Aimee Easterling's Blog, page 35

May 2014: Indie book favorites

May
was a great month for quality, free-or-cheap, indie books.  Here
are my top picks from most to least recommended (with the usual caveat
that even the books at the bottom of the list were thoroughly enjoyed,
or I wouldn't include them here).



A Gift of Ghosts by Sarah Wynde would be my favorite novel of the month...if I hadn't also tried out and adored all of the other books in her series.  All of Wynde's books are paranormal fantasy with light but lovable romances and plenty of fascinating world-building.  A Gift of Ghosts is free, and if sign up for the author's email list, you'll also get a free copy of the fun short story The Spirits of Christmas.  Then you'll have to decide whether to splurge $3.99 on A Gift of Thought (excellent by other authors' standards, but my least favorite of Wynde's books) and $4.99 on A Gift of Time (not to be missed!).  If you're smart, you'll read them all!



Disembodied Bones by C.L. Bevill is the one book I bought last month, and it was worth every penny.  Disembodied Bones is the second book in a series, but it can be read as a standalone (although why you would skip Veiled Eyes when it's equally good and is free is beyond me).  Both books are riveting suspense stories with a very light romance and a hint of fantasy and I lapped them right up!



Fillies and Females by Bev Pettersen is a romance with a fascinating

glimpse
into the culture of horse-breeding and -racing.  Although it's
pretty much fluff, I enjoyed the book enough that my borrow of the month
was Bev Pettersen's Hearts and Hoofbeats two-book set.  Of those, Thoroughbreds and Trailer Trash was an absolute delight while Studs and Stilettos
pushed some of my not-quite-so-enjoyable buttons but was still a good
read.  I'll probably borrow more of Bev Pettersen's books in later
months.



Under the Sassafras by Hattie Mae delves deep into bayou culture, and also mixes in a good story and a sweet romance.



Irreparable Harm by Melissa Miller is highly recommended if you enjoy Grisham-style legal thrillers.  It's free and is the first book in a series, but there's no cliff-hanger ending.



The Icing on the Cake by Rosemarie Naramore is a delightful chick-lit novel about living with and loving your birth family when you're all grown up.



The Vow
by Georgia Fallon is more literary than the books I usually read, but
is not literary in the non-enjoyable way.  Instead, the book
reminds me of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo combined with J.D. Robb-like mysterious intrigue.



Meant for Her by Amy Gamet is a fun, free romantic suspense.



Never a Mistress, No Longer a Maid
by Maureen Driscoll is a sweet regency romance that I got for free, but
which I would have been willing to pay the asking price of 99 cents
for.



Some Like it Charming by Megan Bryce is one of those rare romances that really work for me despite having no redeeming qualities.  Plus, it's free, so why not try the book out?



Do you need more book recommendations?  Check out last month's post (and follow the links back to previous months if you need yet more reading material).  Happy reading!

Thrifty Chicken Breeds

I'm excited to have a new installment in the Permaculture Chicken series available for 99 cents on Amazon!  Thrifty Chicken Breeds answers the difficult question --- how do you make your chicken habit pay for itself?



Many backyard chicken
keepers are surprised to learn that they spend more on store-bought feed
than they would have paid for eggs and meat at the grocery store. 
If you're on a budget and want your foray into poultry to save money,
not lose money, your first step should be to select thrifty chicken
breeds.



The best breed for the
cost-conscious homesteader will be a dual-purpose chicken that forages
well, doesn't cost much to feed, stands up well to predators and
weather, and lays copiously in the winter.  In addition, Thrifty
Chicken Breeds covers a variety of other factors homesteaders should
look for when choosing new birds, then explains why a dozen common
breeds do or don't make the cut.



This new installment in
the popular Permaculture Chicken series helps make backyard chicken
keeping cheaper, sustainable, less smelly, and more fun.  Join the
thousands of readers who have used tips from the first two books to turn chickens into a
frugal part of their permaculture homesteads!

Second edition of The Naturally Bug-Free Garden

I don't usually publish a second edition a mere four months after the first edition came out.  But I was able to make
a deal with Skyhorse to turn The Naturally Bug-Free Garden into a print
book (due to hit bookstores in spring 2015) while leaving me the ebook
rights.  That's
why you haven't heard much from me on the writing front for the last
month --- I've been getting the revised manuscript together to send to
my publisher.



I'm a perfectionist, so
whenever something's going to be on paper, I tend to polish, polish,
polish.  And, in this case, I also tracked down several
permaculture suggestions from readers, added a couple dozen more photos,
and streamlined the text.  The result is a book that's 30% longer
and is 100% higher quality than the first edition.



Which is all a long way of saying that, if you've already purchased The Naturally Bug-Free Garden...you
can just wait a few days until Amazon emails you to see if you'd like a
free copy of the revised edition.  And if you haven't made the $1.99 splurge
yet, now's a great time!  You'll also probably be hearing me
oohing and aahing over Skyhorse's rendition of the cover and interior
soon --- I appreciate your patience in advance.



In other news, I've also
got a chicken ebook coming down the pipeline soon, hopefully ready to
hit Amazon next week.  So stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

Making the leap to fiction: An interview with Anna Celeste Burke

A: I met Anna Celeste Burke (who goes by Celeste, thank goodness) over on Marcia's blog,
where she caught my interest because, like me, she did a lot of
non-fiction writing (traditionally published, in her case) before
delving into the world of fiction (self-published).  Her books A Dead Husband (on sale for 99 cents this week) and A Dead Sister
are cozy mysteries that owe a lot to Celeste's experience working in
the fields of mental health and substance abuse.  "Some of the
themes that interest me in writing fiction have to do with pondering
whether human problems are psychological or existential…sickness or
evil, problems ‘determined’ by our circumstance or entered into by
choice," Celeste explained when I asked her how her previous career has
fed into her current fiction writing.



I thought you might all enjoy hearing about Celeste's experiences spanning the fiction and non-fiction divide, so I figured I'd follow Aimee's lead
and do an author interview.  Thanks for dropping by,
Celeste!  You mentioned in an email that part of the learning curve
involved in switching over to fiction included having to wage war
against "weasel words."  I made some similar changes in my writing
style even before starting to write fiction since my non-fiction writing
is for the popular, rather than the academic, press, and it felt very
freeing to let go of conventions like writing in the third person. 
What made you decide to branch out into fiction instead of popular
non-fiction when you chose to self-publish?  Was it a marketing
decision or simply a book itching to be written?



C:
Writing fiction began as a way to break out of the confines of the
academic writing I was doing.  The methods required of you in
science place such strictures on what you say and how you say it. 
Progress, when it occurs, is incremental, and bounded.  When I talk
about using weasel words, I'm talking about all the disclaimers and
conditions you put into every sentence to make sure you're not
overstating your case about a research finding or treatment
outcome.  It is valuable work, but complex and tedious. Like
coloring within the lines.  There's even something satisfying about
that, and I suppose that's why I chose that line of work.  Most
often, I studied unbounded, out of control subjects like madness,
drunkenness, compulsions and addictions to drugs and other things. 
So a cool medium in which to explore hot subjects makes sense.  I
did consider writing in the self-help genre at some point.  In
addition to research, I did lots and lots of teaching and training of
practitioners in helping professions.  Some in the classroom, but
in community agencies as well.  Mostly about how to evaluate the
outcomes of prevention and intervention practice.  So figuring out
how to translate scientific knowledge into practice matters.



I was drawn to fiction
because it's so different.  More use of visual imagery, a freer
flow of ideas, a faster pace, and more expansive use of language than
what I used to in academic writing.  So, I think you could say I
had the itch to do a different kind of writing without regard to
marketing.  Making stuff up is just more fun.



A: I
know what you mean about making stuff up being more fun.  Writing
non-fiction is restful for me, while writing fiction is invigorating
(and sometimes heart-wrenching).  I've also found that the two
different types of writing are very different from a marketing
standpoint.  Readers seem to really enjoy short non-fiction (10,000
to 20,000 words, with photos) and I've found it's easy to get into the
mid-list range with non-fiction (selling 1 to 10 copies per day) and
stick there.  With fiction you either sell a lot of copies or very
few since there's so much competition for the top-100 lists.  Plus,
reviewers often complain if your book is shorter than about 50,000
words, even if you're only charging 99 cents.  Have you had a
similar experience with the differences between marketing fiction and
non-fiction?



C: Marketing is a whole
new world to me.  My previous publishing was done through
established outlets with very specific, targeted audiences.  They
generally accept articles in that 10,000 to 20,000 word range, by the
way.  They often have strict guidelines about that, and the format
in which the article must be written.  That structure is good and
bad.  Makes it clear what you need to do but chafes!



The
best 'marketing tool' you have is to pick the right journal
outlet.  If you do that, and your article is accepted after going
through a peer-review process, it'll get read by the audience you're
seeking.  The idea is to reach the community of scholars, doing
similar work in your field, so you can learn from each other and move
the field of study along.  Many of those journals have small
numbers of subscribers so the 'targeted audience' may only be a few
hundred people.  Some practice journals have larger audiences,
since both academics and practitioners may subscribe and read what you
publish.  There's an anti-marketing ethos in academia, although
departments in universities that sponsor particular journals do so
because it brings them 'greater visibility'.  Professors are also
encouraged to participate in conferences to gain visibility for their
work, often before it's published.



Novel-writing is still
pretty new to me, so I still have a lot to learn.  Yes, you're
right that there's a threshold somewhere around 50 or 60,000 words
that's expected for novels.  Even more ambiguous, but floating out
there, is some kind up upper limit at around 100-125,000 words. Authors
of young adult novels are expected to stick to the lower end of the
range, while most adult novels are expected to be in the 80-100,000 word
range.  Writer's Digest posted a piece on this matter in 2012.  There is the 'novella' category for shorter pieces, but I haven't explored that format, much, have you?



A: In
my experience, customer reviewers don't seem to understand what a
novella is, so it's a bit dicey to market a work with that
description.  A lot of the authors I see simply use the term "short
story" even for longer works as a way of bypassing bad reviews from
confused customers.



It's
interesting to hear how small the audience is for many of the journals
you wrote for.  I sometimes feel a bit daunted when I realize how
many thousands of people read my ebooks, and how diverse their wishes
and experiences are.  At the same time, it's exciting to live in an
era when anyone can put an ebook up on Amazon and, if the book captures
the public imagination, the text can be downloaded hundreds or
thousands of times per month.  Do you feel like Amazon (and, to a
lesser degree, other e-retailers) have changed the face of publishing in
the last decade?  Would you have tried your hand at
fiction-writing if we still lived in an era when you had to query agents
and publishers in hopes of getting your work out into the world?



I
did go, for several years, to the Maui Writer's Conference and loved
it.  Interesting courses on writing, meetings with authors, agents
and publishers.  I got good feedback and encouragement to keep
writing.  Several agents were interested enough to offer
representation.  What they asked in return was more than I could
do!  Things like register with the National Speakers Bureau, guest
appearances, and other promotional activities.  I already had a 60+
hour per week job.  Everybody knows the best advice to struggling
writers is "don't quit your day job."



Call me chicken, but the
traditional publishing industry has been challenging for decades. 
Stories abound about well-regarded, best-sellers finding the light of
day only after amassing dozens of rejections slips.  Even with
representation!  Years ago, a traditionally published book had an
average shelf life of 3 days!  And that was before the decimation
of independent book stores and the demise of Borders.  I'm a 'bird
in the hand' kind of girl, I guess, so I put off fiction writing until
after retirement.



There's a lot to be said
for the self-publishing revolution.  The future for books depends
on it.  I feel nostalgic, at times, about the loss of book
stores.  Libraries, too, that are struggling all across the
country.  Still, it's miraculous when you realize, with ebooks, you
can carry an entire library on a reader, smartphone, tablet or
laptop.  How cool is that?  Those of us who love books, will
never be without one again--one or two or ten or one hundred or
more!  No more getting caught waiting without something wonderful
to read, yay!



A: I
agree --- having so many ebooks at my fingertips makes it hard to do
anything except read some days.  Thanks so much for taking the time
to share your experiences, Celeste.  It's been a pleasure chatting
with you.  I hope our readers enjoyed this as much as I did.

Interview with Marcia Meara

A: Marcia interviewed me over on her blog last week, so I figured it was time to interview her here in exchange.  I gave Marcia a firm
admonition to answer each question with only one paragraph, and she
said she'd do her best.  Welcome to Marcia Meara, author of Wake-Robin Ridge, Swamp Ghosts, and Summer Magic!  Marcia, would you mind telling us a little about yourself and why you started to write?



M:
Great to be here, thanks.  I can't remember when I didn't want to
write.  At five, I was filling yellow legal tablets with poems
about cowboys and horses, and by twelve, I had mapped out a future that
included living on the beach with dozens of cats, painting and writing
all day long.  I do have cats, and I've lived on the beach, and
painted, as well.  But I never got back to the writing, having been
told it was a silly pursuit and no way for a woman to make a living.
I'm 70 now--a grandmother twice over--and one day I realized if I still
wanted to write, I could darn well do it.  So I sat down, wrote my
first novel, Wake-Robin Ridge, then taught myself to format and self-publish it.  I followed that by publishing a book of poetry, Summer Magic, and this month, I published my second novel, Swamp Ghosts. 
It's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done, and I don't plan to stop
any time soon.  I'm already working on sequels to both of my
novels, and have several new poems done for my next volume of poetry.



A: I
think the stories I wrote at that age were about cats, not cowboys, but
your childhood sounds familiar.  Were you a big reader as well as a
young writer?  If so, what were your favorite books read during
your formative years?



M:
I was BORN a voracious reader, I think.  I read and wrote before
kindergarten.  As a child, I read all of the horse and dog books
out there: Black Stallion series, Black Beauty,
Lassie series.  Then I started the Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden,
Hardy Boys mysteries.  But by the time I was in third grade, I had
read everything our children's library had to offer, and my mother was
faced with skimming through books in the adult section that she felt
were suitable for a nine-year old to read, so I advanced into grown-up
fiction pretty early.  (Easier to do in those days, when a single
swear word could get a book banned.)  My mother wanted me to spend
more time outdoors, so I would hide books under my shirt, climb a tree
in the backyard, and read all day, undetected.  She was happy, and I
was, too.  After I turned twelve, I read everything I could get my
hands on from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to Bram Stoker's Dracula, to anything and everything by Daphne du Maurier, including my all-time favorite book, Rebecca.  I loved Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights,
and all the gothic romances, especially if they were set on the moors
in England or Wales.  There really was nothing I wouldn't read,
though, and I always adored poetry, as well, being especially fond of
Poe's The Raven, and The Bells,
and everything by Amy Lowell.  Ray Bradbury was a huge favorite,
and later, Stephen King, until I discovered Dean Koontz, and switched my
allegiance.  Vampires would get my attention every time, even as a
very young girl, and today's glut of Urban Fantasy makes my heart
happy, though I still read plenty of other things, as well.



A:
That's quite an eclectic collection of books!  Many writers seem to
be torn between writing what they know and writing what they
read.  Do you feel live you've found a happy middle ground between
the two options?  Are your books based more upon your experiences
or upon the worlds you read about?



These
days, I read more Urban Fantasy than anything else, just for the pure
escapism of it.  I like really well-thought out supernatural or
paranormal worlds, but frankly, I have no idea how to go about creating
them, myself.  I tend to go with what I know, instead, and at my
age (70), I feel I do know a thing or two about love and loss, so I lean
toward Romantic Suspense.  Straight romance doesn't interest me as
much as romance with an element of danger does.  But I feel
perfectly entitled to throw in some spooky stuff here and there, too, if
the mood hits, as it did in Wake-Robin Ridge.  If I think I can
pull off a "Woo-Woo Moment," and it adds an interesting element to the
book, I'll go for it.  But at heart, my books--at least so far--are
more love stories than anything else.  A lot of my own experience
does go into that, but even more goes into the settings.  I love
the North Carolina mountains more than any place I've been (so far) in
the world, and feel I can do that setting justice.  So that's where
I've envisioned the fictional town of Darcy's Corner, and the mountain
known as Wake-Robin Ridge.  And I know the rivers and wildlife of
central Florida pretty thoroughly, too, having canoed many, many miles
on them.  So that's the setting for Swamp Ghosts,
in the fictional town of Riverbend.  The next Darcy's Corner book
will be a sequel to Wake-Robin Ridge, bringing back Sarah and Mac in a
whole new story.  And the next Riverbend novel will be a (mostly)
stand-alone book called Hunter, which features one of the characters
introduced in Swamp Ghosts.
Both Darcy's Corner and Riverbend have become very real places to me,
and I wouldn't mind writing several more books set in each location.



A:
Writing (and reading) series is an interesting topic.  From a
self-publishing standpoint, series have a lot to recommend them since
you build up a fan-base who will (hopefully) want to read each
subsequent installment.  But series also have the potential problem
of creating a barrier to entry late in the series if you use the same
protagonist throughout --- people want to start at the beginning. 
And it can also be tough to keep your writing fresh and character-driven
if you use the same protagonist for each book in a series.  How
did you decide to get around these problems in your upcoming
novels?  And, as a bonus question, which series have you read that
have dealt with these issues in a fashion you really enjoyed?



So much to ponder,
here.  First of all, I'm not sure late entry into a series is
really a barrier.  For myself, nothing makes me happier than to
start at Book 1 and read straight through an entire series, back to
back, with no waiting a year for the next book.  And I know I'm not
alone in that.  So I think that one's a toss-up.  Now keeping
your characters fresh is tougher.  I think the best series do that
in two ways.  First, the character has to grow and adapt. 
Emotionally, in more realistic series, or perhaps via new powers or
skills in the paranormal worlds.  And second, I think the best
series have new and exciting plot lines in each book, related to
previous books, yes, but with new situations and problems to be dealt
with.  If an author can provide character growth and ever-expanding
plot lines, then I think they will have a successful series.  Jim
Butcher's Dresden Files comes to mind as my favorite example of a
character whose personal growth has continued through each book, along
with his wizardly power and strength.  Plus the plots get bigger
and more compelling with each book,
too.  It's an amazing series.  Others I love would include
Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series, Kim Harrison's Hollows series,
Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series, and her YA Morganville Vampire
series, Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, and her Alpha &
Omega series, the Eileen Wilks World of the Lupi series, and Dean
Koontz's wonderful Odd Thomas series.  All Urban Fantasies, and all
with excellent growth and development of characters and plot lines.



Bonus question, bonus
paragraph. For myself, I never intended to write an actual ongoing
series featuring the same characters.  My goal was to feature a
different character in each book, telling the stories of other people in
Darcy's Corner, or in Riverbend.  I've discovered while writing my
two published novels that minor characters can catch my attention, and
let me know they have a story that needs to be told, too.  In the
case of Swamp Ghosts,
there is a quirky friend of the hero who tugged at my heart in every
scene he was in.  I knew early on that he needed his own
book.  With Wake-Robin Ridge,
there was a minor character working at a local diner I wanted to get
back to, but before I could make that happen, I realized Sarah &
Mac's story wasn't quite over, after all.  Hence the sequel, in
their case.  But for the most part, I'm planning to write books
that can stand alone, though there will be some overlap of characters,
since both of my settings are small, and everyone knows everyone
else.  Those who have read Swamp Ghosts
and know the next book will be about Hunter Painter, have told me they
can't wait to learn more about him, since they liked him so much. 
So reading them in order would be ideal.  That way, you'd go into
the second book knowing a bit about the main character already. 
But I don't think it would be a necessity.  Hope that makes sense.



A:
Thanks for such thoughtful replies, Marcia (and for doing your very best
to keep each answer to a paragraph).  As you can tell, Marcia has a
lot more to say, so why not check out her books, or subscribe to her
blog Bookin' It? 
She plans to interview authors every Wednesday, so you're bound
to find out about books you've never heard of (but should have) if you
drop by midweek.  Enjoy!

Expanding ebooks to non-Amazon retailers

In the past, I've sung the praises
of Amazon's KDP Select Program.  Sure, they require you to only
sell books on Amazon, but by enrolling in the program, you get access to
five free days per three-month period, which is an astonishingly
effective marketing tool.  So why did I just yank two books out of
the program?



Amazon has a handy new reporting feature known as Sales Dashboard (shown above), which
allows you to visualize day-by-day sales for each of your titles
individually.  By browsing back through my stats, I realized that
only some of my free periods were giving me a boost.  Specifically,
free periods for books that have a potential to appeal to a very broad
audience (and which thus tend to hit the top 100 free on Amazon) boost both the
title itself and related titles after the free period ends.  On the
other hand, niche books generally move fewer than 1,000 copies
during a two-day free period, and the promotion doesn't seem to give me
any benefit at all.



With those niche books, I next took a look at borrows through the Kindle
Owner's Lending Library,
another way that KDP Select members get an
extra boost.  Some of my niche titles are averaging about 9 borrows
per month, which equates to about $18 revenue --- probably
worth keeping the book in the KDP program for that reason alone. 
But since Amazon sales equal about 50% of total ebook sales across the
board, titles that see only a couple of
borrows per month might be better off distributed to a wider
marketplace.



That's why you'll soon see Microbusiness Independence and can already
see Low-Cost Sunroom for sale at most ebook sellers.  (You can download Low-Cost Sunroom for 99 cents on Smashwords and on Barnes and Noble,
and the title should soon show up on Apple, Kobo, Sony, and in other
stores.)  I chose to use Smashwords to distribute my ebooks to
non-Amazon sources partly through laziness (it often takes a couple of
hours to format a book for each store, especially the first time around
as you learn their particular quirks) and partly because of the
excellent advice here. 
The short version is --- Smashwords takes a little cut of the action,
but does the format conversion and listings for you.



Will the expanded
distribution route be worth it?  I suspect that my best option will
be to keep my best-sellers in Amazon's KDP Select program, then to put
lower-ranking books on Smashwords and on other sites.  Only time
will tell, but I'll definitely keep you posted.

The My Writing Process blog tour

Many thanks to Marcia Meara for inviting me to join her in the My Writing Process Blog tour!  Marcia's second novel is free today, so be sure to download a copy of this romantic suspense set in the swamps of Florida, then head over to her blog for authorial musings and book reviews.



Okay, back to the point.  This tour's pretty simple --- each
participant answers four questions about how we write, then invites
three writers whose books we enjoy.  So, even if you're not
interested in my musings about writing, do be sure to scroll down to the
bottom of the page to learn about three other indie authors who I
recommend before you skip past this post.



What am I working on?  This question is a no-brainer --- the sequel to Shiftless! 
I've been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to my first werewolf
novel, and many of you asked about the next installment.  I aim to
please, so that sequel is already partially written.  I don't want
to give too much away, but the werewolf introduced as "trouble" at the
end of Shiftless
does indeed throw Terra's world back into disarray.  Storm is a
pack princess who embodies everything Terra ran away from.  Plus,
she smells just like Terra's mate --- bad news.



How does my writing differ from others of its genre? 
If you go on Amazon, you'll find two genres full of werewolf books ---
Paranormal Fantasy and Paranormal Romance.  I like to think that Shiftless
bridges the gap between the two, avoiding the bodice ripping common in
the latter category while still keeping readers' interest with a sweet
romance.  In addition, my werewolves aren't simply an excuse to
introduce a lot of alpha-male dramatics (although some of that is in
there); the books are also a study in how werewolves might merge the
behavioral patterns of humans and canines.  In the end, though, I'm
quite happy to follow many of the werewolf-novel conventions that make
us all love the genre so much.



Why do I write what I do? 
I write what I love to read.  The books I enjoy are carried by
character development, so my books also put the character before
everything else.  I enjoy novels that are well-written, but not so
literary that the words detract from the story, and I like the sense of
wonder you get when you enter a world not quite like your own. 
There are never quite enough books available that really hit the spot,
so I figured I'd better write my own.



How does my writing process work?  I'm still developing my own writing process, so what I say here is merely a snapshot of this moment in time.  With Shiftless, I used the tips in Save the Cat
to outline the main plot points...and then I started writing and let
the story go where it willed.  When nothing else pulls me away from
the computer, I tend to write for anywhere from two to four hours a
day, and about a third of that time involves editing what I wrote the
day before.  Writing the first and second drafts at the same time
lets the words flow unimpeded, but still allows me to flesh out areas
where I wrote too fast and left out critical passages while my plans for
that part of the novel are still fresh in my mind.  Later, I go
through and do a third round of editing to make sure the book flows well
and to hit more nitpicky issues, and this stage is also where I often
call in the help of family and friends.  Finally, I send the
completed fourth draft out to a copy-editor for professional attention,
to make sure I crossed my t's and dotted my i's.  And then it's up
on Amazon for the world to enjoy!



Who do I want to invite to join the tour?



Ella Blythe is a Canadian writer
of erotica and New Adult series.  She also works for HUSH Stories, a
customization and personalization service for erotica that allows
readers to put her creative imagination to work on their
fantasies.  When she's not writing under this nom de plume, Ella is
usually frequenting film festivals, traveling abroad (when she's
lucky!), and reading voraciously.  She maintains a household staff
of tame zombies and buff mermen to free her from household chores.



Katie Roman was
reared outside Chicago, where she began penning stories in fourth
grade.  Writing grossly inaccurate historical fiction brought her
immense amounts of joy and she filled up countless notebooks and
ignored a lot of homework for the sheer pleasure of writing. 
Around the age of fourteen, Katie's focus shifted from history to
fantasy
thanks to Tolkien's Middle-Earth and Tamora Pierce's Tortall
books.  Later, despite the many
papers and research assignments thrust upon her in college, she kept up
with her
writing, eventually earning a Bachelor's Degree in History,
with a minor in English.  These days, Katie Roman mostly writes
young adult fantasy, but
from time to time works on new adult paranormal fantasy as well.  In November 2013,  her first published novel, Fallen Grace, was released through Whiskey Creek Press.  The sequel, By Grace Alone, is due out in May 2014 also through Whiskey Creek Press.  In February 2014,  she self-published Mere Mortal, a paranormal new adult novel.



Lakisha Spletzer is an Indie Cross-Genre writer of science fiction/fantasy/paranormal romance/YA.  She started writing stories and
poetry at the age of 8 and hasn't stopped yet.  She's always been a
writer, but becoming a published one took a lot of work and
dedication.  Her motto is to not let life's many road blocks and
speed bumps throw her to the curb.  She can't wait to dive in and continue to share the stories swirling around in her head.  (As a side note, the first book in Lakisha's shifter series is perma-free, so why not check it out?)

April 2014: Indie book favorites

It's time for another round of book recommendations!



Veiled Eyes by C.L. Bevill --- This excellent free
fantasy novel is my favorite of the month by far.  Fascinating
world-building plus characters you care about add up to pure reading fun
good enough to make even me buy book two.



The Honeymoon Cottage
by Barbara Cool Lee --- From the book description, this story
just seems like run-of-the-mill romantic suspense.  But when you
read the novel itself, you'll be sucked in by the interesting
characters, the wacky
community, and even by the house the book is named after.



Year of the Chick
by Romi Moondi --- Did you ever wonder what it might be like to have
parents from India who expect you to submit to an arranged marriage in
the twenty-first century?  This free ebook is worth a read for the cultural education alone.



Undeniable Rogue by Annette Blair --- This free
regency romance goes beyond the usual romance novel conventions to
follow a budding relationship based on the slow buildup of trust. 
Now that's true romance.



Running Back
by Allison Parr --- This is a romance novel for geeks who secretly wish
they'd studied archeology.  (The rest of you will probably like it
too.)



Call Me Cat
by Karpov Kinrade --- I got this book when it was free (although it's
not any more), so I thoroughly enjoyed the well-developed romantic
suspense novel.  However, if I'd paid $3.99 for the title, I
suspect I would have been thoroughly pissed off by the major cliffhanger
ending.



Fire at Twilight by Lila Ashe --- This free romance novel really sucked me in since both the hero and the heroine are fixers who try to solve others' problems but who always end up getting hurt in the process.



Taffeta and Hotspur by Claudy Conn --- This free ebook is a short and sweet regency romance.  It's nothing out of the ordinary except that it really works.



The Last Single Girl by Caitie Quinn --- I
thoroughly enjoyed this chick-lit short story, but I suspect I wouldn't
have paid $2.99 for it since the ebook is only 77 pages long.



Still not enough books for you?  Check out last month's recommendations here.  Happy reading!

How to choose the best ebook category on Amazon

I
get a lot of questions from people who want to self-publish on Amazon,
and one of my first pieces of advice is to pay attention to book
categories.  If you're an unknown with little presence on the
internet, you're much more likely to be successful breaking into the
Amazon ebook market if you choose a category with less
competition.  The goal is to get into a top-100 list so that your
book is shown on the relevant page on Amazon, in essence giving you free
advertising and attracting new readers organically.



How do you know which categories have less competition?  Start here
and then browse through categories on the sidebar, digging deeper and
deeper until you find the smallest subcategory your potential book would
fit into.  Then page to the end of the top-100 list in that
category and see what the ranking is for the 100th book.



You'll soon notice that non-fiction is much
easier to break into than fiction since there are a lot more
subcategories and much less competition within each.  For example,
the Vegetable Gardening category shown above currently has books ranked
as low as 173,832 within the top 100, meaning you only need to sell a
book every 36 hours or so to stay in the top 100.  In contrast, the
very hot Paranormal Fantasy category has book 100 currently ranked at
2,597 in the Kindle store.  Yes, that means you'd have to sell 30
to 55 copies per day even to be book 100.  (You can convert between
sales rank and books sold here, although some of the numbers I list in this post are based on my own experience.)

You may have noticed that Aimee's Shiftless
is a werewolf book, which means it should most properly be in the
Paranormal Fantasy category (or perhaps in Werewolf Romance, which is
equally competitive).  But as an unknown author, that type of sales
can't be expected right off the bat, so I instead helped Aimee get her
book into some appropriate but much-less-competitive categories ---
Women's Fantasy Fiction and Coming of Age Fantasy.



These both happen to be
categories that you can't simply select using a check-box while
publishing your book, which makes them much less competitive since many
writers don't want to put in the effort to get listed.  Instead,
you need to use appropriate keywords (or to email Amazon's help line) to get your book in the appropriate listing.



You're allowed up to two
categories when you list your book on Amazon, and you should always try
to show up on two different best-seller lists for maximum
exposure.  The great thing is that you can change your categories
whenever you want, so as Aimee's book becomes more popular, I can move
her into harder categories.  For now, the two middle-of-the-road
categories she's using are keeping Shiftless
visible as she gains more readers, but at the rate she's going, I
expect to bump her up into Paranormal Fantasy within a few months!

How Wolfie got his name

One of my early readers for Shiftless
complained about the love interest being named Wolfie, and her point
had merit.  For those of you who don't live in the South, romantic
leads with names ending in "ie" or "y" probably seem a little odd. 
If you've read Bloodling Wolf,
you'll understand why Wolfie has this name, but the honest truth is
that I decided to let the diminutive fly for more sentimental reasons.



When I was in junior high
school, my across-the-street neighbor was a middle-aged black mortician
whose nickname was Duke (short for Dude, I kid you not).  Despite
the fact that I was a white girl obsessed with plants and other living
things (meaning we had pretty much nothing in common), Duke and I got
along admirably.  As another strange side note, my neighbor had a
girlfriend with my exact same name, first and last, but that's neither
here nor there.



Anyway, to get back to
Wolfie, I was just starting to stretch my artistic wings at that time,
and one day I came home from school with a pastel drawing of a wolf's
face.  In retrospect, the drawing wasn't particularly good, but it
did look a lot like the cover of Bloodling Wolf,
but with blues instead of reds.  Duke happened to drop by while
the picture was sitting on the table, and he immediately said he had to
have it.  "That's Wolfie!" he exclaimed, and offered to buy the
drawing from me.  I couldn't bear to part with my new work of art,
though, so...my neighbor stole it.  Yep, you read that right ---
when I came home from school the next day, the picture of Wolfie was
gone, and I soon found it framed and hanging in Duke's hallway. 
Being a vindictive middle schooler, I immediately stole Wolfie back, but
Duke did the same, and soon I gave up and let Duke have custody of my
pastel wolf.



While I was off at
college, studying art among other things, Duke died, and I'm not sure
what happened to Wolfie.  But my neighbor's honest appreciation for
my pastel wolf was one of the things that spurred me to stick to my
childhood loves of art and writing, so I thought it was only fair to
name my hero after Duke's Wolfie.



This story is all a long way of saying --- thank you to everyone who has recently encouraged me with Shiftless,
especially those of you who took time to leave a review, tell your
friends, or join my email list.  I've already written the beginning
of book two (tentatively titled Pack Princess),
and whenever I need a boost, I go and browse your kind words on Amazon
and Goodreads.  Like Duke (and the original Wolfie), your
appreciation makes writing worthwhile.  Thank you!