The holidays are upon us. With only days to go before Christmas and Kwanzaa (or Festivus for you Seinfeld geeks out there), there aren't many days left to do your shopping. At this point, it's too late to even do Amazon prime's free two-day shipping. But fear not, you still have plenty of time to purchase an a Kindle ebook and send it to the person via email. It's easy to do.
Acceptance and Hope: Writing a Novel One Day at a Time
You might ask yourself: How am I going to make time? Where do I begin? Why would I do this to myself? These are the questions I asked myself when I decided to start writing Lost: Cinderella's Secret Diaries back in 2009. I had two young kids, worked full time and actively ran several times a week.
5 Reasons Why You Need to Be on Twitter
I wrote a rather innocent post on my Facebook wall the other night: "Dear Facebook, Sorry but Twitter's more fun. Nite all!" A few minutes later I received an email from one of my Facebook friends, asking why I was leaving Facebook. Minutes later another friend wrote me an upset posting wondering the same thing. Being misunderstood, I explained to them that I was only shutting down Facebook for the night and jumping on Twitter. Then the comments started coming in as many of my friends aren't on Twitter because they find it confusing.
Traditional Publishing vs. Self-publishing for Fiction Authors
Today please welcome guest blogger Susan
Lohrer. Susan is a
contemporary romance author and in today's blog post she tackles the
interesting (and sometimes controversial) subject of traditional versus
self-publishing paths for fiction authors. Her latest novel is a romantic comedy entitled Over the Edge. Be sure to check it out and leave comments for Susan after the article below. Thanks!
With that all said, here is her article:
What I Learned about Selling Books as an Indie Writer
I know that there are many fellow indie writers out there who are in a similar situation that I once was back in 2010 so I wanted to share my publishing journey along with sales figures (August 2011 - May 2013). Yes, you have heard of Amanda Hocking's story and of John Locke's, but what about the other thousands of indie writers out there who decided to write books and put them up on Amazon? After several years of work, I have data to share with you.
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
I will be up front and as transparent as I possibly can. The self-publishing industry is volatile, difficult to predict and more time consuming than I ever anticipated. But, fear not, it's not without hope. What is truly important is to have realistic expectations. If you're looking to make it rich fast, then, yes, abandon hope. If you understand that you'll be putting in years of work and that you'll need to build your platform and brand over several years writing at least three books, then you're in the realm of reality.
World Building, Writing a Book and Sharing with Your Kids
When I started writing the second book in my Cinderella's Secret Diaries series, an idea popped into my mind and I ran with it: How could I share with my two children the creative process I journeyed on in writing a book? What if I asked them to draw pictures for me? The process was extremely simple and went like this: I had some old business cards lying around that I wrote the names of characters and locations on. Over the course of a week, I would hand one business card to my son or daughter each night and then would ask them to draw the person or place onto the page as they saw it.