Neil D. Ostroff's Blog, page 19

A week not writing

My latest novel is off to my formatter and should be ready for sale in a few days. I’m ready to go with publicizing it once it is live and plan on doing all that right after Christmas. It’s been nearly a full week that I haven’t written any new fiction material. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing (I wrote the back jacket copy for IMAGINATION and I am posting this blog) just not doing the kind of writing I love most. Though I have been marketing and will continue to reserve sponsorships, I still find I have an extraordinary amount of free time when I used to be writing. I know, those of you with kids are cursing me right now because you probably would love a little free time. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s like someone who suddenly quits smoking and realizes that the habit had occupied two hours a day. When you’ve had a writing routine for the twenty-plus years that I have, this sudden change can be jarring. Since my mind is so attuned to being creative in the morning I find it hard to concentrate on the business aspect of being an author before the noon hour. Since my planned three month marketing blitz started, I have been selling more books, but I’ve also noticed that I’m not as happy and inspired. I don’t wake with that anticipation of creating a new scene or tweaking an existing one. I’m not longing for dreary, rain-soaked days where I can lounge all day in my jammies and write without the guilt of sitting inside. Essentially, I miss the creative writing process. Though I don’t start a new novel unless an idea comes to me that just won’t leave, I’m already thinking about a few outlines I might draw up. Maybe scribble some ideas. For me, this last week has been unusual in the sense that I feel a bit out-of-sorts not working on something. I may have to lift my self-imposed ban.
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Feeling disconnected

Once again, I’ve reach the elusive milestone of finishing a book. My latest novel (my eleventh to date) is now complete and awaiting the formatting process. The novel took exactly 374 days from first sentence until the final read. A lot has happened in the past year and a lot of changes have taken place both in my life and the world. So, as I sit here on this first day of non-novel writing I find myself feeling quite odd and at a loss of how I should spend my morning. I could market and promote, but that is usually an afternoon activity done after my mind already squeezed out the creative juices for the day. I could answer emails. Again, something I usually do later. This lack of focus always happens to me when I’m not working on a book, a feeling of disconnectedness. Without a few hours writing and living in my imagination, the day takes on an oddity of unfinishness (artistic license with this word) like not having brushed your teeth in the morning. I know I stated that I wouldn’t start another book for at least three months so I could concentrate on promoting the ones I have out, but I’m finding it difficult to go even a few hours without working on a story. It seems I’ve forgotten the trick to having a normal morning. My latest, IMAGINATION will be out in a week or so and my next one after that… perhaps in 374 days.
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The ‘ah ha’ moment!

If you read my blog you know I’ve been dealing with some family health issues related to the dreaded C. Doing my final read for IMAGINATION has helped ease the boredom of fifteen-hour hospital room waits. Of course, waiting is nothing compared to what the patient must endure. It was during one of these interminable waits that I had my sudden, ‘ah ha’ moment. I realized, as my wrist and fingers grew sore from typing on my laptop sitting literally on my lap, that I’ve spent my life writing novels which have gotten great reviews and moderate sales, but I have put forth minimal effort to really hit it big. I’ve done all the free promotion sites you can think of and even purchased a few sponsorships (the last yielding fairly good results) but I’ve never taken the gut-tossing risk that is so necessary for an individual to rise above the crowd and get noticed. I’ve never gone to a book signing, or given a speech at a school assembly, or rented a booth at a book convention; I’ve never gotten aggressive in selling my books. That’s all about to change! Sitting in that hospital waiting room hour after hour I realized that life is too short. I want my books to get read! I want to get noticed! I’ve decided the time has come to risk nearly everything on my talent. Therefore, I dedicate 2013 as my year to hit it big. I’ve already booked two full weeks of sponsorships with KND and Kindle Boards for various books and I plan on booking several more once I get out of this waiting room and can figure a schedule to promote the sponsorships. And once IMAGINATION hits the world in a few weeks, I plan a huge budget on that one. Am I going to risk my life savings? No. But I am going to give promoting my books everything I’ve got for one solid year. No more wasting time idly waiting for it to happen. Time is too precious.
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Awesome promotion!

Please check out my latest novel. It's book of the day on Kindle Fire Department.
Thanks.
http://fireapps.blogspot.com/2012/11/...

Absolute fun!

I’m at the absolute most fun time in the novel writing process for me. The plot of IMAGINATION is complete and tight and coherent. The characters have all been fleshed out and the settings are all detailed. Now, I spend the next few days reading fast and tweaking the tiniest details. Once that is complete I give one final, very quick read and send it off to my editor/formatter. I just contacted my cover artist and we are about to begin the process of designing a cover. I have a tagline for the book and now just need a pitch. I’ll be working on that next week. If everything works out the book should be available nationwide by Christmas. Then I’m going to take a few months break, maybe rewrite my previous novel WASTED, but mostly concentrate on marketing and promoting. Up until the last two months my sales were steadily increasing every week and I was getting a lot of attention on blogs and writer’s sites, but ever since I became “obsessed” with finishing my latest book, my sales have dropped for the others. I must admit it is hard to see the numbers go down, but alas, I know that it is my own fault for not keeping up with the level of self-promotion that I had maintained the last eighteen months. It’s always tough as a writer to juggle the joy of creating with the drudgery of promoting. Don’t get me wrong, some people love the limelight and all the attention thrown upon them when promoting. I personally like nothing better than curling up in front of my computer on a day when Mother Nature intended for us to stay indoors and live in the worlds I create in my mind. But that’s just me.
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Pricing

I’ve been reading a lot of threads lately about Amazon and Kindle and how Amazon is changing the algorithms to promote books that are more expensive. It makes good business sense if you think about it. You need to sell five ninety-nine cent books or just one five dollar book. If you put equal amount of promotion into each book, naturally the five dollar book will make more money if both books benefit equally from the same amount of promotion. Make sense? There is also the ‘perceived value’ aspect of book buying. People will eagerly download free books because, well, they’re free. It doesn’t matter if they’re terrible. But I think people who download a ninety-nine cent book opposed to a five dollar book will have the preconceived notion that the five dollar book will be better and the ninety-nine cent book may have some flaws. So, on January 1st 2013 I will be raising the price of my books to $2.99 each. I believe my novels are worth the price since they’ve all been through the ringer professionally, gotten great reviews, and have been edited by some of the best in the business. Check out the free sample chapters on Amazon. Also, a great free promo service called Indie Spotlight if featuring DROP OUT today as its book of the day. If you’re an author and would like your book spotlighted you should send Ricki (the webmaster) an email. Here’s the link to mine: http://www.rickiwilson.com/4/post/201...

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Holidays are coming!

I’m just amazed at the number of Kindle and Nook ads that I’m seeing on television. It seems just the other day that people were scorning ebooks as a fad that would never take off. Well, guess what? People were wrong. Kindles and Nooks are selling by the millions now. I foresee a near future where paperback books, like music CD’s and large boomboxes, will be an oddity, a relic from the past. Now, I’m not talking about coffee table books and photography books, and the book as a work of art. I’m talking about commercial fiction novels; the stuff I write. Every time a new ereader ad comes on television I smile, not because the world is turning to ebooks and I’ve got my ninth coming out in a few weeks, but because this new revolution in publishing is allowing talented introverts (like me) to write what we want in peace and without worry about the marketplace. If the story is good it will find its niche. Making a living as an indie author is a slow go and there are literally thousands more books available than ever before. The big-time publishing process is slowly eroding, but the new ebook revolution gives renewed hope to those writers who would never have endured the long, arduous road it used to take to publish a commercial novel in a major publishing house, only to have the book available for six to eight weeks and then disappear forever. So bring on the holidays, and new book buyers, and indie writers with stories to tell. Bring on the holiday travel (ugh!) and all that mess. And be sure to bring along an ereader to pass the time. And perhaps, check out what I write.
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In a year

I’ve been working feverishly lately trying to finish IMAGINATION by November 30th, but alas, it doesn’t appear that is going to happen (I’m about a month from completion). Between the damage from Superstorm Sandy and my wife’s cancer, my priorities have changed a bit. Had I finished the book on time it would have been a year to the day that I wrote the first sentence. When I first conceive of the plot of IMAGINATION (What if everything we perceive, all that we experience, is just a figment of someone else’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?) I had wanted to start it the first week of January 2012, but the call of the story was too great and I started it a month early. Now, nearly twelve months later, I’m doing the final edit and the story is complete. I’ve discovered that a lot can happen in real life in the time it takes to write a novel. A lot has changed in my life since I started the book and a lot has changed in my writing career since then. Last year I was selling a few dozen books a month and now that number has grown substantially, though my sales have dropped off lately because I’ve been spending more time finishing the new novel than I have marketing and promoting my others. I know I’ve missed a few great opportunities because I’ve wanted to write original material rather than sell my existing stuff. But sometimes, that’s just how it goes when you’re an artist. As I’ve mentioned, I do have three holiday promotions coming up on Kindle Nation Daily and Kindle Fire Department. Hopefully, that will get some buzz going again. I plan on a six-month promotion blitz when IMAGINATION is complete and have begun to budget for a slew of ads. Watch for them in the future.
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Changing the description

When you buy a book especially on the internet, what do you look for? Is it the cover that attracts you? The reviews? The description? The key to selling books is to have all three of these as plus’s. A good cover, good unbiased reviews, and a blurb that makes people want to look at the book. With ebooks, a consumer can’t take it off the shelf and feel its texture, skim through the pages, get a sense of the thickness and how long it will take to read. They must rely on the free sample pages and all the other fluff on the webpage to make their decision. Now, for me, there’s one book in my collection that just isn’t measuring up in sales as my others. That book is DEGENERATES. I know DEGENERATES is a book that will appeal mostly to guys and that seventy percent of readers are woman, so I knew I had that going against me, and the cover is a little grisly. But the reviews I’ve gotten both on Amazon and on various other sites have all been favorable. So, why isn’t it selling like I want? I’ve come to the conclusion that my blurb isn’t as good as it should be. It doesn’t compel you to want to read the book; it doesn’t spark curiosity. So, I’ve decided to change it. Simplify it. Cut the essence of the book down to its bare bones. Now, it may take several weeks for the new blurb to appear on book sites, so it may be a while before I can report if there has been a change in sales. But, I will. Here’s the new blurb, we’ll see how it does.
DEGENERATES - Beware dark alleyways and deserted streets at night. Don't talk to the handsome stranger sitting alone at the bar. Keep your children close if they play in the park. But especially watch out for City Café, that's where the degenerates are. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FFN5LY
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Superstorm

Superstorm
I finally received the insurance check to fix the damage left by superstorm Sandy. Though, I count myself among those lucky enough to still have their home, the storm did a bit of damage to the roof, gutters, and some interior stuff. A power surge blew my computer, erasing countless scraps of ideas and phrases. I know I should have backed them up, but I had so many I thought I take a full day to do it. That day won’t happen now. I also lost more than two weeks of marketing online, which as I’ve proven again and again, that much time away from writer’s groups can really affect sales. And it did. I’m way down for this month. There were also a few other promotional opportunities that I missed because of the power outages and disrupted services. But, now I’m back promoting and finishing up on my latest novel which stress from the storm has delayed. I’ve got roofer estimates coming out tomorrow and I’ve hooked up my laptop to my desktop system until I can get a new one. Okay world, I’m back!
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