Your Gifts

“You have a great gift,” said the angel Clarence in the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Yes, you have. If you are a person of faith, you believe your talents come from God and you should not squander them.

In the picture below, you can see what I recently created for a romance group’s Christmas party where organizers challenged each member to bring something they made.

Eye glass case, center; small notebook with felt heart, cross, and rickrack, left, and large notebook decorated with my Courtships and Carriages bookmark and rickrack, right.

I am proud of what I made and how I created the items. I made the eyeglass case from my deceased mother’s felt. It was her felt flower I sewed on the case. I decorated the notebooks with her felt and rickrack and adorned the small notebook with a cross I had on hand and the large notebook with my Courtships and Carriages bookmark. I never have been much of a “crafty” person, but I have to admit I smiled at my achievement.

You need to smile at your achievements, too, even though it is difficult at times. Readers do not know how much work a piece of writing takes, that is, if we want it to be our best.

Recently, I wrote a nonfiction account about my husband’s mother – a mother he never knew – since she was committed to a mental institution when he was a toddler. I had developed this article after attending a conference this fall. However, when I submitted it, officials said it was not quite right for their publication. It sits in my computer awaiting a “right” avenue. So not all we create is something valued by another.

This gets me thinking about my craft items. Was this gift something the receiver could use? I hope so but in reality it does not matter. The results are what mattered and if you were pleased with your efforts. If so, wear that smile broadly.

We often receive rejections and it is difficult to accept these sometimes. However, what we need to do is to persevere. Remember our work is in the eye of the beholder.

I market my book at a lot of craft fairs, and I can tell your responses vary from “I liked that book” to “I liked your other book better” to no comment at all. When they do not comment, you know you are in real trouble. However, maybe not since there are people who buy your books but never read them. I can testify to that since my bookcase still contains Bill O’Reilly’s book, Killing Kennedy, and he has had two books released since then.

However, remember no matter how discouraged you get (and we all do) salvage the fun and satisfaction of a finished product you created and loved. God bless and it is good to again write a blog. Now, GO AND CREATE!

Five FREE Tools To Help Self-Published Authors Succeed.

Some great free finds!

Nikki McDonagh - author and photographer

It is hard being an author, whether self-published or traditionally, getting your manuscript/book looking good, free of grammatical/typo errors and noticed when it is published, is very difficult. So the more tools at your disposal that can help you do that is surely a good thing.

I have recently discovered a few neat little devices that can help to make those jobs easier.

1: Scrivener – The first and truly brilliant, especially if you are considering self-publishing, is this word processing and book formatting tool – You can download it for a Free trial to see if it is for you.

Don’t take my word for it, though – the self-publishing legend that is Joanna Penn (you can learn more about Joanna and her books to help self-published authors here:http://www.thecreativepenn.com/) has a blog about the value of using Scrivener. http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2012/02/04/scrivener/

I’m sure most of you have…

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Ghost Summer: Stories (Sept. 1) — My love affair with short stories, and why you should write them too

I found this post on Freshly Pressed, and I honestly have to say that Tannarive Due has a wonderful point. No matter what our backgrounds, our genres, or our strengths, authors can learn a lot from writing short stories and novelettes, and even if there’s not always a lot of money to be made, you can get things much more valuable than cash.

Tananarive Due Writes

Like many writers, I began learning my craft with short stories. By the time I finished my graduate English degree, I’d shifted my focus entirely from my unfinished novels to short stories. I needed to master beginning, middle and end.

Finally–a sale! In about 1990, I sold a short story called “Amusement” to a small magazine called Writers’ BBQ. I was ecstatic…and then I learned that the magazine went out of business. No publication for me. Although I continued to write short stories, they were repeatedly rejected. I did not publish a word of fiction until my first novel, The Between, in 1995. After that, my focus shifted back to novels. But I’d honed my craft on short stories first.

And I couldn’t walk away. When Gordon Van Gelder invited me to write for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I wrote a short story called “Patient Zero”…

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Ink Slingers Halloween Anthology

The deadline is approaching!

Amaranthine by Joleene Naylor

After the success of Strange Portals, the Ink Slingers’ first anthology collection, we’ve decided to do another one! This time, for Halloween.

OOooOOOoooOOOooOOOOooOOOO

(spooky noise)

Here’s the roundup of rules:

1) all stories must be between 1,000 words and 10,000 words. They can be original works, or they can be previously published, so long as you have the rights to them.

2) All stories must be spooky, scary, creepy, horror, or otherwise Halloween themed. They can have elves and fairies, they can have scary aliens, they can even be funny, there just needs to be something Halloween-ish about them. This will mean something different to everyone. You might take it literal and write about Halloween, or you might just have a scary ending, or you might just write about ghosts or vampires – whatever Halloween and the spooky spirit means to you.

3) Stories must stand alone without…

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Smashwords now Allows “Assetless” Pre-Orders

Image from blog.Smashwords.comIf you’ve used Smashwords pre-order function, you know that in order to set the book up you have to upload a version of the book. Mark Coker has strongly suggested uploading your final version, meaning that you’ve got your book completely edited and ready to go BEFORE you set your pre-order up. Organized authors might find this easy, but if you’re like me, you may find yourself finishing your final version at the very last minute. To  give authors wiggle room, Smashwords said you could upload a draft version, so long as your final version was uploaded at least ten days before your release date (that made sure that the final version arrived at all retailers in time). But it still meant formatting your book multiple times. For my last release I uploaded no less than five versions, including the final, meaning I formatted that sucker five times (I could have done it only twice, but being paranoid I kept uploading the “newest version” because of Smashwords’ preview function and the worry that the final might somehow get delayed and customers *might* end up with the unedited first version).

On the Smashwords blog, Mark Coker sites the need for a “final copy” as the reason only 10% of Smashwords books have taken advantage of pre-order:

This requirement created a dilemma for our authors.  If the book’s ready for release today, why should an author hold back the release for three or six months to gain the full advantage of a preorder?  You can’t blame these authors for deciding to release their book immediately, the day it’s ready for readers.

And he’s right. I’d have loved to take advantage of the three to six month pre-order period that industry leaders suggest, but because of that finished manuscript requirement I could only do one month, with the above multiple uploads.

No longer.

Today Mark has announced the “assetless” pre-order – authors don’t even need a cover to set up their book, only a title, description, category (such as romance, paranormal, sci-fi, etc.) and a release date up to twelve months in the future. That’s right. I’ve already given a release date of April 1, 2016 for my next book, and, as soon as I decide on a title for sure, I can set it up and start collecting pre-orders now. I’m free to make changes on it during that twelve month time and, if I have my next book titled (which I think I do) I can set it up and allow readers to pre-order book 9 the day they finish reading book 8! What a great way to take advantage of a reader’s urgency capture sales from people who have JUST finished your book and want to know what happens next RIGHT NOW instead of waiting six months to a year, and having to remind them why they wanted to order the next book in the first place.

Brilliant.

Amazon currently allows you to do pre-orders too, through their KDP (NOT KDP select, just the Kindle program in general), but they have a 90 day limit and they require a copy of the book. They do allow draft versions, but it still has to be formatted correctly and they want the actual book content (not a substitute place holder) so that they can “approve it”. Hopefully they will follow Smashwords lead again (Smashwords allowed indy authors to do pre-orders before Amazon did) and allow the assetless pre-orders soon.

You can check out Mark Coker’s announcement blog for details.

Have you ever done a pre-order book release? How did it work for you? Now that Smashwords allows assetless set up, does it make you more likely to set up a pre-order?

Why Bob Should Have Worn Sunscreen OR What is Targeted Advertising?

I recently discussed the need to advertise your book using targeted advertising – but what IS targeted advertising, and how do you do it?

image from openclipart.org

Meet Bob, the knife salesman. Bob is a go-getter, and he wants to sell as many knives as he can. He makes sure the knife store has plenty of his knives in stock – Only hundreds of knife salesmen also have knives there. There are so many kinds of knives there that people don’t see his – unless they’re looking for them.

Bob needs to advertise.

First he goes to his family and close friends. Many of them buy knives, not necessarily because they need them, or even want them, but because they like Bob. Bob’s a great guy.

Flushed with success, Bob decides it’s time to go out into the wide world. He picks a park where lots of people go and sets up at picnic table. A few stragglers wander over, and he makes a sale or two, but for the most part people ignore him. They’re at the park for a picnic, not to buy knives. Unhappy with the number of people who purchased, and getting hot from all the sun exposure, Bob climbs up on the table and announces the knives again – and again, and again, and again. He then wanders around and butts into people’s conversations, shoving knives under their nose. The results are no better (though luckily no one calls the cops).

Disheartened, Bob hears about a place where he is guaranteed to sell. Other knife salesmen have had success there in the past. Hopeful, he hurries over to the emporium. He gets set up, he puts up his sign, and he starts his demonstration – only to discover that almost everyone else in the emporium is also a knife salesman. Sure, a few buy (he is selling different knives than they are), but it’s not the success he was promised because most of the fellow salesmen are there to do the same thing he is: sell, not buy.

Desperate, Bob dumps his inventory in the knife store (more on that later) and starts writing articles for newspapers and magazines. he writes about how to sell knives. He writes about how to sharpen knives. He even writes about the different kinds of knives, but the people who read the articles don’t buy – most of them are also knife salesmen. SO he thinks he’ll be clever and spend his time hanging out where the other salesmen hang out – he’ll leave engaging comments on their articles, but the only attention that really earns him is from – you guessed it – even more fellow knife salesmen.

So how can Bob sell knives? How can he get discovered?

Aggravated, he moves his knives to a smaller store with more discover-ability. Maybe he even makes his own store – only now he has a new problem. No one has heard of this new, small store. So what does he do? He goes back to the park, shouting and waving signs to tell people that this little store exists – the problem is, the people in the park STILL aren’t looking for knives.

Just as Bob has a hard time finding his customers, so do authors. We have the same discover-ability problem he had at the knife store. There are thousands upon thousands of books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and all the others. Unless you’re a best seller, or someone is looking for your book, there’s a good chance a customer will never see it, let alone buy it.

To combat that, we hit up our friends and family, then we go to Facebook and post, post, post. Only most of the people on facebook don’t want to buy a book from us – they want to see cat memes and read about how our kids/parents/pet fish are doing. They probably don’t mind us mentioning the books sometimes (they are a part of our lives) but they’re not interested in advertisement after advertisement. The same goes for the other social networks. We rely on shares and word of mouth from our “army of friends” but, unless you’re luckier than I am, those 700+ facebook friends *might* yield one or two shares of any promotional material, and generally they stop there – far from the viral-ity we’ve been promised.

So we run to Twitter. As authors, we’re told that Twitter is the be-all-end-all for book sales. I don’t know about you, but I recently organized my followers in “lists”. Of the 1,600+ followers, almost 900 are fellow authors – and those are just the ones I know personally or who say “author” in their description. 140 of the remainder are author promotion sites (many no longer any good), 130 are friends from facebook, and 60 are artists or photographers (following me for photos). Then we take away bands, news sites, inspirational quotes and the 25 brands/celebrities who follow me back, and that leaves me with a potential 265 people, most of which are Russian (I don’t know what they’re tweeting – they could be spam for all I know), and 50 of which are book reviewers who are probably there to advertise their reviews and services.

So how many readers am I reaching? Am I mostly just advertising to fellow authors, like Bob did at the emporium?

And what about blogging? Sure, we might make a sale here, or a sale there, but if we’re blogging about writing topics, who are we going to attract? Most readers don’t care about “show don;t tell” or “25 secrets to success” – it’s fellow authors who want to read those articles. Yeah, one of those authors might read our book, but is it worth the time for that one sale? *

This is why our advertising needs to be “targeted”. Posting “ads” in unexpected places may make a few sales (I once sold a book because of an image on Flickr!) but it’s not an effective strategy. When gauging the success of a “campaign”, we need to look at not only results, but how much time or money went into getting those results. Did we sit at the park all day – composing tweets, posts, sales images, and replying to hundreds of blogs – like Bob, and make 5$? Or did we spend twenty minutes filling out a form and make 20$? $1 a minute is certainly better than a 1$ an hour, and it can be done by targeting your ads to people who actually want to buy.

How do we target our advertising?  Rami Ungar has posted his results with targeted facebook advertising, and, as many authors mentioned in the comments of my last post, email lists can be a great thing (In the next day or two I’ll post my results from several different sites.). There are website listings, and forums and facebook groups just for advertising books to people who are *looking for books*. In fact there are hundreds of places promising targeted advertising. But  how do you choose which to use?

This is where fellow authors come in. Before you spend money advertising, or lots of time, take five minutes and either ask your author friends (you should have some kind of group you belong to, whether on FB or google groups – like the Ink Slingers) or just do a quick google search. Usually you can turn up a forum post from someone else asking the same question, and you can then quickly scroll through the answers they got.

If Bob had done that, maybe he wouldn’t have had to sit at the park all day getting sunburned.

How do you target your advertising?

EDIT: *I’m not saying that author blogs are a waste of time – I enjoy writing posts to help fellow authors – but I do it for the enjoyment, not for sales. The same for an author blog where I post stuff pertaining to my books. It’s more fun than profit, and I do it that way accordingly. There’s nothing wrong with doing something that could be construed as advertising that doesn’t REALLY make sales if it makes you happy instead. But if you’re just doing it for sales that aren’t appearing – and you’re not enjoying it – then you’re wasting your time.

Authors Against Piracy Blog Tour

In a digital world, where content is turned into 1s and 0s, piracy has become an issue. As a consumer, one often reads about Warner Brothers or other studios “cracking down” on movie pirates, or music thieves. But how often does the average reader see anything about book piracy?

Before I was an author, I didn’t know book piracy existed. Sure, I knew there were places to “steal” movies, and TV, but it never occurred to me that there were people – or websites – stealing books. yet Piracy accounts for at least 12% of ebooks in the United States alone.  I’d bet that there are plenty of other readers (and maybe even authors) as naive as I was, people who have no idea that downloading that “free” PDF of a novel is stealing. To raise awareness of the book piracy epidemic, Maegan Provan is organizing an Authors Against Piracy Blog Tour. Just like with any awareness drive, she needs bloggers, and authors, who want to participate and draw attention to the issue by posting blogs. And what better way for authors to get people’s attention than by offering free ebooks?

“Say what? How is giving away my book for free going to stop pirates?”

It’s not. You can’t *make* people stop, anymore than you can singlehandedly cure cancer, but you can show them that a legally obtained version is better – the formatting isn’t messed up, all of the chapters are there and, even better, there are no viruses and no surprises. Besides, the point of the “giveaway” isn’t to fill pirates’ kindles, it’s to get people to share the links to the blog posts, because the more people clicking on those posts, the more people are reading about the problem, and the more people reading, the more people that are made aware of the issue, and just maybe those people who are made aware of what an issue it really is will be less likely to pirate in the future, or more likely to tell a friend or loved one who’s pirating to stop. Just as with Breast Cancer Awareness pins – wearing a pin doesn’t cure the problem, it just makes people aware that it IS a serious issue; it gets the conversation started, and that’s what Maegan is trying to do.

If you’d like to join her you can read further details on her blog and join the Facebook group. If you’re not interested in joining, or you can’t, no worries. You can always start that conversation your own way.

Make a Difference in the Writing Community

Great advice from author Tricia Drammeh

All I Have to Say

Most authors at one time or another have dreamed of taking the writing world by storm with a breakout bestselling novel. I’m sure most of us still harbor hope this will happen. Regardless of sales or monetary success, we can still make a difference in the writing community. Whether you’re published or still writing your first novel, you can make a huge impact. Here’s how:

1. Make connections. I recently read an excellent blog post by Susan Toy that discusses online connections and engagement. When it comes to Twitter and blog followers, some people mistake quantity for quality. Would you rather have 100 followers who regularly visit and comment on your blog, or 1000 followers you never hear from again? A huge number of Twitter followers or Facebook Page likes might look good on paper, but what does it really mean if you aren’t making connections with people? Visit blogs and leave…

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Having a Good Team

Just as a sport’s team needs to have good team work to win games so does the writer.

With the finish of my sweet-Christian romance, Courtships and Carriages, I reflected on how much a good product stems from those behind the scenes. In other words, an author needs a good team. These include an eye-appealing cover, good editors and having a story which takes people on a journey that entices readers to read more and want more.

An eye-appealing cover is important, such as the one for my newest release, Courtships and Carriages. This beautiful cover is above.

However, getting a good design which matches your novel is not easy. It takes the right photograph as well as relaying the right story concept. Mine says sweetness and romance, all fitting the story. But other genres require different qualities, such as a horror book depicting dark or black designs to denote evil lurking in the corridors.

At a glance, readers need to know what lies behind the cover. Currently, I am reading, Doctored Evidence. What is on the cover? A picture of a doctor’s stool and the type of bed you would find in his office or in an emergency room. As indy publishers or with certain traditional publishers, you can have some input on your cover. But a traditional-published book without an author’s input, places that author’s story at the whims of their graphic designer. This could lead to disastrous results like a cover depicting a man wearing pajamas, but no scene contains anything of that sort.

A good cover also needs to focus on not more than three concepts. My Courtships and Carriages has three — the girl, the basket and the yellow-wheeled carriage. Each of these are important to the storyline.

If you are a self-published author, you need to make sure you hire a professional to do your design work or are proficient in developing a cover. I met an author a couple of years ago who used his mother’s painting of their Alaskan cabin for the cover. It was awful. After talking to the man, I heard intriguing stories about his family’s experience in Alaska, such as a bear peeking into their window when a certain television show was on air. I bought his book after talking to him, but if I only had seen his cover I would have dismissed it.

Another must is to line yourself up with good editors. I cannot tell you the importance of having an excellent team in this regard. I have readers who look over my manuscript from a reader’s perspective. One reader is especially knowledgable about farm animals since she grew up on a farm. She also is a great resource for lanterns and cooking without electricity because she experienced these.

However, I also have wonderful editors. They are great in finding grammar and spelling errors, historical inaccuracies, making the story flow smoothly and providing suggestions to improve the overall work. I am so grateful and I cannot thank them enough. Without this team, my work could end up in a wastebasket.

Of course, a key is to have a story which makes readers turn pages. I cannot tell you how heartsick I was last year to learn that my story needed major changes. It would not work as a book in a series as I planned so I made changes and started a new series with Courtships and Carriages. Her input was extremely valuable. It improved the work and although I hated to hear this terrible news it also was what I needed to hear. The story is better and it freed me from having to stay under the guidelines of a villainous character which I was trying to turn into good. Now the story flows and the characters shine. Thanks so much to this special person.

So line up a great team. One which also works for you and remember this sometimes takes time to find, but you will and as always I will end with a God bless.

How to Edit Your Twitter Profile (with screen caps)

I’ve gone back and forth about doing this post because, while so many authors use twitter, it isn’t  integral to the publishing business. But, after having to explain how to set wallpaper to yet another person via email, I decided there was a need for it.

(Click on any of the images to make them bigger)

How to use Themeleon

Near the upper right corner of your profile is a little gear icon. Click it and a drop down box will appear that allows you to access several things. The only thing we’re worried about is the settings option.

A new screen will load and you’ll want to click on “design” in the left hand pane. This will change the options on the right side, and you’ll be greeted by several default thumbnails. If you want, you can use any one of these, or you can try the interesting plugin called Themeleon.

A new page will load that will look something like this. There’s a dialog box that you have to scroll down in order to see

Scroll down and click the sign In button

You’ll have a new pop up asking you to authorize Colourlovers to “use” your account, meaning the app can change things like your wallpaper etc. If you don’t like apps cancel out now and scroll down to the next option (How to upload your Own Wallpaper). If you do like apps  then go ahead and click authorize app. (I have used Themeleon for about a year now and never had any issues such as it hijacking my twitter.)

You may or may not have to sign in again (I did, but this may be because I took so long taking screen caps etc.) But you will eventually come to your profile editing screen.

At the top are some pre-made themes (more on those in a moment) and in the second half of the toolbox are the “make your own theme” tools. As you can see it starts with a background pattern, which you can scroll through.

What’s the difference between the pre-made and the DIY? Unlike the do it yourself set, the theme’s wallpaper tends to be a single large image, like more traditional wallpaper, instead of a tiled pattern. You can also upload your own image, if you prefer, but it’s easier to do that through twitter itself.

As you’ll notice when you click on the themes you get a preview, not only in the toolbox, but if you scroll down your profile also “tries it on” so you can see how it’s going to look.

If you’d rather start from a pattern, go down to the background option. There’s a drop down box with choices but I’ve never bothered with it and usually just scroll through the available backgrounds by using that little arrow button we mentioned earlier.

Don’t let the colors fool you – you can completely change them. For instance you can see that the pattern above looks very tropical, but with a few color swaps it now looks… well, the colors are different, anyway. How did I do that? Underneath the pattern preview are colored boxes, each representing a color in the pattern. Click the color you’d like to change and you’ll get a snazzy pop up. Move the circle around on the color chart, as well as the sliders, to change the color to something you like better.

As you can see, sometimes changing the colors can make a big difference in what the pattern looks like:

Once you have a pattern you like, it’s time to tweak your layout. There are several pre-created palettes you can choose from by using the arrow key. The colors you are choosing now change the color of your links, such as where it says “Following, Followers” etc. as well as links in your twitter stream.

if you don’t like the pre-made palettes you can make your own. Click on the colored squares to get a pop up color picker. Move the circle and the sliders until you find the colors you want.

When you have it the way you want, click the “Save Profile” button

You’ll get a pop up trying to encourage you to add more things, but just click the “I’m all Creatived out” button to skip it.

And now bask in the glory of your new profile!

How to Upload your Own Wallpaper

if you have your own wallpaper – maybe it’s your book cover, or your characters, or just a snazzy photo – then it is really easy to upload it to twitter.

You’ll need to go back to Settings > Design like we did previously, then click the “Change Background” dropdown and select “Choose existing Image”

You’ll get a pop up. Navigate to the folder that your wallpaper is saved in, click on it and choose open. Jpegs work better than pngs.

If the wallpaper file is “acceptable” the words under the “Change background” button will reflect the file name.  Then it’s time to set where the wallpaper goes. you can have it left aligned – meaning it is “sticky” on the left side, so that the left side of the image will always be on the left side of the screen – centered, and right aligned (which does the same as the left but on the right). You can also choose whether to tile your image or not – play around with the options until you become familiar with the differences. Though unlike themeleon, your profile will NOT reflect changes until you save it.

As with Themeleon, you can change your link colors and your background color. Click on the colors to get the pop up color picker. When you’re done, hit “Save Changes”.

and check out your new profile!

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How to Change Your Twitter Banner

On your profile page click the Edit Profile button that is just below your “banner area” – if you have no image here it will be a black-ish box.

Hover over it and a little pencil will appear in the top right corner. Click on it.

A little box will pop up that lets you upload a photo, remove your photo or cancel. We want to upload.

You’ll get another pop up. Navigate to your banner image and choose “open”.

You’ll get a “preview” with a slider underneath it. You can use the slider to zoom in and out of the image. Once you have it the way you want, click “Apply”

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How to Edit Your Profile Information

While we’re there, let’s edit our profile information. If you’re starting here, then click on the “Edit Profile” button underneath your banner image.

Your profile information is highlighted in black. To edit it, just highlight what you’d like to change.  I’m going to change the About.me link:

And then I am going to just type in my wordpress address, like you would in a document. If you’re finished click “save changes”

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How to Change Your Profile Photo

While we’re there, let’s edit our profile photo. If you’re starting here, then click on the “Edit Profile” button underneath your banner image.

If you hover over your photo you’ll get a little pencil in the top right corner. Click it.

A little menu will pop down with the choices to upload a photo, take a photo, remove photo or cancel. For this tutorial we want to upload, though if you have a webcam and a good hair day you might try the “take photo” option and let me know how it goes.

Clicking upload gets you a pop up box. Use it to navigate to your photo and click open.

A new box pops up that has your photo of choice with a slider bar underneath. You can drag it to zoom in closer to the image, essentially cropping it down. When you have what you want, hit apply.

If you’re all finished make sure to hit the Save Changes button.

And that’s it!

Bask in the beauty of your new twitter profile! and, if you’re feeling especially inspired, add me (@Joleene_Naylor) and say “hey, come look at my cool profile!”