Judith Post's Blog, page 95
April 20, 2017
NetGalley for reviews
My fifth Mill Pond romance is available for reviews on NetGalley now. Miriam is a high school English teacher who can stop a rebellious teenager with one raised eyebrow. Take her seriously! Joel’s daughter is nineteen, but will always be mentally twelve. He comes to Mill Pond to open a brewery. Will beer and literature make a perfect blend?
https://s2.netgalley.com/widget/redeem/111228_53734_149271355558f900535e47d_9781516101375_US
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April 15, 2017
Sagging
I’m not young anymore. Things that used to be perky…aren’t. Gravity takes its toll, and things shift and sag. The same thing can happen to your writing. The sales take a dive, and you have to work to lift them again.
When I got a publisher, I thought I could spend more attention on writing and less on marketing. Not so. Yes, Lyrical Shine lists my romances on their Facebook page and twitter. They create covers and do cover releases. For my first book, they did a great blog tour with Gallagher services http://gallagherauthorservices.com/author-assistant-services/. I got good feedback. For my second book, they only advertised on their own Lyrical sites, and that book fizzled and died. Any momentum I had disappeared. For my third book, I got excited because they were doing another blog tour, but this tour listed the book cover, a blurb, and the same excerpt at every site. People yawned after the second one and disappeared. For my latest book, SPICING THINGS UP, they did the bare basics. It was sad.
I still like working with Lyrical, but I learned a valuable lesson a little too late. Even if you have a publisher, you’d better have a plan in mind to promote yourself when you’re a new author with little or no name recognition. And hopefully, you’ll have a book cover that grabs readers’ attention. When I self-published my urban fantasies, I never sent a bundle/book out into the cold, cruel world without paying for some kind of advertising. Sometimes I’d go the $20 or $30 route, and once I went for broke and used BookBub. NOTHING beats BookBub. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to get BookBub to accept you, and it’s expensive. But I more than earned out what it cost. Using it when you only have one book online is a risky proposition. It’s useless if you make the book free. How will you earn back any money? But if you have a series, it’s awesome! At least, it was for me and my writer friends. I had a lot of luck with the Fussy Librarian, but it did nothing for my friends. The type of genre you write makes a big difference on which site is best for you or not.
I can’t set the prices of my books on Lyrical, so can’t offer sales or specials on my own, so I’m going to try a different tactic this time. I paid $65 to start a blog tour with something original on each blog, using Goddess Fish Promotions. http://www.goddessfish.com/services/virtual-book-tours/ They’ve been every bit as nice to work with as Maggie Gallagher. I chose a little different approach. I’ll be featured on a different blog each Tuesday for 8 weeks. It’s an experiment. I don’t know what I think works best yet, so it will be interesting to see what happens. And yes, once April 25th comes, you’ll be pestered by me every Tuesday for a couple of months. And I’ve answered more questions than I’ve answered for a long time.
Every writer writes for different reasons and has different expectations. I know some wonderful, talented writers who are happy just putting their books on Amazon and hoping people find them. That’s fine. If you want to build an audience, though, advertising has worked better for me than other things I’ve tried. Social media helped until I switched to romance. There wasn’t much carry-over. Urban fantasy readers aren’t impressed with kissing. I get it. Kickass battles don’t compare to relationships and angst. But if you want to find readers for the genre you’re writing, advertising can help.
If any of you have any methods/tricks that have worked for you, and you want to share, I’d love to hear them. In the meantime, have a great Easter/Passover/holiday and happy writing!
April 10, 2017
Chapter 8
Just letting you know that I posted chapter 8 of Bruin’s Orphans on my webpage.
http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/
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April 8, 2017
Mysteries
Writers can end up talking about and researching strange things. When I write mysteries, though, I always hope no one tracks the history of the sites I visit. For instance, my character dug a hole near a septic tank–so no one would get suspicious why he was digging a hole in the first place, and then dumped a body in it. Six months later, the house has sold and the toilets aren’t draining right, so another person digs near the septic tank and finds the body. Question is: what will it look? Answer: not at all like the body my protagonists found stashed in the attic–which was above ground and protected. Hence the working title: The Body in the Attic. But when I read the first chapter to my writers’ group, they all had different ideas of what dear Lynda’s remains would exactly be. Would the clothes still be intact? The hair? Would her skin and flesh have dissolved or mummified? Would the pillow under her head be stained from when her flesh liquefied?
How I love my writer friends! They didn’t blink an eye while they discussed how bodies decompose or dessicate–as Lisa Black explains in her book THAT DARKNESS. A fellow writer in my group is working on a much more grisly mystery than mine and needed to know how long a body can hang in woods before the neckbone gives out and the head and body drop and roll in different directions. Oh, the possibilities!
I bought Lisa Black’s book THAT DARKNESS, because she’s a forensic scientist and I thought she’d HAVE to make me start thinking about stuff I usually try to avoid. And I was right. It reminded me of when I went to a big mystery conference in Chicago and a coroner gave an hour and a half workshop on finding clues when studying dead bodies. He brought slides of entry wounds and exit wounds. A bullet goes in small, but exits big. Unless it’s a .22, and then it might just bounce around inside the skull. (Black used that in her book, but the coroner had already warned us about it).
Black’s book concentrates on crimes and forensics, so it was fun to read–unless you’re squeamish. I want my book to concentrate more on characters but with realistic clues to the murders. Black’s book has lifetime criminals and cops and forensic scientists. Her characters work with crime day after day. Professional criminals do WAY worse things than the killer in my book. He’s an amateur with amateur detectives finding clues they don’t want to. My book will have a totally different feel than hers. On purpose. But I’m so glad I read hers. Details make a difference. And she’s a professional, so her details drive the story. When she has to cut off a dessicated finger to soak it long enough that she can get prints, you believe her. And that’s awesome!
April 7, 2017
See? Another one! Great marketing!
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April 6, 2017
April 5, 2017
A Teaser
I have a new and different teaser for L.A. Reminicki’s book release for each day this week. I don’t know who created them for her, but I think they’re impressive. So impressive, I couldn’t decide which one to use, so I decided to use them all. I’m jealous. When a new book of mine releases, I get a book cover and a banner, never anything like this. Just wait until Saturday and you get to see them all. Yowza!
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April 4, 2017
L. A. Reminicki
[image error]I’m so honored to help spread the word that today’s the release date for fellow local author L. A. Reminicki’s novel WHERE THERE’S FAITH. Maybe you’ve met her at one of the Author Fairs at the main library or at a writers’ meeting at the south Barnes and Noble book store. It’s great for local authors to support one another, so here’s the info on her book:
Small-town romance with a paranormal twist!
Where There’s Faith, Fairfield Corners Book 3
By L.A. Remenicky
Release date: April 4, 2017
A past she can’t remember. A love he can’t forget.
After hitting rock bottom, Robert Newlin embraced sobriety and tried to live his life quietly and alone at his family’s lake cottage. Blaming himself for the accident that claimed his wife and unborn baby, he spent most of his time alone and grieving until Faith moved into the cottage next door.
Faith McMillan had no memory of her life before that day three years ago. The physical scars had faded but the emotional ones were still fresh and raw. Living rent-free seemed like a great way to finish her second book and would give her the time to figure out her next move. But then she met the reclusive guy next door.
Robbie and Faith – can two broken people who vowed to live their lives alone find happiness together?
Amazon: myBook.to/WTFaith
Goodreads: http://smarturl.it/FateSteppedInGR
#WTFaith #Romance
Author Bio:
L.A. Remenicky ~ Love Stories With A Twist
L.A. Remenicky is a wife and mother of two fur kids. An avid reader all her life, she finally put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) during NaNoWriMo in 2012 and has never looked back. When she’s not typing away on her latest story with music playing in the background, she can usually be found spending time with her family and friends.
Email: LARemenicky@LavishPublishing.com
Website: http://www.laremenicky.com
Blog: http://laremenicky.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laremenicky
Google+:http://www.google.com/+LARemenickyauthor
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/remenickywrites
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7191202.L_A_Remenicky
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/laremenicky/
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/laremenicky
Facebook Street Team/Fan Group ~ Remenicky’s Remenions: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1425708337682216/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/remenickywrites
Newsletter signup: https://www.laremenicky.com/contact-subscribe/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/l-a-remenicky
April 2, 2017
Fort Wayne could lose something worthwhile
The Playwright Festival Discontinued
4/2/2017
The Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival, a venue where playwrights with Hoosier ties had the opportunity to submit new plays and have them adjudicated and/or selected for either a production or a reading is being discontinued because of a lack of funding. For the last eight years, the Festival has been a part of the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre membership subscription program. This disappointing news can be reversed if some, or one, annual sponsors can be found.
The 8th Annual Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival closed its weekend festivities with the production of the first place winning play “One Foot in the Gravy” by Howard Kingkade. Originally from Hammond, Indiana, Kingkade studied Theatre at IU, and his madcap comedy with outrageous antics and exaggerations will keep audiences laughing. Other plays selected for readings were Rebecca Cameron’s “The Unpredictability of Fire and David Edwin Rousculp’ “My Dead Clown.
At the end of the workshop/feedback, Director of the Civic Theatre Phillip Colglazier told the assembled people – mostly writers and theatre aficionados—that he too was disappointed to announce the Festival was being discontinued because, as he said, “it was my baby.” My husband and I looked at each other in dismay. Although I haven’t submitted to the Festival for several years now because I haven’t had the time to write anything new, we supported the event by attending all the readings, workshops, and productions.
There are so few places in this area where playwrights can submit their works. Janet Allen, Executive Artistic Director of Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis, discussed the difficulties new playwrights have getting their works produced. She pointed out that many get readings, but production opportunities are bleak. One main reason for this is that theatres have to pay their bills, and stage plays generally don’t fill the seats like musicals do. Allen said musicals become addictive for audiences. If a theatre produces one musical, they get requests for another and then another and another.
Next year’s lineup for the Civic is—“Beauty and the Beast,” “Jekyll & Hyde,” “White Christmas,” “LaCage,” “Buyer & Cellar,” and “A Tribute to Rodgers & Hammerstein.” These productions will pay bills—lights, insurance, tickets, marketing, personnel, and a myriad of other necessary expenses because, as one person commented, “people attend musicals.”
So, stage plays often get short shrift. Audiences will attend comedies by known writers such as Paul Simon because they “know what they’re getting.” Same with Shakespearean plays, but taking a chance on a new play by an unknown playwright is iffy. “One Foot in the Gravy,” won’t disappoint, however. I hope Kingkade, an Associate Professor at the U of SC at Lancaster, will find his first place winning play accepted and performed in many places from now on. I also hope someone with deep pockets or some philanthropic foundation will offer to underwrite the Festival—say to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year. It would be a fine legacy. Hummmm. Actually if four people were to pledge five thousand, the festival might be able to continue. Talking about this to a friend, she offered five on the spot. “I’m feeling generous,” she said. “I received an inheritance I wasn’t expecting.” That’s it. By far the best solution would be for some Foundation or company to underswrite the project.
Who out there is willing to fund or help fund a Playwright Festival?
