Elle Casey's Blog, page 11

Elle Casey’s MASSIVE Springtime indie book giveaway

Free books, y’all!

I’m hosting another free book giveaway and this time it’s MASSIVE.  We have 190 titles, 115 authors, and 1554 books to give away.

WHAAAAAT?!

Yeah, I’m not kidding.  I put a bunch of time into this baby, and it’s all for you readers so you can find new books and for my fellow authors who are trying to find new readers.  Win-Win!

Please check it out, and if you like what you see, SHARE using the Facebook and Twitter links below it (on the following giveaway page:)

http://ellecasey.com/promotions/elle-caseys-springtime-indie-book-giveaway/

How I Write So Many Books: My System, A Theory, and a Few Random Thoughts

I’ve had several people ask me how I’ve written so many books (18, all but 2 over 85k words) in such a short period of time (15 months), and I’ve answered the questions as they’ve come up.  But I was thinking that maybe it would be worth posting a blog article about it, so people could discuss their thoughts or ask more detailed questions of me (I’m happy to answer any questions). I know many writers say they’d like to increase their output but don’t know how, so I’m sharing my way of doing things, and if it helps anyone increase her or his output and makes that person happy about it, then it will have been worth doing. I really should be writing a book right now.

Before I lay it out, some other thoughts. First, I know this is not for most writers. Most writers take a much longer time to craft a story and that’s cool. There is no one way to do things. There are many paths to the meadow, and I think they’re all worth taking at least once. I know there are still people out there who believe that it’s impossible to write a good story in such a short period of time (some may even come on this post and say so). My opinion on this is that it’s the readers who decide what a good story is, and my readers have decided I am fully capable of putting out a good story in a month, over and over again. So that myth is debunked in my world, but if other people want to stick to their beliefs, that’s fine. It doesn’t affect me at all. You decide if it affects you.

My theory on why I’m able to write so many books, other than the mechanics that I outline below, is this: My introduction to writing came from reading an article about Amanda Hocking and then Darci Chan. I’d always wanted to write a book but never tried, never bothered, because I wasn’t interested in entering that Lotto (suffer-rejection-a-thousand-times-to-find-an-agent-and-then-again-to-find-a-publisher-which-you-probably-never-will-find). But when I realized I could just self-publish to readers and let them decide, that’s all it took for me to start. The thing is, no one told me that it takes a year or more to write a book. I’ve never taken a creative writing class or gone to a workshop or even known an author. If someone had told me that, I probably wouldn’t have even started. Amanda spoke in her article of writing one of her books in two weeks, so the idea that one could write a good book fast was a seed that was planted, and it just grew like a weed for me. As I typed, the words flowed, and the story came out in just a matter of weeks. I tweaked, I paid someone to edit, I paid someone to make a cover, and I tweaked some more. But 6 weeks later, I was ready to publish. Have I gone back and re-edited? Yes. It was my first book. After gettting some reader feedback about POV issues my editor missed, I fixed them. I get better with every book.

I think the key is to know “it’s possible”. For years the publishing industry and other authors said, “This is how it has to be”. Now we know that they were wrong! A world of change, opportunity, new ways of doing things has opened for all of us. Maybe my little contribution will be to show other writers who want to write more books that they can, it is possible, to increase their output with some strategies in place.

So … on to the good stuff… Here’s how I write -1- quality, publishable, readable book a month:

I type fast (about 2,500 good, usable words per hour).  If you can’t type without looking at the keys, you really should invest the time in learning how to type like a professional.  Writers don’t just write for a living, they type for a living, so it behooves them to do it well and efficiently.  I’m at about 90 WPM now.  I started at 60 WPM after a class in junior high school.  Practice improves not only storytelling but also typing skills.
I don’t use outlines, my characters take the stories and run with them while I just take dictation. I never know what’s going to happen in my books or what my characters are going to say until it happens. I have a general sense of the storyline and the ending, but even then, I’m often wrong. I’ve tried to use outlines, but they stifle me. They stifle my character’s voices. I know they work for other people to help them work faster. To each his own.
I have a very active imagination. I come up with new stories several times a day (in fact, I’ve considered posting a list of story ideas on my website just to make sure someone writes them). I suggest letting your mind wander and asking “What if?” a lot if you need prompting. My brain needs no prompting.
I have a truly supportive husband who handles our life while I’m locked away (he is most def not the negative nelly), and my children are all 9 years old and older, so fairly independent.
I use word count goals each day I write and don’t stop until I reach them. My favorite days are the 5,000 words days (I am done by lunch, and I use the rest of the day to goof off or interact with my lovely readers). My least favorite are the 15k days. The most I’ve written in a day is 23,500 (done twice) which included editing along the way. If I just wrote and didn’t edit anything, I could probably get to 30k or a little more, but then I’d be ready for the looney bin and my wrists would be unusable for a few days.
I take a nap, every single day without fail, after lunch. I break my writing day up into morning and afternoon sessions. And if I’m on a roll, I add an evening session (those are the days I write more than 10k words). I can easily write 10k words a day, but I don’t do that often – only if I’ve had many days of zero writing and a deadline looming.
I have a great writing environment. Comfortable, quiet (or I make it that way with headphones and white noise), and on my most productive days, without Internet.  I write in my bed most days, with pillows behind my back and my laptop on my legs.
I set up word count goals at the beginning of each month so that I can publish a book on the last day of the month.  It’s a schedule made easier using Scrivener’s function for that. (command + shift + T on the Mac)
I edit as I go, re-editing previous chapters on average of 3 times before moving on to the next. My first draft is therefore very close to final draft quality.
I have beta readers and proofreaders on call to finish my drafts with a one- or two-day turnaround.  All of them are either family members or dedicated reader-fans who’ve asked to participate.
And last but not least (probably would be #1 on this list if done in priority order), I have seriously kickass readers who motivate me to write, even when I don’t feel like writing.

I view my writing as a business and treat the process accordingly. And the result is so good for me, it’s all I need to keep me wanting to do more of it. I think some writers (not all) are capable of great output – good quality great output – but they don’t think it’s possible or they don’t have a system that works for that kind of thing, so they just don’t. Other people are missing one of my links above (for example, they have kids at home or other work that gets in the way). I do have a second job that takes up 2 days of my week, but I also write on weekends. Now that I’ve put in notice at my job to quit, I will quit working weekends and just work Monday-Friday. What I do is possible in 5 days a week of writing, including tons of social media contact and time off.

To answer a question I get frequently: No, I did not have ANY material when I started. I just began writing and that was that.  And I use professionals to make my covers, although some are just stock art with font and a few were made by readers who did them just because they’re such big fans of my work.  The Scrivener program is what I use to write and format for .epub, .mobi, Word, and paperbacks.

I hope this was helpful to someone out there.   Happy weekend, everyone!

DUALITY 1 (Melancholia) is live!

I hope you enjoy this new release.  It’s different than my other stuff, but already getting great reviews.    Here are the links to buy if you want to check it out.

AMAZON USA: http://amzn.to/YantP6

AMAZON U.K.: http://amzn.to/100lBoG

AMAZON ITALY: http://amzn.to/11SlUWp

AMAZON FRANCE: http://amzn.to/13I7etc

AMAZON SPAIN: http://amzn.to/11TNfq4

AMAZON GERMANY: http://amzn.to/12Wo4Wl

Malcolm’s had a problem for as long as he can remember. No matter where he goes or what he does, he leaves misery in his wake. Sadness and negativity are his constant companions, influencing others around him until they cannot bear to live.

But then Rae shows up in his life, and everything changes. Darkness cleaves to light. Anger yields to joy. The question is whether she’ll be his salvation or his destruction.

DUALITY is a 3-book Young Adult/New Adult Paranormal Romance. Volume 1 will be published April 30, Volume II May 31, and Volume III June 30, 2013.

 

Learning Adobe

I’ve been wanting to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop for years.  I’ve started learning Adobe Elements, which is the baby version, and I’m having a lot of fun.  I try not to let it interfere with writing, but it’s hard!!  Creative juices flow and then, well, here I go.

Amazon and I Kiss and Make Up

My last post was about my Easter nightmare, when some brain surgeon over on Amazon removed over 700 comments I had made on my book pages and book forums.  I just wanted to follow up and give Amazon its due (do??).  The folks over at Executive Customer Relations really took care of the problem for me and were so professional about it, I just had to let you know.  I’m very happy with them.

After getting nowhere with the lower level customer service, I threw all caution to the wind and emailed Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.  Now, of course he didn’t read my email.  He’s way too important and busy for that.  But someone important read it and forwarded it to Phoebe at Executive Customer Relations, and she took it from there.  She reviewed the situation, found out that none of my comments (NONE of them, people.  NONE.) violated Amazon’s guidelines and worked at putting them all back.  And when she didn’t get them all on the first try and and I pointed this out, she fixed them all and sent me a $50 gift card!  -  Which I will be giving to my readers in some upcoming promotions, of course. 

It was explained to me that there was no personal vendetta against me.  Just an overzealous customer service rep who needed some training that he or she would be getting very shortly.  Apologies were forthcoming and assurances were made.  The five pimples that had sprouted up all over my face slowly began to heal.

The funny part is, when it was all over and solved, I finally received a response back from the lower level customer service, explaining to me how all my comments were removed correctly because I had violated their guidelines.  Grrrrr.  Can you picture my expression?  The words that came flowing out of my mouth?  I forwarded this email to Phoebe suggesting that perhaps more than one person on their team needs some training.  She promised to get right on it.  I also responded to this dimwit who emailed me (many days after the pimples started) and explained that she might want to talk to Phoebe in ECR about that.  I just hope she bothered to do that.

So all’s well that ends well.  It was horrible for me, but I think Phoebe at Amazon understood that.  She was very gracious and helpful, and I’m super pleased with how she handled everything.

And now I’m off to do battle with customer service again over the categories my books are in.  But that’s a story for another day…

The worst April Fool’s joke EVER that wasn’t a joke. Amazon takes me to the mat.

The last 3 days of my life have been pretty much hell.  Thank you to all my readers and the other indie authors who reached out to me via Facebook, email, and private message to offer me your support.  It really helped.

So here’s what happened to me on Easter morning (6:30 am Washington time):

I woke up to check my book reviews on Amazon, something I do first thing every morning.  I like to thank anyone who reviewed my books as part of my overall reader experience, etc.  You can imagine my surprise and confusion when I noticed all of the comments I’d left as I went to bed the night before were gone.  Poof! Disappeared.

“Weird,” I thought.  “Where did all those review comments go?  I don’t want to have to do them all over again if I don’t have to.  Did I forget to press Enter?”

Then I went into my emails.  There was a post in the Apocalypsis discussion forum on Amazon, a thread someone started about my series where I drop in and discuss things with readers occasionally.  I follow the thread, so I get an email alert when someone posts there.  Someone posted a question about the series, looking for my answer.  I clicked on the link and went to the little reply box on Amazon to answer and got a red message:  “Only those in good standing at Amazon may post.”

“WTF?” I thought.  My heart rate increased and my face started to burn.  “Oh, shit.  This is not good.”

And then I scrolled up.  And I saw that every single post I’d ever made in that forum had been deleted by Amazon just minutes earlier.

I clicked over to my book product pages, and saw that every single comment I’d ever made on a review had been deleted by Amazon.  I was following right behind whoever was doing it.  You could see the time stamps on them.  BAM!  Delete.  BAM!  Delete.  BAM BAM BAM.  Over 700 comments on 15 books deleted in a matter of minutes.

I couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened.  I went to the TOS and re-read them.  No changes.  I’ve already received permission from Amazon twice to respond to reviews in this manner, so I wasn’t breaking the rules.  I never said anything rude or harassing or any of that.  WTF?

I emailed customer service asking for an explanation, giving them all the details.  24 hours later I get an email saying this:

This is [name removed] from Amazon Communities. We’d be happy to research the situation with the comments and posts in forums you are reporting but unfortunately, I couldn’t find these comments based on the information in your message.

At your convenience, please write back to provide the following information:

-The time and date of the comment in question

-the website link or the URL of the thread

-the title of the thread

Once we receive this information, we’ll look into this for you.

Again, I’m like, “WTF!”  But I’m yelling it now.  I have a headache and feel nauseated.  Easter sucked big eggs and the day after Easter is no better.  All I can think is, “What did I do?  Did I do something wrong?  How did this happen?  Why didn’t they email me before they kicked my ass to the curb?”

Another 12 hours or so later, with still no word from Amazon and still no reinstatement of posting privileges and all comments still gone, I emailed Jeff Bezos.  I figured it wouldn’t be him getting the email but maybe somebody would get it who could do something.  Someone had to know what this was doing to me and provide me an explanation.  If I’d done something wrong, I deserved to know what it was.

The next morning I noticed my posting privileges were back (today).  And some of my comments have returned on product pages.  All comments have returned to the discussion forum, as if they’d never been erased.

Then I got an email from executive customer relations that said this:

Hello Elle,

I’m [name removed] of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Executive Customer Relations. Jeff Bezos received your letter concerning the removal of your posting privileges and discussion posts and asked that I follow up with you. Let me be the first to offer you a sincere apology. Your account has been re-instated and all your discussion posts have been restored to the live website.

We take the removal of posting privileges and discussion posts very seriously. While our goal is to preserve the Community experience by protecting our customers from discussion posts that do not adhere to our guidelines, we do make mistakes. The cause, in your case, had nothing to do with any guidelines violations and was purely human error. We are working with the individual to ensure proper training and education are in place.

Thank you for calling this to our attention, and please feel free to write back to me at [email removed] if we can be of further assistance.

I emailed her back to tell her THANK YOU first of all, and second, that they haven’t restored everything and that I want everything restored.  I’d say we’re 15% there.

————

That’s the end of the story for now.  I hope it has a 100% happy ending eventually.  But I just had to post this and let all of you know what happened, and how a person who needs “proper training” can really turn a writer’s world upside down and inside out with the click of a button.  It scared me very, very badly.  I wondered: What if some improperly trained person at Amazon decides my books should be taken down?  What if some person makes an arbitrary decision that makes it impossible for me to sell books?  Where will my family be?  Where will my career be?  I don’t make enough money on the other sites to survive.  This rocked my world in the worst possible way.  I’m still sick over it.  Now I need to figure out what I can do to protect myself and my livelihood from Amazon’s decisions and mistakes that could easily impact me like this or worse.  I have too many eggs in the Amazon basket right now to feel secure.

What’s the solution?  I would love for Amazon to have a process for taking actions like this against authors.  We’re not just fly-by users of the site.  We’re publishing partners, invested in the platform.  Why not email the violator and notify of the alleged violation and ask for an explanation before being so heavy-handed?  Why not wait 3 days for a response before doing something so drastic?  Why not ask a friggin manager before you erase someone’s presence on Amazon?  They do this for copyright violation reports, so why not something like this?

I doubt Amazon will change the way they do things, but at least one person at Amazon will get a little training session and he or she won’t do this to other authors.  Although since posting this, I’ve heard from another author who received a lifetime ban and has been threatened if she emails again she’ll be cut off forever.  She can’t risk it, so she has to just remove Amazon from her reader-experience equation.  I find that very, very sad.

I still wonder what it was about ME or my account that caused this person at Amazon to be so heavy-handed and – excuse me but – vicious in the way he or she handled the matter.  Here’s the only thing I came up with, and it makes me sick to my stomach: On the night before it happened, I noticed someone had gone onto some of my product pages and down-voted all the recent 5-star reviews. I’m in there every day, so I notice when things like that happen.  I posted about it on my Facebook wall, saying that a troll (and I did have some choice words for that troll, I admit) had been going through my product pages doing that and that I was sorry for any reviewers whose reviews were being marked “unhelpful”.  To some of them, their % rating is important, and it was unfair that they were getting tagged like that just for being my fans.  Not 12 hours later (more like 5), I was slammed at Amazon by some nameless faceless person.

Is this coincidence?  Or did someone also troll my Facebook page and see that post and contact someone at Amazon to tell them I was doing something wrong by talking about down-voting?  I don’t know.  But it’s the only thing I can think of that might have sparked this ridiculous situation.  I waited for Amazon to come back to me and say that I wasn’t permitted to talk about down-voting of reviews or something (eff freedom of speech, but whatever).  But as you can see from the Bezos-approved response, I wasn’t being punished for something I did.

Human error … or is it?  I hope so.  I sure hope so.

Apocalypsis: Book 4 (HAVEN) is PUBLISHED!

Here’s the link, y’all.  I hope you love it!

Amazon.US

Amazon.UK

Published March 30, 2013.

Bryn’s theme song for HAVEN, book 4 of the Apocalypsis series

I love this song. This is BRYN’s theme song for HAVEN. It makes me cry with happiness.

“I don’t ever wanna let you down

I don’t ever wanna leave this town

‘Cause after all

This city never sleeps at night

It’s time to begin, isn’t it?

I get a little bit bigger, but then I’ll admit

I’m just the same as I was

Now don’t you understand

That I’m never changing who I am…”

http://youtu.be/sENM2wA_FTg

 

Elle Casey’s 1,000 Facebook Likes Dance Party

In the last few days I’ve added over forty new Likes to my Facebook page.  I’m not sure how that’s happening, but I am not complaining. In fact, I’m so excited, that as soon as I hit 1,000 FB Likes, I’m going to have a dance party!

Yeah, that’s right.  And it’s not just me that’s going to have it; YOU are too!  (If you want.  Please say you’ll come!)  I’m inviting all my readers and any authors who are interested to do a quick video of them dancing to their favorite song.  Feel free to invite friends, family, and pets to your dance party.  Use a sign in the video if you want to share a message or your name.  I’ll do a mash-up of all the videos and make one big dance party video for my website and Youtube channel.

Come be a part of the fun!  All you have to do is make your video and email the file to me!  I’m going to be using iMovie to put it together (and teaching myself how to do it at the same time), so make sure it’s in .mov, .mp4, or .avi formats.  I think if you use an iPhone or Android phone or your computer’s built in software, you’ll be fine.

Cover Reveal! Apocalypsis: Book 4 (HAVEN)

Here she is!  The cover for Apocalypsis: Book 4 (Haven), made by the talented and adorable Aidan Brindley from Australia, superfan extraordinaire.  He also did the cover for book 3.  I’ve included a Facebook banner that you’re free to use if you wish.  It will help me advertise my books, so I’d be thrilled if you put it up.  Make sure to send me a link if you do so I can see it. 

Feel free to use this on your own Facebook page!