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.

Old Friends – 13 Coffee Break Stories

Coffee, cake and a chance to unwind for a few minutes with an absorbing story – who can say no?

So choose your favourite caffeine fix – latte, cappuccino, mocha ….

And which cake do you fancy? Lemon drizzle, chocolate fudge or fruit cake?

If you’re sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin.

Or I would if this was a ‘real’ instead of a virtual book launch. Then I could have the pleasure of meeting you all in the flesh and thanking you for all the support and positive comments about my first e-anthology. Plus I could read you one or two stories from the newly released Old Friends.

Instead I’ll just tell you about my second book and then you can visit Amazon and ’Look Inside’ or download the sample to get a real flavour of it…

Old Friends contains 13 short stories that have previously appeared in My Weekly, People’s Friend and The Weekly News. I’ve included tales with a twist, stories about the ups and downs of family life plus, of course, a little romance.

I hope this collection will bring a little escapism to your coffee break!

It’s available from Amazon.UK and Amazon.COM at the introductory price of 77p/$1.19.

Or find it on all other Amazon sites by searching for ASIN B00BJIKIBI.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Morning Pages

Do any of you do morning pages? By this I mean: write longhand immediately on waking each morning.

The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Photo: Wikipedia)

Julia Cameron advocates this in her book The Artists’s Way.  I haven’t read the book but heard about it from someone who has done morning pages for many years. This lady scribbles down everything that is going on in her head, things she has to do that day, negative thoughts about whatever is going on in her life etc. She finds it clears her brain and enables her to start the day in a better frame of mind. Sometimes it produces something that can be used in a story or elsewhere. 

I know that other people get up early to work on their novel or another project, either because it’s the only way they can make time in their day to write or because they just enjoy the quiet at dawn before the rest of the family erupts into activity.

Up until now I’ve lacked the willpower to set the alarm any earlier than absolutely necessary, just to write. But my husband has changed his job and needs to be at work by 7:30 am – forcing us to set the alarm for 6:00 am, and therefore giving me the opportunity to try morning pages.

So I’ve been writing for 25 minutes each day before getting up (with a cup of tea brought to me!).

I decided that I wanted something positive to show for this time so I’m drafting a longer piece than I normally write. I never read back more than a sentence of what I wrote the previous day and I don’t edit anything. I don’t pause to think of the right words, I’m just trying to get the flow of the story down on paper.

It’s a positive experience because I get up knowing that I’ve already ‘achieved’ something and the number of completed A4 pages is growing.

Does anyone else do this – or, as Julia Cameron envisaged, do you write about whatever is on your mind?

There’s no right or wrong in this. Different things work for different people.

One Day For Me – Book Launch Party

Welcome!

Please grab a glass of Champagne and a smoked salmon canape from the waiter. You’re just in time for my launch speech.

It’s great to see so many of you here today – thank you for sparing the time to come along. There will be chocolate profiteroles and cream when I’ve finished speaking – so I’ll keep it short!

One Day For Me contains some of my writing successes from recent years – eight stories that have either won or been shortlisted in UK national writing competitions. The subject matter and characters are varied and include Wallis Simpson, an abused wife, a young girl making money from lost property and a pro-athlete struggling with the demands of her career.

I’m proud of these stories and I’d like to share them with you.

Of course, I didn’t work in isolation. I want to say a big thank you to my writing buddy, Helen Yendall , who read many of these stories when they were still a work in progress.

I also want to thank Marilyn Rodwell of the Birmingham RNA and our anonymous erotic writer member, who between them organised an inspiring workshop on e-publishing – without which I would never have got this project off the ground.

Finally, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the followers of this blog who took the time to comment on my original cover design. I learned a lot from you all (which I will summarise in another post) – and I hope you agree with me that the finished cover is a vast improvement!

I now declare One Day For Me launched!

It is available on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Look out for it on Smashwords and other platforms later in the year.

Now the waiters will circulate with the profiteroles – enjoy!

Free Kindle Book – Writing: The King Author Way

Writing: The King Author Way is free on Kindle from today (23rd December) to 26th December.

I haven’t had time to look at it yet but it’s described as:

“A collection of over fifty articles on how to be a writer. From tips on
marketing, self publishing and editing to how to submit to an agent and work
with a publisher. This book offers specific advise on writing short stories,
horror fiction, romance, erotica and articles. This easy to read digest
of useful writing advice is a must for anyone who has an interest in writing.”

It’s been put together by  King Author - Author Advisory Service.

So if you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare, it might be worth downloading before Christmas inertia sets in.

Pride and Prejudice

I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice in preparation for entering the Writers’ News subscribers only January 2013 competition – the brief is ‘a story based on any of the characters or events in that famous novel – but set firmly in the 21st century’.

Detail of a C. E. Brock illustration for the 1895 edition of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 3) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s the first time I’ve read the book and it’s taken me some time to get into it. I suppose it’s the old-fashioned language and often long paragraphs used to get a point across. But now that I know the characters I’m quite engrossed - although I’ve no idea how I’m going to capture its essence in just 1,700 words of a contemporary story.

In Jane Austen’s world people seem to marry barely knowing each other, with background and financial position counting far more than the compatibility of the couple. They get little time alone together and the height of a woman’s ambitions (and those of her parents) is to make a good marriage. Equally, the less well-off males are looking for a bride of independent means to make up for their own financial shortcomings.

Of course, today relationships are conducted quite differently so I think I’ve got quite a brainstorming session to think up a modern-day equivalent story! There is a wealth of Pride and Prejudice fan fiction on the web such as here - so I’m going to have a trawl through and see how it’s done.

In case you’d missed it, 2013 is the bicentenary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice – Austen held her first printed copy of the book on 29 January 1813.  Today Pride and Prejudice is The British Library’s ‘most adopted’ title, in a fund-raising campaign where supporters are encouraged to sponsor a book of their choice.

I wonder which of today’s books will still be popular in 2213? Any suggestions?

By the way if you know any young writers (or are one yourself), there are details of a Jane Austen writing competition here, open to school years 7 to 11.

Carole Matthews’ Winter Warmers

Romantic novelist Carole Matthews has produced a collection of 3 short stories available for free (possibly for a limited time only!) download. The collection is called ‘Winter Warmers’ and is available from Amazon here.

It will be published on the 26th November but you can pre-order it now for free and it will be automatically delivered to your Kindle on the 26th.

Enjoy!

 

Related articles

• With Love At Christmas by Carole Matthews (readinginthesunshine.wordpress.com)

Celebrating Charlotte – A Writing Competition

I came across the following competition on the blog Aiming For A Publishing Deal - many thanks to Charlotte C for highlighting it!

Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The competition is being run by Hampshire County Council and is asking for short stories (up to 1000 words) on the theme of Charlotte Mary Yonge. Charlotte was a best-selling Victorian novelist and her memory is kept alive by the Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship.Your story could be inspired by Charlotte’s life, one of her novels or maybe, a present day character discovering one of Charlotte’s books. There are 2 prizes of £50 Waterstones’ vouchers, one for under 16 and one for 16 +. Closing date is 12th December 2012 and you don’t have to live in Hampshire to enter. The full details are here.

Obviously this is a competition that will require some research but, on the plus side, that could deter many entrants – meaning that the field is smaller than that for many other competitions. And you may discover that you like Yonge’s books!

Sell Your Books! Part 2

In my last post I introduced you to Debbie Young - book promotion guru. And this post concludes her sage advice:

Many writers worry about the time-consuming nature of maintaining a presence on social media. What is the best platform (blog, Twitter, Facebook etc.) to concentrate on?

All of these do different things, so it’s hard to say that one is better than the other. 

With a blog, you are totally in control. Running a blog on your website will increase its standing before search engines, so I’d recommend it to all authors – and writing blog posts is a great exercise for honing your writing skills, too.

Twitter allows you to reach people you’d never meet in real life, who share your interests and passions – so select the right people to follow and they’ll be naturally predisposed to liking your book.

Facebook is good at keeping your progress before those you know, and for getting friends to “share” your posts with their friends – a kind of pyramid selling! You can also create a Facebook  page specifically for your book, rather than putting it on  your personal Facebook page.

GoodReads is a great way of networking with people who are, by definition, all avid readers (and a lot of writers too).

But social media can be hugely time-consuming! It’s a question of discipline, self-knowledge and honesty. Be firm about what you want to get out of these things, and only use them to help you reach those goals.

 

How can a self-published author gain national publicity for their book – local papers and radio stations may be willing to promote a writer from their region but how does a writer move outside his own geographical area?

 

Social media is the biggest opportunity, because you can make contacts with people from all over the world. But there are other, more traditional opportunities too. I’d recommend not touting your book to get national recognition, but coming up with interesting comment and valuable expertise to gain you coverage as a person – as a commentator or programme contributor – from which more awareness of your book will follow. I’ve often listened to an interesting discussion on the radio between anonymous voices and heard at the end the names of the people and the books they wrote. I’ve gone off and bought the book on the strength of it.

On Radio 4 alone there are plenty of magazine shows that need topical, expert material for their programmes – Woman’s Hour, Money Box, the Today Programme, PM. Your book and the knowledge or experience that enabled you to write it might give you viable ideas for an article, or an engaging comment to follow up a programme.

Approach your target programme’s production office with a well-thought out idea, backed up by your credentials as the author of a book on the subject, and you may get lucky. (Other national outlets can also be approached in this spirit – the nature of your book will dictate what should be your priority, e.g. a special interest national magazine in  your field.)

Whichever media you approach, always have the media coverage you’ve had to date, your sales figures, and your reviews at your fingertips. When you put it all together, you might surprise yourself with what an impressive portfolio your book has.

 

Keep track of current public debate relevant to your genre. Get involved in national discussion via old-fashioned letters to the editor, comments on blogs or radio phone-ins. Always quote your credentials as the author of a relevant book, this will make it clear that you are an expert with something interesting to say about the subject.

 

Be opportunist. Manufacture your own luck. If you want to win the lottery, as the old joke goes, you have to buy a ticket…

 

Thank you for the advice, Debbie and there’s lots more great information in Debbie’s book and on her blog.

 

 

 

Sell Your Books! Part 1

Here in the blogosphere you trip over lots of very knowledgable people  and they’re all very generous with their support and advice.

Debbie Young is one such person. Debbie is an absolute expert on book promotion and marketing. She has 30 years experience in the industry and runs Off The Shelf Book Promotions which offers a bespoke marketing and promotion service to self-published authors (she also maintains a very useful blog of book promotion tips here.)

Debbie’s book Sell Your Books! has just been published (I’ve read it and it’s excellent – well worth buying if you want to give your book the push it deserves). I asked her a few questions about selling books and her answers were so comprehensive that I’ve split them into two blog posts. Here we go with number 1:

It’s often said that a writer needs to build a potential readership before their book is published. Do you agree and if so, how would you recommend doing this?

Try to define your potential readership, so that you can bear them in mind whilst writing the book. But don’t let it distract or divert you from actually getting the writing done nor  from writing the book you want to write. Be true to yourself.

 Always be on the look out for practical ways of reaching your target audience. Keep a note of useful websites, interest groups etc that you can come back to when you are ready. Watch out for what others in your field are doing to promote their books.

By all means engage with your potential readership but don’t show them your hand before you are ready – your book may evolve into something quite different to what you expected!

Consider also: other influential writers who you might ask to review your book; book reviewers; book bloggers; local booksellers; interest groups for your genre or topic. Follow their blogs and comment on their blog posts. Follow them on Twitter, befriend them on Facebook and GoodReads. Write reviews of their books. Comment on their book reviews on Amazon and GoodReads. Post worthwhile comments on their websites. Go to their public events. When commenting online anywhere, include a link to all your contact details (website, Twitter, email etc) so they can track back to you and the relationship can be a two-way thing. Then, when your book is published, you will be a familiar (and hopefully respected!) name to them and they will be well-disposed towards your new book. 

Secure your own website address (URL) in advance so that it can be printed on your book jacket. But don’t be tempted to promote the book before it exists. This can be counter-productive. You’ll have much more impact on a bookshop, for example, if you can go in with actual samples of your book, a fully functional website and a few reviews, than with nothing physical to show. These things give you much more credibility as an author whose books are going to make a profit for the store.

 There’s a lull between finishing your manuscript, proofing it and it being on sale as a finished product – that’s a really good time to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. But don’t rush things. In this digital age of e-books and on-demand printing, there’s no rush to start marketing your book, because it’s never actually too late. Your book doesn’t come with a sell-by date, and it won’t be remaindered or de-listed by your publisher (i.e. you!). There’s more about this on my blog here.

On the other hand, don’t err on the side of sloth! You do HAVE to put in the effort sooner or later if your book is going to be successful, because no matter how good it is, it won’t sell itself if you don’t promote it at some time.