't get the sexy neighbors, err I mean models, so I looked around my home for things. I didn't have handcuffs either and besides with the 50 Shades movie just come out, I didn't want to be a copy cat.

I took a picture of my dirty vacuum for one image, I took pictures of my travel luggage and camping gear for another and I also snapped a few images of my dog, doesn't sound sexy does it? Well, I attached words to my adds to help make sense of why an image was being used. In some instances these phrases could be perceived as double meanings. My humor isn't for everyone and that's okay, the other thing that was important to me is I made adds that I was happy with and for me these adds are silly hints at sexy.


The trick is that whether you are making advertisements for romance novels or for selling tacos or car tires, you have yourself as the creative energy, the objects around you and words! Words can be used to covey a simple message or used for double meanings or humor or maybe even to get your audience to think. My advice is to take advantage of the amazing resources that you have and have fun!

Good luck and I hope that I was able to get your creative juices flowing and p.s. I shared the adds that were mentioned in this post.

If you enjoyed this post please be sure to subscribe by email (top left of page) 

 
C.R. Misty’s new book was featured on KindleScoutfor the month of March and the revised book with new title and cover can be viewed on Wattpad. If you enjoy her work please show your support by voting for the chapters on Wattpad.

About Writing & Life

C.R. Misty, the author of the soon to be published series, International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair, and Book 2: Deeply Bound, provides an update on her activities in writing and what has been happening this Spring.

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that I am still alive and kicking. I took a bit of a break with social media to focus. In the passed few months I have taken a editing and proofreading course at the local University. I took a vacation down south earlier this Spring. I have also been reading other novels and I have been focusing on the feedback received thus far on my novel to polish it up before I publish.

News on my kindlescout campaign is has ended and my novel wasn't selected, boohoo, but the good thing with testing out this crowd sourced sight was it gave me a glimpse into what works with the market and what doesn't and have made some changes to my novel, the title, the cover image and the text to improve and to me it was a valuable experience and a test run.

You can still view my sample on Kindlescout. It is the book in the form of what it was and over the coming months you can use it to refer back to see the before and the after of what I did. :-)

I am going to be adding a few more chapters to Wattpad. They aren't really chapters but exerts of conversations and situations with the men in my novel, Devon and Josh. Part of my feedback was that readers wanted to know more about the men in the novel and one of the major publishers that I pitched this story to recommended that I round out my characters a bit more, so these exerts are meant to do exactly that. Keep in mind that the exerts are jumping ahead in the story, it may be a little hard to follow without seeing the chapters leading to it and the following chapters are un-edited, lots of spelling and grammar issues. I will fix.

Thanks for reading my message and feel free to leave comments & if you enjoy this blog remember to subscribe by email at the top left of this page.

Bye!

The first 7 chapters of C.R. Misty’s book, Simple Affair can be read on Wattpad and if you enjoy her work please show your support by voting.

About the Author: C.R. Misty is currently writing a romance trilogy. Her first book, Simple Affair is available online at Kindle, Nook, Kobo, ibook, inktera, OverDrive, Amazon & Createspace

Pre-order her second book, "Deeply Bound" now on Amazon and this title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on June 23, 2016!

When Your KindleScout Campaign Has Ended & Your Book Was Not Selected For Publication

C.R. Misty, the author of  International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair, writes about the outcome of her Kindlescout campaign.
I want to thank everyone again for taking the time to nominate my book. Mine was not selected for publication by KindleScout, so what now?

How can I take the result and spin it into something that is useful?

I know that KindleScout is a “reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.” - Kindlescout

Readers can, "Browse new, never-before-published books. Every book has 30 days to earn nominations and readers can nominate their favorites. They can keep up to three books nominated at a time, and update their nominations whenever they want.  When a book’s 30-day campaign ends while in their Nominations panel, the readers nomination is tallied and removed from it freeing up that nomination for another book. Readers will receive an email to let them know whether the book has been selected for publication. 

As a thank you from KindleScout and the authors, readers will receive an early, free copy of all the KindleScout books they nominated that are published.” - Kindlescout

Authors can, “Submit their book. Review the submissions check-list and enter their title, cover, catchy one-liner and other information. At the time of submission, they will be asked to review and accept the Submission & Publishing Agreement. KindleScout will take 1-2 business days to review the submission  and send authors an email once it’s approved for launch.

Authors are advised to plan how they are going to let fans and network know that they are putting their book up for a publishing contract.

The approval email will include a preview link so authors can see exactly what everyone else will see. KindleScout will also provide the exact launch date for the campaign. All campaigns last 30 days. The more nominations a book receives the more likely it will get the attention of the KindleScout team and be selected for publication. At the end of the campaign KindleScout will send the author an email to let them know if the book has been selected for publication. KindleScout will do another internal review to ensure the book is ready for print. If published, everyone who nominated the book will receive an early, free copy and be invited to leave reviews.” - Kindlescout


I have to take the information above and become a bit of an investigator. KindleScout uses crowd sourcing to determine what books will do well in their market. For books that gain nominations aids KindleScout in making a choice on if they should publish that book though it's not the ultimate deciding factor.

We also know from the text above that writers who are featured on KindleScout are encouraged to market their books during the campaign. Author’s need to come in guns loaded using all of their connections. For myself, I marketed to followers on Facebook, Goodreads, mibba, Google+ and Twitter. I created graphic advertisements and promoted using free online resources. My advantages was that I have a lot of connections. My disadvantages was that I limited myself to only using free marketing. Maybe paid, targeted advertisements would have helped in reaching more.

Another thing is that during the campaign I didn’t schedule any social events. I am a shy girl but perhaps just participating in an event so that people learn who I am and what I have to offer would also have helped. I know it is something to look at in more detail and consider.

When I was notified that I wasn't selected, KindleScout advised that, “International Boundaries was not selected for publication.”  There was no nomination count or rank on how well or poor the book did. It was just a simple regrets message. There isn't much I can do with that right?

Wrong, we have to look at reasons, like marketing, did I promote? Yes. Did I pay for marketing advertisements? No. (This may have helped)

Another thing is maybe my cover image wasn’t appealing. People do judge books by the cover and maybe it was a reason for being passed over. So, I have to ask myself, did the cover help? I suspect no because the image was just of a dying rose. I picked it to symbolize a dying love and the start of an affair, like a poison, but I suspect that a potential reader wouldn't pick up on that because the title being the second part of a cover didn't hint at what the story was about. "International Boundaries" sounds like a thriller novel and not a romance. So now I need to weigh in and decide, should I change the title, the image or both? Or do I leave it as is and hope that my book does well in the market as is? (Update: I did Change the title and cover. See below the before & after)

Novel Before

Novel After




















Another factor is the writing. It could be that the story just lacked something and readers didn't feel it deserved to be nominated. How can I test that theory without having any data from KindleScout?

After my campaign ended I submitted my work to a writing competition. The competition was free and the trade off was that you post your work, you are guaranteed 3 detailed reviews and the trade is you have to read and review 3 other submissions. I got my 3 reviews back, 2 of my 3 reviewers overall didn't enjoy the story line and my third absolutely loved and that could be preference to genre. Reviewers don't get to pick their favorite genre. The gold nugget of these 3 reviews was in the details of the feedback. All 3 critics agreed that the writing was good, clear the voice of the characters were realistic. The scenes were detailed. Their was fair description but the one similar item that they wanted was balance between character dialogue and the actual telling of the story. My take away is maybe the KindleScout readers also wanted more of a balance and that is something that I need to look at again to improve.

I have learned that with every effort that you put towards your projects, you have to do it for a reason and to make the effort worth while you need to be able to gain from it whether the outcome is favorable or not.

For me I would have loved to have been selected by KindleScout. Their marketing strength alone is reason for aspiring un-published authors to submit to them.

I knew that like any competition there are lots of entrants and only a handful that get selected, so I needed to give myself alternate expectations in the case that I wasn’t selected. Kindlescout was an outlet to test the waters to see if I could raise interest and I learned that right now my marketing approach isn’t strong enough, so now I know that I need to consider other marketing strategies.

I need to look at the book cover and title and redesign so that it helps attract more potential romance readers. I have also learned to challenge the writing and seek feedback and I know that I need to look at balancing conversation versus narration a little more.

This was my experience and takeaway with KindleScout and I likely will submit again for future novels.

Have you submitted to KindleScout? What was the outcome? What did you learn through the experience?

Thank you for reading my post and best of luck with your writing projects!

The first chapters of C.R. Misty’s  new book, Simple Affair can be read on Wattpad and if you enjoy her work please show your support by voting.

When Your KindleScout Campaign has ended & your book was not selected for Publication

C.R. Misty, the author of the soon to be published series, International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair, writes about the outcome of her Kindlescout campaign
I want to thank everyone again for taking the time to nominate “International Boundaries”. Mine was not selected for publication by KindleScout, so what now?

Well, I could cry about it or make up excuses, but that is a waste of time.

So now that’s out of the way, so what? How do you take the result and spin it into something that is useful?

This is what we know.

We know what KindleScout is. It is a “reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It’s a place where readers help decide if a book gets published. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing.”

Readers can, "Browse new, never-before-published books.

Every book has 30 days to earn your nomination. Authors are submitting new books all the time so check back often. Nominate your favorites.

When you discover a book that you think is great, nominate it and the book will be added to Your Nominations panel. Keep up to three books nominated at a time, and update your nominations whenever you want.  When a book’s 30-day campaign ends while in Your Nominations panel, your nomination is tallied and removed from your panel - freeing up that nomination for another book. You will receive an email to let you know whether your book has been selected for publication. Enjoy free books.

As a thank you from us and the authors you support, you will receive an early, free copy of all the Kindle Scout books you nominated that are published. Continue to champion the books and authors you helped bring to life by leaving reviews and sharing with friends.”

Italics above referenced from Kindlescout

For Authors: “Submit your book."

Review the submissions check-list and start by entering your book title and cover, catchy one-liner and other information. At the time of submission, you will be asked to review and accept the Submission & Publishing Agreement. We’ll take 1-2 business days to review your submission — a little longer if we have a ton — and send you an email once it’s approved for launch. Get ready.

Plan how you’re going to let your fans and network know that you’re putting your book up for a publishing contract. Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and email lists you have accumulated over the years are great places to start.

Your approval email will include a preview link so you can see exactly what everyone else will see. We’ll also tell you the exact launch date for your Kindle Scout campaign. All campaigns last 30 days. The more nominations your book receives the more likely it will get the attention of our Kindle Scout team and be selected for publication. At the end of your Kindle Scout campaign we will send you an email to let you know if your book has been selected for publication. We will do another internal review to ensure your book is ready for print. If published, everyone who nominated the book will receive an early, free copy and be invited to leave reviews.”

Italics above referenced from Kindlescout

I have to take the information as is and become a bit of an investigator. KindleScout uses crowd sourcing to determine what books will do well in their market. For books that gain nominations aids KindleScout in making a choice on if they should publish that book, though it's not the ultimate deciding factor.

We also know from the text above that writers who are featured on KindleScout are encouraged to market their books during the campaign. Author’s need to come in guns loaded, using all of their connections. So, for myself, I marketed to followers on Facebook, Goodreads, mibba, Google+ and twitter. I made advertisements and promoted using the free resources. My advantages was that I do have a lot of connections; my disadvantages was that I limited myself to only using free marketing. Maybe paid, targeted advertisements would have helped in reaching more.

Another thing is that during the campaign I didn’t schedule any social events. I am a shy girl but perhaps just participating in an event so that people learn who I am and what I have to offer would also have helped. I know it is something to look at in more detail and consider.

When I was notified that I wasn't selected, KindleScout advised that, “International Boundaries was not selected for publication.”  There was no nomination count or rank on how well or poor the book did. It was just a simple regrets message and there isn't much I can do with that right?

Wrong! We have to look at reasons, all factors. Like marketing, did I promote? Yes! Did I pay for marketing ads? No (this may have helped)

Maybe my cover image wasn’t appealing? People do judge books by the cover and maybe it was a reason for being passed over. So, I have to ask myself, did the cover help? I suspect no because the image was just of a dying rose. I picked it to symbolize a dying love and the start of an affair, like a poison, but I suspect that a potential reader wouldn't pick up on that because the title being the second part of a cover didn't hint at what the story was about, "International Boundaries" sounds like it may be a thriller novel and not a romance. So now I need to weigh in and decide, should I change the title, the image or both? Or do I leave it as is and hope that my book does well in the market as is? (Update: I did Change the title and cover, see the before & after below)


Novel Before

 
Novel After














Another factor is the writing. It could be that the story just lacked something and readers didn't feel it deserved to be nominated. How can I test that theory without having any analytics from KindleScout? Right after my campaign ended I submitted my work to a writing competition. The competition was free and the trade off was that you post your work, you are guaranteed 3 detailed reviews and the trade is you have to read and review 3 other submissions. I got my 3 reviews back, 2 of my 3 reviewers overall didn't enjoy the storyline and my third absolutely loved and that could be preference to genre. Reviewers don't get to pick their favorite genre. The gold nugget of these 3 reviews was in the details of the feedback. All 3 critics agreed that the writing was good, clear the voice of the characters were realistic, the scenes were detailed, their was fair description but the one similar item that they wanted was balance between character dialogue and the actual telling of the story. My take away is maybe the KindleScout readers also wanted more of a balance and that is something that I need to look at again to improve.

I have learned that with every effort that you put towards your projects, you have to do it for a reason and to make the effort worth while, you need to be able to gain from it whether the outcome is favorable or not.

For me I would have LOVED to have been selected by KindleScout. Their marketing strength alone is a strong reason for aspiring un-published authors to submit to them.

I knew that like any competition there are lots of entrants and only a handful that get selected, so I needed to give myself alternate expectations in the case that I wasn’t selected. For me Kindlescout was an outlet to test the waters to see if I could raise interest and I learned that right now my marketing approach isn’t strong enough, so now I know that I need to consider other marketing strategies.

I need to look at the book cover and title and redesign so that it helps attract more potential readers , particularly romance readers and I have also learned to challenge the writing and seek feedback and I know that I need to look at balancing conversation versus narration a little more.

This was my experience and takeaway with KindleScout and I likely submit again for future novels.

Have you submitted to KindleScout? What was the outcome? What did you learn thru the experience?

If you enjoyed this post you can subscribe to this page by entering your email at the top left of the screen.

Thank you for reading my post and best of luck with your writing projects!

The first 7 chapters of C.R. Misty’s upcoming new book, Simple Affair can be read on Wattpad and if you enjoy her work please show your support by voting.

How To Automate Tasks So That You Don't Waste Time

C.R. Misty, the author of International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair, writes about her work, writing, marketing and when to take a break.


The title of this blog is about the action that I sometimes struggle with. Right now I am in the middle of a campaign for my novel. I am a writer, I write, I publish books, I market and network. It is a lot of work, a labor of love, and full of success and defeats.

My main struggle right now is getting people to view my campaign. I have shared my baby with the world (not a real baby, my book!) I want my book to succeed, I want the best. Can anyone else relate? I am guessing yes! Painters hope that their work is seen; same with photographers, writers write, programmers program, actors act, get the point? I think that anyone who is creating something, putting their heart into their work wants it to be noticed and for it to do well. That means spending a lot of time getting the word out, posting, asking others to look, and creating marketing materials.

You hear me, campaigning is work which means time. When do you walk away? I walk away the moment my mind starts to drift, which is usually after an hour or two. You can’t become a slave to your hobby and although I wish that my book is seen, I know that the reality is that I can’t get to every one of my social media followers. I can’t produce blog topics like a machine. I can’t come up with new marketing material with the snap of my finger. So these are all cant's (is that a word?) you know what I mean ;-) How do you turn that around so that you can give yourself a break and walk away?

I spend about an hour or two a day campaigning. Some of the things that I do in that time is I produce automated tweets that go out during peak hours. I use Hootsuite to help. I can’t message every one of my followers but I can try to reach them by staggering tweets during the day. When I do write blog posts they are shared first on my blog site and to my google+ followers. I wait a couple of days and then re-share them to different google+ communities that allow topics that I write about to be posted in their community. It is also a way of networking and sharing with others that may not follow me but follow that community.I have taken time to personally message my direct contacts on the different social media feeds. Friends are always good to reach out to and are the most receptive. I take time every day to reach out to friends and point them to my campaign. Once I reach that hour or two it is time to walk away. I physically leave my desk, get away from the computer, put my phone away and go. My automated communications can do the work for me while I break.

This weekend I spent time with my husband, we did some maintenance on our cars (torqued the tires and adjusted the air pressure, and oh yes filled up the washer fluid) We also went to town and did a bit of shopping for an upcoming trip. I snapped a picture below of the new top and bottoms that I bought. We watched movies and I did a bit of baking, I made some lemon squares! 

This is my baby when it was on Kindlescout it was called, International Boundaries. The KindleScout campaign has ended.

As of June 2015 I did some major changes to the appearance of the book. The name of the series is called International Boundaries and book 1 is called Simple Affair, which you can read a sample and vote for it on wattpad.

Thanks for reading my post and to be notified on future posts to this site be sure to subscribe by email at the top left of the page.

Bye for now

Walk this way, that way or just walk away, how to automate tasks so that you don't waste time

C.R. Misty, the author of the soon to be published series, International Boundaries | Book 1: Simple Affair, writes about her work, the writing, marketing and when to take a break from it.

The title of this blog is about the action that I sometimes struggle with. Right now I am in the middle of a campaign for my novel. I am a writer, I write, I publish books, I market and network. It is a lot of work, a labor of love, and full of success and defeats.

My main struggle right now is getting people to view my campaign. I have shared my baby with the world (not a real baby, my book!) I want my book to succeed, I want the best. Can anyone else relate? I am guessing yes! Painters hope that their work is seen; same with photographers, writers write, programmers program, actors act, get the point? I think that anyone who is creating something, putting their heart into their work wants it to be noticed and for it to do well. That means spending a lot of time getting the word out, posting, asking others to look, and creating marketing materials.

You hear me, campaigning is work which means time. When do you walk away? I walk away the moment my mind starts to drift, which is usually after an hour or two. You can’t become a slave to your hobby and although I wish that my book is seen, I know that the reality is that I can’t get to every one of my social media followers. I can’t produce blog topics like a machine. I can’t come up with new marketing material with the snap of my finger. So these are all cant's (is that a word?) you know what I mean ;-) How do you turn that around so that you can give yourself a break and walk away?

I spend about an hour or two a day campaigning. Some of the things that I do in that time is I produce automated tweets that go out during peak hours. I use Hootsuite to help. I can’t message every one of my followers but I can try to reach them by staggering tweets during the day. When I do write blog posts they are shared first on my blog site and to my google+ followers. I wait a couple of days and then re-share them to different google+ communities that allow topics that I write about to be posted in their community. It is also a way of networking and sharing with others that may not follow me but follow that community.I have taken time to personally message my direct contacts on the different social media feeds. Friends are always good to reach out to and are the most receptive. I take time every day to reach out to friends and point them to my campaign. Once I reach that hour or two it is time to walk away. I physically leave my desk, get away from the computer, put my phone away and go. My automated communications can do the work for me while I break.

This weekend I spent time with my husband, we did some maintenance on our cars (torqued the tires and adjusted the air pressure, and oh yes filled up the washer fluid) We also went to town and did a bit of shopping for an upcoming trip. I snapped a picture below of the new top and bottoms that I bought. We watched movies and I did a bit of baking, I made some lemon squares! 

This is my baby when it was on Kindlescout it was called, International Boundaries. The KindleScout campaign has ended.

As of June 2015 I did some major changes to the appearance of the book. The name of the series is called International Boundaries and book 1 is called Simple Affair, which you can read a sample and vote for it on wattpad.

Thanks for reading my post and to be notified on future posts to this site be sure to subscribe by email at the top left of the page.

Bye for now