Jordanna East and Blood Read Press

Today I’d like to introduce you to psychological thriller writer, Jordanna East.

Her first book, Blood in the Past, is scheduled for release on June 19, 2013. Blood in the Past is the prelude novella to her debut Blood for Blood Series, which follows three lives entwined by deaths and consequences, revenge and obsession.

Like so many of us, Jordanna is publishing independently and I’ve invited her to guest on my blog because I like her marketing strategy. It started way before she had a book ready for sale. I’ll let Jordanna explain in her own words:

 As an Indie Author, it’s kind of hard not to want to climb to the top of the tallest building in your city and scream “Take me seriously!” until your throat is raw. Self-published works are rapidly gaining ground, don’t get me wrong, but there are still some stubbornly ignorant people out there. These same people are the ones who will turn their noses up at your books. They won’t oblige you when you approach them for a review. And they’ll damn near laugh you out on your ass when you ask them to carry your book in their little bookstore. So what’s an author to do? Obviously, you want to write the best story you can. Of course, you want to hire a professional freelancer to create your cover art. And you most definitely—and I can’t stress this enough—want to hire a PROFESSIONAL EDITOR.

But these bullet points are pretty well known now, aren’t they? What if I told you there was something else you could do? There is. You can create your own publishing label. I did. I came up with Blood Read Press (pronounced Blood Red Press) last October. And it was so simple. I registered the name of the business with my county and state. I got myself a business checking account. And now, when a reader peruses Amazon, or some other retailer, they’ll see that Blood in the Past, the prelude novella to my upcoming series, has been released by Blood Read Press. It looks worlds better than the publisher being listed as Amazon. Or CreateSpace. It looks PROFESSIONAL. When I offer the book to a reviewer, they’ll take me seriously as well. So will bookstore owners. And that’s what this is about. Appearing (and actually being) professional so that the people out there with your career in their hands take you seriously.

Take a look at Jordanna’s website (scroll down her pages to see everything) and see how she’s branding both herself and her books in the build up to the launch date. In this way she is already creating an audience curious to buy and read her books.

Her website has a facility for interested people to sign up to her mailing list, in order to receive advance notification of book release dates. I’ve just joined it so that I don’t forget to have a look at her book on Amazon on launch day.

And, just to wet your appetite, here’s Jordanna’s book blurb:

The Blood in the Past.

Jillian Atford falls for an older man, a handsome Philadelphia cop, he’s married, a reality Jillian refuses to accept.
Lyla Kyle finds her mother dead on the floor from an apparent suicide. She blames her philandering father and wastes no time taking her revenge.
Detective Jason Brighthouse Sr. is in the wrong place at the right time to attempt to save a colleague from his burning home. When neither of them make it out alive, his teenage son can only harp on their last argument. He shoots himself in the head…with his father’s gun.

Three lives. Three deaths. One story. To understand the future, you must visit the past.

The Blood in the Past.

Haiku on Mars and (Mildly) Erotic Poetry

Two things caught my eye in the world of poetry this week:

Firstly, NASA is asking for Haiku to make a trip to the planet Mars. This is a real opportunity to get your poetry to a wider audience!

The spacecraft will launch in November to study the atmosphere on Mars. Three poets will have their haiku put on a DVD that will be placed in the craft. Everyone else that submits a haiku for inclusion will get their name included on the DVD.

“The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission,” said Stephanie Renfrow, lead for the MAVEN Education and Public Outreach program at University of Colorado, Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

There is no entry fee (and no prize other than the honour of sending your work to Mars). Entrants must be 18 or over and all Haiku must be written in English. The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2013. From the 15th of July the public will vote for the three Haiku that will go off to the red planet. The winner will be announced on August 8th 2013.

Full details are available here.

Thanks to Nick Daws for bringing this opportunity to my attention.

 

Secondly, The Emma Press is now open to submissions for ‘The Emma Press Anthology of (Mildly) Erotic Verse’. This got my attention because I went to a workshop last week on writing erotic e-books. It was quite an eye-opener when we were told about the various different sub-genres in the market – or maybe I’ve just led a sheltered life!

But The Emma Press isn’t looking for anything explicit or hard-core. They say, “The erotic element of the poems can be as apparent or barely-there as you like, but the writing has got to tick all the boxes: metre, pace, form and language.”

It is envisaged that 15 poets will be included in the book and there will be a £25 advance for each poet.

Up to four poems can be submitted and there is no entry fee. But be quick – the deadline is 17th May 2013.

Full details are here.

 

KDP Select – Is it worth it?

Enrol your e-book  in Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select program and you get two advantages:

• Amazon Prime members are able to borrow the book for free and this will generate a royalty payment for the author
• The book can be offered free for 5 days in every 90. Offering a book for free is supposed to generate large numbers of downloads which will then convert into reviews of the book on Amazon, which in turn will drive an increased number of sales.

There is also a downside to joining KDP Select – the e-book must remain exclusive to Amazon i.e. it cannot be sold on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo etc.

Many e-book authors swear by KDP Select and its advantages. They don’t see exclusivity as a disadvantage because Amazon is by far the biggest retailer of e-books.

I’m not sure. I’ve had e-books available in KDP Select for just over three months now and I’ve had only one Amazon Prime loan (it was in the US). So that doesn’t seem a massive benefit. Are any of you Amazon Prime members? I don’t know anyone who is.

I’ve run one free promotion. In the five days that One Day for Me was free, I had 135 US free downloads, 93 in the UK, 2 in Germany, 1 Japan and 1 Canada. As far as I can tell, only one review (it was in the UK) was written as a result and I noticed no increase in sales. This was despite spending an age adding my book to the many websites and Facebook pages that offer to list free e-books.

But I didn’t remove that book from KDP Select after the first 90 days, mainly because whilst I was dithering about what to do, the Amazon automatic re-enrol swung into action.

Looking on the bright side – maybe next time I’ll do better!

Which brings me nicely to my next KDP Select Promotion.

My second anthology Old Friends is free on all Kindle platforms for the next three days. Old Friends is a collection of 13 short stories. There are tales with a twist, stories about the ups and downs of family life plus a little romance. Perfect to enjoy with a cup of coffee and a biscuit! If you’re in the UK click here or in the US click here, otherwise search for ASIN B00BJIKIBI on any Amazon platform.

And as a special treat, One Day for Me is half price for the next three days too. One Day for Me is a collection of 8 short stories that have either won or been short-listed in UK writing competitions. If you’re in the UK click here or in the US click here, otherwise search for ASIN B00B4XCYJC on any Amazon platform.

I look forward to the reviews rolling in, followed by a tsunami of sales!

Turning to Crime

Recently, I’ve been turning my hand to crime-writing – inspired by some of the competitions mentioned on Helen’s blog.

I’ve sent my entry into the M.R. Hall competition (by email after the on-line form kept insisting that my entry was longer than the required 2,000 characters, but I think that glitch is fixed now).

My entry for the Cremona Hotel competition has been drafted – but will no doubt need a generous dose of spit and polish before it’s ready to go on its way.

Now I’m turning my mind to brainstorming ideas for the GKBC competition (stands for Giving Kudos to Brilliant Content) and after that there’s the ‘Win a Book’ competition in the May issue of Writing Magazine (write 250 words in which someone pulls a gun on a bank cashier).

Alongside this, and to get me into the mind-set of a crime writer, I’ve been reading Crime in the City - the Official Crime Writers’ Association Anthology 2003. I’ve just looked on Amazon and only second-hand copies are available now - so maybe I’ve got a rarity here!

Like all good stories, these tales are character-led and usually contain no great detail about the mechanics of the crime involved or the police procedures used in solving it. The latter often puts people (including me) off penning crime fiction for fear of getting the investigative procedures wrong, so short stories could be a good starting point.

The best way of finding out about police procedure is to make friends with a policeman but failing that, there are resources available on the internet. After a quick trawl I’ve found:

• Crime and Clues - the Art and Science of Criminal Investigation
• Writers Write - this page lists several websites that might interest crime writers
• Writing.ie -Really Useful Links for Crime Writers

Or if you want some advice from the professionals (and have £99 to spare) why not book a place on Creative Thursday at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Festival.

Now, time to decide how my next victim’s going to die …

Reviewing ‘Indie’ E-books and Goodreads

Since starting my own adventures in e-publishing I’ve started reading more self-published e-books. I’ve been doing this for two reasons:

• I want to see what types of thing people are publishing
• I want to support other writers in the same way that I’ve been supported

Taking the second point – the best way to support self-published authors is to give them a review. It doesn’t have to be a full-on 5 star rave about the book – just a few words to show that the book has been read and enjoyed (if you have enjoyed it, obviously).

A while ago I read and reviewed something which I enjoyed. The book had held my attention from beginning to end and I looked forward to picking up again each night (I generally only read at bedtime). There were some formatting errors in the text but they didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the narrative. So, when I left my review I didn’t mention these errors, I concentrated on the book’s literary content.

Now a comment has been added to my review, indicating that I should have pointed out the formatting problems and downgraded my star rating accordingly.

My first reaction to this was anger that someone had dared to criticise my opinion and I had to restrain myself from commenting back and thus getting into a public argument.

Now that I’ve had chance to calm down and think about it, I realise that I was probably wrong not to mention the formatting issues. However, my review was the first one for that book and I didn’t want to give it the kiss of death – but I did want to leave a comment to say that I’d enjoyed it.

What would you have done?

I’ve recently tried another book and found it contains several punctuation mistakes. So, I’m not going to leave a review at all, regardless of the quality of the story, because I don’t want to get a reputation for dishonest reviews.

I’ve learned a lesson from all this - ’Look Inside’ or download a sample of the book before buying to ensure that formatting, punctuation etc. is up to scratch.

Talking of books and reviews, My two short story anthologies and I are now enrolled in Goodreads. You can see us here.

Any tips on getting the most out of Goodreads, either as an author or a reader, would be gratefully received.

Lancashire Authors’ Association Flash Fiction Competition, Guest Posts & Royalties

Firstly, the Lancashire Authors’ Association has been in touch to tell me that they are holding another Flash Fiction Competition.

The winning entry will receive £250. Stories must be exactly 100 words, excluding the title.

Entry fee is £2 (or £1 if you happen to be a member of the Lancashire Authors’ Association) and entries can be submitted by post or email up to the closing date of June 30th 2013.

Rules are available here along with last year’s winning 100 word story.

Secondly, I’ve been getting around a bit recently in conjunction with my current obsession with e-publishing. You may have noticed me:

• On Womag’s blog describing how e-publishing is easier than you might think
• On the Writers’ Bureau blog talking about e-book covers
• On Nick Daws blog where I looked at the options when an e-book isn’t selling. I won this appearance on Nick’s blog via his blogging competition which I told you about a few weeks ago and the other part of my prize was a copy of his e-course Blogging for Writers.

Thirdly, I’ve received my very first Amazon royalty payment – 31p! It covers the US site for the last few days of January after the launch of One Day for Me.  I was a bit surprised because I thought nothing was paid out until the royalties amounted to $10. Consequently, I haven’t yet got my US tax exemption sorted out – so they’ve taken 13p in tax, otherwise I would’ve had 44p! Take note, e-publishing is not a get rich quick scheme!

Getting to Grips with E-Publishing 3

After all the wonderful advice I got on my previous post about cover design, I thought I’d got things under control in that department. But my attempt at a cover for my third book was so abysmal that I daren’t even show it to you here. Compared with similar books already on Amazon it looked very basic and most definitely amateurish.

I think this is because the book is non-fiction and therefore requires a very business-like cover to get anywhere near competing with the hundreds of other books on the same subject.

So I decided to call in the professionals. I used the website Fiverr. This site features hundreds (or maybe thousands even) of sellers offering their services for just $5. The range of services is vast from personalised greetings cards, translations and bespoke bedtime stories. But there are also lots of e-book cover designers on there too.

I picked one of the top-rated designers (like on EBay, buyers have to leave feedback on the service they received) and told her the title of the book, what it was about and a brief suggestion about the type of image that might be suitable (it is also possible to send the designer a specific photo if you have one that you want to include on the cover).

Two days later my cover design was delivered and you can see it on this post. It’s much better than I could produce. I’ve borrowed the title from a ‘column’ on the Open Writing  website which runs an extract from this blog each week (the site includes lots of other writing from around the world, too).

A Writer on Writing is a compilation of 14 of my articles that have appeared in the UK writing press, such as Writing Magazine & Writers News, The New Writer, Writers’ Forum and Freelance Market News. They cover subjects as diverse as generating ideas, writing articles with an anniversary ‘hook’ and flash fiction.

As I did with my other books, I have set an introductory price of 77p - with a view to increasing it when I see how sales go. Setting the perfect price point to encourage buyers without devaluing the work involved in producing a book is very difficult. 77p is the lowest price point available to independent authors.

Click here to see the book on Amazon UK and here to see the book on Amazon COM. It’s also available on all other Amazon sites by searching for ASIN: B00C0GBRS6 or by title and author.

I’ll keep you posted on how my e-publishing empire is growing (or not as the case may be!).