M.M. Perry's Blog, page 4

New cover for Whom the Gods Love

As those of you who are fans of my Facebook page or members of my newsletter already know, I commissioned a new cover for Whom the Gods Love. The old cover was one I made myself, but it wasn’t really turning any heads. It was functional, but that’s about it. I used 99Designs to see what professional designers could come up with to make my cover stand out in the crowd. I invited some of you to vote on the designs to see which one was the most inviting. This cover was the winner.

In writing news, I’m currently digging up content from The Arbiter that was cut from a previous version. While I don’t think it’s a full-length novel’s worth of story, it definitely  merits a novella. The story is about Molly, Drystan’s adoptive mother. In The Arbiter, we know Molly is a mage, and that she grew up in the civilized lands. What we don’t know is how she ended up in the Untamed. Molly’s story is from the point of view of a citizen of the civilized lands who discovers she’s a mage. Originally, The Arbiter included a synopsis of Molly’s life in the city. My editor suggested that, while the story was interesting, it interrupted the flow of Drystan’s tale of redemption. I saved what I cut with the intention of making a short story of it at some point. But now, since several of the reviewers of The Arbiter have requested it, I’m going to finish that off as a novella or possibly even a short novel. Additionally, I’m considering picking back up my work on The Noble, which was a second book in the same world as The Arbiter, only it followed the life of a noble. Characters from The Arbiter will appear in The Noble, and the events of The Arbiter spur the momentum of The Noble’s story line as the world around the protagonist begins to crumble. Fear grips the city in which he lives as mages begin turning against their masters, and rumors of an army of mages lead by an Arbiter reach them.

I’ll let you know when I begin working on that book in earnest. Currently, I have two books, The 12 and Charmed Legacy, that are completed and in the process of being edited, so those will come first.

The 13! Now available!

You can now pick up a copy of The 13 in print or as a Kindle ebook from Amazon.

Almost seven hundred years ago, 14 ships launched from Earth. 13 were packed with families and embryos and given a mission. They were pointed in the direction of a new home – a distant solar system made up of two suns and three planets. Two of those planets orbited in the habitable zone. The third planet, a massive gas giant, easily twice the size of Jupiter, hovered on the outer rim of that solar system. The colony ships were to land on whichever of the two planets was most hospitable for human life and start society anew.

Over the course of centuries, the carefully planned, generational societies began to break down, some because their ships began to malfunction and they had to change to survive, others because factions within the ship had their own ideas of what entailed a successful mission. As the years went by, the once communicative ships grew isolated and further diverged from their mission. Societies began to evolve on the ships that were far different from how they started out, and from each other.

As the fleet closes in on Mission’s End, one ship, the Tereshkova, has gone dark. Naomi, an engineer from the Tereshkova’s sister ship, the Magellan, hasn’t heard from her friend Carrie in more than a week. As she stares across the void toward the seemingly peaceful Tereshkova, she can only imagine the worst has happened. Perhaps even more dire than whatever befell the Tereshkova is the fate awaiting the Magellan if Naomi can’t secure the part she needs for the essential repairs of her own ship.

Naomi knows time is running short for the Magellan. Someone is going to need to go to the Tereshkova and find out what happened.

Get your copy of The 13 today, and find out why the Tereshkova is silent. The 13 is the first in a new science fiction series, Mission’s End! The next in the series, The 12, is already in the process of being edited. I hope you enjoy it!

The Final Stretch!

I’m finally coming into the final stretch for release of The 13. Members of my newsletter have already been given the first two chapters. You can get those free chapters here if you’re interested in The 13. This will sign you up for my newsletter as well, giving you the chance to get all this stuff first!

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks as I’ve been sending out advance review copies and getting all my ducks in a row. I’m aiming for a May 2nd release. I want to give some time to my team to make sure all their feedback gets incorporated into the final release. I still have a few slots open, so if you’d like to be a member of the M.M. Perry Advance Review Team (ART), send me an email at authormmperry@gmail.com.

What does it mean to be part of M.M. Perry’s ART? Well, for starters, you get to read my books before anyone else. I know not everyone is interested in both science fiction and fantasy, so you can pick which books you want to be on the team for. If you join the team, you aren’t obligated in any way to comment on books you aren’t interested in reading.

Below is a brief blurb about The 13 if being an advance reviewer intrigues you:

The 13 is the first part of an exciting new space opera series. 13 colony ships were launched into space almost 700 years ago. The story picks up 2 years out from their destination. Things didn’t go exactly as planned and the ships each have their own unique issues they’ve had to contend with over the centuries. The 13 focuses on the Magellan and the Tereshkova, sister ships that fly at the back of the fleet.

A thirteen book series sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Well, good thing it’s not thirteen books long.

Late at night on a Saturday… and I’m making book covers. :)

The 13 is almost here. I’m so excited about it. For those who of you not signed up for my newsletter (go sign up!) The 13 is a science fiction book about thirteen colony ships that were launched from Earth almost 700 years prior to the start of the story. The Magellan is one of the colony ships at the back of the fleet. Communications with their sister ship, the Tereshkova, have gone completely dark. No one knows what has happened on the Tereshkova, and tensions rise as members of the Magellan fear whatever has brought the apparent demise of an entire colony ship could reach them as well. With only two years left until they reach their destination, the crew of the Magellan must decide if it’s worth the risk to brave an excursion to the Tereshkova for a desperately needed part. Here’s the cover I made for the book. I hope you like it. In a week, I’ll be sending out Chapter 1 free to all the M.M. Perry Readers, so be sure to sign up for the newsletter if you’d like a copy.

Get a free book!

Have you read Whom the Gods Love yet? Would you like to? Now is your chance to pick up a copy of Whom the Gods Love for free. All you need to do is sign up for my newsletter and wait for your copy in your email.

But you won’t only get the book free by signing up, you’ll also get more exclusive content, like the chance to get review copies before anyone else does, or free audio books. The newsletter will consist primarily of updates about new titles being offered and opportunities to get more cool stuff that only subscribers will have access to. Interested? Sign up! You can always unsubscribe at any time.

Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming to subscribers next: A free chapter of my upcoming book, The 13. A chance to get review copies of Whom the Gods Hate. A free copy of my newest book, The Dream Merchant.

Gorgeous feather photographs

Simply beautiful!

So, just had to swing by my blog and point out this absolutely amazing photography on NatGeo’s website. Check these out. Amazing. That’s really all I had to say.

 

 

 

 

 

Is Fiverr worth your time?

For the next few weeks I’m going to post a little bit on my experiences as an indie author. While this may appeal more to writers trying to find their footing as an indie author, it might be of interest to readers as well. My blog will typically be a mix of things that currently interest me – for instance on my old blog my most popular post by far was the one on the Poodle moth – updates on my writing, the occasional sample of a new book and finally, informational postings about my progress as an indie author.

I’ve never been good at mystique. I was never the mysterious one that everyone had to work to get to know. I’m more like the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. I’ll be pretty up front in these things about my failures and temporary setbacks. So here’s your look behind the curtain. I know this isn’t much of a reveal because this curtain is like one of those clear shower curtains. But here we go anyway.

Why I decided to try Fiverr in the first place
I had nothing better to do with the $5… right?

Before I found out I had a nasty lump of cancer floating around between my lungs and my heart, it had been a little over a year since I had published a book. I was nearing completion on my fourth book. My plan at that time was to have a small library of titles on Amazon before I really went gung-ho into marketing. I had this idea that having only one book made it harder to be found by readers, or that perhaps readers didn’t take you as seriously as an author. So I never did much with regards to marketing.

When I got healthy again and ready to write, things had changed quite a bit on the independent publishing landscape. Not only could anyone who had a fan page buy ads on Facebook, but Amazon was selling ads to indie authors as well. And, to top that off, all my old ways, and there weren’t that many, of promoting things like free days on my books were gone. So I decided to start from scratch and research independent publishing.

I can never pass up a good deal. Also a lot of bad deals.

The first thing I decided was that my books needed a makeover. I decided to give Fiverr a try to see if five bucks would buy me something better than I could come up with myself. For those unfamiliar with Fiverr, it’s a freelance service where you can have small or sometimes big, creative jobs done for you, supposedly for five bucks. Thus the name. One of the first things you’ll find out, however, is most of the things are more than five bucks, and anything that looks really cool, is much more than five bucks. That’s not to say you won’t find a bargain there, but just don’t expect it to always be as cheap as five bucks.

There is a whole section of Fiverr freelancers who will design covers for you. I chose three. I chose one who had more than a thousand positive feedback and who had a bevy of decent looking sample covers to peruse. She was $15 for a cover. The second one I chose, I picked someone who had only a hundred feedback and a few covers that didn’t look bad. He was $10 a cover. Finally, I chose someone really new who only had two sample covers and only charged $5.

Yes the that is the Chinese version of LOTR and yes that is my gold standard. I may have set my expectations a tad too high.

The thinking behind these choices was this – maybe the newer people would be diamonds in the rough. – maybe they’d work harder to please the client to get good reviews – maybe they’d be more attentive. First I’ll start by describing the Fiverr process. It’s a little different than a lot of the reviews I read. They are a few years outdated and things, at least from my perspective, work differently now.

Apparently you used to put out your request and freelancers would bid on your job. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, or if it is, it wasn’t apparent to me. Now, you shop around for a freelancer you like the work of and contract with them directly through Fiverr. Most of these freelancers have a price range. I chose the cheapest with all three of the cover designers. Usually, the difference in prices had to do with how many revisions you could ask for and whether or not you got the original files. This is important as you’ll see when I get to the results of my requests. Sometimes the price reflects how many elements the designer will use in your cover – one stock photo, two stock photos, and so on.

I gave every one of the designers the same request. I wanted a cover for Whom the Gods Love, using classic heraldry elements. Something symbolic rather than a literal interpretation of the book. At the time, I thought this might give me covers I could judge more easily, and I was also thinking that was the direction I wanted to go with the covers.

First tip – pick one that up front asks you more detailed questions.

All three have a page where you give the description of what you want for the job. But, I noticed right away the freelancer who had thousands of reviews had much more detailed questions than the others. She asked for two examples of book covers I liked. She asked me to pick out an image from depositphotos that I’d like her to incorporate. She asked what type of book it was. Neither of the other two freelancers asked for any of this. They wanted title and author and that was it. I ended up giving them the same info I gave the first one in the hopes I could start them all off on the same foot. But it didn’t matter. They didn’t seem to know what to do with the information. The more expensive freelancer, the $10 one, she was ready to work with the information she asked for because she obviously had a streamlined workflow.

Second tip – how much interaction and time it takes. Example, the $5 cover.

Of the three, the cheapest claimed she’d turn over the job in 24 hours. She did. In fact, I got the cover back from her in 8 hours. The problem was, it was kind of a mess. She never wrote to me and she never asked me any questions about the cover. And the cover I got back from her showed that. The heraldic elements weren’t included at all, and there is no way to tell at all what kind of book that is. Don’t even get me started on the random God Love at the top as an element – though, the font for Love up there is interesting and I could see it working on a different type of book.

This designer was extremely cheap, however. Five bucks even for this much work, I suppose isn’t bad. Keep in mind, the freelancer doesn’t even get $5. They get $3.50. Fiverr takes their cut off the top. It’s just not very much to pay someone. Though based on how little she talked to me about the cover, I’d be very hesitant to hire her for the higher priced job. Her $5 cover came with no original files and no revisions.

 

 

Third tip – beware the upsale. Example, the $20 cover.

Sometimes when you think something is too good to be true, it is. Originally, this Fiverr freelancer also only charged $5. Unlike the first example, however, he was quick to reply to my request for a cover and was good about asking me what I wanted. I didn’t want to give him too much direction. I’m not a graphic designer. I don’t really have any idea what will sell a book. I just wanted to give him the general direction I wanted. I said something with a classic look using heraldic design.

He wrote back to me and asked me what kind of heraldry. I sent him a link to one of the depositphoto stock art images of heraldic elements and said, anything in there. Now we get into a little tangle. Unlike the $10 cover artist with the thousands of reviews, he doesn’t have a subscription to a stock art service. So he needs to buy it. If he wants me to use it, I need to pay for it. So he sends me an additional bill. At this point, I’m willing to pay for the art. Afterall, the more expensive freelancer just included it into her price. And I kind of want to see what this guy will do with it.

You can see to the right what he did with it. I’m not going to go into the problems with that cover here. The point I’d rather make is sometimes on Fiverr when you think you see the price, you don’t see the whole price. On Fiverr, the artist has the ability to add things on a la carte. You choose whether or not to pay for them, but it’s there. When you pick your artist, you might not know the full price until after you’ve dealt with them a bit. They need a font, or they need stock art. Oh, you want two pieces of stock art? Well that’s another $15. That cheap quote you see on the ad is just like any other service you see quoted in ads. It doesn’t always include everything you expect it to.

Fourth Tip – Enthusiasm does not equal experience

Finally, here’s what I learned from the – initially – most expensive freelancer I picked on Fiverr. While she asked a lot of questions up front – good – she took the longest to contact me about the job. It specifically says in her description she’ll take up to five days to complete the job. The fella who designed the cover above was quick to respond and kept emailing me throughout. He was eager to make me happy and keep me in the loop. I’m sure I could have asked for some re-working of the cover. But what I really wanted to see was what each of these people came up with on their first try.

It turns out, eagerness to please is still not as good as plain ol’ experience. When the $10 Fiverr freelancer did return the cover, it looked the most like a cover should. She didn’t do a whole lot, in fact she probably just plunked the pieces into a template she uses, but what I got for $10 was a cover I could feasibly use and she used a piece of licensed stock art. It isn’t what I ended up using, but I liked her job enough I tipped her another $5. I thought she had outdone the other two by a mile. Not only did the end result actually look like a cover, she sent the original Photoshop files along with it, so if I wanted to adjust anything, I could. She also allowed for requested alterations in her work for this price. This freelancer would probably be much more communicative if you purchased her higher tier work. She also includes more elements in the cover for the higher tier. Overall, I’d recommend her for a budget cover if you just can’t come up with something on your own. You can find her here.

In the end I decided to try and dust off my Photoshop skills and patch something together myself. Mainly because I knew I didn’t have the money for what I really wanted, one of the beautiful covers a place like 99 Designs does. While I’m not 100% happy with my own design, for now it works and it’s definitely better than the last one. One of these days I’ll make enough money to pay for new covers. Until then, I can live with this.

I hope this has been useful or interesting for you. Next week I’ll talk about my choices for my email list and book giveaways. I’ll discuss the differences between instafreebie/mailchimp, bookfunnel/mailchimp and newcomer authorreach. I’m trying all three combos this week to see which works the best for me. I’m finding out which has the most potential for streamlining my new marketing process. I hope you find that helpful as well.

The Dream Merchant Now Available!

The Dream Merchant is now available to buy on Amazon in both ebook and paperback. However, if you are interested in signing up for the M.M. Perry Readers Newsletter, you’ll get this book free! Go here if you’d like The Dream Merchant free.

If Fantasy is more your thing, then I’m also offering the first book in the Of Gods & Mortals trilogy, Whom the Gods Love, free! The trilogy is complete, so if you love the first book, there’s no wait to finish the whole thing!

Interested? Go here to fill in your name & email – I don’t need anything else – and you should have your copies within 36 hours of signing up.

If you need more convincing, besides the free books, you’ll get updates on release dates, exclusive content and more! If you enjoy my books, consider signing up. I’ll never spam or share your email with anyone else. Subscribe with confidence!

 

Cross posting announcing this site

This is a crossposting from my blogger page. From now on all blog posts will be here.

Hey folks. Very soon I’ll be moving the blog to a new site. I bought the domain, authormmperry.com to have more flexibility with what I can do. Nothing wrong with blogger, at least I don’t mind it too much, but I wanted to have a landing page for people interested in my books as well as a blog. It’s off to WordPress I go. So check out that site from now on. This will be the second to last post here. The last will just be a short, “I’m here now!” type thing.

A few things I’ll talk about in the upcoming weeks on my new blog:

I’ll be giving you the skinny on how my foray into fiver went (about as well as you’d expect for $5) and my testing of some email services. I’m still trying to find a good way to automate a mailing list and book giveaways. MailChimp is neat, but it uses what my friends and I used to call “mystery meat” design. Meaning, it has all this functionality, but they hide it behind random symbols and words that mean nothing. You might remember websites like these, where all the links to different pages were just different colored buttons, or unusual phrases for common things, you know, back before Contact and Home became pretty standard lingo for web design. It has a lot of flexibility for design of emails, but it gets a D for intuitiveness.

I’m also considering doing a series on trying out some different services for making my first physical paperback, including buying a template to use and working with Amazon’s beta paperback creator. The Cover Creator is nifty and easy to use, but less nifty is thinking it looks right only to have Amazon return your manuscript to you with errors, i.e. your cover has text in a bleed area when your preview surely didn’t. I love the tool, but it’s beta, so a lot of gripes I may have about it can be countered with that argument.

Finally, I have my novella, Dream Merchant, ready for final edit. It’ll probably be released this week. That’s my sample cover up there. I’m still sculpting it into shape, but that’s what I’m starting with. I want to get that one up, because it’s my first published Sci Fi. I’m going to make this one very cheap, hopefully free, because I want people to have a feel for my Sci Fi writing. It’s so, so important to me that people who read my stuff enjoy it. Since enjoyment of entertainment is subjective, I want people to get an idea of how I write before they decide to pay for it. So, this one is on me. Then, hopefully before February ends, you’ll have access to the first book in a series I’ve been working on. I’ve started on the third book in that series already; the first two need editing. I’ve also finished up a standalone Fantasy book which will be edited soon as well. So you should start seeing a lot of new material from me dropping in the first half of this year.

If you’re interested in being on the M.M. Perry Readers Newsletter list, where I’ll be giving away free copies of books, preview copies of things I’m getting ready to publish, and updates about when things will become available, just fire off an email to authormmperry@gmail.com with the subject, Nachos. I’ll add you to the list. You don’t even have to put anything in the body of the email.

Moving to a new site

Hey folks. Very soon I'll be moving the blog to a new site. I bought the domain, authormmperry.com to have more flexibility with what I can do. Nothing wrong with blogger, at least I don't mind it too much, but I wanted to have a landing page for people interested in my books as well as a blog. It's off to WordPress I go. So check out that site from now on. This will be the second to last post here. The last will just be a short, "I'm here now!" type thing.

A few things I'll talk about in the upcoming weeks on my new blog:

I'll be giving you the skinny on how my foray into fiver went (about as well as you'd expect for $5) and my testing of some email services. I'm still trying to find a good way to automate a mailing list and book giveaways. MailChimp is neat, but it uses what my friends and I used to call "mystery meat" design. Meaning, it has all this functionality, but they hide it behind random symbols and words that mean nothing. You might remember websites like these, where all the links to different pages were just different colored buttons, or unusual phrases for common things, you know, back before Contact and Home became pretty standard lingo for web design. It has a lot of flexibility for design of emails, but it gets a D for intuitiveness.

I'm also considering doing a series on trying out some different services for making my first physical paperback, including buying a template to use and working with Amazon's beta paperback creator. The Cover Creator is nifty and easy to use, but less nifty is thinking it looks right only to have Amazon return your manuscript to you with errors, i.e. your cover has text in a bleed area when your preview surely didn't. I love the tool, but it's beta, so a lot of gripes I may have about it can be countered with that argument.

Finally, I have my novella, Dream Merchant, ready for final edit. It'll probably be released this week. That's my sample cover up there. I'm still sculpting it into shape, but that's what I'm starting with. I want to get that one up, because it's my first published Sci Fi. I'm going to make this one very cheap, hopefully free, because I want people to have a feel for my Sci Fi writing. It's so, so important to me that people who read my stuff enjoy it. Since enjoyment of entertainment is subjective, I want people to get an idea of how I write before they decide to pay for it. So, this one is on me. Then, hopefully before February ends, you'll have access to the first book in a series I've been working on. I've started on the third book in that series already; the first two need editing. I've also finished up a standalone Fantasy book which will be edited soon as well. So you should start seeing a lot of new material from me dropping in the first half of this year.

If you're interested in being on the M.M. Perry Readers Newsletter list, where I'll be giving away free copies of books, preview copies of things I'm getting ready to publish, and updates about when things will become available, just fire off an email to authormmperry@gmail.com with the subject, Nachos. I'll add you to the list. You don't even have to put anything in the body of the email.