Prelude is Free! Or, Why I'm the Worst Marketer Ever

So, Prelude is free again. Yeah, I’m just getting around to posting this here. And it’s the last day. (See above about worst marketer ever). It’s free because I just released Tryst, and that generally prompts me into making Prelude free. I really want to have, you know, readers.

So here’s the thing about this promoting business: I really, really suck at it. I’m much better at crawling into a hole somewhere and writing. I wish that I could have a team of fairy god PR people who just take care of this nonsense for me, but it’s a one-woman show (with a whole lot of help from some fantastic people— see my acknowledgements) and that means I get to take care of my own promoting. Even though I suck at it.

So, you may wonder, why didn’t you just go the traditional publishing route? There’s a few reasons. One of which being fear of rejection (let’s be honest), but some others that are more legit. The main reasons were three-fold:

I’ve always known Rhapsody needed to be a series. If it wasn’t a series, it would be a ridiculously LONG novel. Soooooo, here’s the issue with that: publishers hate long novels because they cost more to print and are generally more risky. And they’ll give you a series (if you’re lucky) but usually they want volume 1 to be stand-alone just-in-case it sells poorly. I was told by lots and lots of people: don’t even try for a series. Pitch book one and see if anyone bites. But I couldn’t really see pretending it wasn’t a quartet— Rhapsody is really carefully planned out. Most of it was drafted before I’d even considered selling it.


I got nothing to back me up. Not even a degree with some writing classes. I’ve got a pretty diverse education, including some creative writing on it, but nothing is stamped with a ‘so this girl knows how to string sentences together’. That makes it harder to get noticed and/or published traditionally.


I’m kind of a fussy crazy person. As much as I hate the marketing aspect of this, I LOVE the rest of it— approving the cover art, requesting changes to things, fiddling with the formatting, etc. I love that I’m responsible for everything and that I make the decisions. I used the word “bastard” in Tryst and my line editor turned to me and said, “That’s the right sentiment, but is it okay to do that?” And I just got a big grin on my face, said, “Let me ask my publisher… yeah, they’re good with it.” I love having that freedom.

Anyway, in the end I’m not really regretful over my decision except when I’m dealing with PR. so, since it’s apparent that I have a few fans (a couple, anyway), here’s how you could help me out and be amazing in the process. You earn my infinite gratitude:

- Tell your friends and family about it, especially if you think they’d enjoy reading the Quartet.
- Leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. This is probably the single biggest thing you can do to have a legit impact.
- Join my social media sites. That will increase the chances that facebook or twitter would recommend me to others.