Tara Ellis's Blog: Making Progress - Posts Tagged "descent"

Good morning!

I am both excited and sad to be coming to the end of my trilogy, The forgotten Origins. Descent, book #3 is set to be released before the end of September!

It may sound odd, but I have come to know my characters so well that I will miss having them (and their conversations) in my head all the time. :)

I just saw the proof for Descent's cover and I LOVE it! I really hope that YOU do too. I will be revealing it any day now, so stay tuned!

(I am also actively seeking beta readers, so drop me a note if you're interested.)

Okay. So I have now been in the game long enough to understand just a little bit about what it takes to be successful.

The first and most obvious is that you must have a good story. I honestly believe that I have that. Is it best-seller material, or is it going to change the world? Probably not, but I think it's good. At least, good enough to entertain people, which is what my goal as a writer is, so in this area I feel that I am a success. ;)

I've made mistakes. But hey, I've never published a book before, so I think I'm entitled to a few. The biggest one was thinking that I could edit my own work. I know, I know...EVERY self-help article out there tells every aspiring writer NOT to make that mistake. I compare it to the child who has to skin his knee before listening to the parent. My knees weren't too badly scraped, but it did hurt a little bit.

My other mistake was making my own cover. Now, both professional editors and cover designers don't come cheap. I, like many other indie authors, didn't have any extra cash lying around to fund these endeavors and so I thought that my creative energy could carry my through. It (the old cover) really wasn't that horrible. I mean, I've seen worse. Much worse. But it certainly looked home-made and that, right there, is an instant killer. Instant.

My biggest lesson (and the slowest to learn) was the one about reviews. I need them. We ALL need them. So how in the hell do you get them?! I wasn't going to PAY for them! (I still won't. It's a pride thing) But I finally realized that giving a free copy of my book to someone to review it (honestly) was NOT the same as paying for it. I like to think of myself as intelligent, but I was slow to grasp this concept. I'm getting there.

Unfortunately, I am NOT a social butterfly. So aside from a couple of family members and a few REALLY nice friends, the whole word-of-mouth and social media plight is all up to me. I'm not that good at it. I have a much easier time promoting someone else, than I do myself.

I seriously only had a private Facebook account when I started this. I even had my first book, Bloodline on Booktango and NOTHING else. I finally realized after finishing the second book in the trilogy, that Booktango was NOT the best option. I finally came up for air from writing and started thinking about promoting myself, because...*gasp* my book was NOT selling itself. (I was SUCH a newb)

The Amazon breakthrough artist contest was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't make it past the first round, but it compelled me to go back to my first book (Bloodline) and do a VERY hard edit, switch to KDP and look into what I was doing wrong. I also met some incredible people.

So here I am, about six months later, and I am on Goodreads, Goodkindles, have a blog, google, twitter, Pinterest, etc. I had someone that could actually EDIT go through Bloodline, Heritage and I'm paying them to do my third and last book, Descent. My biggest move was having professional covers designed and I absolutely LOVE them. (Melchelledesigns)

I will let you in on a secret: I sold all of my CPR equipment to fund both my writing and my photography escapades. I was always just teaching classes for free a couple times a year, and the rest of the time it all sat under my house, so why not?

The photography has taken off and I'm actually making money off it, without trying all that hard. You see...I'm still obsessed with my books. Now that I finished Descent, I'm hoping I will allow myself to take a break. I've been writing pretty much non-stop for a year-and-a-half. (between outlines, writing and editing)

NOW...I just need reviews so that I can get people to click-through to make that purchase. Which is why I'm running a free promo this weekend for Bloodline. I don't have enough reviews to make it onto the bigger sites and that's killing me.

SO here's to good writing, smart marketing, HONEST reviews and a little bit of luck!

OH..and if you wouldn't mind helping me to spread the word: Bloodline is FREE right now until 9/7. :)


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ILPL7K8

Check out this great interview, given to me on the blog: Gimmiethatbook

Some really insightful questions that I had a lot of fun answering.

check it out!

http://gimmethatbook.com/2014/09/28/i...

I had a really nice surprise today! I was notified that Bloodline had been nominated for the book of the day (NO idea who did this, but thank you, if you happen to read this) and it Won!

So, Bloodline is on the front page of their site for today, and gets a lifetime info/ad.

Link: http://indiebookoftheday.com/



I also have another fun interview up right now on Books, Blogs, and Bits! Check it out: http://books.iggylife.com/


I hope that perhaps, Bloodline is finally starting to find the right crowd of readers!