Kris Pearson's Blog, page 12

The Power of Three

What is it about trilogies? I’m involved in two right now.

Because it’s the end of the year my friend Annie Seaton in Australia is overseeing the production of several anthologies of holiday novellas. The first has just been released – from authors Susanne Bellamy, Nicole Flockton, and Dilys J Carnie.

       

You can read more HERE.              

In less than a fortnight, the second will be launched – with stories by Annie Seaton, Carla Caruso, and me. This one has a summertime beachy theme, and I’m having real fun with my contribution. I venture to suggest that very few romances feature a dead rat and a second-hand toilet - but I assure you both are very necessary to the plot! Oh dear, I can’t help myself, can I...

Anyway, my novella for this will be called ‘Surf + Sparks’, and I may one day use it as the start of a series called The Wynns of Scarlet Bay. So far Jason and Anna are not getting on at all well, and I don’t intend that they will for a while yet.

                                 

'Read and Review'

This is a new initiative by The Choosy Bookworm. They have a nice daily newsletter with books you might be interested in – and for authors and readers alike, they have their ‘Read and Review’ program.

It works like this: Authors who’d like publicity for their books buy a listing in the newsletter. So far, nothing revolutionary. But if we’re willing to give away 25 free copies of our book, we can apply for it to be tagged ‘R&R’. If Choosy Bookworm accepts it into their program, the first 25 people to express interest will be sent a copy, and in return they post a review (and to keep things fair they acknowledge they received a free book in exchange for their honest review.)

This is no different from sending copies to book bloggers, but the 'R&R' reviews have a lovely freshness about them. They’re obviously written by ‘real people’. Two of my volunteers were so keen to get a book they mis-spelled their email addresses, but we got those sorted!

I’ve been sending the free copies in the form of Amazon gift vouchers. This means they’re costing me the price of the book each time. On the flipside, they’re counted as sales to me, so I get my normal royalty back and the sales help the ranking of the book. So… about a buck a time.

ePerils

Two little stories for you – both about the amazing world we’re living in. Too fast, and without enough concentration, apparently!

I sent this email to friends in Derbyshire a few days ago because the remains of the most recent tropical hurricane had hit central England with quite some force.

Hello. We've been seeing incredible TV weather pix from over your way - including a waterfall in the Peaks District blowing upwards. Hope you're not getting too battered?

Love,

Kris. xxxx

I received a most surprising reply -

We r fine we r in bath xxx

Sent from my iPod

Goodness! They’re the same age as us. It’s a while since we’ve had a bath together (or admitted we had.) As the sheikh I’m writing about is currently having fun in the bath with his girlfriend my mind boggled a bit and I felt very grateful I‘d had a reply at all.

But had I got it wrong? Was the weather so bad they were sheltering in the bath like tornado victims do? Surely not. Stupidly, I asked.

This morning I received a reply headed ‘Home from Bath’. Yep – the lovely old English city of Bath. I needn’t have put my brain into overdrive after all, but a capital B in the first email would have helped…

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Here come de judge!

Writing competitions are a good deal all round. For starters you might win something really worthwhile – like the attention of a very good agent or editor if they’re the final judge.

Even if you don’t, the comments on your score-sheets can be wonderfully helpful – not least because of the anonymity. It’s all very well having a friend or writing buddy read your work and give opinions, but they have to look you in the eye when they say what they think. Contest judges – nope. They can tell it exactly as they see it – even if that might not be exactly as you wish to hear it!

Right now I’m one of the judges in the Great Beginnings Contest for Romance Writers of New Zealand. Three chapters and a synopsis – enough to get a good taste of the book and see how the author intends it to progress to the end. It’s so interesting seeing other people’s ideas… hearing their different ‘voices’… reading entries that vary from innocently amateur to polished and laugh-out-loud wonderful.

I have one entry that’s better than any published book I’ve read for ages. It’s going to be really tough finding anything to mark it down for. There’s another I’m picking is the work of someone at the beginning of their writing career. In it I can see some of the mistakes I made in the past so I’m treading gently, and I hope helpfully.

Writers' Cramp

No – not writer’s block. That’s easier to fix than what I've got.

I’ve hurt myself. And I did it writing. I thought it might be worth passing on the information because I’ve never been so sore in my life. You don’t want this!

When I was sprinting for the finish line writing ‘More than the Money’ I sat for an entire three-day holiday weekend. I was on fire – I love that book, and I think it shows. Incidentally I’ve just changed the cover photo because I found one that was even better than the one I first chose. Here’s my big cowboy, Rory, trying to persuade my shy heirless, Alfie, that he’s definitely the man for her.

              

So – back to the point: I sat for three days solid. My husband gave me peace and quiet, and brought me cups of coffee. I wrote and wrote, stopping only for a quick lunch and to cook dinner.  I raised my chair higher to type better, and used a foot-stool to keep my legs at what seemed like a comfortable angle. Comfortable, yes, but doing them no good.

To my surprise, I developed a limp. Ouch! This was followed by a lot of driving in my trusty Corolla because both my parents in law became sick. Corolla is low to sit in. More ouch. Then the New Zealand Romance Writer’s conference rolled around. GREAT conference, but several days’ more sitting - with just a quick shuffle between workshops. By now I could hardly walk.

This pre-order thing

What do you think of pre-orders for books? They’re popping up everywhere now, although effectively the big publishers have always played the system by buying a lot of books on launch day to ensure their top authors recorded good enough sales figures to appear on the best-seller lists.

Being able to ‘pre-order’ ebooks has exactly the same effect. The book is publicised as being for sale on x date, pre-orders are accrued until then, and on launch day all the sales are allocated to that title. This is great if lots of people have pre-ordered the book - it might end up quite high in the charts.

What do readers think though? All of a sudden you're being promised goodies you can’t have. Is this a turn-off? Authors are being encouraged by publishers to plan months in advance, and to put books up for pre-order before they’re even written. It pays to watch the date it’ll be available before you pre-order anything in my opinion.

I’m a ’want-it-now’ person. Even finding my Kindle needs recharging before I can read is enough to make me twitchy. When I find one of my favourite authors has a book on a long pre-order I’m slightly resentful. It might be enough to stop me buying it at all. Yes, I know – cutting off my nose to spite my face…

More surprises

This is a follow-on to last time’s blog. A lot of life has got in the way since then, including a wonderful romance-writing conference, more serious health scares for both my 90+ year old parents in law, and gratifying success for my third Spanish book. Let’s take them in order.

Remember I said last time that James Scott Bell was our keynote speaker at the annual conference of Romance Writers of New Zealand? His all-day craft workshop was wonderful, although he’d caught a nasty Australian virus on the way here. He coughed and shook, breathless but determined, and continued manfully on. We plied him with pills and tea and anything else we could think of because he was such a wonderful lecturer and such a nice man.

Even though he was plainly feeling terrible he attended the various social sessions as well. Here he is at the Saturday book-signing – looking a good deal livelier than I do.

A treat and a big surprise

Mid-August is the best time of my year. It’s the annual conference of Romance Writers of New Zealand – and this year we have the most amazing guests.

James Scott Bell is giving our big Friday craft workshop. We’re expecting to work hard!

Other visiting authors include Courteney Milan – she with the beautiful dresses on her covers. And Marie Force, with her top-selling Gansett Island series. Our own Nalini Singh is amongst a host of local writers.

And me – but I’m not giving a workshop. I’m doing the introduction for a special Thursday night event by Jim Azevedo, marketing director of Smashwords. Boy, do I want to ask this man questions. Smashwords distributes my books all over the world and they’re right behind indie authors so I’ll really enjoy meeting him.

And I’m introducing Courteney’s Saturday workshop. I want to know more about her covers (among many other things.) Do they really all start off as beautiful wedding photos?

I’m also introducing the workshop by Karina Bliss, one of my all-time favourite Kiwi authors. Busy, busy – bag all packed, can’t wait to fly off to Auckland tomorrow.

Friends

I’m constantly surprised what a co-operative business writing can be. Anyone who thinks writers sit alone for hours on end, hunched over their keyboards, and obsessing over plotlines and the perfect words to finish a scene with hasn’t met my friends. They stretch the length of New Zealand and the breadth of the world.

We ‘talk’ a lot – mostly on the internet. Oceans are no barrier, but time-zones are. I sometimes have to remember a friend in Italy is probably asleep and not likely to answer for hours.

When we get together face-to-face the noise level can be high. In my area we have a regular meeting on the first Saturday of each month. That’s just happened, and a jolly affair it was. This time we met at Kate’s place, and I’ll tell you a little more about her later on. It was a pouring wet day and rain lashed the huge windows.

This is normally Kate’s spectacular view – Wellington harbour from pretty much this angle. It was so wet on Saturday that we got only the merest glimpses, but at least it kept our minds on the job of writing.

Keeping my promise

I said I’d let you know the results of my BookBub ad. Did it work? Heck, yes - I’d do it again any time I’m lucky enough to be accepted.

I mentioned it cost US$580 for the listing in their newsletter. To cover this I had to sell around a thousand books at the special reduced price of 99 cents. It was nerve-wracking watching the numbers climb – Amazon update their sales every hour, and Smashwords display Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and their own figures pretty fast. The iBook stores follow next day.

It took until early afternoon New Zealand time to reach the thousand sales. I’ve never sold a thousand books a day! That was the big worry out of the way, and by then the rankings were rocketing up.