Holly Hook's Blog, page 7
August 9, 2012
This Might Not Be Original, But…
Some may have noticed that the cover art for the entire Destroyers series is changing.
I’m trying something very unlike me: covers that are similar to a lot of other teen fantasy and paranormal books out there. No longer will I be having close-range, dim, creepy eyeball shots like I did before.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my old covers. But I didn’t love my continued low sales much, and I think I might have stumbled on a reason why they weren’t improving.
My old covers didn’t look much like teen fantasy books, which meant that it was likely that they were getting passed over without a second glance by many. That I discovered when I went browsing through the teen fantasy section on Amazon. There, I saw a trend among the teen fantasy books that were selling well. There were a few things that I noticed over and over again on these covers:
1.) A magical/fantasy/paranormal type font for the title. My old covers had a plain font in all caps.
2.) Bright colors or objects that contrasted well against a dark background were another common thing that I found. One had a glowing blue butterfly against a black background. Another had the outline of a white forest against a black sky, again with a magical-looking font.
3.) Half-face shots of girls, none of whom were smiling. While my old covers had this, they didn’t come with the magical font or a bright color like purple or blue. Outbreak’s cover was mostly black and brown, for instance. Note here that there was an exception for vampire books, which usually consisted of a creepy face lit against a very dark background.
4.) Probably the most common cover was that of a girl in a formal dress or gown (again with the magical font.) There were two kinds of dress covers: dark covers with a girl in a black dress and brighter covers for white, yellow, and blue gowns. The scariest sales rank I saw among these books was about 17,500 or so, which is still way outselling my 50,000 average for Inferno and Outbreak. Many of these books that I clicked in were in the top 5,000 at Amazon and some were even in the top 500. That usually equals hundreds of sales per day.
So a few days ago, I decided to do an experiment and try some covers that went with the dress-and-magical-font trend to see what happened. I decided to try Amazon first to see if they had any effects on my sales.
As soon as the new cover for Tempest went live, its downloads tripled.
Before yesterday, I was getting a little shy of 100 free downloads per day on Amazon, and maybe 1-2 sales per day for its sequels. In the last 24 hours, I’ve had maybe 300 free downloads for Tempest, so the new cover seems to be having a positive effect.
I probably won’t know how the sales for the sequels will be affected for a while yet. It might take some time for the free downloads to get readers interested in them. But, if this has helped my free book out some, it certainly isn’t going to hurt the rest of the series. My new covers might not be that original, but what works, works.
July 30, 2012
Rita Morse 2 now available on Kindle and Nook
Well, the title says it all. If you’re interested in picking up the second Rita Morse book, it’s now up for sale here:
July 28, 2012
Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor Now Publishing
I have finished edits today, so I have started publishing Treacherous Traitor. The Books page is being updated today, also.
Rita Morse 2 is now live on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/209330
I will be working to post it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but it could take up to a couple of days for it to appear on those sites.
Almost Done Editing
Because Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor has been pretty well beta read already, I am almost finished with the final edits. This means I might even be able to start releasing it this weekend. If I do, Smashwords will be the first outlet to carry it, and I will keep everyone updated as I progress.
July 25, 2012
Check out my new cover!
My new artist, John Ward (who was great to work with, by the way) has just completed my cover art for Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor. I have to admit that I really, really like this cover. Of course, I can’t explain much that you see here as I don’t want there to be any spoilers for the new release:
As for my actual book progress, I am almost done editing as far as I know. I’m doing one last read-through for typos and making some minor changes. I still plan to release around August 1, barring any emergencies.
July 21, 2012
Progress Update
The cover for Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor may be done as early as Monday! I’m very excited to see the cover art, and plan to unveil it early this week. All I’ve seen of it so far is Rita’s face, which is coming along nicely.
The fourth Destroyers book is now in progress, but may be a bit slower than Treacherous Traitor as I am writing this book completely from scratch. With the second Rita Morse book, I had an old draft in third person to work off of, which helped my writing speed along greatly. I still have some editing left to do, but I am still aiming for an August release if all goes well.
July 8, 2012
Rita Morse and the Treacherous Traitor now done!
Afer typing up to 10,000 words per day on the Rita Morse sequel and getting a sore wrist more than once, I am finally done.
Well, with the main writing part. I still need to do plenty of editing, as I just converted an old story from third person view to first person view. I’m sure there’s still plenty of spots I missed that say “she” instead of “I” and “they” instead of “us,” for instance. And a couple of parts where I feel like there’s too much talking. Plus, there’s the matter of obtaining the cover art.
I just discovered today that my cover artist for the first book isn’t able to take on any new projects right now, but I’ve just hired a new artist today. While I can get away with stock art for the Destroyers series as they’re all close face-shots with some kind of disaster in the background, that won’t work for the Rita Morse series, which requires more complex art.
I am still hoping to release in August, but of course that depends on the cover art and how much editing it turns out I need to do. In the meantime, I will begin working more on the fourth Destroyers book (hoping to make its progress bar less pathetic within a week or so) and my comedy novella which I’ve been claiming to be getting done for about two years now.
July 1, 2012
Here’s another contest for you to enter…
…and this one is to win a Kindle Fire! Simply head on over HERE, scroll down a bit, and fill out the entry form. I apologize for being unable to post the entry form right here on my blog, but WordPress doesn’t support it. There’s no cost to enter.
I am one of the many authors contributing funds towards the Kindle Fire, and am also offering a free copy of Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow as one of the prizes. (It wouldn’t make much sense to offer Tempest as it’s still free!) There are many other authors offering books in the young adult/middle grade categories as well.
Here’s the prizes:
Grand Prize: 1 FREE Kindle Fire with all authors’ books loaded on to it.
First Place: 1 FREE Kindle and with all author’s books loaded on to it.
Second Place: 10 FREE eBooks of their choice
Third place: 5 FREE eBooks of their choice
Remember, head over HERE to enter!
June 11, 2012
It’s time for a new giveaway! Enter to win a package of f...
It’s time for a new giveaway! Enter to win a package of free eBooks, including the Destroyers series! To enter, simply click the link here and scroll down to fill out the entry form.
You can also enter by clicking the image below:
June 10, 2012
Exciting News
Tempest just went free on Amazon a few minutes ago! If you’d like to check it out, or grab the second edition if you already have the first, be sure to head on over to its Amazon US sales page. It is still free on all other channels as well.
Also, writing has finally begun on the fourth Destroyers book. I’m only partway into the first chapter now, but that at least gets me over the hump of writing the first sentence. Also, I am progressing quickly on the second Rita Morse book and feel I’ve gotten somewhat unstuck on After These Messages, so I’m moving along on that project as well.
