D.E. Haggerty's Blog, page 10

How the cover for Picture Not Perfect was born #WriterWednesday #AmWriting #CozyMystery

With Book 3 of the Not So Reluctant Detective series hitting the shelves last week, I thought it was a good time to discuss aspects of the previous novel in the series, Picture Not Perfect. In this post, I talk about developing the cover for Picture Not Perfect.

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As Picture Not Perfect is book 2 of the Not So Reluctant Detectives series, I thought the cover would be a snap to develop. In order to ensure readers recognize individual books in a series, the covers for each book in the series should be consistent. Sounds easy, right? Not so much. The development started out well enough. We kept the background the same as the previous book Finders, Not Keepers. We also re-used the library card in the corner, which features my name and the series name. Unfortunately, that’s not enough for a cover.

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The style for the title itself was easy. Well, at least it was easy after I finally figured out what to name the book. Naming novels is not easy, let me tell you. But that’s a story for a different day. I wanted to use a font that hinted towards the premise of the book and was reminiscent of the title – namely that a picture isn’t always correctly (aka perfectly) telling a story. I started researching fonts that resemble shattering. Within a few moments, I found the shattering glass font used on the cover. Luckily, my designer liked it as well.

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So now I had the title, the background, and my name with the series name. Those elements a cover does not make. Unfortunately. At this point you’re probably wondering why I’m this deeply involved in designing the cover. Isn’t that what cover designers are for? Yeah, sure, if you can afford one. My husband, who has self-taught himself graphic design, is the one who actually puts my thoughts into an actual cover. And while he’s awesome at putting my ideas onto paper …er… computer file, coming up with a conceptual design is not his area of expertise. Although to be completely honest, he’s willing to take a stab at it. I’m the one who may be a tiny bit hesitant.

[image error]I went back to the actual novel itself as I feel it’s important for the cover to hint at what the book is about (not just some hot guy to drool over). The heroine of Picture Not Perfect is harassed by the police as they believe she was stalked by the murder victim. The theme of stalking comes back again and again in the novel. A-ha, I thought, I can incorporate something about stalking in the cover. My excitement lagged after spending hours going through stock photos of stalking pictures. I couldn’t find what I wanted, but my idea was now firmly developed. I wanted a picture of my heroine, Melanie, being stalked. This is when my designed really shined. He took my idea and developed it into a cover, which was a relief as I was about to tear my hair out!

And that’s how the cover for Picture Not Perfect came to life.  What do you think? Did I maintain the same ‘feel’ for all covers of the series?

Should writers respond to comments on Facebook Ads? #WriterWednesday #AuthorToolboxBlogHop #BookMarketing

[image error] All writers know we shouldn’t respond to negative reviews no matter how strong the temptation is to explain yourself (or your book or your motivation) to the reader. But what about comments in general? Especially those pesky negative ones. Should a writer respond to those? In specific, what about comments on Facebook ads? These ads look like any other post in your Facebook timeline, which means viewers are free to like, comment, and even share. And comment they do.

How should you the writer respond to such comments? Ignore them? Delete them? Respond? Here’s my lawyerly answer: it depends on the comment.

Positive Comments. I’m a big believer in responding to positive comments. You never know where it will lead. You may turn a potential reader into a super fan. There’s no need to think up some fancy response to each positive comment. I use the same standard response – just to let the reader know I saw the comment and appreciate her.

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Questions. It doesn’t happen a lot, but you will get questions about the book. Make sure to check your Facebook notifications often in case the question is about different versions of the book. I often get questions about the availability of the book in other markets or other formats. I respond to those quickly – before the potential reader loses interest!

The Nasty Comments. This is a no brainer. Nasty comments that have nothing to do with your book can and should be deleted. The tagline for my novel Searching for Gertrude is: How far would you go for the woman you love? When I use this tagline for my Facebook ads, I inevitably get some man responding with a comment like: Not far at all! I have no compunction about deleting these types of comments. The comment has nothing to do with my book. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Negative Comments About The Book. Whether these should be deleted or not, is more difficult to answer. Many writers will tell you to delete them as you are paying for an advertisement and this is not helping you market your book. I, however, think differently. I believe potential readers have a right to hear what other people are saying. I also am well aware of readers now being cautious about buying books that only have raving reviews. (I admit – I’m one of those readers. Twenty reviews and all five-stars? Someone’s got a lot of awesome friends is what I think.) But should you respond to such comments? I have decided not to. I just leave them, hoping potential readers don’t take them too seriously.

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As should be obvious from the above, you can’t simply make a Facebook ad and then forget about it. How do you respond to comments on your ads?

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This blog post is part of the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. This is a monthly blog hop hosted by @raimeygallant. Make sure to stop by the other author blog posts in this month’s blog hop to fill up your author toolbox! Just click on the graphic to take you to the list.

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My Review of The Song of Achilles #TuesdayBookBlog #AmReading #BookAddict

The Song of Achilles was o[image error]ur April book club read. Although I like Greek mythology, I was hesitant to read this one. I can never remember all the different myths and boy are there a lot of Greek Gods. Who can keep them all apart? Add in the demi-gods and the characters from the Odyssey and you have a recipe for confusion – at least in my humble opinion.

Not only did I thoroughly enjoy The Song of Achilles, but I also found myself flipping through pages much faster than expected. Miller’s writing has a simplistic quality to it, which pulled me into the story and made reading a delight. She also has a way of sneaking in facts about the myths, which us mere mortals tend to forget, without sounding like she’s the teacher we know she is.

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In The Song of Achilles, Miller has made Patroclus, a minor character of Greek mythology, into the storyteller. Instead of a story about the great Achilles and his fighting prowess, we get a love story. A story about a man who will follow his love anywhere, including war.

[image error]Our book club struggled with Miller’s description of the Trojan War. Although the war lasted ten years and there was incredible suffering, including rape, pillaging, and death, the suffering was glossed over in the novel. Personally, I wasn’t as bothered by this as the others. Miller did not write a story about war. She wrote a love story. And, as a love story, it was beautiful. I did struggle to understand what in the world Patroclus saw in the self-obsessed demi-god Achilles. But that’s how love is. It doesn’t see the imperfections.

Another issue our book club had was the lack of women in the story. Any women in the story are minor characters. They are obviously unimportant except for use as a sacrifice or war prize. My female-only book club didn’t like this one bit. I get where they’re coming from. I do. Really. But I’m fairly certain that most men in those times thought of women in the same way. It’s unfortunate, but this is a story told from a man’s point of view.

I recommend this novel to anyone having even the slightest of interests in Greek mythology.

 

In celebration of mysteries and thrillers, here are some of my favorite reads #MysteryWeek #AmReading #BookAddict #Mystery #Thriller

Whoo! Hoo! This week we are celebrating mystery week, which just happens to be one of my all-time favorite genres. I wonder why? (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) I thought I’d share some of my favorite reads as part of the celebration. Not my all-time favorite reads, because that’s impossible. Yes, impossible. Because who can possibly pick just one book as a favorite?? Not this book addict. Anyway, here goes.

Thrillers

I went through this period in the military where I was obsessed with military and spy thrillers. OBSESSED. I blame it on the PX that only stocked these sorts of books. Did they even have a romance section?

After the military, I went to law school and promptly became obsessed with legal thrillers. P.S. I won’t even go near a book with a lawyer in it now. Not even a romance. Nope. *Crosses index fingers in front of her and backs away*

Cozy Mysteries

When I wrote Murder, Mystery & Dating Mayhem, readers started calling it a cozy mystery. Huh. What is that, I thought. I started reading a ton of cozy mysteries and fell in love with the genre. (FYI: I just finished my third cozy mystery series)

Favorite Funny Mysteries

My all-time favorite genre of mysteries is the funny mystery. Okay, that’s not really a genre, but it definitely should be!

 

How about you? What’s your favorite genre in the mystery and thriller field? And what are your favorite books in that genre?

My favorite podcasts for writers #WriterWednesday #AmWriting

I’ve never been a big podcast listener. I like the idea of podcasts, but I can’t sit still to listen to them. And don’t tell me to listen while at the gym. I need some pumping music to get me through the mundane hours at the gym. But recently, I’m spending a lot of time driving to and from our house in Germany. As it’s a four-hour-drive each way, I found myself with some prime listening time on my hands. I’ve discovered some great podcasts to help in my marketing endeavors. Here are my favorites:

[image error]The Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast. This podcast by Chris and Becca Syme features podcasts of about thirty minutes on various marketing issues. I like the short duration as I may have a slight attention span problem. Features include keys to successful bidding with BookBub ads, copywriting skills to help sell more books, and why social media helps sell books.

[image error]Novel Marketing. Thomas Umstattd Jr. and James L. Rubart host this podcast for ‘novelists who hate marketing’. Like the Smarty Pants Podcast, the episodes are short – sometimes as short as 15 minutes! The episodes concentrate on marketing efforts you can do yourself rather than Amazon or Facebook advertising. Examples include using bookmarks and business cards, getting speaking engagements, and using your book’s back matter to sell more books.

[image error]Spa Girls Podcast. This weekly podcast is hosted by four self-published authors. It is aimed at romance authors and those new to publishing. I’m not new to publishing and I’m not strictly a romance author, but I find many of the episodes helpful. Again, I like the short thirty-minute episodes.

[image error]The Self Publishing Show. No list of author marketing podcasts would be complete without the self publishing show. The show is hosted by Mark Dawson, the best-selling author famous for the self-publishing formula, a course to help self-published authors learn how to sell more books using ads. The podcast is co-hosted by James Blatch, who seems to do all the heavy lifting. The episodes are somewhat longer – around forty-five minutes – and provide weekly inspiration and education to writers in all stages of their careers.

[image error]The Creative Penn Podcast. This long-running podcast is hosted by Joanna Penn. The episodes are a mix of information, inspiration, and interviews on writing, publishing, marketing, and making a living as a writer. Her podcasts are usually an hour or so in length. Perfect for long drives in the car or trips back to the continent after London Book Fair.

I confess I don’t listen to each episode of each podcast. I pick and choose the topics I’m interested in and delete the rest. I’m sure there are some gems in those deleted podcasts but last time I checked there are still only 24-hours in a day and 7-days in a week.

 

 

Ideas for guest posts which are related to your new release #WriterWednesday #Guestblogging #Blogging

I always struggle with guest posts and interviews for blog tours, but recently the issue became urgent. In addition to wanting to publish four books in one year (which means the time between novels is less making the time for marketing a new release minimal), I’m also helping to put on a benefit gala happening just days before my next release. I’m not sure if that makes me crazy or an overachiever. For the sake of argument, let’s go with overachiever.

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In order to get those blog posts written, I’ve developed a list of blog post ideas specific to books to help me generate blog post ideas. Maybe this well help some other “overachieving” writer:

Character Interview. Make up some fun questions and have your hero answer them. This works well if you have a character who you really like but is misunderstood.
5 Things You Didn’t know About {insert character’s name}. An oldie but a goodie.
10 Items on {insert character’s name}’s bucket list.
Top 10 … What is your hero’s main characteristic? If she’s a reader, what are her top 10 favorite reads. If she’s a travel junkie, what are her top 10 favorite places to visit. If she’s a coffee junkie, what are her top 10 favorite coffee drinks. You get the idea.
Cast of characters in Hollywood adaption. Make sure to add some pictures.
Something specific to the book. My newest release features an English Lit teacher, so I did one guest post with a list of her favorite novels and one on her reading habits.
How did the cover come about?
How was writing this book different from other books? Did you have an aha moment? Or maybe some hardships while writing your novel?
Favorite thing about writing this genre.
Particular inspiration behind this story.
A deleted scene. You can just write a new scene if you don’t have any deleted chapters.
Story behind a character’s name.
Why did you choose the setting?
Research related to this novel. This is especially fun if you write mystery novels.
A day in the life of {insert character’s name}.
Books that inspired you to write this novel.
Places you visited for research while writing this novel.
How long did it take to write this book? Shorter/Longer than other novels?
Most unusual place you wrote while working on this book.

I couldn’t quite make it to twenty! Any other ideas you use while working on guest blogs?

Review of The Dinner from Herman Koch #MondayBlogs #BookReview

As I live in the Netherlands, my book club often reads novels from Dutch writers. The Dinner was the first novel I’ve read from Herman Koch. I planned on reading it in Dutch, but I received the English version as a gift from my mother-in-law (which is kind of weird as we’ve spoken Dutch together for the past twenty-three years). The novel has been filmed not once, not twice, but three times! Once as a fancy schmancy Hollywood production with Richard Gere. The book is also a New York Times Bestseller and has won various awards. What’s all the hubbub about?

~ Blurb ~

[image error]A summer’s evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness – the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened…

Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified – by everyone except their parents. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

~ My Review ~

{contains spoilers}

[image error]After reading the novel, I’m not sure why this novel has gained the coveted bestseller status. The narration is simple and boring. The narrator tells us in excruciating detail the specifics of the menu and his ordering. I cringed as he ridiculed the waiter. He also sounds like a pompous ass as he talks about the ‘normal’ café where ‘normal’ people congregate. I felt like I was force feeding myself the first half of this book. Will the narrator ever get to the point?

Although the story ostensibly takes place over a dinner, the narration jumps back and forth through various happenings in the past. He omits simple details like the disease from which his wife suffered and his medical condition. As he’s an obviously unreliable narrator, the reader is unsure of which events are fact and which are fiction. Frankly, I didn’t care enough about the narrator to try and figure it out.

There was not one character in this novel who redeemed himself. They are all horrible people covering up a heinous crime committed by their children. I believe the stir this novel has caused is due to this subject matter. The question should arise as to how far you would go to protect your children. This issue, however, is irrelevant here as the severity of the crime committed by the children is such that a decent human being can only hope they would not cover up the crime as these parents did.

~ Lost in translation? ~

As we discussed this novel at my book club, I realized all three of the Dutch members read the novel in Dutch and were decidedly more positive about the novel. They found the writing caustically witty. I have long been a believer that humor does not translate well. Being witty is especially difficult in a foreign language. Maybe someday I’ll have the time to read the novel in Dutch and make a different assessment. For now, I simply cannot recommend reading The Dinner.

A few tips and tricks for using Facebook Ads #WriterWednesday #AuthorToolboxBlogHop #Author Marketing

[image error]I’ve tried Facebook ads on and off for years. Several authors absolutely rave about Facebook ads. I couldn’t crack the code, however. Using Facebook ads was like burning money. Money I wasn’t willing to spend. So, I gave up and told everyone I knew that Facebook ads were a waste of money and moved on. But then I decided I would make money from this writing thing and took a course to help me with Facebook ads.

While the course helped a lot (A LOT), it didn’t help me crack the code. That’s when I realized you can’t crack the code! Let me repeat that – You Can Not Crack The Code. Nope. BUT there are certain ‘tricks’ you can use that my help make your Facebook ad work. Here are some things I’ve learned that work (or at least make me waste less money).

Bid cap. Unlike with Amazon ads, Facebook ads will use all of your money. That’s right – all of your money. If you set a daily limit of $5, Facebook is using $5 (and sometimes even more than that). This can lead to a very expensive cost per click rate. Yikes! If you want to ensure you get more than a handful of bids per day, but don’t want to mortgage your house to ‘pay’ for your writing career, bid caps are a good idea. You’ll need to play around with the amounts. I find a bid cap of 20 cents works well whereas anything lower leads to Facebook throwing its hands in the air and screaming “I can’t work with this person!”

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Book covers are a no-no. You need to have a snappy image to capture the attention of Facebook scrollers. You may love your book cover. I know I love all of mine! But a book cover, in my experience, does not capture the audience’s attention as well as other images. With my novel, Finders, Not Keepers, I thought an edited picture of the cover would work. The book is all about a woman discovering a necklace and the cover has a woman hiding a necklace behind her back. Sounds good, I thought. Wrong. This picture works much better.

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Make it snappy. I have a tendency to want to tell potential readers all about the book. This happens, but then this happens, and then – oh! – this happens. *Cringes* Facebook ads need to be short and snappy. Facebook users are scrolling and scrolling. Attention spans are incredibly short. You’ve got seconds – if not milliseconds! – to get a potential reader’s attention. Here’s an ad that has worked well for me:

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This blog post is part of the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. This is a monthly blog hop hosted by @raimeygallant. Make sure to stop by the other author blog posts in this month’s blog hop to fill up your author toolbox!

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London Book Fair ~ Come for the atmosphere, Stay for the Networking #LBF19 #WriterWednesday #BookMarketing #ByteTheBook

Hello! *Waves* I’m back at the London Book Fair for the second time.

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Last year, I had a smashing time at the fair. But is it worth attending two years in a row? Or, frankly, at all?

If you’re looking for seminars to attend as an author, there are tons. This is my schedule for the week.

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To be perfectly honest, however, I’ve been a bit disappointed in some of the seminars this year. They are a bit basic and many are repeats of last year. Is it still worth it to attend? Well, you can always rub elbows with famous authors – if that’s your thing.

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And there’s at least one seminar I enjoyed yesterday. Call me a geek (it’s not an insult as I know I am!), but the lecture from Nielsen on trends in the publishing industry is always interesting.

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But if that doesn’t float your boat, there is one reason every writer should attend the London Book fair – networking. There are authors to meet, agents to try and meet, and publishers to schmooze. I attended a networking event from ByteTheBook yesterday. I met some interesting people and there was wine. Win! Win!

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Tonight SPF is hosting a drinks get together at a pub. Reason enough to attend right there! I saw the famous (or is it infamous?) Mark Dawson yesterday at the fair and – gulp! – put on my big girl panties and went to introduce myself. I’m sure he thought I was a total weirdo. Doesn’t matter. I did it!

If you’re at the fair, give me a shout.

How I plan to manage to publish four books this year ~ Time management for authors #WriterWednesday #AmWriting

[image error]I’ve just finished the rough draft for my next book. My previous book was published last month in January. People often ask me how I managed to write this latest book and get it ready for publishing just three months after my previous book was published. Mostly, they’re pleasantly surprised and slightly impressed. Just don’t ask me what they say on Twitter about writers who are prolific. (Yes, I take it personally. No, I shouldn’t.) Anyway, whether you are like me and planning to publish several books this year or you just want to be more productive, here are a few tips that helped me get more writing done.

Neglect blog reading. I know we writers are supposed to support other writers by reading and sharing their blogs. This is, after all, the best way to gain blog followers. It’s also a huge time suck. It’s the first task I throw out the window when I’m busy.

[image error]Ignore Twitter. I’m sure every time management expert says the same thing – Ignore social media. It’s not that easy when you are an indie author. Social media is part of our brand. (Anyone else hate that word as much as me?) If you want to be productive, however, you need to learn how to ignore Twitter or at least learn to manage your time spent on the platform. Twitter is not my favorite platform and yet I can find myself being sucked in. When I’m on a strict schedule, I limit my “Twitter time” to five minutes in the morning, five minutes at lunch, and five minutes in the evening. That’s all. An app to schedule tweets is a lifesaver!

Put blogging on the back burner. My goal is to blog three times a week. One way I’ve been able to make this commitment is to have specific blogging topics for each day. Monday is for book reviews or other bookish things. Wednesday is about writing or marketing writing. Friday is expat day. Whenever I have a blog idea, I quickly jot it down in my phone. This information is transferred to a notebook of blog post ideas. Whenever I’m stuck, I grab my journal and scan ideas. Often, this works. If it doesn’t and I find myself staring at my computer for fifteen minutes with no idea, I move on. That’s right. I. Move. On. The world will not fall down upon me if I only blog once or twice a week.

Plot, plot, plot. Plan, plan, plan. Although I’ve always considered myself a plotter, I’ve come to the realization that my ‘plotting’ cannot actually be considering plotting. Jotting down a few pages of a rough outline a plotter does not make. I’ve now expanded my plotting and try to write down chapter ideas for ten chapters at a time. This way, I’m never at a loss on where to begin writing when I sit down on my computer. I’ve got my chapter outline.

Free writing. I write a chapter every single day I write. Once I’m done with the chapter, I practice a bit of ‘free writing’ for the following chapter. I don’t write for a preset time period or anything. I just jot down a paragraph or two at the start of the next chapter with ideas of how to proceed. When I sit down to write the next chapter, not only do I know the scene I want to write from my outline, but I’ve also got quite a few ideas on how to make that scene come to life.

That’s it! These are the techniques, which helped me to write my latest book Hide Not Seek in just over two months. Hope they help!