Lori Brighton's Blog, page 11

In The News....

I keep getting emails about The Mind Readers, so I'm going to keep you updated here about the series.

As some of you may know, most authors have an agent who sells their books to N.Y. I did have an agent for awhile, but she didn't work out. We parted ways and for a long time I had no agent. That's what was great about self publishing, you don't need an agent.

But just recently I got a new agent at Trident Media. She enjoyed The Mind Readers and wants to try and sell it to N.Y. so it will be out in print. The only problem with N.Y. is that they work rather slow compared to self publishing! But the good news is that if it sells it will be out in print, as many of you have asked for. She is having me make some very minor changes, mostly adding a couple scenes. Even if it doesn't sell to N.Y. I'll upload the new version and still write book two as an Ebook.

So there's where I'm at right now. I'm making the minor changes and going to send that to her. While she's looking it over I'll write up the synopsis (outline) for book 2 and 3. Then, she'll send it to N.Y. So there you are. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Meanwhile, I will still be self publishing book 2 for The Ghost Hunter and A Night Of Secrets.

Winners!

The winners of Wild Desire are...

Heather
JCP
StacieDM

Please email me your address so I can mail those asap.

And if you didn't win, no need to worry... you can visit author Ashley March's blog for another chance to win! And this weekend I'm giving out a two more copies (along with some other books) so come back in a couple days!

Wild Desire Release Day!

Today Wild Desire is out! Woohoo! It seems like it's been forever, but finally it's here! Read the Blurb below:

In what feels like a moment, Beatrice Edmund goes from being a proper lady cooped up in a stuffy Scottish castle to travelling miles from anything she's ever known, in the midst of the wildest adventure of her life. And at the centre of that adventure is the most infuriating, puzzling scoundrel on earth. She cannot take her eyes off him.

Colin Fitch cannot deny he's drawn to Beatrice - but lust is all he could possibly feel for the sharp-tongued minx. Still, if there's a chance she can help him stop the madman he pursues, he must withstand her obvious disapproval. Yet withstanding the longing he feels for her is growing more troublesome by the second. And Colin has never been terribly good at staying out of trouble.

You can definitely read Wild Desire if you haven't read Wild Heart. And if you like the Wild series, you have to pick up the anthology we wrote for charity, Kiss Me, Kill Me, because a short final novella for the Wild series is in there, Wild Passion! Read the short blurb below:

James is a treasure hunter intent on collecting a deadly, priceless statue. Then he meets Adelaide, a stubbornly beautiful and mysterious woman who knows more about the statue than she admits. Suddenly, James is tempted to give up everything for the one treasure he can't seem to own … Adelaide.

So, to celebrate I'm giving away 3 signed printed copies of Wild Desire and 3 Ecopies of Kiss Me, Kill Me! And remember, Kiss Me, Kill Me is only 99 cents and all proceeds go to charity!

New Releases!

Tuesday is the day! Wild Desire, the spinoff to Wild Heart ,will be available in print and Ebook format! Read the blurb below!

In what feels like a moment, Beatrice Edmund goes from being a proper lady cooped up in a stuffy Scottish castle to travelling miles from anything she's ever known, in the midst of the wildest adventure of her life. And at the centre of that adventure is the most infuriating, puzzling scoundrel on earth. She cannot take her eyes off him.

Colin Fitch cannot deny he's drawn to Beatrice - but lust is all he could possibly feel for the sharp-tongued minx. Still, if there's a chance she can help him stop the madman he pursues, he must withstand her obvious disapproval. Yet withstanding the longing he feels for her is growing more troublesome by the second. And Colin has never been terribly good at staying out of trouble.

But the Wild Series doesn't end with Wild Desire!

As I mentioned awhile back, I participated in an anthology with a variety of other self-published authors. This anthology called, Kiss Me, Kill Me, contains 9 paranormal romances! And there's something for everyone! Contemporary, Young Adult and even a Historical Paranormal. Yes, the historical Paranormal is mine! Wild Passion is a short, final installment to the Wild Series!

Even better, the anthology is only 99 cents and all proceeds from Kiss Me, Kill Me go to charity! The book is available on Amazon, Smashwords and will be on Barnes and Noble soon! Want to know more? Read the short blurbs by the authors below!


A Ghoulish Valentine by H.P. Mallory:
Dulcie O'Neil can't help her attraction to Knight Vander, much though she tries to fight her feelings. When she begrudgingly accepts his invitation to dinner and a movie, the last thing she expects is that she'll be defending herself against a cemetery full of hungry ghouls and one incredibly sexy man.

Cat Fight by Zoe Winters:
Cat Fight takes place in Zoe Winters' "PretVerse". Greta is a cat therian (shifter). She's been involved with Dayne, a local sorcerer since she sought his protection from her murderous tribe. After a fight, Greta shifts into cat form and refuses to come back out.

Impulse Control by Susan Bischoff:
In the world of the Talent Chronicles, kids born with supernatural powers are taken from their families and forced into government research facilities called State Schools. At one such school, a group of Talents must work together to stop a dangerous experiment that's already killed two of their peers and threatens others. If they're caught they face Detention, and Detention at a State School has a whole different meaning.

Wild Passion by Lori Brighton:
James is a treasure hunter intent on collecting a deadly, priceless statue. Then he meets Adelaide, a stubbornly beautiful and mysterious woman who knows more about the statue than she admits. Suddenly, James is tempted to give up everything for the one treasure he can't seem to own … Adelaide.

A Fairytale Ending by M.T. Murphy:
An unlucky actress discovers that there is no good and bad when it comes to vampires and werewolves, only bad and worse.

Blind Sight by Kait Nolan:
Isla's ability as a Seer has made her a life-long captive of a paranormal crime lord. Fae assassin, Ransom, offers her a chance at escape, but when she touches his hand she sees only blood, horror, apocalypse. What reason can Ransom have for wanting to rescue her, and can she possibly trust a man who deals in death?

The Sacrifice by Toni LoTempio:
After a chance meeting with the mysterious Alfred Barstow, Jennifer is swept off her feet by his whirlwind courtship of her, so much so that she accepts his proposal of marriage. Leaving her boyfriend Peter behind, she heads off to start a new life in California, unaware there's more to Alfred than meets the eye – and a sinister plot behind his proposal. The Sacrifice is a story about what happens when the man of your dreams turns out to be your worst nightmare…and then some!

Until the Breaking of the Day by Daniel Arenson:
The Underground. A realm of flame, blood, and knives in the dark.When its prince returns from exile, a young demon girl will learn his secrets.

If You Leave by Stacey Wallace Benefiel:
Despite their devotion to one another, Gabrielle and Jorge have been living separate lives. That is, until Gabrielle's life ends. Reunited and it feels so...complicated?

The Pricing Game

One of the most difficult things to figure out in this new self publishing world is what price to give your book. Forums are abuzz with ideas of ways for the author to make the most money at the right price. And the reason why authors are so excited about self publishing is that it has the possibility to make authors money...real money.

I've never made it a secret how little most authors make in N.Y. The majority get about 8% of sales. So Wild Desire will be out next week, hooray! It's priced at about $6.99 and I will make 8% of that 6.99 for each book sold. You don't need to be a math genius to realize that ain't much. 8% is typical. Sucky, but typical.

So how is self publishing better? Well, if you price your book at 2.99 or higher, the author makes 70% of that 2.99. Yes. 70% compared to the 8% you get with N.Y.

70% versus 8%... again, you don't need to be a math genius to see why the idea of self publishing is taking off at a dramatic rate. Because authors get such a great percentage, they can afford to have their books a little lower than N.Y. prices their books.

You may have noticed quite a few self published books priced at 99 cents and you might think that the author is still making a decent price. Think again. If you price your book below 2.99 you only make about 35% of royalties. So those authors who price their books at 99 cents are only making about 35% of that 99 cents. So why would an author price her/his books at 99 cents? I mean, if you think about it, the price is a little ridiculous. About 6 months of work for only 99 cents? But if an author's book isn't selling, pricing it at 99 cents can spur sales. If you're not making much money anyway, then dropping the book to 99 cents (even though you have to take a drastic cut), won't hurt much.

So just recently I dropped all three of my self published books to 99 cents. The Ghost Hunter has been my best seller, by far. The Mind Readers isn't selling so well even though it's gotten amazing reviews. And yes, I know A Night of Secrets hasn't been out long, but it was barely selling. So I took the plunge, deciding to see how the 99 cents would influence sales.

Results...

Oddly enough The Ghost Hunter isn't selling as many at 99 cents as it was at 2.99.
The Mind Readers sales have risen slightly.
Sales for A Night Of Secrets have taken off dramatically, selling so much that I can say lowering it's price to 99 cents has definitely been worth it.

As for The Ghost Hunter... not so much. Sales have either remained relatively the same or tapered off depending on the site. So what to do? Well, even though A Night of Secrets has started selling, its not enough to make up for the lowered price, lowered percentage and fewer sales of The Ghost Hunter. So The Ghost Hunter price is going back up. It's all a big pricing game and we're still trying to figure things out.

99 cents and 2.99 have become so familiar with self published books that some are starting to think that those two prices may do harm to sales. Many readers still have problems with self published books and if they see that 99 or 2.99 price perhaps they might avoid the book, knowing it's not N.Y. published.

Here's something else odd... when you drop your price to 99 cents you tend to get worse reviews. Why? We're not sure. Perhaps because you're getting more sales and so naturally you'll find more who don't like your book. Perhaps because when people see 99 cents they have preconceived notions that the book won't be good and have already made up their minds. Or perhaps because the reader wouldn't typically read that type of book, but only bought it because it was 99 cents. Who knows.

As more and more N.Y. authors are entering the self publishing world, be prepared to see self published prices on the rise. I've been listening to the chatter and many N.Y. authors aren't willing to price their books much lower than what N.Y. charges.

I sure as heck don't want to price my books too high, but I want to make money. I know that might sound greedy but my goal in life is to make a living off of writing. I haven't even come close. Hell, I haven't even made enough for it to be considered a part time job, even though I write and edit as much as a full time job. So who knows what my prices will end up being. For now I'm just testing the waters to see what works best for all.

Typoes...er...Typos

I have to admit something. It may come as a surprise... please bear with me...

I'm not perfect.

There. I've said.

I know, you're shocked. Some of you may be crying out in denial right now. Deep breaths, we can make it through this difficult time together.

As some of you may well be aware, one of my weak points is grammar. As you can imagine, this isn't good considering I'm self publishing and in charge of my own editing. There are some readers and writers out there who think that if you self publish it's your duty to make your book grammatical perfect.

Okay. Well, since no one in this world is perfect, there is no way that's going to happen. It's just not possible to write a grammatical error free book. And yes, I could hire someone to read my book for errors, but that would cost me a minimum for 300 bucks. Minimum. Add the (at least) 100 bucks for a book cover... and bam. No longer are my books 99 cents... or even 2.99. Just like N.Y. I'd have to up the price to make up for overhead costs.

Perhaps because I'm not a grammar aficionado, grammatical problems don't bother me. When I read a story and I'm into the story, it would take a missing sentence to pull me out. In some instances a missing page. And even then I'd probably just shrug and move on. But I am aware that for some, grammar problems are like the end of the world. All I can say is sorry; at this point I'm not willing to pay hundreds of dollars (that I may or may not get back) to try and catch them. If I ever start making more money, then yes, I might.

The great thing about self publishing is that there are no overhead costs and therefore we can price the books low. Dare I say it....sure, why not, it is my blog... where grammar is concerned, you get what you pay for. The downside with low-priced self published books is that they may not be as well edited as you'd like.

Just recently I purchased this wonderful thing called Text Aloud which reads your book aloud. Yes, the voice is very much like a computer, but it helps find those things like "heart" instead of "heat." And yes, I do have critique partners, but they have their own lives and can't read as fast as I can write. And, oh yeah, they're not perfect either and miss things.

I'm not complaining about the few people who have emailed to tell me of my errors. Relax. You ladies are fine. No hurt feelings and when you point out specifics, I'm actually grateful because I can fix them. But I am pointing to those people who mark self published books down because of errors.

If you want a professionally edited book then pay triple the price and buy a N.Y. book. There. I've said it. But don't expect those N.Y. books to be perfect either. In fact, Wild Heart had plenty of errors that my many N.Y. editors missed. Because, yep, that's right... not even N.Y. editors are perfect.

For now, just know that I do edit the books to the very best of my ability. I really do. But when you are as close to your work as a writer is, it's very hard to see typos. And before you become all offended, I'm talking about minor problems here. I'm not talking about books that are ridiculously problematic.

If you're the kind of person who notices every little thing, you might want to skip my books because I can guarantee you that they will have errors.

Now I have to go; America's Next Top Model is on :)

99 Cents!

I've lowered my YA, The Mind Readers, to 99 cents. Not sure how long it will be that way, but feel free to pass the info along!

Also, I've gotten a couple emails in which the person has typed their email addy incorrectly. At least I assume so since I can't respond. I want to respond, I do! So please make sure your email addy is correct if you want me to reply. And along the same lines.... I've been ridiculously busy lately, but that will taper off next week. So if you have contacted me about anything and I never responded, I'm so sorry and send me another email if you need to!

Here's my book... Now Give Me a Review

I was just chatting with a fellow author and we were discussing the fact that the success of books has somewhat to do with reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. When you go online you can't help but notice those damn stars next to the book you're thinking of buying. In fact, I noticed one day that in a review for my YA book the reader said she bought the book because of all the positive reviews. So its obvious reviews help.

I know of a lot of authors who ask for reviews from those people who have won their books, and I have once in awhile. But I'm from the Midwest and in the Midwest we are rather humble and maybe even a bit introverted. It's never sat well with me to basically say, "Here, you won my book, now give me a review." Imo, it sort of takes the fun away from winning the book. At the same time, an author relies so heavily on promotion and it's obvious the authors who have more/better reviews sell more. So what to do?

It's one thing to contact people and ask for reviews, but another to ask people who have won your book. But this is just my opinion. There are authors who will ask anyone and their readers happily oblige. But I want winners of my books to enjoy the win and not feel indebted. Perhaps I'm being silly and my sales will hurt for it, but it's just not natural for me to ask those winners.

One thing I did start doing (which probably goes against Goodreads rules and I'll end up getting kicked off) is that I've started messaging people on Goodreaders and asking if they want to review my book. This, I don't feel so bad about.

But I am curious about how you feel when you've won a book and the author asks you do review? Do you not care, you're happy to. Or do you feel indebted and put on the spot?

Winner!

Hi everyone! Hope your week is going well. The winner of Wild Desire, DayHunter, and When Good Wishes Go Bad is....

Mariee!

Please send me your mailing address!


So I noticed a review the other day on Goodreads in which the person gave one of my adult books a low score because it was "extremely inappropriate" and "it said paranormal romance, not pornographic romantic!"

I found this review a little surprising and a bit amusing, mostly because she's implying that paranormal romance is supposed to have no sex. If you're a reader of romance, and you've read my books you probably think they're typical, as far as the level of intimacy is concerned. Or, perhaps, even a little tame compared to a lot of romances out there.

The problem is that I think people are confusing Paranormal Romance with Young Adult Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. Romance has been around for a long, long time. Romance novels were in vogue before YA and UF. Typical romance novels have scenes of an intimate nature. Lots, in fact. So if you're going to buy a YA paranormal romance and don't care for those intimate scenes, make sure it says YA.

So yes, in my adult books there are scenes of an intimate nature. But you know what? If my book says its a romance, it is. That means that in my books, whether they're YA or Adult, my characters are in love and they are faithful to each other; that is the typical romance novel that has been around for decades. I do find it amusing that in the U.S. especially, we can read books in which people are murdered and tortured and no one bats an eyelash, yet throw sex in there (sex between two characters in love, no less) and suddenly the book is corrupting society.

To be fair this reviewer probably read my YA and grabbed my other book thinking it was another YA. If you've never read a true romance before, I'm sure they might be rather shocking. I remember reading my first romance at 16. Instead of being shocked, I was more intrugued. lol. I'm not angry at all at this reviewer; I find it more interesting, if anything. In fact, I blame myself for not using a different name to write my YA and I'm sure I'll get hate mail eventually from some angry parent saying I write porn. But I promise you that in the publishing world my books are not considered porn and in fact, are very typical for the majority of romance novels.

If they only knew what was really out there ;)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a wonderful day. Today is Valentine's Day for the U.S. Which means buying gifts and cards for those you love. Thinking about today made me curious as to how far Valentine's Day reaches. Is this merely a U.S. and perhaps European holiday? So, just out of c uriosity, if you're from another country, let us know if you celebrate the day! As with many of our holidays, the roots go back to Roman days and I'm sure you can find plenty of information on St. Valentine.



But here, now, I'm just going to give away some books! So leave a comment and 1 person will win a signed copy of my book Wild Desire, a signed copy of DayHunter (the second book in the Dark Days Novel), and a signed copy of When Good Wishes Go Bad.


The winner will be picked Wednesday!