Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

Dale’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I'm working on compiling a list of mystery blogs to contact about a blog tour. I looked into Kirkus (which I did before, but couldn't remember their pricing), and that's likely going to be out of the question. I can't afford the $425 they want, especially not with all the medical bills we're facing right now. It does occur to me that if we run a Kickstarter, we could factor in money for Kirkus, but my previous two have required some family contributions to make their goals, so that might be a stretch. I pretty much have to rely on free or at least cheap marketing tools right now.

I started on the cover last night. Kathleen (my wife) found a photo she thought would work, and already had the font picked out. I'm a bit unsure of her photo selection, but I'm going to put it together and see what we get. Problem is, I couldn't find anything better.

I also need to work up the blurb, and then we'll have to get the ARC produced, which is complicated by the fact that Kathleen has the InDesign typesetting skills, and she's not quite up to doing a lot yet. Plus, we have two other works under contract that we need to publish, so she contends that my book is third on her list.

Not that I'm complaining, really. She needs to rest and get her strength back. But it's always something...

Connywithay wrote: "Dale ~ no, there is no charge for a review (and should NEVER be). Sorry, I can only do shorter children's books under 50 pages at this time. Please email me at connywithay@gmail.com for my shipping..."

Very good, thanks. When we get something that fits your requirements, I'll be in touch . . . so long as I remember.

I read through their material and left a survey response for them. They probably won't like me, but I basically pointed out that I spent about $300 in books and postage to get one useless review, so why would I add another $100 - $500 to the price tag for likely the same results? I suggested they consider the BookGobbler model (without mentioning the name): require giveaway recipients to post a quality review before entering another giveaway. I also suggested that small presses and indie authors might even pay for that, so long as it was not too much (say, under $50). If they roll out such a program in the future, you'll know where it came from. ;-) But don't hold your breath.

Denise wrote: "I think it would probably be good if I sent the questions, but that's not a definite. If you want, you can send me an email with the information I would need for whichever promotion you'd like to be involved in."

Very good, thanks!

Thank you for the input, and I agree, Carole (and Ted, too), seem to have fairly broad experience and are worth listening to.

So here's a bit more detail. First, the book isn't 100% done yet. My wife wants to add a bit of material to it and tweak a few scenes. That's why it's not ready for publication right now.

Second, we haven't managed to pull together a cover yet. When we do, I plan to preview it here for feedback.

When released, it will be available in print, Kindle, and epub editions. All three will be available on our publisher's site, https://www.serpentcliff.com. The Kindle edition will be available on Amazon (but not the print edition), and both print and epub editions will be available on B&N, although the print edition might take some time to show up there.

For my first two novels, we ran a Kickstarter to help fund the print run. I'm not sure if we'll do that this time or not.

So what I'm hearing would be something like this:

1. Get the cover done pronto.

2. Put the book on pre-sale on Amazon and on our publisher site. (Not sure if B&N has that facility, but I can look into it.)

3. Send out ARCs to reviewers, etc. But would that be as the book currently stands, or should it wait for final edition to be ready? And do the places mentioned accept ebooks? This is new territory for me, so I have a bit to learn about it. I know I can order a short print run with disclaimers stamped in/on it (cover not available, editing not complete, etc.), but those cost $$ and I'm not sure I'll have the money to do it. Plus, some reviewers want them 6 months in advance.

4. Arrange blog tours. I'll look into Monsterland but this is also new territory for me.

5. Post on social media and send out MailChimps (I have a list, but it's not very big right now).

Thanks!

Connywithay wrote: "I review books on my blog of 800+ followers at https://connywithay.wordpress.com & am always looking for quality books to review..."

Is there any charge for reviews? I haven't written any children's books myself, but my wife and I run a small press (One Voice Press) and have published a few, with a couple more on the schedule for the coming year. The ones we currently have are for older children and are a bit long for your criteria (106 pages and 148 pages respectively), but the newer ones are for younger children and will be short.

Definitely interested. Do you want us to pose the interview questions? I could also do a eulogy, since Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller's wife Sandra is deceased but keeps popping up in the course of my novels anyway. ;-)

Matt wrote: "LOL - so we're all in the same boat? Thanks for nothing! :)"

Oh, you're quite welcome. Nothing is my strongest skill. ;-)

You're quite welcome. I didn't choose Company, so I don't know how that differs, but glad you got it working!

I only did one GR giveaway. I gave away something like 20 books, and got one review which only said, "I got this book in a giveaway." Others have said the rate of reviews to books given away tends to be really low, too. So I haven't bothered with it since. I don't think it's much help at all, although maybe my experience wasn't typical. I certainly wouldn't pay for the "privilege".

Did you get any errors during the setup? I did because, it turned out, I hadn't saved the application settings on LinkedIn. But once that was done, the feed started working. Oh, and after setup, if you want your existing posts to cross-feed, you have to go to the list of posts in WP and click the "Share Now" link at the right side of any posts you want to share. I'd do just one first and see how it looks. You can re-share if you need to tweak the feed layout.

Now I'm going to ask a really bold (or foolish) question. ;-) This is just to allow me to gather food for thought from all you insightful and generous people.

Somewhere in January or February, I hope to release my next Howard County Mystery, Ice on the Bay. (When depends somewhat on my wife's health, but things are looking pretty good for now.) I have been mentioning it for most of a year on Facebook, in my blog, etc., and I've been trying to get a bit more traction for my first two novels. We have also been working hard to make sure this is the best-written HCM so far.

Question: If it were your forthcoming novel, what would you be doing to prepare for release?

If you need more information before answering, feel free to ask questions.

Thanks!

That's the route I took. I used the "WP LinkedIn Auto Publish" plugin. It works pretty well, although it doesn't carry HTML formatting over. In case you use that one and it happens to help, I set my default share message as follows:

From my blog: [POST_TITLE]

(Read the full, properly formatted post at [POST_LINK].)

[POST_CONTENT]

This seems to give a fairly good look that (with luck) directs people back to my blog. See, for example, this post.

Thank you everyone for the input on this, particularly the mentions of competitions you regard as worthwhile. I'll need to look into some of these.

Oh boy.

When I saw your question, I thought, "If I'm not already doing this, I should be." So I looked into it.

Oh boy.

Why LinkedIn doesn't have a built-in mechanism for importing an RSS feed anymore is beyond me. It looks like they used to, but ditched it. There are mechanisms, but they are all third-party, which means it's a bit of a headache to set them up. I've found two ways of doing it:

1. If you use WordPress, there are some plugins available to cross-feed your WP posts into your LinkedIn profile.

2. If you don't want to use a WP plugin, or if you use something other than WP for blogging, there are third-party sites where you can set up a free account and then create a cross-feed between your blog and LinkedIn.

For WP users, this page offers three suggestions, two being plugins and one being a third-party site called IFTTT. Scroll down to "3. Cross-Publish Content Between WordPress and LinkedIn." The "More Information" links on each method take you to the relevant pages to get started.

For non-WP users or those who don't want to mess with a plugin, IFTTT can be used, or another service called dlvr.it ("deliver it," presumably). There may be others out there as well.

I hope this helps. Sorry it couldn't be simpler...

I don't get most social media, to be honest, but I use it to announce my blog posts, any author events I happen to be doing, and anything else associated with my writing and publishing life. I don't think I'm getting much of a "return" on it most of the time, but I figure it can't hurt.

On Facebook, I created a separate author profile from my personal profile and told people that my author profile was for my authorial posts, while my personal profile would be reserved for the important business of posting cute cat photos. ;-) I do very little serious posting on my personal page, with good reason.

For Twitter, though, I still only have one profile, because almost everything I post there only pertains to my writing life anyway.

I've noticed any number of indie writers promoting themselves as "award winning authors," often without mentioning specifically what awards they've won. My cats are curious about this. (Cats are like that.) If you've won an award, what is it? What was the process? What awards do you consider valuable to have and tout? What awards would you not pursue, and why? Have you ever encountered an "award winning author" who you thought couldn't write well enough to win an award? (I've seen a couple of those, which is partly what got my cats to thinking about all this.) Thanks!

Alex wrote: "*G* Yes, I'm just coming to the conclusion that blurb writing is not like very short synopsis writing. Which is a valuable lesson learned in itself. Thanks!"

You're quite welcome. And yes, they are very different things. Book covers are all about marketing. You have a few second to grab attention with the front cover and get the prospective reader to look at the blurb. Then you have maybe fifteen or twenty seconds to hook them with the blurb and get them to open the book. Then you have a page or two to hook them with the story itself and get them to buy the book. It's not easy rigging up three hooks with a lot of bait. ;-)

Alex wrote: "Thanks so much, Dale! It's really kind of you to help, and I agree that the second paragraph needed a tweak or two. I'll probably end up with an amalgam of the two suggestions, so I'm really gratef..."

You're quite welcome. I think a lot of us initially make the mistake of trying to explain the whole book in the blurb. That doesn't work. For one thing, most books are complex (although some more so than others). So we have to reduce the story to two basic things: a strong hook, and a snappy summary of the key complications. It's sort of like writing the beginning and middle of a very short story. (But not the end!) If we do that well enough and leave the reader hanging, they'll feel compelled to actually open the book and start reading.

Congratulations! I like the cover, too, but one small question: does anyone else find that the white lettering gets lost where it crosses the glare on the pen? The visibility of the title might be improved by an outline or drop shadow, although finding the right color for such might be a challenge given the dark background.