R.J. Blain's Blog, page 80
May 15, 2014
Inquisitor Release Day Shenanigans – Participants!
Thanks for stopping by my little oasis on the internet. Today’s the official release of my newest novel, Inquisitor!
Thanks for stopping by. There is a lot of things going on all over the internet relating to the book release. This is your one-stop shop so you can find your way to all of the participating sites. There are quite a few giveaways to be found, including not one, but two $50 gift certificates, as well as some smaller ones as well.
Inquisitor Buy Links by Country:
US | IN | UK | DE | FR | ES | IT | BR | CA | MX | AU | JP
Note: As the day progresses, I’ll be making changes to the participant list, so keep an eye out! New blogs will be added as I get links. In the morning, all blogs will link to their main page. As I get individual post links, I’ll be swapping them for your convenience.
I have no control on when blogs will post for the day, so some posts may not be live, especially early in the morning.
I will be linking to the individual giveaways sometime in the afternoon.
Countdown Deal for Storm Without End and The Eye of God
Don’t think all of these cool blogs is enough of a party? My first two novels are on countdown deals for US and UK residents starting at Midnight PST.
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Storm Without End
The Eye of God
Participating Blogs
Reading Addiction Blog Tours
fang-tasticbooks
Simplistic Reviews
Andi’s book reviews
Paranormal Romance and Authors That Rock
Roxanne’s Realm
Bookahlic Fairies
pembrokesinclair
Pure Jonel
dianes-book
Words, Words, Words
wormyhole
Mythical Books
creativelygreen
My Reading Addiction
DebSanders
A Life Through Books
shutupandreadgroup
Texas Book Nook
toreadisdivine
Steamy Side
corazones-literarios
Avid Book Collector
bookishlover
Clutter Your Kindle
cbybookclub
Toots Book Reviews
3partnersinshopping
D’eBook Sharing Reviews
authorkarenswart
Book Lovers Life
totaleclipsereviews
Indie Authors You Want To Read
darkestcravings
Corey’s Book Reviews
moonlightlibrary
The Indie Express
the-avidreader
Andi’s Book Reviews
thereadershollow
Books A to Z
saphsbookblog
Lov Liv Life Reviews
booksbooksthemagicalfruit
Wicca Witch 4
Fantastic Indie Authors (Interview)
Queen of the Night Reviews
Stop 2 Indy Book Fairy
This Girl Reads a Lot
A Little Bit of R&R (Guest Post)
Books and Tales
Stop 2 Coffee & Books & Art (Guest Post)
One Was a Book Thief, the Other Stole the Sky
Literary Chanteuse
Life’s Unfiltered Ramblings
Stop 2 Cryptic Reads (Review)
Read it Write
Cherry Mischievous
Lovely Reads
Bestselling Books
Kelly’s Thoughts on Things
Sun Mountain Reviews (Guest Post)
Logikal Blog
Book Freebies Contests Sweepstakes and Giveaways
Chuckles Book Cave
Stop 2 Urban Fantasy Series Recommendations
Let’s Get Booked
Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Gothic Moms
I’m an Eclectic Reader
Deal Sharing Aunt
I Heart Reading
Bound 2 Escape
Bookish Madness
Pieces of Whimsy
The Single Librarian
Always Jo Art
Deal Sharing Aunt
Books and Other Spells
Cassidy Crimson’s Blog
RABT Reviews
Penny for Them
May 17 - Reading Addiction Blog Tours - Kick Off
Editor Charlene’s Blog
May 18 – Book Junky Girls
Tome Tender
May 19 - Must Read Faster
Endazzled Reading
May 20 - Kindle Obsessed - Review
Forever Book Lover
May 21 - Simplistic Reviews
The Book Daily
May 22 - Bookaholic Fairies
All Sorts of Books
May 23 - Pure Jonel
sweet southern home
May 24 - Paranormal Romance and Authors That Rock
chelseas reading adventures
May 25 - Rhythem Poets
backporchervations
May 26 - Queen of the Night Reviews
in-our-spare-time
May 28 - D’eBook Sharing Reviews
tiffyfit
May 29 - I’m a Voracious Reader
portiabridget
May 30 - RABT Reviews
coffeeplush
May 18 – Book Junky Girls
selenityjadebooks
May 19 - Must Read Faster
24th May – Gentleman Reads
May 20 - Kindle Obsessed
31st May – Kindle Nook Books
May 21 - Simplistic Reviews
7th May – Book Professor
May 22 - Bookaholic Fairies
14th June – Top Shelf Books
16th May - Peace from Pieces
22nd May - Blog-A-Licious Authors
20th May – Mommy Adventures
23rd May – Author’s Friend
21st May - The Reading Cat
5th July – Quality Reads UK
Happy Tails and Tales
Inside the Mind of a Bibliophile
Ishari’s Bookshelf
Tales from Far Manor
Unexplored Boundaries
C.M. Skiera’s Blog
AJ Maguire’s blog
The Final Hours Before the Official Release of Inquisitor
Exhaustion is my companion today. I can’t even calculate the number of hours I’ve invested preparing for Inquisitor’s official launch. While the book has been on amazon for a while, because self-published authors can’t use amazon’s pre-order tools, tomorrow my real efforts bear fruit–or don’t.
We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.
Let the festivities begin. Really, if you’ve been waiting to buy a copy of the book, you can start now. It’s Friday somewhere. Sounds like a reason to celebrate to me!!
At midnight PST, Storm Without End and The Eye of God go on sale with a countdown deal in the UK and US.
I still have an unholy number of guest posts to write and send out for tomorrow. Two groups needed last minute posts.
It’s an enforced break from cleaning at least… which I needed.
On a bit of a dare, if I become a bestseller tomorrow, I’ve promised to dance around my kitchen while mopping the floor with my feet, singing and dancing to Shakira’s Waka Waka.
/gulp.
Back to work.
May 11, 2014
Random Rambles: Life, The Universe, and Cleaning… and Books.
As I begin writing this post, my back is starting it’s rather loud protests at the amount of physical work I’ve done today. I’m not a physical person. I have several issues that prevent me from being a physical person. I have done an excessive amount today, pushing far beyond my normal boundaries.
For that, I’m excessive proud of myself. But I’m paying a price for it, in a mixture of pure pain, shortness of breath, and shaking. Head to toe shaking, as my muscles try to figure out what I expected them to do and why they actually did it.
I had to take medication. I have a stiff vertebrae in my spine. C5, I believe is the one in question. It’s located a little north of smack dab between my shoulder blades where the spine connects with the shoulders. Fun stuff. Essentially, what it means, is because this specific vertebrae is stiff, it doesn’t move as well as 4 and 6. When that happens, the muscles freak out.
It triggers migraines as 1-4 stiffen and lock up. Muscle relaxers counter this, which is my saving grace. If I take one (or two depending on the severity) I can completely bypass the migraines. If I don’t, I lose most of the mobility in my neck, and my shoulders ache a lot.
The body is a connected series of awesome, and due to the location of this horror show, even walking can trigger things if I’m not careful.
That’s not even counting my circulatory system, which is not in an ideal state, for reasons.
I haven’t been careful today. I hauled logs. I dug out a flower bed–two, actually–and I have been cleaning my bathroom. I did dishes.
I’ve been working in 10-20 minute bursts with long stretches between, but I’m making those 10-20 minutes count, pushing myself to my absolute limits.
My first two sessions were closer to 30 minutes as I hacked and dug my way through old weeds.
This is the result of my efforts, herbs, peppers, and tomato plants, growing in my raised flower bed!
Husband said I can get 2-3 more plants to fill in the spaces. The logs are holding the weed-preventing liner down until I can get proper mulch or gravel or whatever I decide to use for the top layer.
I’ll pick up (and plant) my new babies tomorrow. I’m thinking rosemary and thyme, because I enjoy making spaghetti.
I have to do the cleanup, but I couldn’t handle it today. It was just too much for me. I’ll load up the loose dirt and tossed-away plant matter another day, when I feel a little better.
My mother is coming to my house, and I want to have the entire place cleaned up by Thursday or Friday. She arrives Saturday.
It’s intense.
Switching subjects, I’ve finished re-reading most of The Dresden Files preparing for the next novel. Sad I’ve re-read most of them now. Gotta start going through review copies of novels I have on my kindle. That should be fun, got a few really interesting books.
Will have those for review in not too terribly long. Okay, one is in a longish while, because I grabbed my review copy as soon as they were available and it doesn’t release for like a month and a half. I think the other one is a shorter time, but that’s quite okay.
One is a military thriller and the other is a contemporary fantasy.
Switching gears again (I wrote swiffering gears… yeah. I’m not to the swiffering phase yet, me…) I’m going to be so happy when Friday comes around. It’ll be a huge load off. This week, I need to get a lot of client editorial done, which means I won’t be doing nearly as much drafting or editorial work on my stuff as I want. I have to finish all of my updates and things for my release day shenanigans. I’m almost done. I have a couple of guest posts to write, and I need to email people things like the buy links for the book.
I also need to do the updated production copies of the ebooks for my two first novels so the indiegogo people have the copies. That’ll happen later in the week.
Going to probably go insane before Saturday arrives, along with my mother.
Now I’m going to sit here and pretend I’m being productive, because I’m too tired to think clearly, let alone do anything.
But I persevered, even though I’m paying for it right now. Ouch.
May 9, 2014
Inquisitor Signed Paperback Giveaway – Ends May 15. Winners announced May 16.
Celebrating the official launch of Inquisitor, I am giving away two signed paperback copies through goodreads. Winners will be selected on May 15, 2014, and will be announced on my blog of May 16, 2014.
Good luck!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Inquisitor
by R.J. Blain
Giveaway ends May 15, 2014.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
May 8, 2014
An Editor’s Perspective: Plotters vs Pantsers
This post needs some warnings. Maybe I’m insecure, or maybe I’m just aware that I’m about to stir a bee’s nest, but I’m going to post warnings.
Warning #1: These are my observations after working with a lot of clients. Some are plotters, some are pantsers, some fall somewhere between the two, taking advantage of the best of both worlds. These are also my observations after working with a lot of people from varying critique groups.
Warning #2: These are my opinions. It’s not fact. It’s not law. It’s nothing more than me expressing my thoughts. You don’t have to agree with them. Feel free to disagree in the comments–just take it that second step and explain why you disagree. We may not agree at the end, but the discussion is fun.
Warning #3: I’m not out to offend anyone, but I expect I will ruffle feathers with my stance on this issue.
Now with the warnings out of the way, there are a few definitions I want to cover before I talk about this subject.
Plotters: These are people who, to some degree or another, plot their novels out before they start writing. For the sake of this discussion, plotters refers to people who do more than a very brief book blurb or mini outline of the novel. This is referring to those who will plot each chapter or scene of the entire novel before they write. Plotters will also detail their characters far in advance of writing.
Pantsers: These people are those who sit down and write. They do very little preparation before they start writing. They may take a few notes about the characters or general concepts of what they are going to do in the novel, but they do not take detailed notes prior to writing.
These individuals may take notes after they write though.
Pantsers may also take notes in their head as they write.
The Median Crowd: These are people who are both plotters and pantsers. They may only plan a chapter ahead, or they may only keep notes for certain things. Their characters are often not outlined extensively in advance, though some do. These people borrow from both categories. And yes, you can do this. This is my method of writing currently.
I fall somewhere between plotter and pantser. I don’t plan far ahead, but I know where I’m going in the novel. I may have certain scenes planned out before I write. But I am constantly replotting what I do because of the pantsing element.
I will often start a project with little to no preparation and plot it as characters make decisions.
But since this isn’t about me, I’m going to start with my observations regarding my clients.
Most of my clients are plotters. While I have a few pantsers in the lot, most of them like knowing where they are going when they write a novel.
Many of them have had middling to moderate issues with characterization in their novels. This can range from the character just not being sympathetic to the characters making decisions that are so outside of their normal operative that it makes them look really unrealistic. Characters make or break a novel, in my opinion. They are why we read.
We don’t read for plot. We read for characters. We want to read about people. The plot can take our breaths away–if harnessed to a character who makes the plot feel real. The plot, in my opinion, is the consequence of choices made by all characters involved in the story.
Some plotters can manage to develop their characters as they plot in realistic fashions.
Many don’t.
This is a generalization, but bear with me a moment: Inexperienced plotters often have really poor character development.
This is a generalization, but bear with me a moment: Inexperienced pantsers often have really poor plot development.
Well, well. What do we have here? A mirror image of flaws? Yep. Plotters often have really strong plot lines, with stories that could have the potential to carry through from the first page to the end–if those blasted characters didn’t feel so flat or like they existed for the sake of the plot.
Pantsers often have these amazing characters who naturally develop through the course of a story, but the plot often has more holes than Swiss cheese.
Now, of course there are exceptions to this. Experienced plotters can manage to somehow (through magic, I’m convinced it is through magic) capture character development and plot. They create really strong stories. From what I know of them, James Patterson and Brandon Sanderson are two plotters I know of who have this magical ability.
(I have a serious amount of respect for both of those men.)
The same also applies to pantsers, by the way. There are talented pantsers who can figure out the plots as they go, using the characters they have built to create strong plots from start to finish of a novel.
But there is one key point about both of these exceptions: These people are experienced.
Experience matters. Learning matters. Skill really matters.
You can argue pantser or plotter all day long, but both camps, I believe you are both wrong. There are weaknesses and advantages to both of your methods. There are weaknesses and advantages to taking the middle ground.
If there weren’t weaknesses, everyone would write books using the same method because that method would be the only viable one.
So instead of arguing that your way is the right way, take a close look at the inherent disadvantages of your way, and figure out how to fix them.
Until you do, you’ll end up as yet another manuscript on an editor’s desk (or an agent’s desk) riddled with stereotypical weaknesses because you aren’t experienced enough–or too set in your ways–to overcome the challenges of your writing style.
Characterization is hard for everyone.
So is plotting.
Specializing in characterization (pantsing) or plotting (plotters) can give your story great strength, but also great weakness.
You don’t need to change how you do things… but you should be aware of the risks your type of method has. And if you think your way has no disadvantages, you’re likely doing yourself–and your novel–severe injustice.
What is your method, and have you had similar experiences? Do you struggle with your characterization as a plotter? Do you struggle with your plots as a pantser?
How do you intend to address the inherent weaknesses of your method?
May 7, 2014
Random Rambles: I love and hate spring.
I have a love/hate relationship with spring. On one hand, it’s lovely. The sun is shining. I’m slowly pulling free of the grips of seasonal depression and mood swings. The first few excursions are bitterly painful. Instead of stabilizing mood, the overdose of sunlight makes it really hard for me. It enhances the depression, usually for a period of two or three weeks. (Don’t ask, it just does. Something about the sudden exposure to the burning daystar imbalances something.)
On the other hand, it means I have to do a lot of things.
It isn’t until now, right around pool opening time, that I’m actually able to go outside without high risk of going psycho.
Today the pool is being opened. This year, in the effort to try to establish some form of physical endurance, I’m hoping to be able to swim once every two or three days. Not every day. I can’t handle it, at least not yet.
I’m not normal. While I wouldn’t say I’m physically handicapped, I have issues with my circulatory system. So, when a ‘normal’ person goes on a walk, a trip around the block won’t exactly tire them out.
When I do? Yeah, let’s just say I have a very short distance I can go before it wipes me out for several hours.
I pushed it today. I was only in the yard for ten minutes, if that. I threw out some damaged flower pots. I walked around my yard. I installed the pool ladder. I dumped out a wheelbarrow. I checked on the various status of spring projects this year.
I’m exhausted. It’ll impact me, hard, for the rest of the day. I’ll have to go back out when the pool guys arrive to open the pool. They need paid! And I need to pray that all of the lines are fine from the vicious winter we had this year.
I took some photographs. Enjoy them. My back yard is a mess. We’re trying to make it not a mess this year. It’s going to be an excessive amount of work. The retaining wall and repair of the porch is going to be the biggest, most intensive job. It collapsed last year, but we couldn’t afford to fix it. I’ll be using the way-out-of-date engineering skills I have to start the repairs this year.
We’ll install a deck over the stone/dirt raised porch, and new steps.
My 35 foot or so long torture device will get used this year, because it won’t rain every day in the summer. Right, weather? You’re not going to rain and thunder and prevent us from swimming, right? I really need to be able to swim this year. I want to get healthy, and swimming is one of the few low-resistance exercises I can do.
I can only do it for a few minutes at a time between resting, but I can do it.
I’m hoping for a single 30 minute session every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It’ll be hard. Really hard. The year before last, the most laps, at a reasonable pace, I managed to do in one session was 20.
My goal for this year will be 21. Just 1 lap better than the last time the pool was opened and usable.
For the record, I’ll probably start at being able to only do 3 or 4 laps total. A lap is to one end of the pool and back, by the way. To get up to 20 laps, I had to start at 3-4, take a 10 minute float-on-back break, then try again.
It took me the entire summer.
I’m weak. I can’t do physical work very well. Any job requiring standing for long times, or excessive walking, I can’t do. Maybe after this summer, I’ll be a little better conditioned to be able to.
As for walking, my record is 5 kilometers, and it knocked me out of the action for the rest of the day. It took me an hour and a half to walk that distance, and I felt like a train had run over me.
I’m not in shape. I won’t bore you to the details as to why, but the source was a childhood illness. Then it got hard. I’m just not as dedicated to my physical health as I am to my writing.
This year, I hope to change that.
I love you and hate you, spring.
May 6, 2014
Random Rambles: I’m ‘fixing’ my website
The past few months, my site has been far laggier than I like. I’m hopeful that there will be a decent amount of traffic flowing here on Inquisitor’s official launch day.
As such, I’m trying to optimize my website. So, if you see anything funky going on with it, shout out! If the mood strikes you, leave me a comment to test the new commenting system. Click things. Play. If you break it, let me know! Hopefully it’s not the comments that are broken… hah! That’d be my sort of luck.
I killed WP Slimstats, which was the major culprit of the site lag. I’ve been trimming out other plugins and experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t.
Thanks for your patience as I fix things up.
Random Rambles: You get out of it what you put into it, and That Freaking Sucks
There are a lot of opinions and stances regarding what I’m about to talk about. I’ll be honest here: What you’re about to read is a whine. I normally try to keep my whines under some form of control, but you know what? Screw it. I’m going to give you all a very real glimpse of the crap that goes on through my head when I’m not being as up front about everything as you think I am.
Because there’s still a whole lot of stuff I experience, think, and feel that doesn’t make it online.
This is a whine about some of the consequences of my choices, work ethic, and decision to try to do a promotional extravaganza for my novel release.
I’ll start off with why I have made the choices I have made.
I want to succeed.
I want to someday be a bestselling author. (For my birthday would be so cool.)
I want to be an author people love reading.
I want my books to be loved.
Hell, let’s face it, I want to be loved. Love me! Love me all of the time!
I have motivation for putting up with the stuff I’m doing in spades. If I don’t succeed at some point soon–and by success, I mean make minimum wage–I’ll have to try to break back into the work force here, where I’m overqualified for things like flipping burgers at McDonald’s and under-qualified (and out of the work force for too long) for a lot of the things I actually have experience or training at doing. Did I mention I’d have better odds if I spoke French? I’ve tried to learn French multiple times, but I’m stupid. In one ear, out the other, and it never sticks.
That means I won’t be able to write. I’ll pick at it, of course, writing a little bit here, and a little bit there, but I’ll be down to one release every year or two.
I’ll have to abandon my novelist career. That’s reality.
Bills need paid, and I need to make minimum wage to do it.
Scary thoughts. Big Motivations.
Much Anxiety.
You know it’s bad when I make a half-assed effort at Doge poetry.
When I approached my release day extravaganza, I had a budget and my eye on the prize. (I overspent my budget by $39 dollars. Frankly, it’s miraculous I didn’t overspend by more.)
I didn’t think about the insane amount of work I would have to do to make my aspirations a reality.
This amount of promotional work is not easy. It’s hard. It’s work. It’s time consuming work. I spent the entirety of last week working on it. From the moment I soft-launched Inquisitor, until yesterday, my life was consumed by all of the background stuff needed to make this launch a success.
And there is no guarantee it will be.
That truth hurts, and I think it is why many authors just choose not to try this route. It’s expensive. Over $500 in promotional costs, with absolutely no guarantee of success, is a terrifying investment for a nobody self-published author. That’s over a month of editorial work and effort, tossed up in the air, in the frail hope it turns into something good.
Like me becoming a bestselling author for my birthday.
That’s the risk and the reward.
That’s my motivation, and the consequences. Do or die, although it’s more of a financial death than a literal one–and the death of my career, unless one of the other novels I release this year does really well.
Inquisitor was my best hope. It’s my first Urban Fantasy thriller, and has been compared to the Dresden Files. My other novels are more niche. There aren’t quite as many folks interested in it.
If I’m making a push, I need to make it with this book. I don’t think the others are as safe of a bet.
I don’t have the money to pay for this sort of promotional investment twice, not unless the books pay for their own promotional investments.
Do, or die.
Try flew out the window when I decided it was time to make this a reality.
And the only hope I have of making the risks I’m taking turn into that lusted-for reward is putting in effort and lots of it.
Thought One: My book needs to be good. Good enough isn’t enough. It needs to be good. It needs to be great. I’ve invested a great deal of time and effort on this novel. I’ve edited it, edited it some more, and when I wanted to cry and throw things at the wall, I edited it again.
Thought Two: But at the end of the day, all I’ve done with this promotional work is buy a slightly better chance at success.
Painful Reality One: No guarantees.
Painful Reality Two: No promises.
Worst of the Painful Realities: All I did was buy myself a slightly better percentage chance I’ll get in front of readers who want to buy books.
Whine of the Day: I have to compete with guys like Jim Butcher. Skin Games releases three or so days before Inquisitor’s official launch. I preordered.
I want to cry. I can’t compete with Skin Games. I just can’t. I know that. It’s the freaking Dresden Files.
Maybe one day my Witch & Wolf novels will compare, but today isn’t that day. I’ve yet to prove myself as an established author.
So here’s some more painful acknowledgements: I guess the simple truth is, I’m really like everyone else. I’m insecure. I’m prideful. I have enough ego to sink a battleship. And I think the fact I’m stubborn is the only reason I haven’t started crying and screaming while throwing random things at the walls.
I’m frustrated, I’m scared, and I’m worried. Anxious with a side dish of paranoia.
I’ve done the best I can with my promotional things. I still have to email a bunch of people with the buy links for my novel. I have a few guest posts left to write.
But I’m staring at the massive mountain of guest posts, interviews, and things I’ve already written for this release day extravaganza, only to discover that I haven’t even reached the peak yet.
There is so much more left to do.
I work hard because I want to succeed, and I’m terrified that all of my hard work will go to waste. I’ve invested not just money, but a massive amount of time.
I’m going to rattle some numbers off here, as rough guesses on how much time investment I’ve put into this. I’m doing this as a reminder to myself about how serious I am about trying to make my career worth something. I’m doing this as a way to make others aware of just how much work is involved.
These are just guesses of the main time sinks, so bear with me:
30 min to 1 hour of research on each blog group, reading their blogger’s sites, etc. (I’m working with what, 6 or 7 groups?) Min: 3 hours. Max 6 hours. Or 3-1/2 or 7 hours if 7 groups.
2 hours to throw together the shared media kit for groups and individual bloggers.
approximately 1 hour per guest blog post, of which there have been around 20.
Data gathering. 10 or so hours.
Answering interview questions: About 1 hour each. Think I did 5. Might be a blur now.
Approaching individual bloggers: 5-10 minutes per blogger. There are currently 20 of them. 1-1/2 to 3 hours, estimated.
Tracking what has been sent to who, project wide: Probably 5 hours.
There is a lot of little things, an hour here, and hour there things, which have eaten time. Like the tracking and reviews for author services. (Those are 2 hours a pop, for example.)
But using the maximum numbers, I’ve probably invested 52 hours on the promotional aspect of Inquisitor.
52 hours and over $500 on something that may not even work.
And after I did this math, I realized I didn’t include the time per group to talk about my needs and how I wanted the promotion to go, and asking questions of the operators, and so on. That takes time. Sometimes a great deal of time. Well, crap. So, plenty more than 52 hours after that.
Anyway, the point is this: I’ve stacked the cards in my favor.
I’ve done everything I can.
I have put in a lot of sweat, tears, more tears, more tears, and potentially some blood of my enemies in on this.
You get what you put into it, without guarantee of success, and that freaking sucks.
Insecure much? I sure am. I’m terrified, frankly, clinging onto hope like a drowning swimmer does to a life preserver.
Maybe if I didn’t have so much invested, I wouldn’t care quite so much that this novel does well. My first mistake may very well have been releasing it on my birthday. I’ve attached a good thing to another good thing, so I want it to become a great thing. Because how cool would it be to become a bestseller on my birthday?
But what if I don’t?
The reality is, I probably won’t. It takes a staggering number of sales to become a bestseller. And I want it. I want it so much it hurts.
And along with these worries are some other bothersome realizations:
The Eye of God was an okay book. That’s it. It was okay. I’m being honest here. I made a lot of newbie mistakes with it. As time permits, I’m going back and I’m fixing the book. (Seriously, I’ve finished a whole chapter of tweaking, adding tiny tidbits, and clarifying stuff.)
Storm Without End was a better book.
Inquisitor is an even better book.
That’s all good! Really good. I’m writing better books! I want to keep writing better books. I don’t want anyone–ever–to say my newest novels didn’t live up to my first books. I want people to think, “Wow, these just keep getting better. When’s the next one coming out?!”
But here are some facts, and when I got an honest answer from an agent or two about these facts, I was gobsmacked.
Agents want authors who sell. Their quantification for what a selling author is? This is someone who is established, releasing books, and is querying an agent with this in mind.
They want someone who sells books. This means they move 10,000 copies in a month, across all formats.
10,000 copies.
I’m about in tears if I sell ten in a day.
If I sold 10,000 in a single month, I would make minimum wage twice over.
For the record, I need to sell 135 copies of Inquisitor in the week of its official launch to make all I spent on promotion.
Here is where I’m at now: Less than 10 copies a day.
Here is where I want to go: 135 copies launch week of Inquisitor.
Here is where I really want to be: Making minimum wage.
Yes, I’m whining. Yes, I’m dreaming.
Yes, I want to do everything in my power to make this happen. This is my career. This is what I want to do.
And that is why I haven’t given up.
But on days like today, when I’m staring down the barrel of that gun, and realizing that my best might not be good enough, all I really want to do is go to a corner and cry for a while.
I’ve done everything I can to make my novel–to make me–a success.
The rest is in the hands of fate.
That’s scary.
/End Whine
Multi-Services Review, Part 3: Working with Promoters
This post follows up with the first and second posts of the multi-services review series. I’m going to be talking about several facets of my promotional efforts, including reviews of each group I’m working with–and some I’m not.
The focal point of this facet of the multi-services review is communication.
There has been one thing that I’ve learned about working with so many individual bloggers and blog tour groups: Communication is critical. Your tour will only be as successful as your ability to work with the tour group. That means working with people who communicate with you. You have to work well with others, and they need to work well with you.
When I dived into the selection of my tour groups, I found people who recommended tour groups, and went with those first. I particularly focused on groups who were recommended for being communicative.
I went in with certain expectations. If these expectations weren’t met, the group likely wasn’t for me. The time it takes for them to communicate with me is really important.
There was one group I ultimately did not decide to work with because their auto response system informed me it could be up to two weeks before I could get a reply.
If I wanted that, I’d be trolling for an agent right now–not looking for a promotion firm.
Now, that said, there are two elements to communication that I think are important to cover before I start talking about the specific tour groups.
There is how you communicate with them, and how they communicate with you. It’s a two way street. If you do not communicate in an open, prompt fashion, you cannot expect the promotion firm to be open and prompt with you.
Treat others as you want to be treated. If you want fast response times, you yourself need to have fast response times.
If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you can’t, for whatever reason, tell the person or group you’re working with immediately.
These are the basics of good business. There are a lot of etiquette things to remember and deal with. Common sense will do you a great deal of good though. Communication is a two-way street, and if you aren’t doing your part, the promotion firm can’t do theirs.
Working with Individuals
I’m going to get this out of the way first. Working with individuals is difficult. It’s a lot of work. There are a lot of things to remember. You need to make sure you have a promotional kit, and make sure that you’re ready to answer questions. Most of all, make sure you send everything they need, including buy links.
When you’re working with individuals, the primary burden falls on you to communicate with them.
Blog tour operators are paid to do all of this work for you–and believe me, it is a great deal of work keeping something like this organized. I’m working with around twenty individuals, and it’s a lot to keep track of.
A few of my tour operators are working with fourty for my promotional campaign–or more.
Communicating with Specific Tour Groups
What you’re about to read is a reflection of wise choices, recommendations, and making sure I’m communicating with the operators of my tour groups. If you want the too long; didn’t read version, here it is: All of the groups I’m about to talk about have been stellar in terms of communication.
I didn’t work with anyone who showed a single classic sign of non-communication. As a result, every operator has responded to me within a time frame I’m comfortable with. Some are astonishingly communicative, while others are closer to average, but not a single group has failed me in terms of being open with communications and quick to reply to questions and concerns.
A few side notes:
Note 1: Unlike the first few posts, this one has the complete list of the groups I’m working with.
Note 2: I’ve invested over $500 for this release day extravaganza. This is an extremely expensive experiment for me, and I hope it pays off… but it is a risk I was willing to take.
Note 3: Communicating with this many people, between tour groups and individual bloggers, is extremely stressful.
Blog Tour Group Reviews: On Communication
I’m going to rehash what I said above: There is not a single group I’ve worked with that has given less than an A effort in terms of communications. A few, however, have earned an A+, and that’s where the differences lie. I am extremely pleased with all of the groups I’m working with right now.
I can only hope that the actual promotion comes even close to all of the preparation work that has been invested.
This is not the first time I’ve worked with My Addiction is Reading. My original experience with them was for a single-day blast for Storm Without End, as well as a short book tour. The single-day blast worked better for me, with really good results. The shorter book tour still performed well, including some really great reviews, though I preferred the performance of the single-day blast.
My contact at My Addition is Reading is really great to work with. She’s super fast, and she has an excellent minion who helps with other facets of the tour business–who is also fantastic and super fast to reply to emails!
This is one of the A+ groups, because I never feel like I’m at a loss while working with these ladies. We have a really good working relationship. I feel like I can ask them questions at any times, and the same applies to them.
We respect each other, and we make sure everyone is responded to as quickly as possible.
And when I flaked out and was a day later than I wanted getting guest posts to one of the ladies, I emailed her when it was due and begged forgiveness.
All was well in the world. (And I had the posts to her the following morning.)
My Reading is Addiction uses a master sign up form for tours and single-day blasts so authors and publishers can watch activity without needing to communicate directly with the operators. This is a great feature. The page includes a list of participating bloggers for tracking purposes, making administration a snap.
Of all of the tours I’ve worked with, this one has been the most interesting in terms of communication–or the expected business-like lack thereof.
Kathy is great. She’s one of those people who says she is going to do something and does it. She’s not one to chatter, and I’m okay with that. Communication wasn’t really a factor with her because I knew if I needed anything, I could go to her. I knew she was quiet and would remain quiet during the promotion, but I knew she would work on my stuff as promised. When she said something would happen, it did.
If you are a person who needs to be given confidence through constant lines of communication, you’ll find working with Kathy a little terrifying. She’s quiet, she does her job, and she doesn’t waste time with idle chit-chat. She won’t email unless she really needs something. If she needs something, she’s sending me an email, and I know it’s ultra important for me to reply quickly with everything she requires.
Personally, I found this a breath of fresh air. With so many tour groups going around, no news is good news with Kathy. I’ll probably email with her once–in a week or so to check in, though it isn’t really necessary to. I’ve watched the promotion site, know she’s been doing her work, and that’s exactly what I need and want.
This is another A+ tour group. When I first contacted Fire & Ice, I wasn’t expecting such a quick reply. Of all of the groups I’ve worked with, Fire & Ice has been the only one where technical difficulties were an issue. My ipad hated their email address. She was really patient, and we sorted it out–so a shout out for that. When you’re working with so many people and things go wrong, it’s stressful, and she’s so laid back and easy to work with that even when our emails were exploding with technical glitches (who would have thought a .docx file could cause so much trouble…) everything was cool.
That calm approach, and super-friendly personality, makes working with Fire & Ice really pleasant.
Like My Reading is Addiction, Fire & Ice uses a signup page that shows all of the participating blogs, making it super easy to watch as the campaign proceeds.
I’m convinced that Tia over at Worldwind is a ninja. When I first reached out to her, I was not expecting a response nearly as fast as I got it. Within hours of my initial communication, we were talking about the project. Her responses are quick as a general rule. She’s really easy to work with, and has a no-nonsense approach to the business, which I really like.
Each group has a different style of communication, and Tia is the type of lady who quietly does her work. We communicate as often as necessary, and we do our own things. She expects me to do what I need to do, and I know she’s working on her end in the background.
One thing I like about Tia is that when she has information–like the master reviewer list–she sends it over. I didn’t have to ask for it. When she had the information, it was sent to me.
I like efficiency, and that’s what I got with this group.
Like Kathy with Worldwind, Roxanne is pretty quiet. She talks when she needs to, but as a general rule, you can expect her to be quietly doing her work in the background. When she needs something, she sends an email. I answer it right away. When I had information she needed, I sent it to her as soon as I got it.
When she said something would happen, it did. That’s the point of communication, especially with a tour group–getting things done.
So, when working with Roxanne, expect her to do her job quietly. It’s not for everyone, but even from the start, I got the feeling if I needed to talk to her about things, she’d respond–and fast.
But we haven’t needed the chit chat because I had everything she needed, and she went to work. That’s business.
Good communication does not mean your hand will be held every step of the way. (And as I mentioned before, I’m okay with that.)
Majanka with Enchanted Book Tours is another A+ lady. We don’t do a lot of communication (once again, like Worldwind and Bewitched, it isn’t really needed) but Majanka is among the quickest to reply to things when it’s needed. I’ve had response times of within minutes, which is a real comfort for someone like me who wants action instead of waiting.
And I appreciate a quick reply when an answer is needed. When one isn’t? I don’t even care if I don’t get a reply back–wasting time for unnecessary reasons doesn’t really help anyone, in my opinion.
Since I’ve already worked with Orangeberry in the past, I’m going to leave the links to the original reviews. In terms of communication, I’ve never been displeased with them! When Pandora and co aren’t in the office, they use an auto response system. I’ve never had a very long delay in communications after they’ve gotten back to work.
Orangeberry Services Review Part 1 | Part 2
Phew. There will be more to come…
… after Inquisitor’s official launch.
May 5, 2014
Random Rambles: My Love / Hate Relationship with Beginnings and Close Encounters of the Real-Life
Today has turned out to be topsy-turvy and super busy. I hated and I loved it. Sort of like my relationship with the beginnings of novels.
Today I started fussing with the second redrafting of Winter Wolf. I’m in search of the perfect opening, and I have four, five, maybe six options relating to two independent starting points.
Do I start the novel right in the thick of the thrills, ala Harry Dresden, or do I take my time and introduce the character as her life changes, leading into the thick of the thrills? (More like Harry Potter in that regard.)
Both techniques are equally valid. I’d enjoy writing both of them, because what Nicolina becomes is as interesting as what she does once she becomes it. It’s also interesting to think about how she would deal with the situations she has to for the sake of survival.
I’m going to give the before the thick of the thrills starting a few more chances before I throw my arms up in the air and just go for the thick of the thrills. (This is probably what is going to happen, but I’m going to play with the backstory bits for shits and giggles.)
Writing a beginning is hard. I find it is the most difficult part of every novel I have ever written. I will struggle for words each time I start a novel, going back to go through the whole sweat, tears, and blood thing to make it interesting. And even then, I’ll often be left feeling like the beginning is junk compared to everything else in the book.
Oh well. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. I’ve got some thoughts, I’ve tried some things, and I’m getting a better idea of who this character is. That’s really the whole point of all of these false starts: Discovering who Nicolina Desmond really is.
Skipping to the real-life stuff… ugh. Life is difficult.
My husband is really frustrated with his work. The ‘If things don’t get better sooner than later, I’m looking for a new job’ frustrated. I can’t blame him. He keeps mentioning that he sticks around because he has ten years of loyalty to this business, but they’ve been stepping on his toes lately, and he feels he’s majorly underpaid for what he brings to the table. Because of their mismanagement, his place of employment has been putting him in positions he absolutely hates.
Cue the fun.
So he’s stressed, frustrated, and annoyed, and I can’t really blame him. He likes his job–usually–but some weeks he just can’t cope with how they do things. This is definitely one of those weeks.
Today was really bad for him apparently.
So that stresses me out, because my work is definitely not sufficient to pay the rent. Our lifestyle relies on him and his work.
So anytime this goes into flux, my stress levels go through the roof. That was a part of today. I hate it, but I can’t blame him. He’s not exactly unjustified in his stance.
The business he works for isn’t exactly unjustified in their stance either, but they are unjustified in trying to force him to log so many unpaid hours over the weekends and evenings to make up for their mistakes. That has him really angry, because he already works seven days a week, monitoring the office systems and being on call to fix things. To add extra is an insult to injury, because we can’t do things as a family, out, on the weekends, without making major adjustments to everything.
I hate that we’re tied down because of this stuff, and he’s not even given the realistic option to say ‘no’ at this point.
I really hope it does cool down at his work, because they do give him some flexibility about starting hours. But if it doesn’t, he could get paid anywhere to a third to double more than what he is currently paid. And I don’t think his work would like swallowing that pill if he gets fed up.
I haven’t seen him this angry about work in a long time.
Ugh. I’ll just hope it settles down.
In the mean time, I’ll restart Winter Wolf again tomorrow–revisiting the starting place I think will probably work best for the book in general. We’ll see!
For now, I think I need to drag my husband to bed so we can read books.
