Assessment, Part Three

This is the final post regarding my promotional activities for September and October. It helps me to write about it, and maybe it will improve my game in future efforts. Judging from your comments, you guys are finding it helpful too. There will be more topics in this post, and I'll try to keep each one brief.

I joined the Rave Reviews Book Club Back to School Book and Blog Block Party. (Try fitting that in a tweet.) This project ran the entire month of September, and there were generally two sites per day participating. Every host site had to offer prizes, and the club monitored the comments to hold a drawing. I participated on every site, and I won some great stuff. My stats spiked that day, and my book sales showed a bump too. There is a benefit from cruising around and being friendly too. I gained blog followers during the month.

I participated in Teri Polen's Bad Moon Rising campaign in October. This was dedicated to horror authors, but I managed to fit in anyway. This one didn't come with prizes, but was still a lot of fun. I participated on every post, and tweeted the daily posts. I gained quite a few Twitter followers as a result.

I approached multiple book reviewers going back to August, in hopes that reviews would land during my push. Most of them came through, and I'm still waiting on others. They will come through sooner or later.

I want to mention that Rosy's Book Review Team is extremely helpful. All the review sites are great, but they go the extra mile. These folks not only post to Amazon and Goodreads, they blog about the review too. Approximately a month later, Rosy posts the data on the main team blog. This generates a ton of interest, and Twitter seems to go crazy for them too. I can't recommend them highly enough. Will O' the Wisp wound up in a top ten list on Rosy's sidebar. You can bet I captured that and tweeted the heck out of it.

The reviewers sold books too. A couple of them invited me to guest post on their sites. It's kind of a neat trick to post a review, then have the author show up later. This is one of the unexpected things that happened along the way.

Unexpected benefits were the most fun part. So many people pitched in and tweeted, posted unexpected reviews, or invited me over that I can't name them all. I want to single out P H Solomon though. He really made an effort on my part, and it was completely unexpected. He still makes Goodreads recommendations for Notebook, and I know he sold some copies for me. I also want to specifically thank Charles Yallowitz. He reblogged many of the posts, and included me in one of his own posts. This involved the monsters in his Windemere world. When he posted about the cockatrice, he included a cover and link to The Cock of the South. There were several sales of this book right after that post, and they almost had to be because of him.

I can't thank everyone in a post like this, but the unexpected goodwill is overwhelming.

I was able to pull this all together by planning it as far back as July. It takes Sean Harrington time to produce the Lisa art that accompanied her guest posts. It takes time to garner a book review, because the reviewer has a list to work through. I needed to prepare all the blog tour posts, mine, Lisa's, and Lorelei the Muse even got in on the act.

This preparation allowed me to accept any invitations that came along. I did a couple of blog swaps, because I planned ahead. In many cases where an author visited my site, I appeared on theirs. I had time to custom write a few things, because the blog tour data was ready ahead of time. Macabre Macaroni was all written ahead of time.

I'm in debt to everyone that helped me along the way. I need to get reading some of their books, and will be here when they need my blog space for their promotions.

It was a combination of things that moved copies of both books. I think this is more important than any single thing. Oh how I wish there were one specific thing that would move ten thousand books. There just isn't. At the end of two months, my footprint has grown. More people know about me than did in August.

I'm tired too. The next time, I might not push two books back to back. I think this was a benefit, but it was tiring. It required special circumstances of a fresh release, plus a Halloween themed newish book. That chance doesn't come along every day.

Did I miss a trick in all this? I'm almost certain I did. Tell me about something you've done that helped grow your audience.

 

Everyone needs a little Angelic Business

Olga is stopping by to tell us about her books, and offer us a smokin’ deal for shopping early.  She’s an interesting lady who is pretty diverse. Make sure you check out her blog. She has some pretty cool cover art too.

Hi all:

First of all thank you very much for taking part in my Blog Tour for Angelic Business 1. Pink Matters. Reader, don’t worry, I’m not here forever, just twisting the arm of your favourite blogger and borrowing a bit of space.

Author Olga Núñez Miret

My name is Olga Núñez Miret and I’m a writer, translator, reader, psychiatrist, I love movies, plays, fitness, owls and recently have taken up meditation (mindfulness). (I thought I might as well summarise and not take too much of your time). I’ll leave you some links at the end just in case you want to find out even more about me (I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but hey…do your worst!).

I’ve been writing since I was quite young and I write in whatever style the story I have in my head wants to be written in. So far literary fiction, romance, YA, thriller…and a few unfinished works.

Around five years ago I discovered and read quite a few interesting Young Adult books and had an idea for what I thought could be a series. At the time I wrote the first of the novels and after trying to find an agent or a traditional publisher without much success, I started self-publishing, but decided to publish some of my other books first. Since then I’ve published 12 books (6 original books and their translations, as I write in English and Spanish).

I kept thinking about Angelic Business and a few months later wrote the second novel in the series: Shades of Greg. (No, nothing to do with…)

And last year, as part of NaNoWriMo I wrote the third novel in the series, Pink, Angel or Demon?

As I had written the three, I thought I’d publish them pretty close to each other so people wouldn’t have to wait to know what happened next (at least not too much).

The three books in the Angelic Business collection are now available for pre-order at the special price of $0.99 each. It’s a bargain price and they’ll go up shortly after publication.

Here, a video:

Link:

https://youtu.be/ZKWP_Q89CiQ

Don’t worry. My writing is better than my video-creating skills, but as I’d been taking all those pictures of angels, I thought I might as well.

And here, the series:

Angelic Business 1. Pink Matters

Angelic Business 1. Pink Matters

You are Pink, not the prettiest girl, but smart and with plenty of resources. What do you do when your best male friend offers to have sex with you, because he thinks you’re a lost cause? You plot your revenge with your two best female friends, of course!

It seems you’re in luck when a new and mysterious student appears. And, to top it all, he seems interested in you too. He could take part in the plan. But then, he seems to have a plan of his own… He insists he’s not just an ordinary boy. And what seemed so easy to begin with, gets more and more complicated when Heaven and Hell come knocking at Pink’s door.

Pink Matters is the story of Pink, a 17 year old girl, good student, articulate and smart. What she has never been the centre of attention or made the top ten of the most popular and attractive girls at school. When two guys, both claiming to be angels, insist that she is, indeed, ‘special’, fight for her attention and help and tell her she is the key to the future of the universe, she can’t help but ask: Why me?

And a snippet:

“Who are you?” Lorna asked. Before she could say anything else, she froze as if paralysed. And the same happened to Sylvia.

“Oh no, not again” I said.

“Hi Pink. I’m Azrael. I’m…”

“Let me guess…You’re an angel.”

I could say he smiled but it was more like a white light radiating from between his lips. His voice also seemed slightly “otherworldly”. He was nothing like G. Flesh and blood didn’t seem to be his priority.

“Yes. I am.”

“O…K….And…to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? If you are going to make an announcement of some sort…I could have done with some notice.”

The light now seemed to radiate from his whole “body” if that was what it was. Somehow his show was much more believable than G’s. And scarier.

“It’s not an announcement as such. But you should know…G…”

“Yes?”

“I know he told you he’s an angel.”

I looked at him. Maybe he was different to G but he could be as annoying as him. And interfering.

“Yes. I also “know” things…In my case it is because “I” am an angel. He has not been truthful about his identity.”

Pink Matters is currently available for pre-order and will be published on the 26^th of June 2015 (Amazon time). So, if you’re reading this post after the 26^th of June, you’re in luck and can get the book straight away! (I’m also publishing it in other platforms although as their processing speed is different the dates might vary. Do check there or in my website, that I regularly update).

Link:

http://rxe.me/YIHTW96

In case you’re intrigued, I leave you the cover (reveal!) and links to the other two books:

Angelic Business 2. Shapes of Greg

Angelic Business 2. Shapes of Greg

What more could happen after the death and resurrection of your mother? What could Heaven and Hell toss at Pink to top that? Well, to start with, she gets a new hellish babysitter, who is seriously hot. And although everybody likes him, he only has eyes for her. When she learns what the price was for the ‘miracle’ of saving her mother, she realises that she must be careful, as Hell doesn’t lose gracefully.

One of her friends wants to find the perfect man, the other one gets into a relationship she refuses to talk about, there’s a demon who doesn’t know when to give up and an angel who seems to have his own agenda. What on Earth, Hell or Heaven is going on?

Shapes of Greg is available for pre-order and will be published on the 15^th of July.

Link:

http://rxe.me/YHZ21O2

And last, but not least:

Angelic Business 3: Pink, Angel or Demon?

Angelic Business 3. Pink, Angel or Demon?

OK, OK, OK. Pink gets it. She’s the Elected, whether she likes it or no. Heaven and Hell are closing in, and their envois are closer home than ever. So close she can’t ignore them. And she’ll do everything but.

However long she has, she’s determined to make it count. She’ll sort her friends out, she’ll help her family and, she’ll live a bit. And then, she’ll take charge. Because no one will say that Pink went down without a fight. However big and bad the enemy.

Gender benders, romances, old loves that come to fruition, new challenges, divine interventions, tears, laughter and magic. All of that and more. Because, if you’re gonna go, you might as well go with a bang.

Pink, Angel or Demon? is available for pre-order and will be published on the 30^th July.

Link:

http://rxe.me/YHZHUYS

As I threatened you before, here are some link:

My website is:

www.OlgaNM.com

I have a Twitter account:

@OlgaNM7

My blog is:

http://OlgaNM.wordpress.com

I also have a Facebook author page

www.facebook.com/OlgaNunezMiret

In Amazon:

http://amzn.to/XLnZTo

My Goodreads author page is:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6562510.Olga_N_ez_Miret

G+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/118443714277719085351

Pinterest : (Don’t miss my board about angels)

http://pinterest.com/olganm7/

Wattpad:

http://wattpad.com/OlgaNM

Thanks so much for allowing me to visit and post, thanks so much for reading, and as I always tell them in my blog, if you’ve found it interesting, like, share, comment and CLICK! Oh, and I love reblogs! Ah, and thanks to Lourdes Vidal for her covers.

 

Wednesday catch up

Today is my rotating day off. I have company arriving tonight that will last through the weekend. I took advantage of a lonely morning to get a few things done.

I finally finished my upgrade of Wild Concept, and uploaded the changes to Amazon. I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm keeping this project on the down low. It isn't a complete rewrite, more like some new makeup for Lisa. This is my first published book, and I admit that my style doesn't compare to my recent stuff. Forward is a better direction, and that's where I'm headed.

I emailed a few friends about the word count of their short stories. It sounds like I'm already in the ballpark for my book of shorts. I have a couple more things to write and it will be a complete draft. Then I have to struggle with what order to put them in, and a few peripheral projects. As part of this, I managed 2000 new words of fiction for those who like numbers.

I've guest posted quite a few places this year. I wrote one about character growth and used a silly example to make my point. (As I often do.) I kind of think it would make a fun short story. I spent hours trying to figure out where I posted it, and eventually found it. I wanted to make certain the host didn't want to claim Copyright over it. He didn't, and probably thought I was crazy. (Thank you, Charles.) I haven't committed yet, but the story of Lilly and her soup ladle might make it into the short stories.

The book of shorts has a title now. It's going to be called “The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack.” I've already approached a cover artist, and the first few glimpses are amazing.

You probably all know by now that I got another five star review on Will O' the Wisp. This is like rocket fuel for an author. Summer can be a slow time, but I'm motivated like crazy right now. It still needs more readers, and reviewers. If you run out of stars, you can have some of mine.

Go ahead and fill your pockets

I haven't looked back at The Playground draft yet. We're trying to plan our first camping trip, and I may take it for some campfire reading. My critique group is slowly seeing pieces of it, and they've been very helpful.

I've been tagged for the 777 challenge. (Thanks, John.) I'm looking forward to this one, but most of my friends have already been tagged elsewhere. I have a few ideas, and may get it published this weekend.

I've had a few guests post some fun stuff recently. I have one more pending, but she asked me to wait until closer to the end of the month. Blog tours frequently get a push when they begin, and another one as they end. With company around, I may post that over the weekend.

Speaking of guest posts, I'm looking for more. I'm willing to visit, or host. I'll even do a swap if one of you is interested. Let me know in the comments, or if we've exchanged email before, drop me a note. My lovely assistant is standing by waiting to set these up.

Guest post central

I'm open for most anything. I've even loaned out Doubt the Raven for some editing posts last year. Lisa the robot assistant appeared in some short fiction, and my Muse, Lorelei is available too. If you'd like to play with these characters, just ask. I'm willing to write them into a guest post on your site if you like.

Actually that sounds like quite a charged up morning. See what one great review does. I'm off to work on those four outlines before company gets here. Talking yaks, witch doctors, and surgically enhanced muskrats shouldn't be kept waiting.

Three day challenge déjà Vu edition

I already participated in this challenge, but when Masgautsen over at The Thoughts of Life and Me tagged me, I couldn’t refuse. She’s been active over at my blog, and that always earns extra credit. Thank you for thinking of me.

The fact is, I like quotes and collect them in one of my living documents.

I’ve been given two sets of rules for this one. The first set involves posting one quote and tagging some people to pass it on.

These are the rules I received this time:

1. Post 3 of your favourite quotes each per day for 3 recurrent days. The quotes can be of any other people or it may come straight from your own heart.

2. Nominate 3 bloggers with each post to challenge them.

3. Don’t forget to utter a thankful word to the person who nominated you

Since I’ve already done this one, I’m going to cheat a tiny bit. I’ll post all my quotes today. I’ll even add a few extras to make amends.

Here we go:

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. – Groucho Marx

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done. – George Carlin

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent. – Sophia Loren

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. – Carl Sagan

PRIORITIES: Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove… But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction. – Despair Inc. website

How about one of my own?

I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be plausible. – C. S. Boyack

Now to rat out my friends, “mwa ha ha.” I’m going to try some folks I usually don’t pick on:

Joey over at Joeyfullystated

Vanessa-Jane over at Vanessa-Jane Chapman

D. S. Nelson over at Bean on an Adventure

I can hear them all saying “Yay!”

I suggest picking one set of rules and sticking to that. I suppose you can make up your own rules like I did, but I’m on my second lap. Have fun with it, I did.

Three Day Quote Challenge

Susan Nichols tagged me on this one, and it is kind of fun. I haven’t seen anyone explain how the three days plays into it, but here are the rules:

1 Thank the person who nominated you. (Thank you, Sue!)
2 Post your quote.
3 Pass it on to three others.

I’ll post one of my favorites:

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. – H.L. Mencken

This thing orbited the Earth so fast, I hope I still have three untouched friends out there. Here are my victims:

Ali Isaac

Mari Wells

Mae Clair

Have fun you guys.

A blog hop, kind of, sort of

Ali Isaac tagged me to participate in a Facebook project. I don’t have a Facebook account, and don’t particularly want one. I mentioned that to Ali, as I slipped toward the door. She said, “That’s okay, I posted my stuff on my blog too. You can do that.”

I read her post, here. It’s kind of a combo about her slowing down blogging for a bit to make some writing time. The part for me involves sharing the first seven lines of my work in progress.

I never quite do these things right. It isn’t fair for me to tag others, when I don’t Facebook personally. I also recently posted something about my novel in progress. I’ll run it out there again, but am giving it an extra line or two to get to the creepy part.

The Playground

Tommy Fazio lit the black candles in his seventeenth floor office and pulled down on some surgical gloves. The faint light revealed a bank of computer systems with cables leading to an autopsy table. The smell of burning tallow mingled with that of bleach.

He pulled on a white lab coat and walked up to the girl on the table. She was six or seven years old, it didn’t matter. Cables ran into every opening in her body, with a large one stitched inside her abdomen. Bloody slobber hung out her mouth and dripped into a plastic bucket. He wiggled the cable between her legs and she coughed.

“This one’s about finished,” Tommy said.

He spoke again, but in a deep baritone voice. “Yes. We need another one within the day.”

***

What the heck, here are some lines from a short story I wrote.

A Humid Business

The antiquated chunk of metal spun lazily in its weightless environment. As it passed over Germany it finished its final orbit and atmospheric friction started to warm it. The glowing purple growth on the exterior doubled in size at the onset of heat, much the same way a loaf of bread expands in a hot oven.

There were reports from Japan of a strange flash in the night as its orbit disintegrated and it burst into flames. Several ships reported the same thing further to the east.

I pulled on my coveralls and started my truck. We were stringing wire for the new high tension lines that would bring hydroelectric power to the coast…

Because I don’t Facebook, I’m not tagging anyone. If you want to play along, please feel free. If you leave a link in the comments I’ll read your post.

Not quite a meltdown

In case you haven't noticed, I've been a bit busy lately. My regular writing week includes visiting your blogs and participating in the comments when it's appropriate. I try to post every day except Tuesday and Thursday. These are usually when I invite guests bloggers over. (Hint, this is my Friday post.)

Whenever I can steal a few hours, that becomes my writing time. I thought I might get a few hours today, but it wasn't meant to happen. There is just too much going on.

Guests and invites are becoming a regular, and welcome occurrence. This week I was interviewed by Mandy Eve Barnett, and did a blog swap with Ali Isaac. (Crawfish Boy, I crack myself up sometimes.) These would have happened in any normal week, and I enjoyed both invitations.

I volunteered to help Charles Yallowitz spread the word about his newest book, Sleeper of the Wildwood Fugue. Charles was so helpful that he provided a complete post, along with instructions for how to post it. It only took me a few seconds to upload. The graphics and everything were included and formatted. Awesome!

On top of this normal week, I also took Will O' the Wisp out for a blog tour. Just in case there is someone in this star system who doesn't know, I have a new book out and would like people to read it. It's the big one in my sidebar.

I hired 4-Wills Publishing to take care of the details, and I'm glad I did. All I had to do was email the posts, along with the peripheral materials and they took care of the rest.

They took care of a few extras too that I didn't expect. When I got an email about what to give away for my Rafflecopter promotion, my first thought was, What's a Rafflecopter? I thought it was some kind of crowd funding site. They are taking care of everything, so I don't have to worry about it. I told them I'd give away copies of Will O' the Wisp. I still don't know how it works, but I'm in it up to my neck now. Who knows, maybe someone will win a copy and really enjoy it. Tell your friends, etc.

They also set me up with a Goodreads author event. I'm supposed to be there tomorrow between 12:00 and 2:00 CST. I hope they meant daylight savings time. I'm on mountain time, so that would be 11:00 and 1:00 for me, unless they really meant standard time. I've never participated in this format before, so it's a test to see if I can figure it out.

4-Wills also set me up with this cool web-page. It lists all the places along the tour, provides a link to the Rafflecopter, and allegedly tells us all how to find the author event. I'm extremely grateful for the folks who volunteered to host this shindig. Which brings me to another topic…

Etiquette. That's right, a bearded old curmudgeon is going to talk about etiquette. Emily Post died several decades before we had the Internet to worry about, so it's been every-man-for-himself out there. I have a personal code about this, and I do my best to follow it. It's based upon this premise: Someone out there did me a solid favor.

When someone does me a kindness, it's up to me to return the favor. When Mari Wells posts an awesome review, or Mandy Eve Barnett interviews me, or Ali Isaac agrees to a blog swap – I'm going to reblog the posts. This is my attempt to drive them some blog traffic. I'm also going to surf back through and participate in the comments, because it matters. I generally surf back through for three days to a week, so comment away. This is important, because if someone comments on another blog I don't get notified. I have to check in.

Add in all the wonderful folks who hosted the blog tour, and there's been a whole lot of reblogging going on around here. If my blog is your only point of contact, it might seem a little repetitious. Please remember that these people did a favor for me, and they might be the kind of people you want to associate with one day yourself. Please consider visiting them and checking out their blogs.

In other news, critique group went well last night. I sent them two micro fictions and one that reaches into short story territory. They were well received, and I got a few good suggestions. Sometime this weekend I need to go through them and make changes. I'm struggling with what to submit next month. More short stuff or the first part of my new novel project?

I also forced myself to get a haircut today. (Inspired by Sue Nichols.) My daughter did a great job. My wife really ought to take me out this weekend. I am some serious eye candy right now.

What do you folks have to say? Has anyone messed around with Rafflecopter? Do you believe in blogging etiquette? Are your rules different than mine? Is anyone else out there so busy they can't think straight?

My workspace blog hop

Ali Isaac tagged me to participate in this blog hop. I am supposed to show readers where I write and talk about the process a bit. I might be different than most of the participants. This is because I write with my iPad. I have a bluetooth keyboard that makes the iPad into a mini laptop. It looks like this:

Yup, I’m advertising on the screen.

This allows me to take my work wherever I want. I really like working pre-dawn on the patio furniture out back. There’s six inches of snow outside today, and the patio furniture is all stored in the garage. This iPad is wifi only. I’m not willing to pay for another data plan. I can take it wherever I like to write, it just doesn’t backup without wifi. Based upon the weather, I am currently taking it to my recliner.   On on the end table I have my glasses, notebook & fountain pen, coffee, and a tin of lip balm. That’s about all I need to write with. I like to make original notes in the notebook. I use it as a reference while I’m writing. The coffee is a must. I usually don’t write into the afternoon, but on the rare occurrence I switch to tea after lunch. I used to turn on a bit of classical music while writing. I am an early bird, and acquiesced to the complaints of others in the house. Now I write in complete silence.

I know some of you were hoping to see the writing cabin. That’s like Area 51, and completely off limits to anyone but me. I have dreams of taking the iPad and keyboard to the sturgeon fishing hole someday. Sometimes it takes an hour to get a bite. I never managed to get out this year, despite my best intentions. Everything is saved in real time, and will backup as soon as I reconnect to wifi.

I need to tag someone else to pass the blog hop to. I choose Rachel Carrera who has been helping me with a top secret project lately.