WRITERS STILL WRITE by Linda O. Johnston
June 6, 2018 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as #amwriting, adversity, career, writing
Exactly a year ago my blog post here at A Slice of Orange was called “Writers Write. Oh, Yeah!” It was about my efforts to get my mind back on track for writing after I broke my knee–and I was becoming at least somewhat successful.
So why is this post titled “Writers Still Write”? Because I’m at a different stage of my career, yet I’m once more concerned about my writing and what’s next.
You see, I just finished a manuscript that is currently in the hands of my beta reader. I believe it’s the first manuscript for which I ever had to ask for a deadline extension—mostly because of several edits coming in quickly from another publisher as well as travel and family plans. I intend to jump right in and get it ready to send off as soon as I receive comments.
The other strange thing? Recently, I’ve had a lot of deadlines to meet . . . but this is the last story I’m currently under contract for. That’s become unusual—particularly since I have four books being published this year!
And so I’m wondering what’s next.
I haven’t had a lot of time to work on new proposals lately, though I do have some ideas I’m submitting. Plus, just for the fun if it, I’m working on an idea for a story, possibly a series, that’s outside my current realm of cozy mysteries and romantic suspense.
Will it work out? Who knows? But . . . yes, this writer is still writing and giving it a try. And though I’m pretty much only traditionally published, I’ll also consider self-publishing.
I’d love to know how many of you who are reading this also have stepped outside their usual, established genre(s) and tried something else—and what’s happened.
Meanwhile, I’m giving my subconscious some new orders–or at least the kind of order I haven’t focused on much lately . . . like do something different and do it well!
Linda
Now Open…The Author Store [Part One]
June 5, 2018 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as Marketing. Advertising, subscription boxes, writing
Happy June.
I have been researching a new project. No, it’s not about writing an insane amount of books in some crazy time span. I want to talk about Author Stores.
I don’t know if you’ve paid attention to something that seems to have popped up over night…Author Stores. I’m not sure who’s store was the first to grab my attention, but I know I’ve visited quite a few in the past few months. How did I miss this? I come from a retail background and I missed the launch of this marketing concept. As an Indie Writer, I understand I wear several hats: producer, manufacturer and wholesale distributor. Retail Proprietor, apart from selling signed book, never occurred to me.
In my retail business, occasionally, I produce or private label items. However, it never occurred to me to do the same for my books. At one time, I did briefly post my poetry book on my lingerie site, but took it down. It didn’t feel right. However, that’s about to change.
My awakening to this phenomenon came after reading a Brenda Novak post on BookBub [9 Book Advertising Tactics I’ve Tried… And Which Ones Worked!]. In the nine advertising things she tried several caught my eye, but the one about subscription book boxes really stuck out.
Now I was familiar with subscription boxes and to be honest, who hasn’t? Let’s talk, author friend to author friend. There are subscription boxes for everything. And I mean that literally. In my quest to research this, I found boxes for mixology, your pet, coffee/tea/hot chocolate, beauty/spa, fitness wear, clothing and my favorite feminine hygiene. Let’s take a pause, that last one really caught my eye. It include the obvious item, plus jewelry, chocolate and tea. Man, why couldn’t I have created that one.
Back to what I was saying. After reading Brenda’s blog post, I began researching. In my search, I discovered, apart from the companies that sponsor book subscription boxes, which seem to be more difficult to get into than my skinny jeans from ten years ago, but authors doing their own boxes. Bingo! That was it. If all these premium and newbie authors could do it, why couldn’t I. Pause for reflection. The last time I tried something someone else did, I wrote and published twelve plus titles in a year. I’m sure this will be a lot easier to copy.
This is where the Author Store discovery happened. In stalking, I found out not only were authors selling subscription boxes, but a host of other things as well. I saw stores with mugs, blankets, stadium cups, t-shirts, hats, journals, jewelry, candles, the list goes on. Oh yeah, and signed books. Here I thought I was doing well to offer links for my ebooks plus signed copies on my website.
Retail selling is my world. I know about online shopping, that’s what I do. I know wholesale shopping, private label products, gift packaging. Heck, I started out selling gift baskets and know how to get stuff. So how is it I missed this? It’s bad enough I have no swag to mention. Now let me explain that. I forgot as a writer that I have to think like a reader/consumer. I personally don’t collect a lot of branded items. Let me clarify. I collect designer clothes, shoes, bags and accessories. I do like to collect those cards Kate Spade puts out every month. But, I’m not the chip clip, pen, button, bag, mug, stickie notes girl. It has to be really amazing for me to get it. But after several conversations with the swag lady, she opened my eyes. It’s not about what I like, but about what will attract the reader. These little things I find insignificant, help to keep my name in the reader’s face. And if they like the item and your book, they’ll tell their friends, “Hey you have got to read this author. Oh yeah, and she gave me this amazing….”.
In my quest to sell more books, I forgot a key marketing principle “Seven Touches”. There have been studies about this. Apparently it takes seven touches before someone makes a decision to buy your product. Now I get it. The little things I thought were a waste of money are my seven touches.
This is bigger than just a few pieces of swag and the occasional reader contest, this is a side hustle and only limited by your imagination. And if it’s done correctly, it could become very lucrative. Plus you could sell a lot of books.
I’m putting on my retailer hat and building a new store, “The Sophisticated Reader Store”. Step one: A Coming Soon Sign…done.
Have an amazing month.
I gave the readers what they wanted
June 4, 2018 by H. O. Charles in category WritingA little while ago, I published the final volume in my fantasy series, The Fireblade Array, and I purposefully left the ending vague. Up to that point, I had not yet had to write a final, final ending, what with seven large books running sequentially over seven years, so perhaps this is in part responsible for what happened next.
Almost all the reviews that came in binned it. Readers complained about being left in the dark, about its depressing nature, and about their upset over the lack of redemption or happiness for the key characters. Some of the most hardline fans said nothing at all, which was even more heartbreaking for me to bear. I felt as if I had let down those who had supported me through each publication.
And so I did what we are told we should never do: I went back and altered the ending to give the readers something closer to what they wanted. It is an opportunity that the digital publishing world offers that the paperback world never could – the ability for me to make a rapid change, and for buyers to obtain an updated and improved version of the book at no extra cost.
At the time of writing, the ending had made compete sense to me, but now I see why I was wrong. It is said a writer should have confidence in their writings, and enough of it not to make changes to the final script. But I say, why not have the confidence to accept I needed to learn and improve the way I write a book?
I’ve yet to receive many reviews of the new version of the book, but I am hopeful that the little extra work I put into it will reap some positive results.
Autoettes: The tiny cars of Avalon by Will Zeilinger
June 3, 2018 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as autoettes, cars, Catalina, mysteries, research
My wife, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, and I co-write the Skylar Drake Murder Mystery series, a hardboiled series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, Slick Deal, begins News Year’s Eve 1956 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, The first murder and clues lead to Avalon, Catalina.
While researching this island for 
our story, we discovered it exists a whole world apart from the car culture of Los Angeles which, if truth be known, does not provide a lot of incentive to bring a conventional automobile to the island when the wait is fourteen years.
Why would the wait be so long for an island just twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide? According to our unscientific research, cars and trucks were posing quite a problem for the residents and visitors to the island. Pollution, soaring fuel prices, traffic, and parking were causing the kind of environment most people came to the island to escape. So a limit of 800 “personal use” vehicles was imposed for the entire island.
Prior to this ordinance, many islanders had already switched from conventional vehicles to smaller modes of transportation, such as motor scooters, and “autoettes” which is the name for vehicles no more than ten feet long and four and a half feet wide. Most of these are electric or gasoline golf carts, and tiny Japanese commercial trucks and vans. Recently “Smart Cars” have begun to appear.
There are separate waiting lists for residential vehicles and commercial vehicles. Importing an autoette doesn’t provide any loopholes either. The vehicle waiting lists apply to both cars and autoettes.
While ferries travel from Los Angeles to Avalon daily, they accommodate passengers only. If you’re importing a vehicle, you have to arrange for private transportation
As a property owner or a potential property owner looking to import a personal vehicle to Catalina Island, all the restrictions make for a frustrating task, but it’s for the good of the island. Avalon currently (2017) has space to park fewer than 1,000 autoettes in the main downtown area. As there are already over 1,100 autoette permits issued for residents. Adding more would only create stress on the limited space. Even now, Avalon seems overrun by puttering rental golf carts, courtesy vans from hotels and local residents in their four-wheel drive pickups. But Catalina Island retains its laid-back air and restrictions like these keep the island from turning into the polluted perpetual traffic jam and parking nightmare that looms on the mainland.
In Slick Deal, you’ll see how Skylar Drake and Casey Dolan use the technology of the time to solve the mystery.
SLICK DEAL is the fourth in the series and yes…we are still married!
Website: Janet Elizabeth Lynn
Website: Will Zeilinger
Kat Martin – Romantic Suspense Author Extraordinaire!
June 2, 2018 by Jann Ryan in category Jann says . . . tagged as Kat Martin, new release, romantic suspense
New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara where she majored in Anthropology and also studied History. Currently residing in Missoula, Montana with her Western-author husband, L. J. Martin, Kat has written sixty-five Historical and Contemporary Romantic Suspense novels. More than sixteen million copies of her books are in print and she has been published in twenty foreign countries. Her last novel, Beyond Danger, hit #4 in Mass Market fiction on the Bookscan National Bestseller list.
Kat is currently at work on her next Romantic Suspense.
Several years ago I had the pleasure to meet Kat Martin. I was attending my first Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America meeting with two fellow writers. I knew very little about the organization and had no clue what to expect. To my surprise and delight while getting coffee at the refreshment table, I was greeted by none other than Kat Martin, one of my favorite authors. What made it more amazing was that I had just finished reading Gypsy Lord, her latest book, and never, ever thought I would actually meet her. Now here I am today in 2018, doing a Q & A with her. So, let’s get started.
Jann: You have a stellar list of Historical and Contemporary Romantic Suspense novels. May 30th, Beyond Control, the third book in the Texas Trilogy made its debut. How do you do it? How do you keep writing these wonderful books?
Kat: Thank you so much for the compliment. I really try hard to come up with good characters. I try to find a good plot and hope I can make it all come together. I will say it is getting harder and harder to come up with new and interesting stories. But I’ll keep doing my best!
Jann: Where did you get the idea for the Texas Trilogy – Beyond Reason, Beyond Danger, Beyond Control?
Kat: I never really know where an idea comes from. It’s just sort of not there one minute and there the next. It’s just a kernel of an idea to start with then it expands during the course of writing the novel.
Jann: Tell us about Joshua Cain and Victoria Bradford from Beyond Control.
Kat: Tory is a strong woman but she has been beat down by life, losing her husband, raising a child, then hooking up
with a very bad man. Josh is exactly the kind of guy Tory needs because he’s strong and supportive. Coming out of the war in Afghanistan, he’s had problems of his own, but Josh is tough enough to handle them. They made a great couple to write.
Jann: Victoria has a four-year-old daughter, Ivy. When working on your characters and the plot, how do you decide if you want to have a child in the story?
Kat: Putting a child in the story makes the book much more difficult to write–at least for me. I don’t have children so I have to rely on interactions I’ve had with other people’s children and my husband’s sons and grandkids. Usually the story just calls for kids or it doesn’t. I just kind of go with my instincts.
Jann: What profession other than your own would you love to attempt?
Kat: At this stage, there is nothing I want to do I haven’t done–except maybe travel more. I used to joke that if I could start over, I’d be an astrophysicist. I love astronomy. It would have been an exciting career.
Jann: What is one of the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
Kat: We stayed in a house on stilts in the middle of a violently flooding river. It was stupid and dangerous. We were lucky the house didn’t get swept away and drown us!
Jann: If you could travel back in time with whom would you like to meet and why?
Kat: Winston Churchill would be interesting. I’d also like to meet Margaret Thatcher, one of my personal heroes.
Jann: If a spaceship landed in your backyard and the aliens on board offered to take you for a ride, would you go? Why or why not?
Kat: I don’t think I’m ready for a spaceship ride. I’m a little too practical.
Jann: Do you ever run out of ideas? If so, how did you get past that?
Kat: I freak out when I run into an idea roadblock. Terrifying! I usually try to run through ideas with my husband. Just saying everything out loud often solves the problem. Sometimes going for a ride, taking a day off, going to the show will help. Anything to stir up fresh ideas.
Jann: How do you stay motivated? What drives you to keep writing?
Kat: I like the puzzle-solving aspect, the chance to be creative. Earning a living, of course, is part of the reason I write. I don’t think I would keep going if I had to work for free. I like getting rewarded for what I do. I love it when people like my books. That’s one of the best rewards.
Jann: It was great getting to catch up with you Kat and wish to thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any comments or questions for Kat, please use the comment form below.
Kat has a guest post here on A Slice of Orange, Writing Dialogue. You can also read Geralyn Corcillo’s Book Review: BEYOND CONTROL. And finally, here are all three books in Kat’s Texas Trilogy. If you hover over the cover images a buy link will show up. Happy reading.
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