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Rebranding …The Covers

February 5, 2019 by in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as , , ,
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REBRANDING…THE COVERS

Last month I shared about my plans to rebrand myself as an author.  This month I started putting the plan into action.  Excuse me while I pause for a little childish whining…this is hard.  

Now I’m back to my adult self.  No one who has gone through the rebranding process said it would be easy.  It’s more like masochism.  How is it possible to derive pleasure from such a challenging process? But it’s exciting seeing the changes come to life.

I have another business and had the opportunity to work with a consultant and was shocked at what I learned about my business.  I’ve been an entrepreneur for quite a while.  I thought I knew my business, but in the back of my mind I always felt I could be doing more…doing better.  So when the opportunity arose to work with a consultant, I jumped at it. 

I thought I had my stuff together, but after the first meeting, I realized I didn’t know crap about my business.  When she asked me “Who my customer was?” I gave my answer.  Only to discover, it was too broad.  I thought my website was amazing, after all, the site host, family and friends, all said it was great. They were sincere in their compliment. However, the reality was, my social media was a mess [Thank God Elena Dillion helped me with my Pinterest page before my first meeting, giving me one brownie point with the consultant].  There was a mix of styles. The colors and graphics were all over the place. My business profile had no cohesion. 

When I completed the process with the consultant, my business had a definite brand.   So when I listened to the RAM speakers talk about rebranding, I understood because I’d just gone through it with my other business. However, this was a little more difficult because the product  that needed a new look was something I created.  Something I needed to take a hard look at.

As writers we are very creative, but sometimes we’re not as objective to the marketing process  as we need to be.  I’m not saying you have to design your own covers and graphics.  You do however, need to know what the trends are in your category and most importantly, you need to know who your reader is. And make the necessary changes no matter how painful it is.

I write Contemporary Romance with African American Romance as my secondary category.  The books in these categories are similar.  I looked at the also boughts for the titles I wanted to change and came up with designs I liked.  The commonality for both categories was shirtless men or couples.  My two most downloaded books have shirtless men wherever possible or a hot couple. Of course there’s an exception to every rule. For me that rule is having a woman on the cover. My third most downloaded book, has a woman on the cover.

My cover design plan included shirtless men, couples, bold fonts and eye catching blurbs.

I’m using stock images right now.  I would love to use exclusive images on some of the books, but I first want to see what the reaction is going to be.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with stock images.  However, if you can afford to use an exclusive image, do it.  Most exclusive images give you a little more latitude in use.  If an exclusive image isn’t an option and you can’t find anything you like with one of the stock image sites, there are several free sites with nice images. Some of the free image sites allow for a little more flexibility in use. I’ve used www.unsplash.com and www.pexels.com .

I have been in the creative lab and wanted to share some of the new covers.  [These are all stock images from Deposit photos.]  I have a little tweaking to do before making these live.

THE FIX UP…

I like the original cover, unfortunately, after a couple of years, the bloom is off the rose. The new cover was originally A Southern Gentleman Vol 2.  The new image felt more in tune with the character.

MISS MATCH…

I like the image, but the font is horrible.  I’m pretty sure the poor font choice is why this book isn’t moving as well as it should.  I opted not to change the image because I might want a new look when I release book two and what a cohesive look.

FIRST ENCOUNTERS OF LOVE…

This was my first boxset.  It does fair.  However, the image is similar to another one which does well.  You’d think this would benefit.  However, I think the other image confuses people or makes them think they already bought the box set.  I’m going to try something I’ve never done before, a couple.  I know the shirtless man does well, I’m hoping the couple does just as well.

Before I finalize a cover, I ask my reader group for feedback and then run test ads on BookBub and Facebook.  The one with the best results is the winner. 

My plan is to start releasing the new covers this month.

Next month, I’ll share all of the updated covers and talk about my production schedule.

Happy writing. 

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Telephone Booths in the 1950s by Will Zeilinger

February 3, 2019 by in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as , ,

Ah, the convenience of a smartphone. Almost all of us have one (or more) of these tiny mobile computers and telephones, in one.

Believe it or not, the first mobile telephone call from a hand-held device wasn’t made until April 3, 1973. Cellular phones and smartphones were still decades in the future.

Now, let’s take a look back to the mid-1950s and see what calling home entailed.

If you were not at home, the first order of business was to find a telephone, and you had better have had a pocketful of change because you paid to talk.

In the U.S., one could find “pay phone” inside a telephone booth or just “phone booth” for short, as they were called, on many street corners and in most commercial establishments. On the street, the ubiquitous phone booth featured a folding glass door that afforded some privacy and protection from the elements. They were not air-conditioned, but when you stepped inside and closed the door, an overhead light would come on. That feature was especially helpful at night. By the mid-1950s, most were upgraded from a wood and glass structure to a weatherproof glass and aluminum booth that was large enough for one (maybe two, if you were friends).

If you’re too young to have seen one in person, you’ve no doubt, seen them in old movies and TV shows.

They were found inside almost any hotel, train station, bank, restaurant or office building. You would have seen rows of wooden phone booths lining a wall somewhere near the entrance. Many of them had a seat inside for long conversations. During breaks between the action at conventions or meetings, people would line up to use the half dozen or so telephones in larger hotels, and in smaller hotels, there may have been two or three.

Today many hotels and convention spaces have mysterious empty areas that will cause the visitor to wonder the reason behind the wasted space. The answer is telephone booths once stood in those places before they were removed because they were no longer needed.

To make a call you would first deposit a nickel or dime in one of the round holes at the top. “Dial” it on the rotary dial . . . one digit at a time. A live telephone operator would come on the line and tell you how much money to put in, based on the number. If you didn’t know the person’s number, you’d look up the person by name from the telephone directory book, suspended under the phone. If you needed to make a long distance call, the live operator would handle that for you as well.

Since the 1950s were part of a decade of fads, one popular fad was “Phone Booth stuffing.” The point of this was to see how many people would fit into a phone booth designed for one person. From what I could learn, the record for cramming the most people into a standard sized telephone booth was 25. This was accomplished by a group of South African college students.

Too many people? You want a little privacy when you make a phone call? In today’s culture, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find privacy in a public place when you need to have a conversation (except maybe, in your car) I’m sure you’ve been in a restaurant or standing in a checkout line, and had to endure someone’s inane conversation right behind you or next to your ear. Well—good news! Some establishments are resurrecting telephone booths by providing an enclosed compartment with a comfortable seat and a door (see phone booth) for people to make or take private cell calls without having to go out to the parking lot. What goes around,comes around.

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Slow Burn an Interview with Aviva Vaughn

February 2, 2019 by in category Jann says . . . tagged as , , ,

Aviva Vaughn is the author of BECKONED—slow burn women’s fiction inspired by food, travel, and Jane Austen. A lifelong bibliophile, she enjoys a wide variety of genres from historical fiction to science fiction to non-fiction, and loves reading, and writing, hot—scientifically accurate—sex.

As a young adult, Aviva rejected the romance genre. “My mother had at least sixty of those old-school romances with the Fabio-esque covers. I didn’t like the way they depicted women or sex,” she says. However, after becoming a mother herself, she recognized the potential power of fiction as a force for female empowerment.

Her series—BECKONED—features strong, educated, diverse characters, with heroines who speak their mind and heroes who respect them for doing so. She writes so that her daughter will have inspirational, multicultural book characters to identify with, and a depiction of what a healthy relationship looks like both in the power dynamics and in the sex itself.

Aviva is not afraid to try new things, which has made for an interesting—although not always straight forward—life. Her favorite “two truths and a lie” line is: I have ridden bareback in the Navajo nation, I have jumped out of an airplane over New Zealand, and I have gone spelunking in Costa Rica. The answer appears at the end of BECKONED, Part 4: From Barcelona with Love ;^)

For a list of her favorite books, visit AvivaVaughn.com/about

Jann: Let’s welcome Aviva Vaughn to A Slice of Orange blog today to chat about her series BECKONED.

Jann: When did you start writing? Why romance?

Aviva: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write creatively. I’ve written songs, poetry, and fiction at least since I was thirteen, if not before. I’ve always been fascinated with books and words, and have been an avid reader my entire life. Although my writing covers a variety of genres, the first book I decided to publish was a romance, and the reason why was because it told me to. My slow-burn contemporary series, BECKONED, has been a very bossy master. It wouldn’t leave me alone … it beckoned to me. However, it makes sense that I would start with a romance, because my favorite stories are always the ones where the human relationships are the focus, and the challenges that come up are the all too real challenges of human interaction and miscommunication. I mean, I like plot too, but what makes stories pierce your heart is not plot, but the human relationships. What would Star Wars be without the angst of Darth the wayward father, or the war-torn love of Han and Leia? It’s the relationships that hold one captive, and the stories that focus on them are the ones that I return to again and again. Authors like Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and Margaret Mitchell, who create characters that just seem to keep missing each other over and over, those are the stories I love, but I wanted to give them a modern twist.

I often describe BECKONED as “a modern story told in an old-fashioned way.” By “modern story” I mean that it’s set in contemporary time, and the characters are diverse, and the heroines are strong. By “old-fashioned” I mean that the language and scene setting are very descriptive and literary feeling. My tagline for BECKONED is “slow burn, second-chance romance inspired by food, travel, and Jane Austen.” If your readers would like to read my series starter for free, they can sign-up for it at SmartURL.it/BeckonedLondonFree

Jann: Your series BECKONED–how, when, or where did your idea for the series come to be? Do you have a goal for the series?

Avivia: BECKONED was birthed by a couple of ideas. The first was that as a multicultural reader—I’m of Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic, and European descent and I was born and raised in Los Angeles—I was never able to find a character that looked like me, not even one. I wanted to create characters that my own mixed child could relate to and look up to. So I fashioned Angela: an aspiring entrepreneur putting herself through MBA school who just happens to be of a mixed background. The second idea was kind of inspired by one of the parameters Stephenie Meyer uses in TWILIGHT; in her books, vampires’ personalities are fixed when they become vampires, so her hero, Edward, has the values of someone from the early 1900’s. I liked the tension that it created having her modern heroine fall in love with a old-fashioned guy. I also wanted to have a hero who was the complete opposite of my fiery, multicultural Angeleno, and so I looked to Denmark which is a very homogeneous society and is famous for its gender equality and it felt perfect. So I created my hero, Soren Lund, who is a humble, polite real estate heir that has lived a life of boring privilege until he meets fiery Angela—who melts his heart—and realizes he doesn’t want to live without her.

Those twin inspirations, along with my love for food and travel, are what inspired the series. As far as my goal for the series, I want women to feel inspired and empowered by BECKONED. Many readers have said that they look up to Angela and I think that’s wonderful. I happen to know many women like Angela, so she’s not aspirational, she’s inspirational.

Jann: Beckoned Part 6 – Adrift in New Zealand makes its debut on May16th. What can you share with us about this new book?

Avivia: Hhhhmmmm … all I can say is that books 1-4 are kind of like “The Bachelor,” where there is a love triangle, and the man who doesn’t get the girl becomes the focus of Books 5 and 6. Readers have loved that I’ve been tying up the loose end of the guy who “lost”. Part 6 will be a very satisfying conclusion to this part of BECKONED.

Jann: What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

Avivia: The best writing advice I’ve received can be summed up in four points

  1. Keep a writing calendar (I like the tiny business card size ones), and highlight every day you write and note the number of words. It motivates me to keep going! (Jerry Seinfeld does something similar for writing jokes.)
  2. Find your most productive time of day (for me that’s morning) and type without any sort of self editing (vomit onto the page).
  3. STOP writing before the end of the scene so that you have a place to pick up the next day (I heard this is what Hemingway did).
  4. Once you are done writing for the day, give your new words a quick edit for typos, etc. (I can’t remember who told me this, but it’s a good tip! Helps make later editing easier.)

My tip: I carry a Bluetooth keyboard so that I can “write on my phone.” This lets me write everywhere. I’ve had this $20 keyboard for four years and it’s still as responsive as ever and it weighs nothing. https://amzn.to/2TpmMli

Avivia: I’m working on a collection of steamy slow-burn stories as a way to introduce different couples to my readers and get their feedback on whom I should turn into my next full-length book. I’ll also have some previously unwritten scenes for Angela and Soren to introduce new readers to BECKONED. This collection might come out as early as March 2019, so stay tuned!

Jann: What’s the funniest (or sweetest or best or nicest) thing a fan ever said to you?

Avivia: I don’t think I can pick just one! Some of my favorite quotesfrom reviews are:

  • “I found myself stealing away to read this book”
  • “This book gives a new meaning to the word sizzling!”
  • “Read this is one sitting and left me wanting more”
  • “The series has been fascinating and captivating”
  • “Singed my eyebrows and melted my kindle”
  • “You can’t deny the connections of writing styles between Aviva Vaughn and Jane Austen”

Jann: Do you have a website, blog, twitter where fans might read more about you and your books?

Avivia: Choose your favorite way to follow me! I love interacting with readers. If you are in the Southern California area, I have a bunch of readings and signings coming up.

Jann: Thank you Avivia for chatting with us here on A Slice of Orange.

Aviva’s BECKONED Series

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Dear Extra Squeeze Team: What the Heck Is a Platform?

January 31, 2019 by in category The Extra Squeeze by The Extra Squeeze Team tagged as , , ,
Platform | The Extra Squeeze Team | A Slice of Orange

Dear Extra Squeeze Team, I’m working on my first book. I go to a local RWA and everyone is taking about platforms. What the heck is a platform? Why do I need one? How do I get one?

Rebecca Forster | Extra Squeeze
Rebecca Forster 
USA Today Bestselling author of 35 books, including the Witness series and the new Finn O’Brien series.

You’re in luck. The queen of platforms is Robin Blakely so I would read her answer first. If you’re reading this one, then my simple explanation is that a platform is who you are as an author. Are you queen of erotica? Are you the definitive word on thrillers? Were you a cop and write police procedurals? When you build your platform you are looking for a way to consistently communicate who you are as an author and what a reader can expect from your books. Keep writing and refining your voice. Write in the same genre. Determine what sets you apart from other writers and there you have it – a platform.

H.O. Charles
Cover designer and author of the fantasy series, The Fireblade Array

I’m not sure I know either. Sounds a bit like business jargon!

Jenny Jensen | A Slice of Orange
Jenny Jensen
Developmental  editor who has worked for twenty plus years with new and established authors of both fiction and non-fiction, traditional and indie.

A platform is that giant, flashing interactive sign hanging in Times Square that says, “Here I am! I’m a writer and this is what my books are about. You want to read them all!”

A platform gives you visibility as an author. It gives the means to speak to your audience, to gain and nurture a following. You get a platform by building it yourself. It’s a process; there is no ready recipe. And it takes time to build up your presence so there’s no reason not to begin long before you publish. You’re going to need it because that’s how and where an Indie writer markets her books.

Social media is the tool, from your website to blogging to Facebook, to engaging with on-line writer groups to Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter— the whole gamut is possible. Your message should include your unique story and voice. The content should target your audience so that you can reach them directly with an option of back and forth communications.

If you haven’t published yet, consider writing a few short stories and offer them for free. Post links on Face Book, or Twitter etc. to get the word out. Join and engage with writer’s groups. Use those short stories for award entries—the more accolades and experience you garner, the more powerful your platform. Blog about your writing process. Join groups with other new writers. It will all work to build your name and credibility.

It takes time. But so does writing a good book. Like all things in life, time management is critical. Decide how much effort toward building your platform is doable without taking too big a bite out of your writing time. But know that every little bit will grow your presence and when you’re ready to publish you’ll have a platform from which to dive into the market.

Robin Blakely | The Extra Squeeze Team | A Slice of Orange
Robin Blakely
PR/Business Development coach for writers and artists; CEO, Creative Center of America; member, Forbes Coaches Council.

You need a platform so that you can elevate and protect your brand. To help you wrap your brain around a concept that can be very confusing, try this . . .

Let’s imagine that your platform is a three-legged table and your brand is a glass ball on top of that table.  It seems like the glass ball is the thing to focus on, but really it is the table and its three legs that provide the support and elevation your brand needs. If the platform isn’t solid, the table top will teeter and the glass ball will roll and possibly break.

So, let’s keep the brand safe and secure.  Let’s look closer at the platform’s three legs.

One leg is all about promotional outreach—you must effectively tell readers about your work. One leg is all about resources—you must manage your time, money, and helpful people wisely.  One leg is all about constantly developing the core talent and skill to produce the best products and services you can create—you can’t sell what you never finish.

You need each leg to do its part and at about the same level. In the platform world, the most common problem is that people figuratively build their platforms using table legs of three very different lengths. One leg is typically very long and well-developed, one leg is quite short and under-achieving, and one entire leg may be practically missing. Take a closer look at those three areas of your creative business.  When the three table legs of your platform are forced to operate at uneven lengths, it will feel like your success is teetering and wobbling—that your professional life is unbalanced and uncertain—that your brand is fragile and in jeopardy.

Put an end to topsy-turvy, out-of-control feelings by building a platform to elevate and protect your beautiful talent-driven brand.  As you learn to level out the structural legs of your platform, feelings of uncertainty will be replaced by feelings of stability. Promotional opportunities will become better in both quality and abundance. As a result, your platform will command attention in your industry.  Your brand will be clearly showcased, elevated, and protected.

Sound impossible? It isn’t.

The Extra Squeeze | A Slice of Orange

Have you got a question for The Extra Squeeze team?

Send them to us at: Contact The Extra Squeeze Team.

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MCRW Presents The Melody of Love Contest

January 30, 2019 by in category Contests, Writing Contest tagged as , ,
Melody of Love Contest | Music City Romance Writers | A Slice of Orange

2019 Melody of Love 

Sponsor: Music City Romance Writers
Fees: $22 for MCRW Members, $27 for other RWA Members, $32 for Non-RWA Members
Contest Opens January 1, 2019 
Deadline: February 28, 2019

Eligibility: Open to published and unpublished authors over the age of 18. The manuscript entered must be the author’s original work and be unpublished and uncontracted at the time of deadline and unpublished during the contest itself. Manuscript must also meet minimum word count lengths.

Entry: First 25 pages or a maximum of 7,500 words.

Categories: Contemporary, Mainstream/Women’s Fiction, FF&P (Futuristic, Fantasy, & Paranormal), Historical, Young Adult. All heat levels welcome.

Judges: Judging is on a point basis, with all manuscripts judged by three authors from a pool of PAN, PRO, and trained general members. Judges are highly encouraged to comment and critique each entry.

Top Prize: Finalists in each category will receive a certificate and announcement in the RWR (RWA’s print and online publication), on the MCRW website, and across MCRW’s social media. The overall winner of each category will be announced at MCRW’s June meeting and will receive: a $50 cash prize, a 50-page critique by a published author or editor, and a commemorative Melody of Love pin.

FMI, check out our full rules at https://musiccityrwa.blogspot.com/p/melody-of-love-2019-rules-in-full.html and the simplified registration page at: https://musiccityrwa.blogspot.com/p/contest-registration.html It is recommended you read the full rules and category descriptions and such before entering.

You can also mail our Contest Coordinators Jody Wallace and Dana Brantley-Sieders at contest@mcrw.com.

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