September 5, 2013

Chewing the Fat With...Chicki Brown

Chicki Brown has a new eBook out!  A Woman's Worth kicks off a new series about the Stafford family of Atlanta.  She's here to tell us a little about it and whet our appetites...

Bettye:  What's A Woman's Worth about?

Chicki:  School media specialist Gianne Marvray has been through the worst two years of her life, physically and emotionally.  After a battle with cancer and all it entails, she is finally ready to start living her life again.  She wants to see new places, meet new people and experience new things, but she isn't ready for the roller coaster ride she's about to embark on when she meets Las Vegas personal trainer and raw vegan foods advocate Marc Stafford.

After a four-year absence, Marc comes home to Atlanta to attend a family celebration in one of his brother's honor.  He's not thrilled about seeing his father, but he has promised his mother that he won't throw off the family balance by being the only one of their six sons absent.  All Marc wants to do is make an appearance at the event and spend a little time with his brothers.  Little does he know that this is the night he will meet the woman who will forever change his life.

Bettye:  What was your inspiration for writing this book?

Chicki:  My story ideas always start with the hero.  I get an idea of what he looks like or what his profession is, and I run with it.  My role model for Marc Stafford was Marcus Patrick, who used to play Jett Carver/Derrick on Days of Our Lives.  He left Hollywood nd moved back to Great Britain to become a personal trainer.  He is also a raw vegan who is zealous about teaching others how to live the raw lifestyle.  I found his story so interesting, I decided to steal his new profession and give it to my male protagonist.  The first question I asked myself was, "What would make this guy's life miserable?"  The answer I came up with was for him to have a longstanding conflict over his career with his father, who is a doctor.  To exacerbate his woes, the woman he falls for is one of his father's patients.

Bettye:  I really like that twist...it's different from the same old, same old.  Did you happen to bring an excerpt along? 

Chicki:  I sure did!  Here it is: 
---------------------

By the time Marc returned to Charles’ condo, his brain was buzzing with a plan. Before he arrived in Atlanta, he’d devised a mental schedule of how he’d be able to spend time with each of his brothers. Now that he’d met Gianne, all of those warm and fuzzy sibling reunion ideas had gone right out the window.  In five days he would be flying to Vegas. His attraction to her was undeniable, and he was certain she felt it too. Acting on the attraction was probably a bad idea, but all he wanted was to spend as much time with her as possible. He’d almost kissed her, and he had less than a week to discover if it was more than mere sexual desire.

Marc found Charles waiting up for him when he returned to the condo. “Well, Daddy and Uncle Rod didn’t show out too much today.”

“Really? You think?”

“I didn’t hear everything, though.” 

Seeing Gianne and his mother engrossed in an animated discussion, for reasons Marc didn’t understand, pleased him immensely. Why did it matter whether or not his mother liked her? He’d only known Gianne for a matter of hours, and he’d only be in town for another few days. He shook his head at the thought and went into the kitchen.

“How did Gianne enjoy herself?”

“She’s an only child, so she asked a lot of questions about how we all get along, but she said she had a good time.”

Charles sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “What’s going on, man? I saw the way you were gawking at her when I came to the table at the hotel. You looked like Michael Corleone when he got hit by the thunderbolt,” he said, recalling their favorite movie, The Godfather.

“What are you talking about?” Marc asked, knowing exactly what he meant. They had probably watched the film together a dozen times.

“The thunderbolt.”

 Marc shook his head. “There’s something special about her.”

“Yeah, she’s fine as hell. A little skinny, but fine just the same.”

“I’m not talking about her looks. It was something else I can’t explain.”

“The thunderbolt,” Charles repeated and laughed. “Are you seeing her again before you leave?”

“Yeah. I’m taking her to lunch tomorrow.”

“I hope you plan to feed that girl some real food. Remember, she’s a woman not a gerbil.” He gave Marc’s back a playful slap. “I’m going to bed. Check you in the a.m.”

“You’re going to the gym with me, right?” Charles nodded. “I think I’ll take in your view for a while,” Marc opened the doors to the terrace and stepped outside. It was only May, yet the Atlanta evenings were already warm. He sat and propped his feet on the railing and gazed at the skyline. The view was so different from his view at home. Although he lived in Las Vegas, his house was built in the desert eight miles from the strip. He had gotten used to the flat landscape with its backdrop of the Spring Mountains. As his eyes took in the twinkling lights, he considered his twin’s words.

When he’d first seen Gianne sitting at the table, he’d be lying if he said what he felt was anything other than a thunderbolt. And he knew it had nothing to do with how pretty she was. Ever since college he had been attuned to his spiritual nature, which is what eventually led him into the vegan lifestyle. His spiritual sensibilities had been shaken. A connection existed between them he didn’t understand, and he’d learned to never dismiss those spiritual jolts. No way was he going back to Nevada without discovering the nature and depth of that connection. Tomorrow was his chance to learn more about her. Health-wise, she clearly needed his professional help. Gianne needed to counteract the effects of her medical treatments through nutrition and exercise, and he knew he was able do that for her. But the natural help wasn’t what it was all about. The moment they’d met, he had the strong sensation that they somehow needed each other. 

-------------------------

Chicki:  I'll also give a complimentary download of A Woman's Worth to a commenter on this blog.

Bettye:  All right, now!  Did you hear that, readers?  It's time to post a comment for a chance to win this exciting new eBook!  Chicki will be announcing the winner's name sometime tomorrow (Friday, September 6th), so be sure to check back by tomorrow evening to ee if you're the lucky winner so you can contact Chicki with your information.

For those of you who don't win, A Woman's Worth is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Kobo, so all devices are covered!

August 31, 2013

A Few Things I've Learned About Publishing

I've been indie publishing for four years now, and I'm continuing to learn.  My policy is as pictured below, on a story plotting board in my office.

I figured I'd share a few of my observations.  I hope you find them helpful.

1) I have a rather unorthodox way of writing...I write scenes that pop into my head, which in itself isn't all that unusual...except my ideas aren't necessarily for the book I'm working on, but for a future book.  I do this enough so that by the time I'm ready to sit down and write that future book, a good portion of it is already written. As I assemble scenes belonging to Secrets & Sins--a complicated story in terms of setup due to its multiple flashbacks--I find that the majority of the writing is done and that what I'm working on mostly is its structure.  If you follow this blog you'll know that structure is what hung me up on Something Real last year...that book with its main love story and a strong secondary subplot took me eight months to write and assemble.  This time it's not going to take eight months...I still expect to release Secrets & Sins sometime this fall.  The fact that this will be my third full-length release this year, after Man of Her Heart and Love Will Follow (there were also two ePubbed backlist titles and one prequel) tells me that this pattern is somehow working.  The lesson here is to do whatever works best for you, not what everybody else is doing.
----------

2) Regarding cover art, just because a picture is expensive doesn't mean it's original.  Before you shell out a bunch of credits for a picture to use on your book cover, check to see if it is available at another site for less.  Doing a specific search can be very helpful at sites with hundreds of thousands of pictures (i.e., "fruit bowl").  I am presently having the cover for Save The Best For Last redesigned to more closely match the color scheme of the two books connected to it, Something Real and Man of Her Heart.  I nearly fainted when I saw that one site wanted 13 credits for a picture in the size large enough to meet Smashwords' new criteria...but then I went to another site and found the same picture for 4 credits.  It was a piece of cake...which not only describes the contents of the picture, but also the process to track it down on the other site.  I searched for "strawberry cake" and there it was.  Took less than five minutes and saved me a nice sum.
----------
3) If you want expanded distribution through Smashwords, including pre-orders through Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo, you have to choose a cover photo that is vertically oriented, with recommended pixels of 1600 for width and 2400 for height.  You probably won't be able to find a photo with these exact dimensions, but use it as a guideline and go with more pixels, not less.  I forgot to do this with my recent releases and my cover designer made covers too small to go into expanded distribution.
----------
4) Regarding releasing a new eBook...Since Amazon still does not allow indie authors to make their eBooks available for pre-order (unless you're selling hundreds of thousands of eBooks, in which case they will invite you to do this), it is very, very difficult for indie authors to zero in on a publication date.  The ability to do this, along with the possibility that strong first-day sales may propel your book onto the bestseller lists, are the two best advantages for Amazon pre-orders to become a reality (and why I keep pleading with them to offer it).  This can be frustrating, because having a definite publication date projects a more professional image than just saying it'll-be-published-when-it's-ready.  Many indie authors announce the availability of their books on a specific "official" release date, but the publication date on the product page usually reveals that the book has actually been on sale anywhere from one to five days prior to that (no doubt because authors want to make sure they don't run into issues in the upload process).  To me--probably stemming from my time being traditionally published--neither of these circumstances are ideal.  Problems with uploading aside--those will always be unpredictable--if you want your Amazon publication date to show as the same as the date you're announcing it will be available, upload the book after 12:30AM Pacific Time (which would be 2:30AM Central Time, 3:30AM Eastern Time.  I added an extra half hour in there, since the calendar date of course changes at midnight, but upload any earlier and the folks at Amazon will make your publication date a day earlier than you specified because the day has not yet changed on the West Coast.  I'm probably being nit-picky about this, but it drives me nuts when I upload an eBook with a publication date of, say, September 5th, and Amazon backdates it to September 4th.  This is especially irksome when I look at my Author Bookshelf and see upload dates that are a day later than publication dates (as if a book can be published before the manuscript has been uploaded).  That said, overnight uploads usually go pretty fast, I find usually going live within four to five hours...in other words, in time for consumers to download and read on the bus or train on their way to work.
----------     
5) Speaking of release dates, traditional books (and music as well) are released on Tuesdays, and many indie authors try to follow this model by giving their book an "official" release date that falls on that day of the week.  When I think about this, though, I wonder if closer to the end of the week might be a better choice, since indie authors can choose their own day.  Why compete with all those trad published books?  I also suspect that more consumers get paid on Thursday or Friday than do on a Tuesday, and you'd like your book to be purchased right away rather than go on a wish list.  A Thursday around the 1st or the 15th of the month would probably be a fabulous time to release a new book, because you've got all those consumers on a semi-monthly pay schedule in addition to those paid on that particular week.  This past weekend--the 29th or 30th of August--was a writer's dream in terms of a perfect time for a new release:  Not only did it work well for people who normally get paid that week, but also those paid semi-monthly, since the 1st is Sunday and the 2nd is a bank holiday.  But what really made it fabulous was that aforementioned holiday.  A three-day weekend is a wonderful incentive for readers to buy and curl up with a new book!  
-----------
I'll end with a prediction:  If Amazon does decide to catch up with Smashwords and offer indie authors the option of having their books available for pre-order, look for them to require KDP Select enrollment for any titles put in this status. 

Wish it...dream it...do it!

August 24, 2013

Chewing the Fat with...Reon Laudat

Author Reon Laudat has a new book out!  The Mommy Group was published earlier this week.  An established romance writer, this is Reon's first foray into mainstream women's fiction (in the subgenre of chick/mom lit).  Her voice has been missed, and her readers will be glad to know she's back on the literary scene.  Reon answered a few questions for me, playing catch-up, talking about life as an indie publisher and, of course, about her new offering.

------------------------   

Bettye:  From what I see on Amazon, your last book, It's In His Kiss, was published in 2009. Is that accurate?  If so, what have you been doing all these years?

Reon:  The 2009 version of It's In His Kiss was a reprint of an older book with a new cover. My last new release was actually the romance Wanna Get to Know Ya in 2005, so I had a long, dry spell. I was feeling burned out and disillusioned about the business and more excited to be a new mom so I planned to take a short break from writing/publishing. That "short" break stretched longer than anticipated, but all the while my writer's brain never shut down. I enjoyed chick lit, particularly mom lit, but I could not find many novels in the niche featuring African-American women. Light bulb moment!  I started plotting and writing with excitement again. And it felt great to be back.

After completing an early version of The Mommy Group in 2008, I sought to have it published traditionally with new representation for a fresh start with a brand new genre. I sent out sample chapters and received swift, enthusiastic requests for the full manuscript from four of my "wish list" agents. One offered representation the same day the full was received, so I really felt I was onto something. Everything was cranking along, but then the business was changing, the market tightening. You know the rest. The rejections started rolling in from editors--"Chick lit is dead," "Mommy lit is so yesterday," "The 'four friends' books are out." But then, after I'd almost given up hope...a yes from a Big Six publisher. It was an opportunity to get the story out there, but I wasn't thrilled about the offer, so I had to pass. No more offers after that one, but I did not give up on this manuscript. I kept working on it, rewriting, tweaking like a madwoman. I was obsessed, LOL! When indie publishing became a viable option, I was glad I'd hung onto it. I believe I made it a stronger novel.

Bettye:  Yes, I know a thing or two about rejection...What's The Mommy Group about?  Obviously, it's about motherhood, but a little more detail, please!

Reon:  The Mommy Group is about four women dealing with the complexities of friendship, finances, and new motherhood. But you don't have to be a mom to like the book. I reveled in the opportunity to write more flawed lead characters. I'll admit I'm a pop culture/reality show junkie ("Survivor," "Big Brother," "Shark Tank"), and I might have been a tad influenced by shows of the "Housewives" ilk. Ducking for cover now, LOL!

Bettye:  I'll confess that I have never had any interest in mom lit (not being a mom myself), but that cover is sooooo adorable, I can't wait to read this! The cover looks like it clearly came from a Big Six (I think it might be Big Five now) publisher, but you actually indie published this book. What do you think of the process?

Reon:  The freedom feels amazing. But it's a lot of work! I had help with various aspects (the cover, editing, and formatting, etc.) Dealing with other people's schedules can be frustrating.

Bettye:  Will readers have to wait another eight years for your next book?

Reon:  Absolutely not. LOL. The "baby" is in third grade now.

Bettye:  Did you happen to bring an excerpt with you?

Reon:  I sure did!  Here it is, from Chapter 1:

“Hey, y’all, focus!” Taryn tapped the table and took a bite of the sandwich Nicole had passed to her. “As I was saying, most rich people aren’t born that way.” A big wad of sausage and bread rolled around inside her mouth. “I need to stay on track. I know exactly where I want to be professionally and financially in the next ten years. My initial goal was to have a million saved up for retirement, not including home equity. I’m talking savings and checking accounts, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, and such. If Jon and I retire in our sixties, the plan is to have enough to stretch about thirty years.”

“Thirty years?” Nicole asked. “You think you’ll live well into your nineties?”

“The point is not worrying about running out of cash if I do,” Taryn said. “A million dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to. I need to double or triple that…at a minimum. Shoot, even Oprah once hoarded $50 million in what she called her ‘bag lady fund’ in case the national talk show host gig didn’t pan out.”

“That makes me nervous,” Nicole said. “I ain’t trying to be no bag lady either.”

Courtney shuddered. How could she have been so shortsighted and self-indulgent? She’d slashed her family’s financial cushion in half after insisting on handling their savings/checking accounts and bill payments. Rob managed their pension/retirement investments and the baby’s college fund. Though both earned great salaries, their ballooning monthly expenditures far exceeded their net monthly income. Rob probably wouldn’t complain about her charitable donations, because of the tax write-off, but if he knew exactly how much she’d squandered on designer clothes, jewelry and soirees…She might have gone a tad over the top on Taryn’s recent spa bash baby shower with its numerous white-uniformed attendants treating the guests to mani-pedis and foot/neck rubs. Her colleagues at Dermatology Associates were still buzzing about the Christmas dinner she’d hosted for them and their families two years ago. Chateaubriand, costumed carolers, and a Santa with a red velvet suit, real beard, and pot belly. Courtney’s breath caught as she imagined Rob’s big hands wrapping around her neck and squeezing until her eyeballs popped out. Time for a change of subject, but Taryn was like one of those darn desktop printing calculators spewing a never-ending roll of paper tape stamped with numbers.

“And there’s college tuition to think about.” Taryn patted her middle swollen with her first child, due in twelve weeks. “I don’t want my kid graduating with a ton of student loan debt the way I did. I didn’t think I’d ever pay off that fifty grand. Then there are possible medical bills that come with advancing age. But I plan to be ready for it all!” She reached for her plastic cup of water, added lemon wedges swiped from Courtney’s and Nicole’s drinks, and sprinkled three packets of sugar on top. “Why pay $3 for a cup of lemonade when I can make my own for free.” She stirred and tasted, hammily smacking her lips until she had it just right. “Ahhhh.”

Bettye:  What online retailers carry this book?

Reon:  I'm doing KDP Select for this one, so it's just on Amazon for now.

Bettye:  Sorry, Nooksters...I have a Sony eReader myself, and while I love it, I've decided to ask Santa to bring me an inexpensive tablet that I can load the Kindle app on and get Kindle-only eBooks and deals. Thanks for stopping by, Reon!

Reon:  Thanks for featuring me on your blog, Bettye!

Bettye:  You're very welcome...and welcome back to publishing!

Readers, download your copy of The Mommy Group today from Amazon!

August 18, 2013

New Beta Software from the folks who brought you Scrivener

Literature and Latte are now offering a Windows version of their latest product, Scapple, a brainstorming software to help writers draft their projects and gather ideas.  It's a series of notes that can be spread out or stacked, or even arranged in columns if you like to have a story arc for each character or aspect of your book.

The beta version will work through September 15th and will be selling for the price of $14.99.  I already used it to map out a prequel...

Learn more about it here.

August 16, 2013

What I learned from the RWA Conference (which I didn't attend)

I purchased a couple of MP3 files from last month's RWA Conference.  I have not been a member of RWA in years, but in case you haven't heard, after years of ignoring indie publishing, or as it seems to be called more frequently these days, self-publishing, RWA has rather belatedly embraced it, with multiple workshops devoted to this very subject at this year's conference.  The slow pace of acceptance doesn't particularly endear them to me, so I doubt I'll ever rejoin...but that doesn't mean I'm not open to hearing what was discussed at the conference as it pertains to self-publishing.

While listening isn't the same as being there (for instance, with audio-only you can't see the PowerPoint presentations the speakers are referring to, making for a disadvantage), I nonetheless learned a few things I felt were worth repeating.  Author Vickie Taylor, talking about formatting, said that using combination keystrokes to create ellipses and M-dashes will prevent eReaders from doing a line break mid-ellipsis and mid-dash.  To create an unbreakable ellipsis, use Ctrl-Alt-period.  To create an unbreakable M-dash, use Ctrl-Alt-hyphen (the hyphen on the numeric keypad, not on the regular keyboard).

Barbara Freethy and Bella Andre, talking about author branding, agree that even if no one has heard of you, to put your name in big print on the cover.  Freethy also recommends using the same font for your name on all your books (something my cover designer has done for me since the beginning).  My own feelings are that a name in large print will work best for a shorter name (Andre's name is ideal, just 10 letters), or else it's going to take up a disproportionate amount of space on the cover.

Freethy also recommends adding any legitimate benefits to your cover, i.e., quotes from bestselling authors, contests wins or placements, bestselling status, etc., anything that might give your book an edge.  There have been debates about what actually constitutes a bestselling status, and I've decided to leave that one alone.    

Some of what was said was just plain common sense, but worth pointing out, becomes sometimes the obvious doesn't register to hardworking writers.  Andre said that for branding of her Sullivan series she went with the same cover concept...a kissing couple on the top half, a landscape scene on the bottom half.  I did something similar with my Love series, consisting so far of Lost That Lovin' Feeling and Love Will Follow:

Although I've done very little work on the manuscript for Love Will Grow, the last book in the series (it's on my 2014 publication schedule), I've already purchased the cover art for it:

So what if the sand is different shade in each of the three pictures?  They are all sand and water, and that's enough to make the reader see a connection.  Besides, when you've seen one picture of sand and water, you've seen them all.  The thing is to go for a similar look, not an identical one.


I've been doing a lot of thinking about covers in recent months, and I moved the tinkering I want to do to the head of my To Do list.  I hope to have a cover redone for one of my titles, and another one slightly revised, by the end of the year.  I'll be showing before and after photos after they're done.

If you're interested to know what else they talked about in the various RWA workshops, you can peruse and purchase MP3 files for immediate download here.

August 15, 2013

Anatomy of an eBook:  Secrets & Sins

Somewhere along the line while furiously writing (usually while giving my brain a well-needed rest), my thoughts turn to cover art.

I had long abandoned the idea of using people on this cover...while it is essentially the story of a mother and two daughters (a title I briefly considered before deciding it had no oomph), I couldn't find an appropriate picture.  I also thought of using a picture of a body rolled up in a rug wearing Argyle socks and wing-tip shoes (one of the sinful secrets referred to in the title), but then decided that would suggest it was a murder mystery.  I'm no marketing guru, but I do feel that authors have to give readers a clear picture of what type of story they're getting.  So I decided to go for symbolism.

I entered the word secrets on the search page of a stock photo site and got a lot of locked boxes, keys, and dark alleys.  When I entered the word sin I got a lot of apples and pictures of the Las Vegas strip.  I decided to go with a combination of two results, the key and the apple, and when I entered both keywords I got...well, some nice photos, which I forwarded to my cover designer for her thoughts.

Stay tuned...

August 9, 2013

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the blogosphere...

There are some blogs out there with some pretty nifty information this week.  I thought I'd share a few.

Author Theresa Ragan has created a sales ranking chart, to get a quick general idea of how many book sales your rankings correlate with.  She bases it on her own sales, and I agree that my experiences are about the same.  You can see it here.

Bestselling author Marie Force has announced the results of her survey to readers about their buying habits:  where, why, how much, and more!  Take in the results here.

I can't remember where I picked this up, but it explores different ways indie publishers can experiment for better sales results.

Yet another list of tips for maximum productivity.  I suspect there are tons of people out there who can never seem to get a book finished, so I believe these lists have merit.

Happy writing!