Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 16
December 30, 2015
A few thoughts on goals for 2015, and more from Ygerna for #WIPpet Wednesday
It’s late in Central Europe, and I’m afraid I don’t have enough brain cells to do a serious accounting post this time around, checking off various goals that have been achieved, and putting off the rest for the next year / round / whatever. I’ll do that when I put together my new goals for the first quarter of 2016.
I missed last week, since we had visitors from the States, my lovely nieces. On Christmas, we took them to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for a true German experience. *g*
Hubby and...
December 27, 2015
Testing a new cover: Looking Through Lace #free until Dec. 29
Before things got really crazy around here, I tried to get various marketing gigs scheduled, among them a short free run for Looking Through Lace to test the cover. It’s free from Dec. 27-29 — and I think I can already declare the new cover by Lou Harper a huge success. I have done absolutely zilch so far in the way of promotion, and as of this writing, it already has 232 downloads. Those are numbers that I normally spend money to get. *g* I do have one Fiverr ad scheduled for tomorrow, for...
Late Happy Holidays! Oregon Elsewise #FREE through Dec. 28!
Christmas has been very busy around here this year, and I never got around to posting about my “Christmas present” to my readers. But it’s not too late! My themed story collection Oregon Elsewise is FREE until tomorrow, Dec. 28. As with the rest of my short stories, I will be taking it out of Select after the end of this run and going wide with it — so if you don’t have it yet, now is the time to grab it! My collections don’t sell on Amazon, but they do elsewhere (if only a copy or two a mont...
December 26, 2015
Book + Hook = Sales (Marketing Recipe for Authors)
Some very good ideas here.
Is your book full of hooks?
If you don’t understand the question, don’t worry. I’ll explain it shortly.
After I ask a different question.
Why did you read this article?
I realize that you haven’t committed yet. At any moment, you could walk away.
And so could customers when they check out your book. Remember that.
The hooks make the difference:
Did the title or image with this post grab your attention? Did it make a promise, like...December 20, 2015
First of her Kind by K. L. Schwengel #FREE through Dec. 23!
An online writing buddy with whom I’ve been sharing snippets for WIPpet Wednesday for some time now is offering a free book for the next couple of days!
Here’s the description for First of Her Kind:
Everyone, it seems, wants to dictate what Ciara does with her life: Serve the Goddess, destroy the Goddess, do as you promised your aunt. All Ciara wants is to keep the two magics she possesses from ripping her apart.
And that won’t be easy.
Not only are they in complete opposition to each othe...
December 16, 2015
More excuses and more from Ygerna for #WIPpet Wednesday
The last week has been filled up with marketing business and Christmas shopping, and my word counts have suffered accordingly. I had two 1000 word days in the last week, but I also had a couple with next to nothing, when I was formatting Looking Through Lace for Createspace, and everything else surrounding the new cover. The new ebook cover is now live, but the paperback is not yet available. I will let you know when it is.
I also managed to get a BookBub ad for Chameleon in a Mirror in the...
What Did Kindle Unlimited Pay for Pages Read in November, 2015?
Nice to see that the downward trend in payments is at least temporarily halted. :) And since I’m not really read in India, that’s not much of a concern.
Image from ShutterStock.
November, 2015 marks the first month that Amazon KDP is paying different royalty amounts in different countries for KENP pages read.
Here is the breakdown for November, 2015 by country:
United States: $0.00492 per page (US dollars). That’s an increase of 2.3% from...December 14, 2015
And the winner of the new cover for Looking Through Lace is …
After running various versions of the cover designs for Looking Through Lace past Facebook, my blog, and the cover voting site I’ve used before, we have a winner: looking through hair and stars! *g*
For those curious, here’s a breakdown of the various voting results:
Facebook: Hair – 9; Eye – 3; Hair with Grid overlay – 1
Voting site: Hair – 5; Eye – 2; Hair with Grid overlay – 3
Blog: Hair – 4; Eye – 4; Original cover – 3
I find the differences pretty fascinating. The readers of my blog n...
December 10, 2015
Last chance (for the foreseeable future) to get Dragon Time for free!
I’m slowly but surely taking my short story collections out of KDP Select, and this time it’s Dragon Time. But you have a few days to get it free, if you are so inclined. :)
Here the description:
A collection of four previously published fantasy tales by Ruth Nestvold: “Dragon Time,” “Wooing Ai Kyarem,” “To Act the Witch,” and “Princes and Priscilla.”
Dragon Time: In Unterdrachenberg, time has stopped. After the death of his queen, the dragon king is mad with grief. Only a human woman can e...
December 9, 2015
New covers for Looking Through Lace – please vote!
I just got two new cover designs from Lou Harper for my SF novella Looking Through Lace, and I would love some feedback!
Here is the description:
As the only woman on the first contact team, xenolinguist Toni Donato expected her assignment on Christmas would be to analyze the secret women’s language — but then the chief linguist begins to sabotage her work. What is behind it? Why do the men and women have separate languages in the first place? What Toni learns turns everything she thought...
