Colleen Halverson's Blog, page 3

Building Communities: Takeaways from the Marketing Trenches Part Two

Hey, it’s me again. I received a lot of really interesting, private responses to my blog post yesterday from some writer friends, and it should come as no surprise that I have more opinions. So many opinions. One of the big reactions to my post yesterday was to bemoan the lack of marketing publishing does for writers in our current state of affairs. And yes, I hear that. It’s true. Marketing budgets are shrinking and it’s not fair. Here are more cookies for your feelings. But in this post, I want to examine what it means to “market” a book in the 21st century because I think it’s inherently different to what marketing looked like twenty years ago, and hell, even ten years ago. To explain, I will start with a story from my classroom and how my teaching approach has drastically changed in the past ten years, specifically when it comes to technology. Let me take you back to 2002. GW was President, Kelly Clarkson had just become the first American Idol, and a young Colleen Halverson had just begun her first year of graduate school as a TA teaching freshman comp. Now this year was a special year […]

Raising My Book Baby: Marketing Takeaways from the Trenches

The blog tour for Through the Veil is winding down, and things are slowly returning back to normal around here. That gnawing, hollow feeling in my stomach has dissipated, and I’m only refreshing Amazon now twice every hour as opposed to every two seconds (it’s my first book. Don’t judge me.). Things are good, and I can stand back from the past three weeks with a strong feeling of accomplishment and with the sense that I did everything I could to bring my book out into the world. But book marketing is a strange, elusive beast, and I can say two months ago I had absolutely no clue how and where to even begin. On the first call with my PR person, I said, “Okay, I’ve never done this before, so explain book marketing to me like you would to a small child.” And she did! Beautifully! I can’t share all the trade secrets here (and quite honestly, I still don’t understand how all this goes down), but I can tell you some things I’ve learned and some things I wished I had known before I started. A lot of folks complain that publishing runs at a snail’s pace, but […]

THROUGH THE VEIL Pronunciation Guide

Some people have asked me how to pronounce some of the Irish names and terms in THROUGH THE VEIL, so my daughter and I made this quick and handy pronunciation guide. Cheers! Here’s the direct link. Through the Veil is now available! Amazon.com  , Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Amazon UK, and Amazon Canada.

Through the Veil is Now Available!

The day is here. It’s still difficult for me to wrap my head around it. I wrote a book and now it’s out in the world. I have the hard copy of Through the Veil sitting beside me at my desk, and I’m thumbing through the pages right now, all my words blurring together. I spent so much time crafting those words into sentences and paragraphs, and now they’re something. I’m not sure what yet, but they’re something. But let’s get down to business first. You can purchase Through the Veil at any of these fine online establishments. Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Amazon UK, and Amazon Canada.   Some people have already said some really nice things about on Goodreads:   “If you are a fan of Irish mythology and things we may not be able to see, you need to do yourself a favor and check out this book.” ~ Give Me Books   “…an enchanting debut novel.” ~ Chanelle   “Through the Veil is a very promising start to The Aisling Chronicles. So much went down in these pages, and there’s still more to come which I feel will only get bigger and better from here.” […]

Through the Veil is Now Available!

The day is here. It’s still difficult for me to wrap my head around it. I wrote a book and now it’s out in the world. I have the hard copy of Through the Veil sitting beside me at my desk, and I’m thumbing through the pages right now, all my words blurring together. I spent so much time crafting those words into sentences and paragraphs, and now they’re something. I’m not sure what yet, but they’re something. But let’s get down to business first. You can purchase Through the Veil at any of these fine online establishments. Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Amazon UK, and Amazon Canada. Some people have already said some really nice things about on Goodreads: “If you are a fan of Irish mythology and things we may not be able to see, you need to do yourself a favor and check out this book.” ~ Give Me Books “…an enchanting debut novel.” ~ Chanelle “Through the Veil is a very promising start to The Aisling Chronicles. So much went down in these pages, and there’s still more to come which I feel will only get bigger and better from here.” ~ JC’s Book Haven […]

THROUGH THE VEIL is Now Available for Pre-Order!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but it’s been a busy month for me. I finished the latest draft of Book 2 (the sequel to Through the Veil) and sent it off to beta readers, and I’ve been working hard on guest posts and articles for my book release on February 22nd. I’ve had a great time working on these as they’ve given me a chance to talk more about things I’m passionate about: Ireland, traveling, WB Yeats, Faeries…and so many different topics. I think it’s going to be a fun blog tour, so please keep an eye out for me as your surfing the interwebs. I’ve also been working hard to get a new project moving forward, and of course there’s the day job and the whole raising children business… And then was this little detail of a cover reveal… I know. It’s beautiful. I burst into tears (of joy!) when I saw it. The artist captured so many things about the book I can’t even begin to put into words (which is ironic because, you know, I’m a writer), but the mood, the spirit, everything, seriously everything about my story, is in this cover […]

2015 and the People Who Showed Up

I was married once before–for about five minutes. I joke about that time in my life in terms of how I “married my drinking buddy.” He was a fun, good-looking guy who you wouldn’t mind sharing a pint with, but probably not ideal parenting material or the person with whom you would want to split a mortgage. But these aren’t the sorts of things I thought about too much at 24, and when all the people in my life started pairing up, moving on, adulting, I thought it was the same thing I wanted, too. I found a willing participant, I guess you could say. I knew within months of our marriage, maybe even within the first week, that I had made a horrible mistake. For so many very private reasons, I knew I had married the wrong person, but I tried to be happy and make it work. Nothing in this world is perfect, so why should I assume marriage would be? It was fine. Everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine. And one day, I decided that I deserved to be happy and with someone who made me happy. On a cold morning in late November, we had […]

You Don’t Even Look Like You

My hairdresser grabbed my phone and held it up to her nose. I was showing her my new website, and her eyes scanned over my author head shot. “You don’t even look like you!” she exclaimed. I laughed. “That’s the idea.” With the release date of Through the Veil looming, I’ve been working hard to develop a good platform to sell my book. Part of that has been developing what the industry calls an “author brand.” What is an author brand? Think about a writer you love. The kind of writer who, when you hear they have a new book coming out, you race to Amazon and pre-order it right away. Maybe you’re walking down the street and see their name through the window of a bookstore , and you get this swirl of emotions, images, and feelings running through you. You smile. You have a secret. A secret you have shared with this author. Maybe it’s a secret love, a secret world, a secret adventure. You walk on, thinking about the last time you read their book, what you loved about it, what you love about this person–THIS WRITER–who is able to work magic through words. That feeling? That’s […]

It’s a #PitMad Party! (or bringing out your inner woo girl)

Oh, man, I love a good twitter pitch party. Since I’m out of the game, I wanted to share a few of my tips and tricks for getting noticed in the cluttered pitch party feed. Because the #pitmad event has grown so much and become so successful, Brenda Drake has implemented an update for #pitmad, which now limits participants to only three pitches. That’s it! Three! More than ever, writers need to up their game and work a pitch that will get noticed. But how? My advice here will not work for every author, but I have learned a few things as a veteran of several twitter pitch parties. The ultimate secret (for me) of having a successful pitching day is to treat it like an actual party. It’s a party! Woooo!!! That means, have fun, enjoy yourself, be funny, keep it light. “But Colleen,” you say, “I’m not funny and pitching is stressful!” To which I say, change your mindset. Believe me, that twitter pitch is not going to make or break your career. Your goal on Friday is not to snag an agent. If that happens, GREAT! But your goal is to network, meet other writers, and be […]

“This Might Suck”: My Interview with Dr. Adam Booker

One question I see posted in a lot in writer forums, but especially during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is: how do I keep going when I know this is terrible? I know I struggle with this question constantly in the drafting phase, and it made me think of my brother, Dr. Adam Booker, and his work as a professional jazz musician. Adam and I grew up surrounded by jazz musicians, and we learned at a very early age that no matter what, no matter how godawful something might be, you can’t stop in a middle of a song if things aren’t going well. The show must go on, as they say, and it’s a principle I’ve applied to my writing. Keep going, keep moving forward no matter what. This is nice in theory, but how does this actually work in practice? I sat down with my brother this week for an interview because I wanted to ask him about the creative processes he uses in delivering a jazz solo. I’ve provided the full interview at the end of this post, but in case you don’t have an hour to burn (because you should be writing!), I’ll run through the […]