Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "kdp"

I am excited to be introducing you to a great new author I recently met on Twitter. Susan Buchanan's debut novel was released this March, and she has plans to release a new book in September.

I really enjoyed her novel, Sign of the Times, it's definitely one you should all add to your to-read lists here on Goodreads.

Susan has not only agreed to answer my interview questions, but has also generously agreed to give away an ebook copy of Sign of the Times in either pdf, .epub or .prc

To enter for your chance to win, please either 'Like' this blog post or leave a comment for Susan below.







Right, here are Susan's Replies to my interview questions:


Sign of the Times is all about the lives of 12 main characters who each have different signs of the Zodiac. Take us through your thought process when you first thought of writing the book. Did you decide to write a book about 12 characters with different star signs, initially, or was that something that developed as you were writing the book?







I came up with the idea of the 12 characters based on the 12 signs first. I then started researching the traits of each of those signs and built up my characters accordingly, including their jobs, careers, quirks and personalities.


How did you make sure that each character stayed true to the typical characteristics of a particular star sign? Did you base them on people you knew who were that particular sign, or did you have another method?

I did a lot of research! And if I wasn’t sure, then I would go back and check to be sure. No-one is based on anyone I know. For me that was part of the fun, as I got to make everyone up. The only one who is slightly based, from a characteristic point of view, on someone I know, is Holly who has many of the same traits as myself, since I am Sagittarius too. But that’s about as far a parallel as I can draw and Holly herself is not based on me.

Do you read your Horoscope?

No, I used to years ago when I was at school, but haven’t since.

Have you always been interested in Star Signs and Astrology, or is it something you researched for the book?

Nope, no interest in star signs or astrology, just something I liked as an idea and then researched extensively

One of the characters, Holly, is a travel writer and in the book she goes to Italy. Have you ever travelled to the places she visits in the book?

Yes – Bibbiena is a real place and I went there, I think the summer before I started writing Sign of the Times. I rented a villa with some friends and the village completely captivated me. I’ve also been to Lucerne, which is also featured in the book, although it’s Holly’s sister who goes there. I like to write travel sections, if possible, from experience, which is easy enough as I have been lucky enough to have travelled a lot.

From our conversations on Twitter, I'm aware that you are fluent in quite a few languages. Do you have a favourite language that you speak? If so, what is it you like about it?

Yes, I speak 5 languages. Italian is my favourite, closely followed by Spanish. I am almost native speaker level in Italian and I love the fact that I get treated with respect when I go to Italy, as they are so delighted that a foreigner speaks Italian! That’s when they do realise I am not Italian! But, I simply love the sound of the language. For me, it’s the whole package that counts - the language, the culture, the people. That’s why I love Italian and Italy so much.

Given that you know quite a few languages, do you have any plans to translate your book into other languages?

No, it’s not in the pipeline. I’d still need to pay someone to translate my book(s), as although I am very fluent, the rule is you only translate from your native language into the foreign language. If any of my books ever seriously take off, then of course I will look at it again.


Although your character, Holly, is a Sagittarius, I've heard you say that she is not based on you. As a writer, I know that we put a bit of ourselves in every character we write. Which one of the characters in Sign of the Times would you say you can relate to the most and why?





Yes, as I mentioned earlier, Holly is similar to me, in that she is a typical Sagittarius. Truly none of my characters are based on me, although some scenes or anecdotes in some of each character’s chapters could be based on things that have happened to me. For example, when Jennifer is buying stuff off Ebay, some of those items were items I genuinely did sell on Ebay! A particular anecdote about Maggie’s mother is based on my mother – that kind of thing.


If you had to spend a day with one of the characters from Sign of the Times, which one would it be and why?

Mmmm…probably Ben – he is lovely. Very good looking in a rugged, sexy, mountain-rescue volunteer way, kind, hard-working and knows how to treat a girl!

At the end of your book, it states that you will be writing a sequel. I have to say, I was very happy when I read that. I think your book really lets us get to know all the main characters well, and I'd love to follow them and find out what happens to them. Do you think you'll end up writing a series of books, or are you only planning a sequel at the moment?

Thanks – I’m glad you feel that way. As you might remember, Sign of the Times was originally meant as a stand-alone novel. Only because of the overwhelming support from readers, did I decide to write a sequel. It has been pointed out to me that there is so much material in the original novel, that I could in fact write several additional books. I think I will write the sequel, for which I already have several ideas and then see how it goes. Let’s put it this way, I am not ruling out a series!

The Dating Game, your next novel, is due to be published in September. Can you tell us a little bit about that and your inspiration for the story?

Yes, hopefully I can get it out for Sep 30th. The Dating Game is about Recruitment Consultant, Gill, who joins a dating agency for professional people, as her love life is a complete disaster area. The idea comes from a friend of mine, who did just such a thing a few years ago. However, that’s where the similarity ends. Gill’s experience is much more positive, in some ways, than my friend’s was.
Here’s a little mini-blurb for The Dating Game:-

Workaholic recruitment consultant, Gill McFadden, is sick of her friends trying to match-make for her. Up until now her love life has been a disaster and she’s going through a drier spell than the Sahara desert. Seeing an ad on a bus one day, she decides to visit Happy Ever After dating agency. Before long she is experiencing laughs, lust and… could it be love? But like everything in Gill’s life, nothing is straightforward and she ends up wondering exactly who she can trust.

Are you reading a book at the moment?

I’m reading a few books at the moment . I tend to do that…
Today I have been reading on Kindle, Build A Man by Talli Roland – a fluffy, funny, chick-lit book
Am also reading the paperback of I Remember You by Harriet Evans, which is good, but I have been reading mainly on Kindle recently
And lastly I am reading from a crime/jewel heist/security breach perspective, Seumas Gallacher’s The Violin Man's Legacy

Which well-known authors do you admire and why?

Maeve Binchy, as she writes such well-rounded characters and she was a great inspiration for how I wanted my characters to come across to the readers

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, as he really takes me deep into Barcelona, which I already know well, with his Shadow in the Wind series.

Dorothy Koomson as I love her writing style and breadth of subject matter – contemporary fiction as opposed to chick-lit.

Judi Picoult, I love how she always has a moral dilemma at the root of her novel.

Do you have any advice you can give to someone who may be thinking of self-publishing a book?

Do it! But be prepared to work harder than you’ve worked before – seriously!
Check out my blog – www.susancbuchanan.blogspot.co.uk for past posts on being an indie writer and marketing your novel.

Work out how to balance your time. Being an indie writer is a bit like becoming a parent for the first time (for the record, I don’t have any kids, but this is the analogy I am drawing!). You thought your life was going to change maybe 50%, but your life changes 99.9%

I know that you love classical music. Do you have a favourite piece of music?

I do. My fave piece is Shostakovich’s Romance.

How important are reviews to you?

Reviews are very important in some ways. When you are an author selling a book through Amazon, sales boost your rankings, but the way Amazon’s calculations work, so do positive reviews. So, I would always say, if you enjoy a book and you’re happy to do so, please leave a review for readers and the author to enjoy. Of course, everyone gets bad reviews and I read all of my reviews good and bad. But, the bottom line is you can’t please everyone. Everyone has different tastes. Personally, when I look at buying books, I generally don’t read reviews. I read the synopsis/product description and make up my own mind.

Sign of the Times is only available as an ebook on Kindle at the moment. Do you have plans to make it available in other formats or in paperback?

I am still toying with the idea of bringing out a paperback, but it has had to take a back seat for now until I get The Dating Game out as an ebook. I did look into Createspace earlier in the year, but it was so non-user friendly for UK authors. I’ve been reliably informed this has been dramatically improved, so will be looking into it again in a few months. I was also asked today about Sign of the Times for a Sony ereader. I hadn’t really given much thought to Sony ereaders (apart from almost buying one a few years ago), nor Nook etc. As I am part of Amazon KDP Select (which ties me in exclusively to Amazon for 90 day periods), there’s not really much I can do on that for now.

You have enrolled in KDP Select on Amazon. From your experience with this, would you encourage other authors to enroll their books?

Yes, although the situation is forever changing. A good friend of mine recently had an excellent free promo which is the main carrot for using KDP Select. I also had a lot of success with the programme following my promo in May, so yes, I can say that KDP Select works. One point to note though, don’t think just by enrolling in KDP Select that your book will start figuratively flying off the shelves. It won’t. You will have to market it – heavily.

Thanks for being a great guest, Sooz!

You can keep up with Susan's news on her blog: http://www.susancbuchanan.blogspot.co...

And her Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/susan.buchana...

Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Susan_Buchanan

You can buy her book on Kindle at the following links:

http://amzn.to/GKqZGd (UK) & http://amzn.to/IYN0Fc (US & other .com)

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Remember to 'like' this post or leave a comment below for your chance to win an ebook copy of Sign of the Times
A winner will be chosen on 16th August 2012.

... yes, I'm going to promote my novel,Coincidences using the Amazon KDP Select Programme.





I wasn't sure whether or not to go for it; after all, it does mean my book is tied to a 90 day exclusivity clause with Amazon, so I can't sell the e-book version anywhere else during that time. But given that most of my e-book sales are from Amazon anyway, I thought I would give it a try.

With the KDP Select option, my book is now available to Amazon Prime members to lend from Amazon's lending library. So if you're a member, please check out the book.

As part of the KDP Select programme, I can offer my book as a free Kindle download for a maximum of 5 days during the 90 day period.

This is one of the things that attracted me to KDP in the first place, because Amazon is a very powerful company and promotion on the site can help considerably with getting an author's name out there. As you can imagine, with millions of books available on the site, it's hard for an independent writer to sell even a few books. Using the free promotion, in theory more people will download the book and therefore it will be more visible on Amazon's bestseller lists, hopefully leading to more sales in the long run.

This is where you lovely people come in...

If you would be so kind as to take a minute to download my book for free from Amazon this Saturday 28th July or Sunday 29th July, it would help greatly. You don't even have to read it if you don't want to, but your download will make it more visible to people who may want to read it, as it will be higher up on the bestseller lists.

If you read it and review it, that would be even better, as reviews do help to sell books, too.

Here are the links you will need on Saturday and Sunday to download the book for FREE!! :)

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...

And don't forget to tell all your friends!

Thank you, in advance, and I hope you enjoy the book :)

Last week, I was interviewed by Mark Rice (author of Metallic Dreams), and Deena Rae Schoenfeldt of eBookBuilders, on their Internet radio show, Bluebonnets, Bagpipes & Books!

We talked about my upcoming novel, Haunted, which I hope to release on Hallowe'en. We also talked about my experience with the Amazon KDP Select Programme. The show was fun to do.

You can listen to the podcast here: Bluebonnets, Bagpipes & Books

I hope you enjoy it!

Deena and Mark created their radio show so that they could discuss the ins and outs of the publishing industry with those in the know.

If you're on Facebook, you can keep up to date with the show here: http://www.facebook.com/Bluebonnets.B...

You can also follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBandBPodcast

Coincidences will be available free on all the worldwide Amazon sites from Sunday 23rd September - Tuesday 25th September 2012!

This will be the last chance for all you Kindle users to download the book for free. After this promo I will be taking the book out of the KDP Select Programme so I can make it more widely available e.g. for Nook, Kobo etc.

I'd be really grateful if all of you could let your friends know about the promotion. Even if you've already downloaded the book, you can still help by tweeting the links on the free days, and posting a link on your Facebook pages.

Thank you all for your continued support!

While I'm on the subject of free downloads, it just so happens that there are a couple of other great books you can download for no pennies this weekend!

From Friday 21st September - Sunday 23rd September 2012, make sure you are ready to download two of the best books I've read recently:


Sign of the Times by Susan Buchanan

and

You Wish... by Terry Tyler


Both books are fabulous and must reads.


Here are all the links you'll need:

Coincidences:



Amazon .com http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...

Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...

Amazon France http://www.amazon.fr/Coincidences-ebo...

Amazon Germany http://www.amazon.de/Coincidences-ebo...

Amazon Italy http://www.amazon.it/Coincidences-ebo...

Amazon Spain http://www.amazon.es/Coincidences-ebo...


You Wish...



Amazon .com http://www.amazon.com/You-Wish-ebook/...

Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Wish-eboo...

Amazon France http://www.amazon.fr/You-Wish-ebook/d...

Amazon Germany http://www.amazon.de/You-Wish-ebook/d...

Amazon Italy http://www.amazon.it/You-Wish-ebook/d...

Amazon Spain http://www.amazon.es/You-Wish-ebook/d...

Sign of the Times





Amazon .com http://www.amazon.com/Sign-of-the-Tim...

Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sign-of-the-T...

Amazon France http://www.amazon.fr/Sign-of-the-Time...

Amazon Germany http://www.amazon.de/Sign-of-the-Time...

Amazon Italy http://www.amazon.it/Sign-of-the-Time...

Amazon Spain http://www.amazon.es/Sign-of-the-Time...

Happy downloading!!

The free promotion for my novel Coincidences, which began on Sunday, is going very well.

The last time I did this free promotion, it ran over 2 days, and I had just over 1,700 downloads, the bulk of those in the UK Amazon store. This time around, it's a 3 day promotion that will end sometime early on Wednesday morning.

I've had lots of support from my readers and author friends, who have been helping out with Tweets on Twitter, and posting links to their Facebook pages. I am very grateful for the overwhelming support.

This time around, I submitted the book to quite a few of the blogs and websites that feature free books. I was lucky enough to be featured on a few of those, including Addicted to eBooks, The Serious Reader, and Free Ebooks Daily.

I have also just received an email from freebooksy saying that Coincidences has been featured there. They hand-pick the books they feature, so it's a great honour to be chosen out of all the submissions they receive.











So far, I have almost double the amount of downloads I had the last time I did the free promotion, with over a day to go. I am very pleased with the results.

Coincidences has gone to #1 in the free Kindle store in the US Drama category and also the Theater category. This to me is amazing, as last time I didn't even get any rankings on the Amazon.com site. At the time of posting this, it's #88 in the Top 100 free books in the US store and #28 in the Top 100 in the UK store (also #1 in Drama in the UK store).

I'd like to thank each and every one of you who have downloaded a copy, and helped to spread the word about the promotion. I hope you'll all continue to help with Tweeting and posting, so that the free version can be available to everyone who wants to read it.

After the 6th October, Coincidences will no longer by in the KDP Select Programme, as I want to make it available in more eBook formats and other eBook websites. So this is the last chance to grab a free copy!

Happy reading!

I am pleased to announce that my latest novel, Haunted is available on Amazon Kindle!




Haunted is a psychological thriller, darker than my other novels. It is about a man who is on a downwards spiral. He has kept a secret that now threatens to destroy him. There's a paranormal twist to the tale.

I hope you'll enjoy it.

You will notice that the Kindle version has been expertly formatted with an interactive table of contents and links included to my Amazon page and my other books. There are even images included at the end of each chapter. I was very impressed with the quality of the formatting and would highly recommend eBookBuilders which is the company I used to produce this Kindle edition.

The links to Amazon where you can purchase the book are below. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow the book from the Kindle Lending Library for free!

Amazon.com (includes India): http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-ebook/d...

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Haunted-ebook...

France: http://www.amazon.fr/Haunted-ebook/dp...

Germany: http://www.amazon.de/Haunted-ebook/dp...

Italy: http://www.amazon.it/Haunted-ebook/dp...

Spain: http://www.amazon.es/Haunted-ebook/dp...

Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/Haunted-ebook...

Just wanted to let you all know that following a successful promotion of Second Chances with EReader News Today, I have decided to keep the low price of 99 cents/77p for the Kindle version until the end of February. I won't be doing any more free promotions for my existing books, so this is the lowest price you can get the book for.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Second-Chances-...

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-Chance...

It's also on all other worldwide Amazon stores at the same price.