Guest posts

Monday, May 30, 2011

Here's something new and different - what do you think about it?


This article was written by Alison Flood was in the May 30 2011 edition of: 
guardian.co.uk home
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"The Unbound.co.uk publishing platform, dreamed up by QI's John Mitchinson and Justin Pollard, and Crap Towns author Dan Kieran, allows writers to pitch ideas online directly to readers who, if they are interested, pledge financial support. Once enough money has been raised, the author will write the book, with supporters receiving anything from an ebook to a limited first edition and lunch with the author, depending on their level of investment.
The founders, who launched the crowdfunding literary website at the Hay festival, say that it "democratises the book commissioning process by enabling authors and readers to make the decisions about what does or doesn't get published". Jones, who said the initiative was "brilliant … just what publishing needs", is contributing one of the first titles on the site, a Roald Dahl-esque story of vengeful phones and hoovers called Evil Machines. This Life writer and chick-lit novelist Amy Jenkins is pitching "a more reflective book about relationships", The Art of Losing, and a collection of short stories from Fischer, entitled Crushed Mexican Spiders, is also among the site's first titles.
Pretor-Pinney is pitching an iPad app that would take users inside clouds, while The Horse Boy author Rupert Isaacson and cultural historian and film-maker Jonathan Meades will also be proposing books to potential readers.
Pitching a project on Unbound is free for authors, with the founders planning to make money through a 50/50 profit share on successful titles. If a book fails to raise enough money to be published, then supporters will either be able to use their investment for another title, or have the cash returned to them.
"We can make a book viable by selling 2,500 to 3,000 copies. Books like that are not hugely appealing to big publishing houses, but there are targeted audiences who could be very well served by them. There could be 10,000 people who like Norwegian steam-train systems from the 1930s – if we can put them together with an author, then it's worth everybody's while to do it," said Pollard.
Authors will have a private area or "shed" on the site, where they will be able to blog, post interviews, and meet their supporters. Readers can choose the amount of money they wish to pledge, from £10, which buys an ebook edition, access to the author's "shed" and the supporter's name in the back of the book, to £250, which brings lunch with the author, signed and personally dedicated first editions, goodie bags and ebooks, to funding the whole book.
"It's a way of stirring things up in publishing – removing the gatekeepers in the middle and saying 'you're the readers, you're the authors – come up with what you want them to do'" said Pollard. "In many ways it's a very old idea – there are a lot of 19th century cases where books were published by subscription. Because of the internet we have crowdfunding, so we can combine the old idea of subscription with finding your audience on the internet, and get the best of both worlds."
Other authors supporting the project – but yet to sign up with books - include Bernard Cornwell, who called it "a bloody brilliant idea", Philip Pullman, who said it was "an idea whose time has come", and Noam Chomsky, who said its "significance could be quite substantial".

The Unbound.co.uk publishing platform, dreamed up by QI's John Mitchinson and Justin Pollard, and Crap Towns author Dan Kieran, allows writers to pitch ideas online directly to readers who, if they are interested, pledge financial support. Once enough money has been raised, the author will write the book, with supporters receiving anything from an ebook to a limited first edition and lunch with the author, depending on their level of investment.
The founders, who launched the crowdfunding literary website at the Hay festival, say that it "democratises the book commissioning process by enabling authors and readers to make the decisions about what does or doesn't get published". Jones, who said the initiative was "brilliant … just what publishing needs", is contributing one of the first titles on the site, a Roald Dahl-esque story of vengeful phones and hoovers called Evil Machines. This Life writer and chick-lit novelist Amy Jenkins is pitching "a more reflective book about relationships", The Art of Losing, and a collection of short stories from Fischer, entitled Crushed Mexican Spiders, is also among the site's first titles.
Pretor-Pinney is pitching an iPad app that would take users inside clouds, while The Horse Boy author Rupert Isaacson and cultural historian and film-maker Jonathan Meades will also be proposing books to potential readers.
Pitching a project on Unbound is free for authors, with the founders planning to make money through a 50/50 profit share on successful titles. If a book fails to raise enough money to be published, then supporters will either be able to use their investment for another title, or have the cash returned to them.
"We can make a book viable by selling 2,500 to 3,000 copies. Books like that are not hugely appealing to big publishing houses, but there are targeted audiences who could be very well served by them. There could be 10,000 people who like Norwegian steam-train systems from the 1930s – if we can put them together with an author, then it's worth everybody's while to do it," said Pollard.
Authors will have a private area or "shed" on the site, where they will be able to blog, post interviews, and meet their supporters. Readers can choose the amount of money they wish to pledge, from £10, which buys an ebook edition, access to the author's "shed" and the supporter's name in the back of the book, to £250, which brings lunch with the author, signed and personally dedicated first editions, goodie bags and ebooks, to funding the whole book.
"It's a way of stirring things up in publishing – removing the gatekeepers in the middle and saying 'you're the readers, you're the authors – come up with what you want them to do'" said Pollard. "In many ways it's a very old idea – there are a lot of 19th century cases where books were published by subscription. Because of the internet we have crowdfunding, so we can combine the old idea of subscription with finding your audience on the internet, and get the best of both worlds."
Other authors supporting the project – but yet to sign up with books - include Bernard Cornwell, who called it "a bloody brilliant idea", Philip Pullman, who said it was "an idea whose time has come", and Noam Chomsky, who said its "significance could be quite substantial".
Jenkins, author of the novels Honeymoon and Funny Valentine, has not published a book for 10 years. She found the idea of working with Unbound for her new title, a "novelised memoir about unfortunate relationships and loss", "more exciting than getting a publishing deal", she said. "Two things make it appealing – first, the idea of a 'shed' where supporters can visit you. Writing is a really lonely occupation and it sounds very nice. The other is that Unbound is set up by writers for writers. What I really hated about my conventional publishing was all the publicity I had to do. So I liked the idea that as the writer, you are in charge."
Initially the authors on the site will be selected by its founders, who are also talking to agents about potential projects from their clients. "This is practical, initially, as if we were to open it to everyone there would be so much noise it would be difficult to navigate," said Pollard. But as the site develops, he hopes to open up an area for new writers to pitch ideas, which, if they collected enough pledges, would move onto the main site. Publisher Faber & Faber is supporting the project, and will sell and distribute trade editions of selected titles under the Unbound imprint.

Jenkins, author of the novels Honeymoon and Funny Valentine, has not published a book for 10 years. She found the idea of working with Unbound for her new title, a "novelised memoir about unfortunate relationships and loss", "more exciting than getting a publishing deal", she said. "Two things make it appealing – first, the idea of a 'shed' where supporters can visit you. Writing is a really lonely occupation and it sounds very nice. The other is that Unbound is set up by writers for writers. What I really hated about my conventional publishing was all the publicity I had to do. So I liked the idea that as the writer, you are in charge."
Initially the authors on the site will be selected by its founders, who are also talking to agents about potential projects from their clients. "This is practical, initially, as if we were to open it to everyone there would be so much noise it would be difficult to navigate," said Pollard. But as the site develops, he hopes to open up an area for new writers to pitch ideas, which, if they collected enough pledges, would move onto the main site. Publisher Faber & Faber is supporting the project, and will sell and distribute trade editions of selected titles under the Unbound imprint."

Saturday, May 28, 2011


Ending LGBTQ Sexual Harassment in School
By Nefertiti Martin

Today’s guest post by Girls for Gender Equity (http://www.ggenyc.org) community organizer Nefertiti Martin is part of the Hey, Shorty! Virtual Book Tour. Check out this link (http://www.heyshortyontheroad.com/tourdates) to see other stops on the Tour and find out how you are able to support it too!


Sexual harassment is unwanted and unwelcome sexual attention that can come from anyone to anyone no matter what race, gender, class, sex, age, size, etc. LGBTQ-based harassment is often viewed now as “bullying,” but the Coalition for Gender Equity in Schools strongly believes that LGBTQ-based harassment is, in fact, a form of sexual harassment. The negative attention one receives through this harassment is based on one’s perceived or actual sexual orientation.

Once I found myself sitting in class, yelling to the top of my lungs at some kid because he said, “George Bush is gay!” I wasn’t defending the former president, or even myself, who was quietly queer at the time. I was defending my best friend who was openly gay and sitting in class with me, which rarely happened since he rarely came to school. I knew he went through a lot at home, and when he did come to school, it wasn’t a great experience, to say the least. I was defending him for the times when I could not before. I heard rumors about how the guys “bullied” him in the boys’ locker room. I could only imagine what that bullying must’ve been like for him in that space, knowing how sexually explicit the boys could be, how everyone openly ridiculed and speculated around his sexuality, and how he had to change clothes there alone, without school staff present.

I couldn’t be in the boys’ locker room with him, but I was there in the classroom, and I could do something then. I risked getting detention or being jumped after school, but it was worth it. It was only after I cursed the kid out that the teacher even said anything. The teacher really didn’t know what to say beyond the comment that was made was intolerable in his classroom.  

Eventually, with support from a number of teachers, my best friend and I founded a gay-straight alliance. We created a safe and welcoming space for people like us to be during lunch. We both left the school shortly after the creation of this space, but we knew it was important for us to establish this group before we left, in hopes that the kids who came after us would have a much better experience than we did. It’s been almost 5 years, and the group still exists today.

Thinking back on it now, our entire school should’ve been a safe and welcoming space for everyone. But the reality is that safety is not guaranteed in every school environment. I don’t blame the kid who I called out in class, or the teacher who didn’t know what to say, or the kids who bullied my best friend whenever he actually showed up at school. There’s no blame to place on individuals really, when we’re not taught to address things like this, and society teaches us how to mistreat one another, and schools seem to exist only to educate academically. No one ever spoke to students or the school community as whole about acceptance of LGBTQ or any other identities. It was left up to those of us who got tired of being mistreated to create a safe haven for ourselves and educate those we could. It should not have been left up to us.

Protocol to address harassment exists even before an incidence occurs. Title IX (http://www.titleix.info/10-Key-Areas-of-Title-IX/Sexual-Harassment.aspx) exists. Respect for All (http://schools.nyc.gov/RulesPolicies/RespectforAll/default.htm) exists. And it is up to the school community -- including parents, staff, and students -- to foster a true sense of community through enforcing and upholding the values created to ensure the safety of all students.

LGBT-based harassment is not just bullying; it’s sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is not just being made to feel uncomfortable. It is also being made to feel unsafe, and therefore, sexual harassment is an issue of safety. Safety must be addressed in preventative measures, not reactionary measures or measures to tolerate and not truly appreciate all identities. Safety is about caring and being educated and having enough understanding to respect those around you. We must shift our school and social culture to one that celebrates who we are instead of maintaining our current culture of fear and violence.

--

Nefertiti Martin is a self-identified queer young woman of color. Her community activist spirit and passion for learning has led her to participate in various organizations that work to advance LGBT youth, women, and people of color communities, including The Possibility Project (formerly known as City At Peace NY), FIERCE, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, In the Life Media, the Lesbian Cancer Initiative, and Theatre Askew Youth Performance Experience. Nefertiti is a former Sisters in Strength youth organizer (2008-2009) at Girls for Gender Equity, and now works there as a Community Organizer. Nefertiti desires to continue on her ever-winding path of financial and spiritual empowerment. She resides in the Bronx.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Facing my fear and finding my voice...

For several years I've had another blog that's related to my other life and my dual roles as the mom of a very large family and as an adoption specialized therapist. My other blog has never been a challenge to write because I know that audience in the way one knows those who share the challenges that go with a particular type of life or family. I wrote that blog as much for myself as for anyone else - it was more like a journal than a blog.  This blog, however, is very, very different for me.

I decided to write this blog for a couple of reasons - a) I wanted to join the community of writing bloggers to learn more about writing and blogging and selling and all that goes with that group; and, b) I wanted to have a platform to present my work to a wider audience. This time, however, there is a huge risk for me - I don't likely have a common base with many of you - being a writer doesn't tell others much about a person - it doesn't define the lifestyle or the values or the daily challenges the way being a parent of a large adoptive family does. I'm also really intimidated by the quality of the writing in the writer's blogs - don't get me wrong - the adoption blogs have some of the best writers I've ever read - but I didn't read their blogs for the quality of their writing any more than they read mine for that reason.

I'm also intimidated by the quality of the thinking - again - some amazing and insightful thinkers in the adoption community - but somehow still not intimidating to me the way the writer's blogs are. I'm intelligent enough to get  a Ph.D. and write some books that were published in the traditional way - even teach at a university for a while as well has run a successful practice - but to be honest I'm not very emotionally deep by nature and that shows in my blog writing all to well!

Still, I'm finding my way and I'll find my voice. I intend my blog to be a place where struggling or beginning authors can showcased and where I can  present my own thoughts on my writing process. So I  begin - wish me luck!

Monday, May 23, 2011

An interview with author Colleen Wait. Her bio - 

Colleen Wait is married with 4 children. She has been very involved in her church's youth activities including children's musical, Daughter's of the King, SonQuest and various other youth events. She recently was involved in a local mission trip with her church's youth group. She is an avid reader, especially the classics and began writing short stories in elementary school. Colleen is also a runner who began racing 5K's in 2009. She did her first half-marathon March 2010, second February 2011. Colleen's son Devin, is about to complete tech school in the Air Force. His photograph graces the cover of 'Mount Mission'. To date, Colleen has written and published 6 ebooks to date. Her 7th, now in progress is about the homeless.

One of her books

Imagine sitting in in a primitive cage...imaging sitting there day in and day out...imagine the horror of what you see around you...imagine the horror of finding out what you had seen was about to happen to you...imagine being freed... Imagine finding out how long you had been Captured.
1) Hello, Colleen.  What got you interested in writing?

 Thank you for your time. Well, from as early as I can remember, I have had a great imagination.  I think it stemmed from being a lonely shy child and so made up stories in my head to keep myself company.  I can remember sitting up in a tree in my back yard when I was very young making up stories about a prince coming to rescue me and take me to far away lands. The first time I put them to paper was in elementary school.

2) How do you come up with your ideas?

*** Dreams mostly.  The self-story telling did not stop, ever. Whenever I had a difficult time falling asleep I would make up stories.  Sometimes, it was an actual nightmare that woke me up one night and I continued it night after night. Two of the books, however, were based on actual events that I thought would make great fiction. 

3) Did you do any research on any of your books?

  *** Oh yes. Research is a fun part of writing.  I try to get my settings just right. For one particular book, I did character studies while riding the subway in New York.  I would sit with a notebook, pretending to read and instead took notes on the people around me.  More importantly, from a Biblical aspect, I try to make sure I research any scripture I use and go to an advisor to be sure I do not state an idea or a belief in the wrong way.  

4) Do you like to keep a basic theme for your books? Do you write for a particular audience?

  *** Not all of them have the same theme, however, I do tend to write for young women. Most of my books have the message of purity and putting God first in your life. My main goal with my writing is to lead the reader to Christ. 

5) How do you come up with the names of your characters and how do you keep them all straight?

  *** That's a tough one for me.  I try to fit the name to the character while at the same time not using the names of people I know.  I have a large church family so that makes it very difficult.  I do use baby name web sites and scour the internet news sites for unusual names.  Often I will google a name that fits a character's traits and find what fits.  As far as keeping them straight I keep a notebook. 

6) Are you currently working on a book?

  *** Yes. God recently laid it on my heart to write about the homeless. We have a local homeless ministry that serves the surrounding area.  I have interviewed 11 of the folks there ranging from a 29-year old young woman to a 63 year old war veteran. Currently, I am in the process of transcribing 12 hours of taped interviews. 

7) Sounds amazing.  I look forward to seeing the final project.  Good luck with your books. 

  *** Thanks. So do I! 

You can check out the rest of Colleen's books here. 

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Interview with self publishing and self help author Claudia Fletcher

Please tell us about yourself.

I'm Claudia Fletcher and I have had a great life full of all kinds of adventures.  By the time I was 21 I had a staff of 21 as a Hall Director on a state university campus where I received my Master's . By 25 I was the equivalent of a college vice-president and was tired of that by 28.  Spent two years as an educational consultant in  Mexico before returning to the states to pursue a doctorate.  That plan fell through but instead I met the most amazing guy -- one who enjoyed cooking and cleaning and laundry -- and somehow convinced him to marry me.  From there we started foster care and now, right before our 15th anniversary, we are the proud (and sometimes not so proud) parents of 12 children ages 12-24 and two grandchildren a bit earlier than we had planned.   

What books have your written?

My husband and I wrote the book, "Out of Many One Family:  How Two Adults Claimed Twelve Children through Adoption" which we self-published in August of 2009 with a target audience of people starting the foster care or adoption process.  My second book, geared toward Christian women, was self-published this April and it is called "A Glimpse of God's Heart:  How Trying to Change My Kids Changed Me."

What triggered your choice of topics?

The first book came as a result of a trip to England in 2001 where we knew NOTHING about the area we were in and everything was new.  I realized that it would have been great to have a guide book to tell us each step of the way how to live in that new place.   That made me think that parents starting their adoption or foster care journey might like to have the same thing.  So I set out to tell our story but also to share with others what we had learned.

The second book was motivated by a writing contest which I did not win, but since the book was done, I figured why not publish it?  (is that a bit too honest?)   The book was actually fairly inspired - I wrote it in 19 days.... a chapter a morning with only skipping a couple (the book has 15 chapters and an intro).  It just seemed to flow.


What made your decide to self publish?

I like to get things done.... and I have a lot of technical skills.  Messing around with query letters didn't sound like fun.  And I have adopted many kids with special needs so I get plenty of rejection without requesting it.    So I created my own cover, formatted the book, and published it just to get it done.


What tips to you have for other self publishing authors?

Make sure that you have some technical expertise or a good friend who does.   The formatting takes a lot of time -- both for the hard copy and for digital publications and if you don't have the skills it can be very frustrating.  Also, if you don't have a lot of time to market and get the attention of readers, selling is difficult.   For example, you can sell on Amazon.com, but without a distribution center you can't sell in bookstores so you still have to do that.  I guess the bottom line is that you get what you pay for -- or in the self-publishing realm, you don't get what you don't pay for.

How do you promote your books and find an audience?

I have a blog that has been up for about 6 years and that was where I was able to promote my first book well.  It is an adoption related blog, so the second book hasn't done as well with just blog promotion. I have a website and the books are featured there.    I have a Page on Facebook specifically for book promotion but I also talk about my writing a lot on my personal page.  I have used Twitter in the past.  I also offer the books whenever I speak.

Anything in particular you want the readers to know about you?


I am a very open and honest person and kind of let everything just be "out there."  This has been both a blessing and a curse.  I think that readers connect with my authenticity and the fact that I am real, but it doesn't make me look polished or together like most writers do.  

Claudia Fletcher, B.A., M.Ed.
Downey Side Families for Youth
Adopt America Network
Third Degree Parenting, LLC

Sunday, May 15, 2011

New Review of My Sparkling Misfortune - a YA Fantasy by Laura Lond

1) Tell us a little about yourself.
I grew up in a family of engineers who loved to read. I picked up the love of books early on, they had become my best friends, especially since I was the only child. Almost right away I knew that I wanted to write my own stories, too. I guess I was born with it. I couldn’t find satisfaction in anything else, no matter what I did. I got a degree in history, my first job was at a literary museum. It was good, but not good enough. I moved on to work for a Christian mission -- once again, a good job that had taught me a lot, but not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Then I had entered the world of corporate business, working for large companies like Xerox Ltd. Same story. Great jobs, great opportunities, but I didn’t care to climb the corporate ladder. All I wanted was to write books, and I did that every spare minute.

 2) How long have you  been writing?
I’ve been scribbling something all my life, it seems, but if we’re talking about serious writing, with the purpose of making it a career in mind, it’s been over 18 years.

3) Tell us about your books.
I write mostly YA fantasy. The Adventures of Jecosan Tarres trilogy is about a young blacksmith’s apprentice who is visited by a supernatural messenger and sent on a dangerous mission to prevent a war between two powerful kingdoms. Another fantasy series I’ve just started, The Lakeland Knight, features Lord Arkus, a villain, as the main character. In Book 1, My Sparkling Misfortune, he wants to capture an evil spirit who would make him nearly invincible, but he messes up and catches a Sparkling instead -- a good spirit who helps heroes. That makes his life rather interesting.


You can get this e book at Smashwords

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Free give away

Hello - I hope your having a good enough (or better) day. Yesterday was my birthday and I decided that I would-  be the one giving things to others - so until May 14th you can get free downloads of three of my books at Smashwords - for Cleah: The Lost Fury Chronicles use coupon codeKD46U - for Good Enough: A Shay James Mystery use coupon code UU67D - for Regards use coupon code QL44w.

Have your best day possible.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Get a free copy...

For the next few days I'm offering a free download of any of my books at Smashwords. Just go to the site and cite coupon EP88E. I hope you enjoy the books and I'd appreciate it if anyone who reads them would take the time to do a review and post it on their own site as well as on Smashwords. If you don't feel like doing a full review - a comment would be just as good. 


Have your best day possible. 

Sunday, May 8, 2011

7 tips on how to sell your self published books on Kindle by M. Louisa Locke

Here is a great article on how to sell your self published ebooks on Kindle. It was written by M. Lousia Locke and originally posted on The Henderson Files blog .  The author has given me permission to re-post. Well worth your time to read through this. At the end of this post is a synopsis of the author’s book for your perusal. Enjoy learn and have your best day possible!
Interview with M. Louisa Locke Book Cover: Maids of Misfortune
First of all, why should you listen to me, an unknown author, tell you how to sell your book on Kindle? A little more than a year ago, I was a semi-retired professor of U.S. Women’s history who, besides a few academic articles, had never published a thing. What I did have was a manuscript of an historical mystery I had written 20 years earlier, based on my doctoral research on working women in the late nineteenth century. In the 20 years after writing the first draft, while I pursued my teaching career, I found an agent, collected rejections, lost an agent, published briefly with a small Print on Demand (POD) press, rewrote the manuscript several times, and I was now giving the book one more chance. I also owned a Kindle, which I loved. After serious investigation, I decided to publish my book, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco, as an ebook with Amazon and Smashwords, and in print through CreateSpace. I paid for a cover design, but put the book up on Kindle myself. That was December of 2009.
Since then, I have sold over 9000 books, the vast majority of them from the Kindle store. I now average 55 books sold a day, and I am making enough money that I have retired completely to work on the sequel, Uneasy Spirits. When I started, I had no particular expertise and no fan base, but I did have access to a world of advice being put out daily on blogs and websites hosted by indie authors, designers, editors, and marketers. I found that when I put their advice to work, was patient, and persistent, it paid off. Here are some of my tips distilled from what I learned from others and my own experience. 
Tip #1: Think about selling from the buyer’s perspective. When a reader goes to buy a book in a traditional bookstore, they either go to the store looking for a specific book because they have heard about it, or they browse the shelves and tables in the store and discover a book. Then they either buy it or they don’t. As an author of an ebook, you need to figure out how readers are going to find out about your book or find it among all the more than 800,000 books in the Kindle store. Then you are going to have to do everything to make sure that once they have found it, they buy it.
Tip #2: Hang out where readers of Kindle books hang out. While you can promote your book through traditional means (print reviews, book tours and signings, mailed postcards, conventions, business cards), increasingly this is a world where potential readers hang out in cyberspace. They find book reviews on blogs like Mysteries and My Musings that specialize in reviewing the genre they, they look for lists on line (Cozy Mystery List or Historical Mystery Fiction), they “like” the facebook pages of their favorite author or favorite subgenre (Mystery Most Cozy), they follow twitter #tags, they join reader sites like GoodReads, and they subscribe to blogs and groups that cater to Kindle owners like KindleBoards, Kindle Forum, Kindlechat, or Kindle Nation Daily.
As an author you need to go to these sites, sign up, become active, and participate in the conversations. Most of these sites let you put up a profile picture, and if people begin to see your face, they will begin to feel like they know you. Your voice in a comment or a guest blog post or a Goodreads review will tell a potential reader if they think they will like your perspective on the world. Your customized signature, with links back to your author website and or blog, and small pictures of your book covers, linked to your Amazon product page, play the role of your business card. The more times a potential reader runs across your name and your book titles, the more likely they will decide to put that name and book title into their search bar when they are looking for new books to download.
Tip #3: Besides having a well-written and edited book, your cover design, interior design and formatting are the most crucial elements to success. If you are going to shell out any money out front-this is where to spend it. If the cover looks home made, or you can’t read the title and author in a small thumbnail, or if the cover doesn’t convey the type of book it is (thriller, cozy, etc), then the reader isn’t going to make the effort to find it, look at, it or buy it. If the book is hard to read and has lots of formatting errors in the excerpt, they will also take a pass. If you have the technological expertise or design experience, you can do this yourself, but if you don’t, this isn’t where to skimp. There are lots of freelancers out there with reasonable rates. See a recent post on do’s and don’ts of cover designs or the blog by Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer
Tip #4: Make sure your book is ready for prime time before you start to promote. Your product description needs to be well-written, your excerpt must be available, and you should have at least 4-5 reviews written by professional reviewers (not just friends and family members). There are more and more websites, blogs, and enewsletters that are willing to review ebooks, and with Kindle gift certificates you can easily send a free copy to a reviewer. Most professional reviewers will then go on and put their reviews on Amazon. However, it is a good idea to have a print edition (POD) to send to those reviewers who insist on this.
Tip #5: Make your pricing competitive. Go to the specific categories in which your book will show up and look at prices of your competitors. If you aren’t a big name with a new release, $2.99-3.99 is probably the safest price point for genre fiction. While 99 cents is ok for an initial offering, in order to get a bump in sales to send you up the rankings, you really have to sell a lot to make up for the loss of the 70% royalty Amazon gives for books between $2.99-9.99. For example, if you look at the vast majority of other books in the historical mystery category, they are $6 and above, often for books that have been out for five or more years. This means there is a good chance they have either already been read by the buyer, or simply seem too expensive for an ebook, when the paperback or hard cover book may be only a few dollars more (or sometimes even the same or a lower price than the ebook. What are those traditional publishers thinking???) No wonder I am out-selling those books.
Tip #6: Don’t make your big promotional push prematurely. Banners on Kindle sites, promotional packages on Kindle Nation Daily, paying for an ad blitz, or promotional contests, can cause a temporary bump in sales. But only if everything else is in place (see tip #4. If the book ranking is too far away from them top 100s in the rankings of any sub-category, a temporary bump isn’t going get the book up high enough in the rankings to self-perpetuate the sales. One of the wonderful things about self-publishing is that you have time. Time to tweak your cover or book blurb, time to get those book reviews, time to correct errors in the text, time to build your readership and your rankings. Then spend the time and money on the big promotional push.
Tip #7: Use Amazon’s browsing capabilities effectively. If you were selling your book in a traditional bookstore, you would hope that the buyer would find your book by browsing the bookshelves. They would have the best chance of finding your book if it was on one of the bestseller or bargain tables at the front of the store, or had a little “staff recommends tag” on the book on the shelf. What would be awful would be if your book wasn’t shelved in the right place, so the potential reader looking for a good mystery to read, didn’t find your book there because it was shelved in general fiction, or romance.
What is truly wonderful about publishing on Kindle, is that your book will be recommended or find its way to the bestseller table along side the traditionally published books at no additional cost or personal contact with the bookstore.
First, when a buyer goes to the Kindle store, if they have purchased book in your category, your book may show up in the list that says “Recommended for you.” Or, your book can show up on the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list at the bottom of the screen. I’ll never forget when I went to look for an Anne Perry book–the star of Victorian mysteries—and found my book on that list!! If you sell enough books, Amazon will actually send out little emails to targeted customers saying that they think they might like your book. Talk about free promotional support!
Finally, if your book sells enough and has good enough reviews, your book can make the over all top 100 ranked books on Kindle (I have made it to the 200s, so I have hope) or more likely, it will make it to the top 100 in a sub-category (as I have in historical mysteries) and be called a best seller. Readers browse through those best sellers looking for books to buy. If you make it into the top 10-20 books in a specific sub-category, this means if someone browses in that category that your book will pop right up on the screen, ready and waiting for an impulse buy.
But none of the above is likely happen if your book can’t be found in the right browsing categories. As an indie author, this is your responsibility. When you upload your book you have five choices of browsing paths. Think carefully, but inventively. If I had just listed my novel in the main category, “mystery & thriller,” Maids of Misfortune would be competing against 32,000 other books in the Kindle store. But if I instead chose the sub-category of “mystery,” my book would then be competing in a group of 8000. Better odds, but still not great. When I went even further, and chose an additional sub-category, “women sleuths,” my book now is in a category with 5300 other books, giving it even better odds of being found. However, when I put in the right tags on my book as well, for example the tag “historical,” and the buyer puts that tag into the search box, because 5300 books is still too much to for them to browse though, my book becomes one of only 446 books listed. Bingo! In fact if you do that today, Maids of Misfortune comes up number one.
Check to make sure that your combination of five browsing categories and sub-categories and the tags you have listed gives you the most competitive advantage. Initially, because of a computer glitch, Maids of Misfortune didn’t show up in the historical mysteries sub-category. I still sold books, but not that many of them. Once I got this fixed and got my reviews in place (tip #4) and lowered my price (tip #5), I did my one big promotional push-got my short story on Kindle Nation Daily shorts (tip #6), and Maids of Misfortune ran to the top of the historical mysteries category, where it has been ever since, my sales success began.
So, time, patience, persistence, attention to my 7 tips, and, of course a well-written book, and the Kindle store can be a great place for indie authors to sell books.

About Maids of Misfortune

It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt.

Annie Fuller also has a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe it is suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen.

Nate Dawson has a problem. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to believe that Matthew Voss didn’t leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior.

Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted historical mystery set in the foggy gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco.