Editor Ray Rhamey, Flogging the Quill

The first page of my ms KISS OF THE ASSASSIN is being edited today on Ray Rhamey's Flogging the Quill. Nothing like having fresh eyes take a look.

ASK PZM: May 2013 - Amazon Goodreads 2

Q: What elements comprise an effective book page on Amazon?

This is a very important question because we authors can control a great deal of what a prospective buyer sees on our book’s Amazon page – and we do ourselves a disservice if we neglect this marketing opportunity.

Let’s take an example of a Middle Grade novel whose Amazon page is not effective:

· The cover features only a dark design with no child on it.

· There is a somewhat generic title with no subtitle that could help indicate that this is a Middle Grade novel.

· Instead of an author first name that is personal the author uses the initial of her first name because she thinks this will attract more boys to the book.

· The photo on the Amazon Author Central profile lower down on the page is appropriate for a Cosmopolitan magazine cover and not for the author of a Middle Grade novel. (And this photo definitely is the opposite of using the initial of her first name.)

Do you see how these elements work against the target audience of people who read Middle Grade novels?  

I recently asked a children’s librarian at the Beverly Hills Library to select good Middle Grade novels.  I was doing research in connection with the release of my daughter Yael K. Miller’s Middle Grade novel JACK STROM AND NEW ORLEANS HOODOO.   

Most of the selected Middle Grade books had the protagonist on the cover, which makes sense if you want to attract a certain age of readers.

As for subtitles, I have been adding and revising subtitles to all my fiction books since I realized how important subtitles could be on fiction.  Amazon allows you to use subtitles as part of your book’s “title” – and this is a good way to signal what the book is about.  

As an example, I changed the subtitle on my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT from A SHARON GOLD NOVEL to A WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIP NOVEL because this now clearly signals what the novel is about.

And, in the era of social media, you want to use an author name and a photo that work together to help you connect with your target audiences.

Q:  Can you discuss the giveaway option on Goodreads?

Let me share my own recent experience:

Following the information in Michelle Campbell-Scott’s GOODREADS FOR AUTHORS: HOW TO USE GOODREADS TO PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS, I have now completed one Goodreads giveaway and started another one.

At this writing the giveaways can only be for physical books.  You can decide how many copies to give away, to which countries you are willing to mail, and how long the giveaway runs.

I tested the giveaway on a book I thought unlikely to interest many Goodreads members – HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE.  To counter that unlikely interest, I pitched the book as an 8^th grade graduation gift.

(I chose that book because it really needs reviews on Amazon, and Goodreads giveaways are supposedly helpful for getting reviews from the winners.)

I ran the first giveaway for two weeks for U.S. and Canada Goodreads members.  I was pleasantly surprised that 453 people signed up to win one of the 10 copies offered.  

I had ordered the books from CreateSpace to be sent to me.  Then I bought mailing envelopes, signed the books and mailed the envelopes.

Whether the book gets any reviews, I definitely liked the opportunity of getting the book in front of tons of Goodreads members.  And I put a Goodreads giveaway widget on my website during the time period.

This second time I am doing things differently, including offering a book that already has lots of reviews on Amazon.  I am running the giveaway for a month for five copies of my women’s friendship novel MRS. LIEUTENANT only to U.S. Goodreads members.  I am going to send each one individually directly from CreateSpace (so no autographs).

One reason for sending directly is that MRS. LIEUTENANT is a much thicker book than HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL, and I do not want to wrestle with packing and shipping thick books.

If you go to my author website at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com – on the right-hand sidebar you will see the Goodreads widget for the MRS. LIEUTENANT giveaway.  If you are a Goodreads member, you can click through on the widget to enter the giveaway.

To do a Goodreads giveaway for your own books, you must be a Goodreads member first and then get a Goodreads author designation.  Signing up for the giveaway is relatively easy, and then you must wait for your giveaway to be approved.  But there is no charge from Goodreads to utilize this opportunity of getting your books in front of dedicated book readers.

In Michelle Campbell-Scott’s book she recommends that, if you have a book that is only an ebook, you get physical copies made just to be able to utilize the Goodreads giveaway opportunity.  In fact, I am planning on taking her advice and doing this for some of my books that are currently only ebooks.

Even with my limited experience so far with this opportunity, I recommend you try Goodreads giveaways for yourself.  

Q: What do you think of publishing short stories on Kindle?

Obviously a collection of short stories would be the same as a book.  But let me suggest one use of a stand-alone short story that I am trying myself:

Publish a short story that is a “brand extension” of a current novel.  You can then use this short story to introduce people to one or more characters in the novel.

For example, my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT takes place in 1970 and features the POV of four very different army wives.  I took a background paragraph about one of the women – the Puerto Rican Donna – and created a YA short story set in 1964 when Donna enters 10^th grade at Ft. Knox.  (See the ebook on Kindle at http://amzn.to/175Woix )

P.S.  I do NOT plan to create a physical booklet of this story in order to utilize a Goodsreads giveaway for it.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON.  You can see all her books at www.ZimblerMillerbooks.com and find her on Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/pzmiller

She also writes about book-related topics at her author website at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

*If you have a question for Phyllis, drop me a line at cluculzwriter at yahoo dot ca and I'll make sure she gets it. *

IWSG - Respect Yourself

Because today is the first Wednesday of the month, you know what that means -- YES, it's IWSG day, compliments of Alex J. Cavannaugh, our Ninja Captain!

It's a simple process:

"Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post." 

Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

 

 Now for Joylene's titillating post:

  ~ ~ * ~ ~

Writing ain't easy. Novels, blogs, articles, posts, or even greeting cards come from sweat and tears and hair-pulling.

We certainly don't do this for the money.

Our bouts of happiness are fleeting.

 

When I was a kid, one of my chores was to clean the bathroom. I'd whine and complain, and my mum would say, "The bathroom isn't going to clean itself." When that didn't work, she'd add, "Clean the bathroom, you little brat--Or else!"

I never had to ask what the "Or else" was.

I can whine and complain about my current WIP or my attempt at marketing, or my writer's block...  but it all boils down to the same three things:

- writing ain't easy
- the book won't write itself
- writing is who I am
 

Then why am I sit playing Temple Run2 on my phone?

 Or watching House Hunters on HGTV?

I'd say I wasn't suffering from insecurities, but I'd be lying.

There's no solution to being a writer and being insecure.

But what if that "someone" is yourself?

Cluculz Lake Happenstance

I feel as if I've been neglecting my duties as a blogger and follower this past week. Winter slowed my reflexes and left me in a bit of a slump.

But guess what?

The ice is off the lake! Yay!

I took the above picture around 9 this morning. Look how fast it went off.

See how it's opening up in the distance?  It's crazy how joyful this view makes me feel.

By noon, all but some patches were left!

 

I can't tell you how excited that makes me. It's bigger than my birthday. It's bigger than Christmas... okay, maybe not Christmas, but the ice off the lake is  H U G E!

And to think on April 13th it looked like this: 

Amazing!
 


As for my writing adventure...

I've reached the 69,000 word count on my current WIP. I've also changed the title. It's a suspense thriller about a man who loses his wife in a freak hit and run and sets out to find the killer even if doing so gets him killed. It may also ruin any hope of mending his relationship with his estranged daughter.

It was titled "One Wrong" as in one wrong doesn't make a right. But the other day a blogger mentioned that titles shouldn't require work, but instead an immediate response. So, I've renamed it BROKEN MAN.

The other thing I wanted to share is a few days ago a fish hawk landed on our balcony and couldn't escape. He kept smashing into the plexiglass.

Finally, his mate called to him, and he simply swooped himself up and over the glass. It was quite spectacular. 

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure he's a fish hawk. I've gone and packed our bird book. If you know what species he is, would you let me know in the comments? Thanks!

Lastly, I finally discovered who was getting into our garbage. I leave it outside after the bears go into hibernation.

He does look guilty, don't you think?

Looking forward to reading all your blogs!

Interviewed by Suzanne de Montigny

I'm being interviewed by a fellow British Columbian and fellow MuseItUp author Suzanne de Montigny over at her blog, Suzanne's Thoughs for the Day. Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of one of my ebooks! !

Suzanne's middle grade children's novel

My house is located directly under the letter B below.

(squinting) Uh... no, I think it's the lake house under the C.

In contrast, Suzanne lives an inch above Washington, 700 km south of me, in Burnaby, next to Vancouver. Wave, Suzanne!


--best
joylene


My family and I would like to extend our sympathies and prayers to those affected by Boston's tragedy.

A MishMash of Stuff...

Remember I shared with you a few weeks ago that with the onslaught of spring I was feeling better, more optimistic, and excited over the upcoming season?

Don't you just love the sounds of birds singing? So uplifting, right?

Everyone I talk to feels fired up to get outside and prepare the gardens. 

Did I mention the robins are back!

Yay, spring!

Last year's peonie

I want to thank you all for your good wishes on the sale of our home. It hasn't happened yet, but we did have another viewing on Friday. That's two in less than ten days!

Thanks, everyone!

But with every positive there is a negative.

Darn.



I spent Friday morning raking the lawn between the shop and the house, so our buyers would have a better impression of the curb appeal.

It looked nice, really. Spring-like! Hints of green.

Until I woke up Saturday morning.

 

Eighteen inches overnight! 

This is what they mean by "Jaw-dropping weather."


It's also the reason I need to apologize for not reading all your posts. I hate that I'm behind, but I really had a good reason. And I will catch up.


I should probably mention that I'm okay about the snow. It will melt in no time. It's already started. Yay!



Now for something inspiring...

If it's true writers are full of insecurities, then the link below is a must-read.  Click and you'll be re-directed to Rachelle Gardner's blog.

Don’t Feed Your Discontent



Have a super week!

Let's Hear It For MuseItUp Author...

P h i l i p  C o l e m a n 

 

Philip Coleman (author of The Master's Book) has worked as a biologist for most of his life—in Ireland, Belgium and now in Switzerland. Having been an avid reader all his life, he took up writing only in 2006. This is his first published novel. He drew his inspiration for the story from the period he spent working for the EU in Brussels. He has a grown-up son and daughter (who were roughly the same ages as Sean and Maeve during the time in Brussels but otherwise aren’t a bit like them at all!). He now lives in France.

The Master’s Book: Blurb

In 1482 Mary, the last Duchess of Burgundy, lies on her deathbed in a castle in Flanders. She is only 24. In her final moments she makes a wish that, 500 years later, will threaten the lives of a boy and a girl living in Brussels.

The Master’s Book is the story of Sean, an Irish teenager, just arrived in Brussels to a house that is also a crime scene. Together with Stephanie, his classmate, he finds an illuminated manuscript, only for it to be stolen almost at once.

Where did this manuscript come from? Who was it originally made for? Is there a connection with the beautiful tomb Sean has seen in Bruges? Above all, why does someone want this book so badly that they are prepared to kill for it?

Part thriller and part paper-chase, this book is aimed at boys and girls of twelve and over.

 ~ ~ ~

FROM FIRST LINES TO PUBLISHED BOOK: The Longest Journey

                                                                                by Philip Coleman

I’ve always loved books – everything from non-fiction (especially history), to highbrow literary fiction, to thrillers and intelligent fiction for children. I did write a little as a teenager but after that, though I secretly dreamed of taking it up again, I never wrote any fiction until I reached my late forties. In the meantime, I graduated as a botanist and I’ve worked most of my life as a biologist, dealing with matters relating to both plants and animals.

I was prompted to take up writing again when I read Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, which I found absolutely enchanting, largely thanks to the strength of the central character, Lyra. The last scene of the story is set in the Oxford Botanic Garden and that gave me, a botanist, the idea of setting a fantasy novel in a botanic garden. The novel proved more of a learning experience than anything else but was followed by another fantasy which almost made it with two publishers before I decided to move on. Then, in order not to go back over old ground, I decided to write a novel set in contemporary Brussels, where I’d spent a particularly happy time when my children were growing up. I wanted to re-live that experience through a teenager’s eyes. The result became The Master’s Book. 

Again, I struggled to find an agent, without success, and again I had two near-misses with Irish publishers (one being Puffin Ireland). That led to a total re-write and some encouraging critiques but still no luck. I had more or less decided to move on, and was working on a sci-fi scenario, when I made friends on Facebook with an author named Kristy Brown. She told me about MuseItUp Publishing so I decided they would be my last try. A few months after I sent in the manuscript, I was in the USA on a business trip when I got an email from them. “Another rejection,” I thought, deciding to deal with it quickly before moving on to my work emails. When I saw that the email enclosed a publishing contract I nearly fell off the chair. 

What have I learned along the way? Well, lots of things really. Firstly, that when people try to encourage you by reminding you of J.K. Rowling’s story, although they mean well, don’t get carried away. You need to be very realistic. And, while it is true that you must never give up writing, there is a point where you must move on from one writing project in favour of a new one, if you don’t want to get de-motivated and depressed. That’s the part that I’ve found hardest to act on in practice but it’s important. 

From first writing attempt to publication has taken me nearly seven years, with a lot of heartache along the way. Thankfully, the writing part itself, although hard work, can be fun. And that’s what makes it worthwhile. 

~ ~ ~

Buy The Master's Book here.

ASK PZM: April 2013 - Amazon Goodreads

Q:  What do you think will be the impact on authors of Amazon acquiring Goodreads?

This is a very good question, one for which there is no crystal ball to use for an answer. Thus let me respond with the impact this will have on me.

First, I have to admit that I have had an account on Goodreads for almost five years and still do not “get” the site. I find it very hard to navigate, and here is something that is especially bothersome about Goodreads:

Anyone can rate your book without even having to write a one-sentence review (as required on Amazon). In my opinion this really opens up the possibility of abuse by vindictive people.

In addition, recently I learned that, even though I have an author account, I could not change the cover of my romantic suspense spy thriller “CIA Fall Guy” to the new cover. Instead someone who has the designation “librarian” had to make the change for me.

A couple of weeks ago (before the Amazon acquisition announcement) I read Michelle Campbell-Scott’s new ebook “Goodreads For Authors: How To Use Goodreads To Promote Your Books.” The book is packed full of information – and I have no idea how authors are supposed to find the time to follow all her helpful advice.

That said, let’s looks at this newest acquisition by Amazon. (Remember that Amazon previously acquired Shelfari.)

I think it is a very good idea for authors to get a Goodreads user account and then apply for an author account. (Campbell-Scott deals with the confusion over these two separate but same accounts. Personally this arrangement drives me up the wall!)

If you already have an account, check your book descriptions on Goodreads. I just checked mine and discovered that the descriptions of two books were interchanged. A non-fiction book description was on the “Mrs. Lieutenant” novel page and the “Mrs. Lieutenant” description was on the non-fiction book page. How this could happen is a total mystery to me!

 

Then it is a good idea to start reading blog posts, etc. as more information is revealed as to how the acquisition will affect your book info on Amazon as well as on Goodreads.

This acquisition probably means that we have to start paying attention to the reviews our books get on Goodreads in addition to paying attention on Amazon to our reviews. I am wondering whether there is going to be some crossover of the reviews.

(Paying attention to reviews on Amazon led me to discover that the introduction of the Kindle Fire messed up the coding on my ebooks – and I had to redo all the coding.)

Next, it is probably a good idea to start joining groups on Goodreads related to the topics you write about just as it is a good idea to belong to such groups on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Yes, I know there are only so many hours in the day. But when Amazon is the elephant in the room – and that elephant “adopts” a baby elephant with tons of book readers – it is time for us authors to pay attention to what the baby elephant is doing.

Now I am exploring the promotion and advertising opportunities on Goodreads. This is important, in my opinion, because recent experiments with offering my Kindle ebooks free via KDP Select have convinced me that spending some money on promotions makes a big difference.

Will the relationship of Goodreads to Amazon make spending promotional money on Goodreads more effective than spending promotional money elsewhere?

I have no idea, but this is an arena on which we authors should keep an eye.
P.S. If you are on Goodreads, let’s become “friends.” I’m www.goodreads.com/pzmiller

 

Meanwhile, let me add another piece of information that I found out the hard way:

I followed the advice in Steve Scott’s book “61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books” (which has tons of good info for fiction authors) to put a book excerpt at the end of each of my Kindle ebooks in addition to the links to my other ebooks (which I had already done).

I started doing this, and I put the beginning of the cozy mystery “Cast the First Stone” at the end of “CIA Fall Guy.” Next thing I know is that I get an email from Shelfari telling me that there have been changes to the info about “CIA Fall Guy.”

In fact, what happened is that X-Ray (explained by Shelfari as a software function) automatically added the characters in the beginning of “Cast the First Stone” to the character list for “CIA Fall Guy.” I had to then manually delete the “Cast” characters as well as some other incorrect info supplied by X-Ray.

One more tip:  Steve Scott suggested getting a URL and redirecting it to your Amazon Author Central profile.  I liked this idea because even the customized URL www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller is hard to type.  Now I have www.ZimblerMillerbooks.com directly to my Amazon Author Central profile.

 

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com and the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK.  She blogs on author topics at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com and visit her Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/phylliszimblermillerauthor

Recently, Phyllis received a nice shoutout as Author of the Month at @AuthorShout. Congratulations, Phyllis! 







*I've mentioned this before, but for some strange reason, Phyllis is unable to leave comments on this blog. If anyone has information that could rectify this problem, I'd love to hear from you. Contact me at Cluculzwriter at yahoo dot ca. Thanks!* 

Phyllis says, "Thanks everyone!"