Terry Odell's Blog, page 39
July 26, 2022
Do What You’re Good At
My Advance Review Copy of Cruising Undercover is ready. I’ve notified my Read & Review Team that they can download their copies. What was next? Getting the book formatted for paperback. Truth of the matter is, I sell relatively few of my books in print format, so I don’t like to deal with fancy programs to make “beautiful” books, or spend a lot of money on a formatter. Once I established the basics, a Word document saved as a PDF was fine for uploading to KDP.
The first t...
July 24, 2022
Amazon Update
(Warning: Statistics Ahead)
Click Image to Enlarge
It’s only fair that I relate what happened over the weekend with the Amazon side of my BookBub Featured Deal. After seeing nothing in the way of positive action on the deal day (Thursday) or the day after, on Saturday, when my sales of The Blackthorne, Inc. Novels, Volume 1 had dropped off to what I’d consider “very good sales” on a regular day, the rankings algorithms bots apparently saw the book as a normal Amazon offering.
Noo...
July 22, 2022
Has Amazon Changed Algorithms?
Brief rant before the weekend. I managed to score a BookBub Featured Deal for the first box set in my Blackthorne, Inc. series. These are (for me) very hard to come by, but BookBub’s reach makes it worthwhile. I dropped the price of the book from $6.99 to $0.99 (which will be in effect through July 27th).
Sales were very good. But one of the reasons for these featured deals is to gain visibility through higher rankings. In the past,...
July 20, 2022
It’s a Touching Good Story
Use the five senses in your writing. We’ve all heard it. Often, writers consider that a ‘rule’ and try to incorporate all five into every scene. For me, that inches into “laundry list” territory. I liked David Morrell’s approach, which was to assume sight is a given and include two others, varying them across the scenes.
Using the sense of touch is my topic over at The Kill Zone Blog today. Pop over. You might discover some new things about how our nervous system works...
July 17, 2022
Read and Review Team Openings
Are you interested in joining my Read and Review Team? I have a few openings. I’m looking for readers of romance, romantic suspense, and mystery who are willing leave reviews at sites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Goodreads. Bloggers are welcome, too.
How it works:
Members of my team will receive links to BookFunnel where they can download an advance copy of an upcoming book. These links will be made available about a month before release, and ideally, r...
July 12, 2022
My Revision Process
On Monday, I talked about the difference between edits and revisions. My editor gave me suggestions that would require more than word changes. While your word processing software probably points out typos and similar mistakes, your editor might say “this character needs to be more empathetic.” Trust me, there are no red or green squiggly lines for empathy. Or nastiness. Or kookiness. Then there are the dangling threads and continuity issues. We think we’ve found them before...
July 10, 2022
On Edits and Revisions
Thanks for understanding that I’ve been busy, and my single-track mind was fully occupied dealing with the feedback from my editor for Cruising Undercover. I know I’ve talked about the editing process before—probably every time I’ve written a new book—but since it’s probably the most critical step before hitting that “publish” button, I’m going to hit that topic again.
Before you turn in any work to an editor, publisher, or agent, you should already have made it as perfec...
July 6, 2022
I’m Busy!
I’m busy addressing my editor’s feedback for Cruising Undercover. Her suggestions always make for a better book. It’s always helpful to get ‘fresh eyes’ on a project. Too often, what’s in my head doesn’t make it onto the page, even though I know what I mean. Yes, I’m still waiting for that ESP writing app. My newsletter subscribers got a sneak peek at Chapter 1. I hope you were one of them.
It’s my day at The Kill Zone Blog today, and I’m talking about book bundles/box sets. Please ho...
June 30, 2022
Follow up to Craig Johnson
It’s July already, and it’s hard to believe we’re in the second half of the year. Time marches on.
Recently, I posted about my experiences at a library event with the featured guest, Craig (Longmire) Johnson. At the time, the library hadn’t posted the video of his presentation. It’s up now, and I thought you might enjoy more than my notes and short recap.
(The presentation starts at about the six-minute mark.)
Whatever you do this weekend, be safe. Consider donating a bag ...
June 28, 2022
Introducing Characters
Introducing characters to readers is important. My editor gave me an advance heads up for Cruising Undercover that she thought Belinda’s character needed some fleshing out earlier, and she sent me a couple of snippets where she thought I could layer in more details.
The first time we see Belinda, my editor said, “I have no idea where she is.”
Headslap moment. I’m the one in my little critique group who is always pointing out that the opening paragraphs of each scene or cha...
