Imperfect Date-#DumpsterFireLove
February 10, 2023 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Writing tagged as #dimpsterfirelove, imperfect date, new releaseWhat happens when a girl meets a guy over a literal dumpster fire? #HeartsAblaze. My latest story in the #HermosafortheHolidays series released Tuesday in the Imperfect Date collection with a total of 22 stories by some amazing authors!
The story was really fun for me to write. It was great to be back in my make-believe Hermosa Beach with all of the characters that I now feel are my friends. The hero in this story is Rob Greer, who you might remember from #12DancingSantas. I had so many people ask me for a story for Rob, that when the opportunity came up to write for this collection, I thought it was Rob’s turn.
I had so much fun writing this story! And just an insiders note. Knight, Cassie’s dog, is really our family pet, Knight. He’s been gone for a few years and I miss him terribly, so this was a way to spend some time with him again. There’s a scene in the book from real life. When we got Knight, we lived in Wyoming and he had lots of open space. We brought him to California where we lived in a townhouse for a few years with no yard. I won’t tell you anymore, but the scene is both funny…and a little sad, and I had to include it in the story.
Here’s the Blurb for #DumpsterFireLove.
So you think your love life is a #dumpsterfire…
Cassie Harper’s first day as a teacher starts with a dumpster fire, her longtime boyfriend dumps her, then she’s kidnapped by a couple of her new colleagues who insist they’re trying to protect her. Now the whole town has her set up with the hunky fireman who put out the dumpster fire.
Rob Greer is on his way home from work when he spots a dumpster fire at Beachwood Elementary School. The new teacher, is trying to put it out with her water bottle. She’s cute, and he’d love to ask her out, but when a photo of them putting out the fire together goes viral, things get complicated.
Can a dumpster fire set two hearts ablaze? Will social media fan the flames, or dampen the embers? Only chocolate, wine…and new girlfriends can help her now!
This story and all of the stories in the book are a perfect way to spend your Valentine’s week! Hope you’ll check out Imperfect Date!
Hope you have a little romance in your Valentine’s week (you can always find it in a book)!
Do You Need More Time for All Your Goals? by Kitty Bucholtz
February 9, 2023 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Online Class, Planning, time management, writing, Writing Plans
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Every year, when I write down all of my goals, the list contains enough stuff to last several years. And after I trim it down to the essentials, it’s still almost definitely more than I can accomplish in the next 12 months. But I always want to try! Haha!
Do you have a lot on your mind and in your heart to do in 2023? I’m with you, friend! But there’s a saying attributed to the famous American businessman, Peter Drucker: “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”
So let’s work together and both achieve more this year than we did last year! We’ll write down our goals AND how we’re going to measure them. As we keep track, we can look for ways to improve what we’re doing — and get more done.
And not just “stuff.” If you’re looking for someone to help you get off the couch and clean the house every Saturday, there are better people out there to help you with that. 😉 I’m talking about looking at the next 10-12 months and focusing on the most important things to you — finishing and publishing one or more books, helping your daughter plan her wedding, gain some muscle and lose some fat, do something from your bucket list.
I teach a class that’s helped hundreds of writers over the last two decades to get more writing done. Going the Distance: Time and Project Management for Writers. And with my new and improved version, we’ll look at my WHOLE PATH System to working on your whole life, not just writing in a vacuum.
The class will be online and self-paced, so you don’t have to show up at a certain time. But as a bonus, I’ll offer 4 live Q&A sessions during February and March. If you can’t make it live, you can send me your question and I’ll answer it so you can watch the recording.
Now is the time to get focused on what’s most important to you. And starting February 20, you can get the help you need to write more with less stress and more peace and joy this year!
I’ve created a couple short videos on my YouTube channel to help you in the meantime. The first is Easy Planning for the 3 Most Important Things in Your Life, and the second is Micro- vs. Macro-Planning. I hope you find them useful and encouraging!
And I hope to see you in class! 😀
Featuring Kidd Wadsworth, Author of the Month
February 7, 2023 by Kidd Wadsworth in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as Featured Author of the Month, kidd wadsworth
Kidd Wadsworth writes to bring to life our magical, fire-breathing world. She believes we are super heroes. It’s time we put on our capes.
You can read Kidd’s monthly column, Infused with Meaning, here on the 25th of every month. More information about Kidd is found on her website, make sure you take the time to read her “about me” section.
A selection of books that include Kidd’s short stories.
Still Groundhog Day?
February 6, 2023 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as distractions, edits, recurrence, writing
It’s now the second month of 2023. Do things keep recurring to you, as they do with me—kind of an ongoing Groundhog Day, even though that was four days ago this year.
But as I’ve mentioned before, it’s another busy year for me. At the moment, I’m working on edits for two of the books I’ll have out later this year. Edit, after edit, after edit. Yes, a recurrence of edits, though they’re for different stories.
And then I have more books to write, and at the moment they’re all in series that have already begun. Yes, another similar, but different, recurrence in my writing.
Hey, though. I like them all, and that’s just the way things are for me now. Different, yet in some ways recurring.
That, plus my puppy Roxie just had her first birthday, and I love paying attention to her and our older dog Cari. Distractions from my writing? Definitely, as I’ve mentioned before. But happy ones. And delightfully recurring ones.
How about you? What recurs in your life and your writing?
~ Linda
Some of Linda’s Books
List Building
February 5, 2023 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed
Happy February or Love month. I think this is unofficially the romance novel lovers holiday.
Let’s get right to it. I’m not sharing my goals list this year for one reason. I haven’t firmed them up.
This year my post will consist of a little of this and a little of that.
I apologize if this next statement is redundant. When I started my writing career, I didn’t know anything about marketing. I thought you wrote a book, loaded it to Amazon and an influx of sales would appear from the people I never marketed to were just waiting for my book.
It took awhile for me to learn I needed a tribe…followers…subscribers. It wasn’t until around my second or third release did I learn about newsletters. I did a few courses, webinars and read some blog posts on the subject of newsletter building.
I set up a Facebook ad along with a free download and started growing my list. I went from a few hundred to three thousand plus. I don’t know why, but I turned the ad off. Then I tried a few other list building options with some success. My list was growing and I figured it was just be a matter of time for my tribe to be five thousand strong. A number I felt was respectable. Then I started following some really big romance authors, going to conferences, doing more webinars and got a shock. Five thousand subscribers was good, but it was more on the low side. I’m not knocking anyone with a list of five thousand or less, because that’s where I am. At it’s highest my list was around 4400+.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen a major decline in my mailing list. I took another course and remember the teacher saying every time you send an email, you’ll lose some people. How not comforting when you’re trying to build your list. I think I got lax in sending my newsletter because every time I sent a newsletter, I fell victim to subscriber loss. If this continued, in a matter of months my list would be almost non-existent.
I have approximately 1000 people on my list who have opted not to receive email. I think they forgot to check the box to receive email. If anyone has a solution for how to engage them or make them email receivers, please send it to me.
If I wanted to get to my desired number, I needed to do something. I started researching NL swaps, list builders, anything that would help grow my list. There was just one little problem when it came to some of the larger or premium list swaps, low subscriber count knocked me out. I can’t be upset because it only made sense. Why would someone with 20k subs want to swap with someone who only had 3k? That plan was shot to poo poo.
New year same goal, get my list to 10,000 subscribers by the end of the year. I know it’s a lofty goal, but achievable. At the start of the year, my list was 3014 newsletter subscribers. This doesn’t include the 1000 who don’t want to receive emails.
I needed a plan that didn’t cost a lot of money. Apart from Facebook ads and the occasional NL swap, I needed something a little more aggressive. I did some research and discovered Book Funnel. I don’t know how I hadn’t tried their promotions. I’ve used Book Funnel to send ARCs and gifts.
I discovered people had great results with Book Funnel promotions. Plus, the promos were free. How did I not know about this valuable tool? Easy. I never activated the link for newsletter promotions and sales on my account.
In order to do reach my goal, I needed 6986 new subscribers. That’s I needed approximately 583 new subscribers per month for a year.
Here’s my plan…join five Book Funnel promotions a month until I reach my goal. On December 31st my first campaign launched and the others started on January 1st. I checked the numbers several times a day, because I’m a little obsessive. Things were moving along well. Then I sent out a couple of emails and like normal, I lost a few people. I didn’t freak out, because I was gaining new subscribers from the Book Funnel promotions.
In the month of January, the five promotions averaged 30 new subs a day. If I kept up that pace, I’d exceed my goal. As of this post, I have acquired 1100+ new subscribers.
Why am I so adamant about building my list is purely selfish. Building my social media is important, but if those platforms shut down I lose access to the platform’s followers. Remember the Facebook breakdown last year? No access to those readers for a brief period. Imagine if that breakdown had lasted longer. Those followers would be lost to me because they aren’t my people, but the platform’s. My mailing list belongs to me no matter what happens.
A larger list is also the gateway to more sales. I did some hypothetical math and realized if I had a larger mailing list, there was a good likelihood I’d have more preorders from my list. More preorders equals more money.
I have a few questions for you.
How’s your mailing list?
Are you pleased with your mailing list? If not, what are you doing to build your list?
See you next month.
~Tracy
Tracy’s Books
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