Aimee Brown's Blog, page 5

Come to the Little Gray Dress release day party!!

Little Gray DressYou're invited to the Little Gray Dress FB Release Party! - Chat with me LIVE!

There will be fun, LOL's, champagne (fro me at least) and Giveaways!!

Invite your friends too! August 2nd on FB.

Join here --> http://go.shr.lc/2upyXpf

I can't wait to chat with you!

#romcom #bookrelease #Giveaway #ChickLitReads #amreading

You’re invited to the Little Gray Dress FB Release Party!

 

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I wasn’t 100% sure I would have a FB release day party. Not because I didn’t want to include you all in my release, Obviously, I did. But, as much as I sit around my house and talk to myself, and think it’s normal. It’s a tad more awkward if I do it live on camera on the interwebs while no one is watching. So many of you have expressed interest in coming, though. Seriously, thank you for that! You really know how to make a girl feel good!

So, if you haven’t gotten your official invite yet and you’d like to chat with me during two separate live videos and you’d like to see what other ridiculous FB posts come out of me, then head to the links below and make sure you’ve added it to your events.

I can not wait to chat with you and give some amazing prizes away! And… I’d LOVE if you’d pre-order my book, Little Gray Dress! Every single sale helps bump me up the bestseller charts!

 

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Official Invite –��

Yay! Little Gray Dress is nearly here!

Join me on August 2nd for a Release Day Hoorah!

There will be two ‘mini-parties’ at two separate times. Join both or one, they will not be the same so I’d love to see you at both!

Click the ‘interest’ or ‘going’ button over here —> Little Gray Dress Release Day Par-tay!

Here is what will go down –

11 am PST – 20-minute LIVE video on my author page where I chat about Little Gray Dress, Weddings & answer your questions!

11.20 – Noon-ish – I will be posting some fun stuff here in the party & doing random giveaways!

4 pm PST – 20-minute LIVE video on my author page where I announce my grand prize winner from the last month of FB daily posts & answer your questions!

4.20 – 5-ish – I will be posting some fun things here and doing some random giveaways!

It’s gonna be SUCH fun so I really hope you won’t miss it!

Invite your friends, share the post and come hang with me on August 2nd!

(ps… to submit a question for me to chatter about during one of my live videos, leave it in the comments below!)

My Facebook Page – http://facebook.com/authoraimeebrown

Can’t wait to see you!

-Aimee

UGH – Food! – I’m on an intolerance diet…

For the Love of all things Holy (& unholy for that matter). I have been struggling with an autoimmune disease for a couple of years now. I hurt everywhere in all my joints. I have daily headaches, exhaustion, IBS (welcome to the TMI post) and really elevated inflammation blood results that refuse to come down. I’ve been seeing a Rheumatologist but he’s not 100% sure of my diagnosis (RA, Fibromyalgia or Lupus) enough to pin one specific one as of yet. He’s tried and made a few diagnosis that he’s changed later (being RA & Lupus) but nothing seems to really ‘fit’ what’s going on and most of my tests come back with all the signs that point to on or the other except the one they’re looking for. I’ve been pretty miserable as I’ve refused to ‘try’ the drugs for RA as a test because, well… it’s a low dose chemo pill and I just don’t want to do that right this second. I also can’t take pain meds because I’m highly sensitive/irritated by them and would really rather not lie in bed sick as a dog all day long as opposed to being functioning but in pain.

I worked in healthcare a long time and over the years I’ve learned enough to be able to do research on what’s going on with me by looking at multiple options and come to a conclusion that I think is spot on.

Food Intolerances – specifically gluten and dairy. I have done allergy tests that all came back negative BUT an intolerance is something they can’t diagnose or test for. UGH. Just my luck.

As of today, I’ve eliminated everything from my diet for the next two weeks besides fresh fruit and veggies. That means NO coffee!! AAHHH! I *hope* to live through this. LOL Seriously, if you’ve never met me in real life you’ll not quite understand that I don’t fully function without coffee. Already this morning I have stood outside of my husbands truck as we dropped my car at the shop, for five minutes waiting for him to jump in his UNLOCKED side and unlock the doors for me. I didn’t even think of that. LOL The brain fog won’t lift.

Supposedly, I will start to see a difference in the next few days on how I feel if the food intolerance is indeed my problem. After the two weeks are up I can slowly start adding things into my diet every few days to see what the ‘problem child’ might be.

I am absolutely convinced that Gluten & Dairy are my culprits.  I’ve been doing a ton of research and everything I’m struggling with are the same symptoms of these specific food group intolerances. CRAZY! Why didn’t my doctor suggest this BEFORE suggest a chemo type medication for life? He can’t make money if I find a fix that doesn’t include him. Cross your fingers that I figure this out because I’m tired of feeling like shit nearly every day of my life.

Have you ever done this? What was your outcome? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Don’t forget to preorder your copy of Little Gray Dress now! This is me… begging you to buy it and tell all your friends to buy it. You will LOVE it if you love romantic comedies and laugh out loud moments.

Buy here – for just $2.99 – that’s LESS than a latte! (the same kind I can’t drink right now!) myBook.to/LittleGrayDressU

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#Amazon #BookReviews – when is it OK, or not OK to leave a bad review?

This post isn’t coming from me as an author but from me as a book reviewer & book blogger. I’ve recently started to notice some bloggers asking for opinions on whether or not they should leave a 1-star review because a book they were reading to review was just not their ‘thing’ and they couldn’t finish.

Here is my question for you… was it just not your genre or subject matter? Or was it badly written?

The reason I ask is that a book that you thought you’d love but just didn’t, does NOT make it worthy of a 1-star review.

Here are my thoughts on this subject.

Writing is a skill. If a book wasn’t your thing but was well written then as a reviewer who’s any good at writing reviews, you should be able to list the pro’s and con’s of a book and review it based on what it is, an author using a skill they’ve learned to create a story. For instance, was the writing good, did the characters grow, did you give it a chance, were there highs and lows? You have to consider more than just whether you personally loved it.

I understand that as a blogger you want to give an honest review, and I truly wouldn’t want it any other way. But let me challenge you a bit. Of the two reviews below, which, as a reader, would help you make the decision to buy or not buy a book…

Sample Review 1 – 

This book wasn’t my cup of tea, therefore I could not finish.

Sample Review 2 –

[image error][image error] This book wasn’t my favorite, not because it wasn’t well written but more because it wasn’t the snarky, fun writing I had hoped for. While the story line flowed nicely and the characters were engaging I just am not a huge fan of mostly dramatic books. If you are, you may love this one. I can say that the author is a skilled writer, she’s great at developing characters who grow and her ability to create drama is amazing. I didn’t read past the fourth chapter so I honestly can’t tell you if the book would have captured my attention later on. I’m giving the book two stars for the quality of the writing, the great cover and the fact that I was enticed into reading it at all.

NOW…

I’m going to guess you chose review 2. Of course, you did. How can you tell anything from the one sentence review of the top one? I’d say if you can’t write a well-rounded, informative review that is less than glowing, you shouldn’t be reviewing the book at all.

Even reviewing can be a skill. As a reviewer i’ve always listed out the ‘What I Loved’ & the ‘What I didn’t Love’ because I think that’s fair to other possible readers of the book. I love this genre and book but here is why you as another reader, might not.

As an author, I’d like to know if you didn’t enjoy the book but I’d like it as well written as you hoped the book was. Give me something to help improve my writing. Not giving facts or reasons doesn’t help a single buyer. I skip over those reviews like trying to avoid the plague. It doesn’t impress me with you as a reviewer either.

As a potential buyer, why would I care that you didn’t finish because of a mysterious reason that you’re not giving? I’m gonna skip right past your review and move on to someone who sounds like they can actually form a legit opinion based on the writing since, after all, we read books based on authors writing.

There are some great reviewers in the book blogger world. I’d love to see some of these negative, no information reviews are rethought before giving a lousy, potentially hurtful 1-star review. It’s really not fair to buyers or authors.

List out what was good, even if you didn’t love it. List out what was bad, even if you adored it. THAT helps other buyers, reviewers and even the writers.

If the writing was just plain bad, there are ways to say that in a review that isn’t totally douchey. Come on, I’ve read reviews that personally attack an author for their viewpoint in the book. That’s not right. List the facts. Give a REASON. No one will buy or not buy a book based on a three word ‘did not finish’ review.

Have you ever seen those reviews written by someone who’s misspelled their words, punctuation, and just in general shouldn’t be using a keyboard? They seem to think that if they had written the book it would have been better. I think if you write a review that way you also need to post the link of your current best seller. If it was as easy as some of these people think we’d not need to work as hard as we do as authors.

Then there are the reviews who complain that the book titled ‘Ecstasy in Georgia‘ was ‘dirty‘. Did the man with his lips on a nipple on the cover not tell you that already? You regret buying the book, now and reading it in its entirety? You should probably regret even getting on Amazon because you don’t live in reality, my friend. READ the freaking blurb. Check the genre the book is listed in. There are a lot of things that hint at the genre on Amazon. If YOU didn’t get that the book wasn’t your genre, only you are to blame for that. Giving a 1-star review because you can’t read before buying, doesn’t make the author look bad. It makes the reviewer look bad. It’s like buying paper towels at the store instead of toilet paper (which may or may not be something I have done, more than once). If you put that in your bad review of the store, saying it’s their fault, no one is laughing with you… we think you’re a moron. LOL

So, tell me below in the comments, when do you think it’s OK to leave a 1-star review?

 

Irritations with Aimee

I’m not a shy person. I am not afraid to talk to a stranger or introduce myself when I don’t know someone. That said though, I’m also not an easily open person. I don’t like to tell strangers things they don’t need to know. I’m not one to gossip or ask about your personal life if I am not close to you. That’s just not me. I’m friendly, but my cold heart isn’t warming up to people quickly.

I have also been known to use humor in the worst of situations. It’s how I deal with things. Stress, death, sadness, really just about any emotion can include a joke if you try hard enough. I’ve been told on more than a dozen occasions time or two that I’ve got the personality of a man. Ha! That’s not a bad thing to me. Maybe it’s because I had a complete hysterectomy at the age of 30 and I’ve got no more hormones that give a shit. Or maybe it’s just my personality. I’m not the girly girl who wants to talk about my feelings. I’m more the girl who if I do have a feeling, I’m just gonna say it and let you know what it is. Whether you want to hear it or not. No beating around the bush from me.

There is one moment each day where little in the way of words leave my mouth and that is before eight or maybe nine in the morning, while I’m trying to elevate my caffeine level to a livable amount. You know, just enough to keep me out of jail.

So, all this comes up after I’ve just sat at the local Starbucks drive-up window and the much too enthusiastic drive-thru barista tried to get me to tell her every detail of my upcoming weekend. Apparently, my unenthusiastic nods weren’t enough for her. My favorite part about this story… it only took two silent nods for her to give up. That’s quicker than most.

Once, long ago, just after having my last son, I went to a drive-thru coffee shop on my way to my six week follow-up appointment. Here is how the conversation went…

Barista: What are you up to today, anything fun?

Me: Nope.

Barista (which is a teen male, btw…): Oh, come on! You have to be headed somewhere, what’s brought you out into the world so early on a Friday morning?

Me: *shoulder shrug*

Barista: I know better than that! Shopping? I know how women love to shop!

Me: Nope.

Barista: Not a morning person, huh?

Me: *stares blankly into the coffee shop I’m waiting at for my 20oz quad shot coffee- this kid doesn’t catch on quick, does he?*

Barista: I’ll give you your coffee on one condition… you smile, and tell me what are you plans for the day?

Me: *irritated as all get out – I smile like I’m an escaped psych patient and dig up as much enthusiastic sarcasm as possible* Well… actually this is the first morning I’ve had to myself in six weeks because I just had a third child. You’d think that would mean I was off to do something fun, as you mentioned before. But, I’m not. If you must know, I’m on my way to the gynecologist so he can yet again invade my vagina with a set of metal prongs to inspect that the stitches I needed, after a twenty-hour bout of labor and delivery, have healed. Then he will poke around in areas that have become quite shy to the human touch before telling me I’m fully recovered and can go about my normal life of servicing my husband when he asks.

Barista: *blank horrified stare as he hands out my coffee*

Me: But, I hope your day is fantastic!

I’ll tell ya, that kid worked there for a few more months and he remembered me every single time and he never asked another question besides what my order was.

Needless to say, small talk at the drive through to people who bounce when they speak, is not my specialty. I just don’t have it in me to fake enthusiasm as I wait for coffee before eight am. You’d think Starbucks would realize that and tell their employees that before eight in the morning, it’s eye contact only with customers. After that, be the most annoying and overly enthusiastic as you can be.

I’ve got no problem chatting about the weather after I’ve been fully caffeinated.

Are you a chatty Cathy at the drive up while you get your coffee?

 

1 month until release! YAY! Here’s what I’m gonna do…

This time next month I will OFFICIALLY have a book out! Sweet Holy Mother of Moses! It’s exciting. I’ve waited YEARS to do this. My mom read the book last week and said ‘Great job! Who knew you had it in you?!’ I DID! The problem was trying to get the damn thing to come out of me! I know other authors old and new know exactly what I’m talking about. You know the story is in there, you know it’s great, but it just doesn’t seem to want to surface as easily as you’d hoped.

My dad, who is not exactly a reader, or feminine or any kind of book lover, has already bought 6 copies & reads a chapter a night. He’s been handing out copies to his friends to read and he’s literally called every single person who has known me since birth to inform them that his daughter is now a published author and they will be buying my book. Is that not cute? I love it. So, if you’re reading this because my father has you in a chokehold in front of his computer screen, demanding that you buy the book, well… I thank you! And don’t forget to leave a review! lol Seriously, it totally is just the nicest thing that he’s done so much.

Release Day Thoughts-

I honestly haven’t been exactly sure what to do on release day. Of course, I’ve got an impressive tour planned from August 2nd – 12th and I’ve got quite a few promos and sites posting close to release as well.

Here’s what I’m planning –

— A live video!

If you didn’t see my last video you really missed out. I’m sure the same ridiculousness will happen this time but for this one I want you to be involved!

———-How can you be involved? I’m so glad you asked!

—Leave a comment below OR send me an email (authoraimeebrown@gmail.com) and give me a chatting topic, a question or whatever. Make sure you leave your author or blog title and I’ll do a short promo of you and your talents.

–Show up live and ask questions or chat! Of course, I want this one as well. Not that I’ve never spent an hour or so talking to myself. But, I’ve never done a live video so I’m sure I’ll fumble around and utter out a few cursive words. Should be loads of fun for all of us.

–I’ll also be doing a swag pack grand prize giveaway to a lucky winner that has been participating in my daily FB countdown to release posts. (If you haven’t participated yet, it’s not too late – http://facebook.com/authoraimeebrown) I think I will even do some random early question submission prizes as well. So, submit your question or chat topic by following the submission guidelines two paragraphs above ^^.

— A story on Instagram!

In the tiny town I live in we have multiple tiny libraries set up in people’s yards around town. I plan on doing a story following my jont through town donating some signed books to each of these libraries.

I’d LOVE to donate your books as well! If you have a rom/com or chick lit book you’d like to sign and send my way I’ll donate yours as well!

Now, I know some of you are thinking ‘Facebook party!’ And… my thoughts on that is… UGHH. I’ve done one Facebook party in my lifetime and while it was fun, it’s not my favorite thing in the world. If that’s your vote, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Until next time…

-Aimee

PreOrder Little Gray Dress here.

Authors – This is SO important, NEVER pay for #BookReviews

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule out there. In this case, it’s OK to pay for a review from an organization like Kirkus Reviews or to upgrade your Readers Favorite review. BUT, as far as book bloggers go, they NEVER charge for a book review. NEVER. (say it with me, NEVER!)

There are times where they may charge for a service, such a book tour or custom graphics but NOT book reviews. What don’t they charge for again? (now you yell, BOOK REVIEWS!)

I’ve been a (no charge) book blogger for a long time. Don’t get me wrong, I have rules, but charging for a review is not one of them. Receiving the book free of charge is enough of a payment for me (and most other book bloggers as well). I have taken a break from book blogging for now but when I was my review policy was very clear on what was accepted and what wasn’t. When I would get a suspicious or misnamed email from an author who clearly didn’t read my policy it went directly into the trash file. (Sorry, it’s the brutal truth. My info is easy to find, if you can read a one-page policy, I can’t spend 10 hours of my time reviewing your book.)

A book blogger emailing an author requesting to review their book isn’t completely out of the ordinary. But, if you receive an email that is ‘off’ as if they didn’t even try to find out more about you, they don’t list the name of your book, they don’t email you at your email address or know much about you or your book, that’s a red flag.

NEVER ever send your book or eBook file to someone without fully checking them out (and maybe asking around). I admit I’ve had a few bad seeds approach me here and there even as a book blogger. It’s completely OK to ask a possible reviewer/blogger for more information while you make your decision.

It’s a little bit amazing to me that anyone will even attempt to charge an unsuspecting author, especially when they do it in a secretive, dishonest way (like mentioning that they charge for reviews ‘after’ you’ve sent them the book) and have someone purchase it. It’s a HUGE no-no on Amazon as well.

When reviewers are paid to write a review for an author it hurts everyone. It hurts the buyers because they are being duped into buying a book that isn’t what they thought as far as quality goes and it dupes other legit book bloggers because book blogging isn’t an easy job. It takes hours and hours of our time and then to have someone who will accept money, well it pretty much devalues bloggers as a whole. You know, the whole one bad apple ruins it for everyone, thing. It also dupes the authors who work so hard to follow the rules that Amazon has set.

There are probably tens of thousands of book bloggers on the interwebs specializing in every single genre available and then some. Here are my suggestions when looking for book reviewers/bloggers.

Check out their website.

–Whether you found them on social media, through a referral or even through one of the links I’m adding below, GO to their site and spend some time. Read some of their reviews, check out their about me page and without a doubt READ their review policy.

Follow them on Social Media.

–Follow them on social media and get to know them a bit. Most bloggers are super chatty and talking books is their specialty. Careful though, you may never shut them up.

What authors want you to know (but might not want to say it).

 

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Her book isn’t even out yet and she thinks she’s an expert.‘ Ah… judgemental much? You’re right, my book isn’t out yet, technically. What you might not realize though is that I’ve been working with authors by way of running a book blog, book tour company and author assisting for a couple of years now. I’ve worked for a publishing company, and I’ve done a lot of marketing for a lot of people. You also might not realize that marketing a book doesn’t start on publication day. It starts many, many months (years, preferably) before your books release day.

I know a lot of authors and I read a lot of what those authors are frustrated with, don’t understand, wish was easier, the list goes on and on. I’ve done a lot of research and studying to learn the publishing industries, that seriously change weekly. I haven’t stopped researching just because I am being published. In fact, that might have made me worse. Now MY writing career depends on knowing what the hell I’m doing.

Here is what I know.

–We don’t beg for Amazon reviews because we want to. We beg because our rankings on the bestseller lists, depend on them.

—–Author’s don’t just request readers to review their book so that nice things will be on the Amazon page. Well… we do, but that’s only part of it. Supposedly, Amazon has different ‘levels’ that your book can reach only through certain numbers of reviews. I say supposedly because there is a load of all kinds of good and bad information out there.

Here is what I’ve ‘heard‘.

–10 reviews will allow Amazon to put you in the ‘other people also bought’ lists on products.

—–That’s HUGE. You want to be in those recommendation lists. I know when I search for books I go through those lists gazillion times.

–50 reviews will allow Amazon to feature you in its newsletters and such.

—–WHAT? So, without 50 reviews it’s basically us authors just screaming at our great-aunts to get their asses down to the senior center to pimp out our books.

          Here are a few more things that I know.

–Anyone can review a book, even if you didn’t buy it. 

—–So, for those of you too damn cheap to buy the book we literally spent months writing, get your little fannies over to Amazon and leave us a review. It’s seriously the least you can do. It’s pretty hard to make a ‘bestseller’ list when the readers are borrowing from their friends. Reviews will make up for that!

—–There is, of course, a ‘guideline’ for non-verified purchase reviews. Amazon has all sorts of reviewing rules that don’t fall under Monica Gellar’s ‘rules help control the fun’. In this case, Amazon is just being a pain in our ass at times by controlling how ‘close’ you can be to someone without having your review removed. Amazon’s new rule is that the reviewer has to have at least purchased $50 of some kind of merchandise via credit/debit card in order to review. And Amazon Prime doesn’t count.

–Liking reviews mean more to Amazon. 

—–They for some reason consider those reviews ‘better’ than the ‘unhelpful’ ones. So, if a review was great, like it!

–$3.99 for an eBook is NOT too much (which means any price under that isn’t either).

—–Come on, you pay more than $2.99 for a cup of coffee, a pack of toilet paper, an iPhone app you’ll use once. Yet, there are STILL people out there who COMPLAIN that it’s too much! Really? Do you have any idea how much work, time and skill it takes to write a book? No? Well, I can guarantee it took a hell of a lot more than it took that 17-year-old Starbucks barista to whip up your coffee & write your name wrong on the cup. And yet, you’ll even tip them.

–Authors LOVE to hear from readers! So, send that email and tell them what you wish you could say.

—–I absolutely love seeing people posting on my Facebook page telling me they bought the book, they want to buy the book, they just received it in the post, they love this part and hate that person. I LOVE IT!

—–It’s so hard to put yourself out there for the whole world to judge you. A book is just that. Basically, I’ve given you a physical piece of me and you are allowed to tear the shit out of me for it if you feel so inclined. Don’t be one of those people who only announces the bad things. Announce the good! We love to hear it.

—–We are just regular people who sometimes need a pat on the back to remind us that what we’ve created isn’t total shit. Or if you simply need to tell us that you fell in love with a character and would like to see more, by all means, send that shit over. I’m pretty sure we could use all the ideas we can get.

–You are not entitled to a ‘free signed copy’ just because you once knew the author.

—–And here’s why… very few of us are with publishers big enough to send us all the books to giveaway that we’d like. Trust me, when I say, we’d love to send all of our second cousins twice removed, their own signed copy of our heart, but it just isn’t attainable. Most of us are indie or with small publishers and we have to buy the books we want to give away. So, when we buy them, sign them and then hand them over to you, we are losing money. Us asking you to spend less than $20 on us is us asking you to help us pay the electric bill, or get that new laptop we need to write.

—–Say my brother paints houses for a living and I need my house painted. Would it be OK for me to ask him to do it for free, or even for some deep discount? No. That’s his business and in order for him to feed his twenty-seven kids, he needs even the people close to him to pay and not hold a grudge.

–MOST authors are not rich just because they have a book out.

—–Yeah, there is the exception every now and then but likely the author you know, isn’t even close to rich. We are just regular Joe’s doing what we love. They call them ‘starving artists’ for a reason. Artists may be hella talented, but that doesn’t mean they’re having caviar and flame nin gon for every meal. Probably they are stocked full of Cheerios, Top Ramon, and 1 ply toilet paper.

—–If authors have nice things, it’s because they worked for them. Writing isn’t easy, if it was, everyone would have best-selling books. Cut us a break, a book out is not much different than that yearly expense report you’ve been working on all year. You might get a raise if you do well, we may write another book if ours even sells 150 copies in a year.

–We hate asking people to buy our books. And we never know if we’ve crossed the ‘we’re annoying the shit out of you’ line.

—–Imagine that in order to pay your bills you must convince the entire world to buy your homemade product. You love it, it’s well made, you spent a lot of time on it and other people should love it as much as you do. But, money is hard to come by now and people want to be SURE they’re getting a good deal. Even if your product is only .99 it’s not as easy to sell it as you’d think.

—–The last thing we want to do is annoy someone. So, we can’t just consistently post ‘please buy my book’. A lot of writers don’t even particularly like people at all, yet sitting back and avoiding life isn’t going to sell our book either. We have to be vocal and do a lot of talking. We have to be crafty with our marketing ideas so that you don’t even realize we’re marketing.

—–We want to talk about the book but questions like ‘what is your book about?’ are difficult to answer. Have you ever read a book that had ONE plot point? Probably, to your child, when they were three. Novels don’t have one thing that they are about. If we tell you the one thing we find the easiest to explain, you’ll need to know that other thing that led us there and then you’re going to ask if so and so gets their happy ending and if we tell you that then why the hell would you ever buy the book. It’s kind of similar to the old phrase ‘why buy the cow if they are giving the milk away for free?’.

—–We don’t want to say this to you out loud but we are DESPERATE for you to share our book posts, like/comment/and share our author FB page posts (so more than just the 17 people Facebook has deemed worthy enough see them), retweet our sale tweets, and tell every single person in your life that we have a book out, it’s good and where to buy it. WE DON’T WANT TO ASK, WE JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW TO DO IT.

—–I’ve done a little study since my book went on preorder (I’m seriously all about the research) and when a friend or family member, hell, even an acquaintance, makes a big deal out of their thoughts on the book, or even that they’ve received it in the mail, on social media that my sales shoot up within the hour. It could only be 2 new sales or it could be 10 new sales. But more people care when someone else mentions it.

Ok, so I’m going to leave you with this. I’d love to do more but I’ve already written an entire manuscript as it is. I’d LOVE it if you took the time to share this post (yup, I’m asking) and comment on the questions below.

Authors, what do you wish you could tell readers that you feel is not OK?

Readers, what do you wish you could say to authors?

The 1st installment of ‘Irritations with Aimee’.

Howdy!

I’m not an angry person, I swear it. I just don’t tolerate stupidity very well. I used to handle it just fine. In fact, I think I may have been a bit oblivious to the level of stupidity that exists in our world. Then, I started working in healthcare. Whoa. A single twelve-hour shift in the ER in any state will have you wondering how half of the planet lives through the day. I can’t count how many WTF moments I used to have when working at hospitals.

So, I’ve decided to take a couple annoying little details in life and write a weekly post. Probably they will be things that annoyed me the week before. Or maybe it’s something that came up while writing that I feel the need to express. If you have suggestions, I’d LOVE to hear them in the comments below!

Readers… are awesome!

I’ve been a reader for decades. Truly there isn’t a better feeling in the world than walking into a bookstore FULL of exciting new worlds, friendships, and romance. I could browse a bookstore literally for hours on end (which is probably why my husband and kids never want to go with me).

Living in Helena, Montana, I don’t have a lot in the way of bookstores. We have two tiny independent stores but nothing will ever compare to Powell’s Books in Portland Oregon. When I lived in Portland I would visit Powell’s sometimes weekly and just wander. How did I ever decide? Sometimes I’d just grab a pastel binding and take my chances (I found Younger by Pamela Redmond Satran this way back in 2009?).

It’s so weird to now be on the author side of the book world. Being tagged in social media with excited readers thoughts, photos or praise is��a mix of feelings that are absolutely out of this world. I love it that people love the book as much as I do. I really love getting those requests to hurry on the sequel or to please write a book about a certain character (I am!).

I think every new author has that moment during preorders or just before release date where they wonder if what they wrote is really any good at all. Obviously, we liked it but will anyone else? It’s a valid concern for anyone who puts their imagination on the line and creates anything.

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Never in a million years did I expect to have such amazing friends from all over the USA (and the world for that matter). Look at these gals (Katie (my sister!), Brook, Sonya, Maggie, Lori, & Joy) who’ve sent me their pics with Little Gray Dress. They’re all nearly as excited as I am! WOW!! Thank you ALL for buying the book, reading it and giving such amazing feedback. There are so many more that aren’t pictured here that I’m so thankful for. Y’all are the definition of a true friend.

It’s super hard to put yourself out there and post your book links, hoping you don’t annoy people and that maybe they’ll one click the book that contains a piece of your heart. AAAHHH… nothing has ever been so nerve wracking!!

Preorders are hard to sell, and it’s likely because people don’t understand them. Why Preorders are SO Important by Kim Hooper, is an amazing post explaining why preorders are so important for authors. Read the article HERE.

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If you’d like to pre-order Little Gray Dress you can do that below:

eBook –��myBook.to/LGDeBook��| print book –��myBook.to/ppbkLGD

Did you pre-order the book? I’d love to add your face to my thank you posts. Tag me on any of the social medias with your copy of the book and the hashtag #LittleGrayDress – to be entered into an amazing release month giveaway (an Amazon GiftCard and a swag prize pack from me!)

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