Die, My Love Release

A Hair Raising Review:

"I liked what I DID read, but not enough to finish it. I've read all of Penelope's other books and I knew I'd love this, but I didn't. How the book was told was really boring, I understand that it was her thoughts and that's fine, but I'd like some more dialogue. It was driving me INSANE after the second chapter but I pushed on when I was about 50% done I really just couldn't finish it. Maybe I'll finish it later, it wasn;t bad by any means just slowwwww and boring. In my opinion." (3 Stars Kindle US)

A Happy Times Review:

"I really enjoyed this book. It's a little different take on the vampire thing and I like it! I love how it's told through Lee(and what's in her head) and she's an awesome character--I was cracking up at all the stuff she was thinking. It's what would be going through your mind; a lot of the stuff you don't say out loud. It's a great story and perfect set up for the next book. Can't wait, it should be good!!" ( 5 stars Kindle US)

Sooo.... 15 days later I'm announcing the release of Die, My Love, my paranormal romance, which falls into the Beautiful Damned collection. It comes in at 62,000 words. It was brought in at an introductory $0.99, but $2.99 is where it will sit. It’s written in first person present tense and uses S-o-C heavily. If inner monologue bores rather than intrigues you, give it a miss.

iBooks UK> Romance > #1 (Overall #26) for 2 days! Romance is such a cut-throat category so this made me beam with delight.

Nook> Top 700

Kindle UK > Top 2,000

Kindle US > Top 10,000

No promotion goes into these. For my readership to be still be growing at a steady pace is positive. Lunar Light did 150 sales on Kindle in its debut month (March). Die, My Love is nearing 200 on Kindle (1 Deutschland sale, get in there!) and August is a painful month sales wise. Nook/iBook figures will be significantly higher. My readership is definitely growing for these books.

I admit I’m nervous about the reception the book will get when more reviews start coming in. Really nervous. I’ve seen books with a similar narration style get ripped the sh*it out of, but there is nothing to be done. It is what it is. I’ve written the blurb close to the style of the writing to try and give a smoke signal to people before they decide to buy it.

Author Interview with Sibel Hodge

I have a lovely, bubbly guest for you today. Her name is Sibel Hodge, and she's a chick lit romance author. If you dip into any Indie forums online, or have blog wanderlust then you've probably already seen or heard of at least one of Sibel's highly praised books. 

Now, in your spare time you're Wonder Woman (I'm Jessica Rabbit in mine *giggles*), and so you're told the world is going to end in one minute, what do you do? 

Yikes! One minute isn't enough to save everyone. Hmm...I'd send a repeat text to all my friends and family. Then I'd say goodbye to my hubby. And if I had any time left, I'd down a bottle of wine. The end of the world sounds like it might be quite painful and I'd like to die happy!

Can you give us an idea of what kind of person you are? 

Crazy, quirky, loves to make people laugh, generous, happy.

How do you feel about Goodreads and promotion on the site? Are you a Goodreads Author? 

I am a Goodreads Author, and I think it's a great site for readers. I do find it a little hard to use at times because there are so many forums. I don't constantly plug my novels but I like to add reviews to books I've read and let people know what I'm reading. I also use it a lot to post giveaways from my blog. I wish there was more time in the day to get involved in all of it. I think I need a clone!

eBook Covers (Yeah, More Advice)

eBook covers. They sell books, so don't sell your books short with a bad one. For Indie Publishing you must think long term, and promoting as soon as you can is sound advice. For this you will need a cover.

Ask yourself this, do you understand the photography rule of three thirds? Can you see past makeup to see if your model's features are close to the Divine Proportion? If your answers are along the lines of "P, what the hell are you talking about," skip this lesson and hire someone to do the cover for you. Seriously. Book covers contribute enormously to sales and you need a good one. If your answer to the questions are yes, continue.

Promotion. Marketing. Brand. Identity. As an Indie you will live and breathe these things. Your first book cover is a like ... a tramp stamp *giggles* It’s usually not as great as it could have been and an ugly reminder of how stupid, young, and easily lead you were. Hopefully, this post will save you some shame later down the road (I said some not all).

You will need a picture editor (of some kind) and an online stock photography resource. Searching for the right images can take days, so you need to make sure you like the interface.

If I Must Suffer Another Badly Formatted eBook I Will Gouge My Eyeballs Out With A Spoon! Here Is How You Do It.

I may be cross eyed before I'm 24 if I keep having to read badly formatted eBooks. My mind can rework a single typo in milliseconds. Editing is difficult and takes weeks to months. Words are tricky things. Formatting, on the other hand, is not difficult, and takes days if not hours, but when eBook formating is completely atrocious nobody says anything. Why? Typos are genuine mistakes. A badly formatted eBook is just pure laziness. Even large publishers are managing to royally cock this up. So I'm going to show how I do mine, again, with the hope it helps at least one Indie get it right the first time around.

These instructions are written using Microsoft Word user language. I myself use Mac, but understand PC users find it difficult to convert Mac shortcuts into PC ones. So Mac users, apologies, I have catered for our PC companions. You know the drill, substitute for equivalent programmes and keyboard short cuts where needed.

Blog Hijack: Stuart Wakefield Says Who Cares Who Wrote It?!

At the end of July I attended my first Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Fiction conference.

As Body of Water, my own M/M Paranormal Romance novel, nears its September launch date I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to meet the other guys that are writing and reading gay romance a.k.a. M/M Romance.

The night before the conference I looked for Jo, a female writer I'd been in touch with, in the bar and found her with half a dozen other women who all turned out to be M/M Romance authors. I got on with them all famously but a part of me still looked forward to meeting some of the guys, too.

The following morning I walked into the conference itself and nearly every attendee was female. Of approximately 45 attendees just 3 of us were male and most of the women used androgynous pen names like Chris and Alex at the request of their publishers.

My Way Of Twitter Promotion & Marketing

I don’t give advice, much, but I feel ... compelled to write about how I go about my marketing activities (the little I do). So I’m starting with Twitter.com

Twitter is a simple concept. Real-time communication in 140 characters or less. Communication. Not a one way relationship/conversation. Your primary goals on this platform should be to network with other industry professionals, and extend the reach your other social networking accounts. Your secondary goals should be to learn new information, keep in touch with industry developments, and sell eBooks. Simple, huh?

BASICS

Here are the basic Twitter words you need to know and understand;

• Tweet: An update from a Twitter user profile, which is traditionally 140 characters or less
• Twitter Handle: This is a Twitter user’s unique identifier
• Twitter Stream: Real time interface of all Twitter users you are following’s tweet
• Direct Replies: This is when someone uses your twitter handle in a Tweet, directing it at you
• Direct Messages: Private messages between you and another tweeter. You can only send Direct Messages to people who are following you
• Hastags: These are keywords prefixed by a hastag (#) allowing your tweet to be searched for by anybody who searches for that keyword using either the search function provided by Twitter or an API
• TwitterVerse: The universe that is Twitter. Also known as TwitterLand

For a comprehensive list of terms see the Twitter Glossary.

ETHOS

There is etiquette to how you should use this popular social media platform. A basic ethos to keep in mind would be: