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Romance Novel Convention – and Free Book

August 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Unexpected Superhero

Adventures in Vegas

Today Iâ€™m at the Romance Novel Convention in Las Vegas. Itâ€™s been an exciting adventure so far! But not necessarily all good. To start out, our poor little car died four miles from the hotel. FOUR MILES! See the picture on my Facebook Author Page.

By the time I realized that it didnâ€™t just need to cool down, it needed professional help (no comments on that, please!), the local garages had all closed. Iâ€™ve been a AAA member since I got my driverâ€™s license, and for the first time in 27 years, they couldnâ€™t help me. I was shocked and starting to get a little panicky because I came to town alone.

But God, my awesome personal superhero, came to my rescue! A couple of friends helped me figure out a game plan and I got to my hotel with a change of clothes and my laptop, leaving the car and all my belongings where they were. The next morning, my brother called me out of the blue (anyone want to rent a Wyndham timeshare in Vegas for Labor Day weekend? Heâ€™s got one available that they canâ€™t use) and suddenly my big brother was at my rescue again. I felt like I was 16! It was wonderful!

Rescued!

Several of my friends were praying hard for everything to turn out okay and it did! One sent money to take care of unexpected expenses. My brother told the auto repair facility that he wanted to pay for the car repairs. (I should get the fixed car back any moment! Woo-hoo!!) The AAA guys were super friendly and unloaded all my stuff into their courtesy shuttle and got me and all my boxes of books to my hotel.

And then when the convention started, I immediately met several people that Iâ€™m so glad I found! Another Christian woman who is also trying to entertain her readers while keeping her stories in her own world view; a sweet model with the nicest smile who I hope to work with on my next book cover; a really nice, smart woman who started up her own marketing firm for writers; and a woman who makes covers I adore! Plus Iâ€™m finally able to take time to get to know another friend a lot better. Iâ€™m so excited!

Saturday is the book signing, so if youâ€™ll be in Vegas, stop by the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino on Fremont Street from 11am to 2pm. Then Iâ€™ll be at the Author/Reader Meet and Greet from 3 to 5.

Book Signing in Traverse City

Iâ€™m excited to announce that Iâ€™ve confirmed another book signing! This one will be Saturday, September 7^th from 3 to 4pm at Horizon Books in Traverse City, Michigan. This signing will be particularly special because I grew up with my mom taking us to Horizon Books every time we went to town, whether we needed something or not. This is practically a childhood dream come true! (Iâ€™d never dared to dream as a child that I could grow up to be an author one day.)

Unexpected Superhero is Free

Remember â€“ and tell all your friends â€“ that Unexpected Superhero will be available for free for five days starting this Saturday, August 10! Woo-hooo!!!

Itâ€™s a Kindle exclusive now, so you need a Kindle or a Kindle app. (I found out the new Nook now has a Kindle app on it! And you can download one for your iPad or smart phone as well as your computer.) I hope to have the book loaded up on all the other ebook vendor sites (Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Sony, iTunes, Kobo, etc.) on Labor Day weekend. It may show up a few days (or weeks, for Apple) later, but keep an eye out for it.

Happy Reading!

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, came out in 2011. Her new novel, Unexpected Superhero, book one in The Adventures of Lewis & Clarke humorous urban fantasy series, is now available in print and ebook format. Love at the Fluff and Fold, book one in The Strays of Loon Lake romantic comedy series, will be released later this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.

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Do You Have an Email Newsletter? by Kitty Bucholtz

July 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Author promotion, It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Tim Grahl, Unexpected Superhero

With my new book, Unexpected Superhero, out last month, I am reading the perfect marketing book. It’s called Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl. I’ve been following Tim via his company, Out:think, for a year or more. The company works with writers to sell more books and become more successful.

The book came out two weeks ago and I’m halfway through it. So far, the most compelling piece of information is the incredibly strong argument for writers to have an email newsletter. And not just to have one (I sent out my first newsletter two weeks ago! Woo-hoo!), but to have a robust list, focusing more on email followers than Facebook or Twitter followers.

One of Tim’s examples is of an author whose analytics show that for every book she sold via Facebook and Twitter posts, she sold fifty due to her email newsletters. Fifty! Tim also reminds us that no matter what is happening with the various social media outlets, we will always have the contact information we collect via our newsletters. If Facebook changes this or that policy, if Twitter makes a change, we can lose contact with all of our fans. Snap! Just like that.

The other thing Tim emphasizes several times is that our newsletters need to be “relentlessly helpful.” Think about that. Relentlessly helpful. What does that mean to you? More importantly, what does that mean to your readers? What kind of information would be in my newsletter that would cause subscribers to not only read every issue, but hit the Buy Now button when I have a new book out? What kind of newsletter would do that with your readers?

If you’re looking for a good book on marketing your new book, I think you should try Your First 1000 Copies. I’m getting a lot out of it, and I think you will, too.

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Love and Marriage and All That Madness by Kitty Bucholtz

May 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Little Miss Lovesick, Louisa Bacio, Moonlit Encounters, Romancing the Pages, Unexpected Superhero

It’s funny how many accidents create ah-ha moments. What would we do without penicillin and Post-It notes?

I’ve been trying to figure out for two years how to write interesting, entertaining blog posts that are similar enough to my book-writing style to encourage blog readers to become book readers. Then last month I had an ah-ha moment.

I’d written a funny article for the OCC RWA newsletter encouraging people to sign up to enter or judge the Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers. Then I wrote a funny guest post on Louisa Bacio’s blog about How Hotel Sex Turned Me Into a Romantic Comedy Writer. I mentioned to several people that I love writing this kind of silly fun article, but I didn’t have an outlet for it anymore.

D’oh! Yes, I did! Um, blog, sitting there, waiting for me to be brilliant!

So this week I started a new column on Mondays called Marriage Madness. Since I write stories with fun romances in them, and since Sunday was my (gasp!) 23rd wedding anniversary, it seemed like I’d finally found an interesting and entertaining topic that might lead my blog readers to my books.

Whether my tactic will work remains to be seen. But I’m having such fun writing about all the good, bad, and hilarious things that I’ve seen in marriage! Coming up will be the “tornadoes in trailer parks” story, the “will she walk into that light pole” story, the “65 days of no cooking” story, the “how to never argue” story, and many more.

If you’ve met my husband, John, you’ll understand in about a minute and a half why I write romances – and why all my heroes are tall, dark, and sexy – I mean, handsome! 😉 And if you haven’t met him yet, you’ll feel you know him pretty quickly when you read about his shenanigans.

If you like reading fun, romantic stories, stop by Marriage Madness every Monday. And if you’re a writer trying to figure out how to write blog posts your potential book readers would be interested in…well, I suggest you look for something to trip over. 😉

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released May/June 2013, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.

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WonderCon: My First Comic Book Convention

April 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, WonderCon

I’ve been wanting to go to a comic book convention for a long time, probably since I first starting writing my own superhero novel. Last month, I finally got to go! My husband John took me to WonderCon in Anaheim. It was so much fun!

Of course, the first thing you notice (after trying to stay in a good mood for the hour it took to park in Anaheim) is all the people in costume. There were so many different kinds of characters with costumes that went from homemade to super-wow! My geek factor isn’t deep enough for me to be able to recognize who everyone was, but there were a lot of Doctor Who characters, lots of manga-like girls, lots of superheroes (of course!), and a quite a few steampunk costumes. And lots of other things that I couldn’t figure out.

Tom King, author of A ONCE CROWDED SKY, and me

John told me I should walk around the booths at the Expo and talk to authors who had tables there, find out if it was worth the time and expense. I had about half a dozen business cards in my wallet; I figured that would cover meeting the other writers. Boy, was I wrong. There were a lot of writers there! Some who wrote mostly novels, some who wrote mostly comic books, and some who wrote both. I ran out of business cards long before I ran out of writers to talk to.

I’ve been to enough RWA conferences, both regional and national, to know the rhythm and to fit myself into the flow. There are lots of reasons why that is a good thing, but you no longer walk around with saucer eyes. At WonderCon, I was definitely Saucer-Eyed Girl! It was a totally new experience. Everything I saw made me think differently about stories, writers, and readers.

If you’ve been in your usual groove for a while, it’s time to go see the world differently. Go to a different kind of conference or expo for a day. See who’s out there buying comic books, buying boats, doing brain surgery. If nothing else, watch YouTube videos on something you know nothing about. (I just watched one about how the length of your chromosomes may determine how much life expectancy you have left.)

New experiences literally change how your brain makes connections. I’ve been reading a lot of books on brain science in the last year. Want to change your brain? Improve its function? Even read something way outside your known world. All these things improve your ability to see the world differently. That’s not only fun, it’s good for your writing.

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released soon, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.

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Your Authentic YOU

March 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, Little Miss Lovesick, Moonlit Encounters, Right-Brain Business Plan, Romancing the Pages, Unexpected Superhero

Over the last few months, I’ve been getting a ton of coaching and encouragement from Jennifer Lee and all my new friends in the Right-Brain Business Plan mentorship program. We’ve learned so much, but the two things that have hit me hardest are:

Fail fast and often if you must, but JUST DO IT
Be your authentic self and it will lead to success

Both of them have a bit of the “scary” in the proposed action!

I am one who tends not to try something rather than risk failing at it. At least I used to be that person. Recently, I’ve jumped into some things that I had been waiting on before, waiting for when I had more time or more money or more knowledge. I started a newsletter. I made a video. I promised to teach a class this summer called “Restart” that only exists in my head so far.

But the second piece that bit me hard and won’t let go is this idea of being your authentic self. I’ve been very slowly working in that direction since I graduated from high school. I wasn’t a big fan of “me” at the time. I figured when I went away to college, no one would know who I was so I could create a new and improved “me.” I’d guess this is pretty common for young people. 🙂

I’m pretty happy with myself in general now, but I’m still a “good girl.” I mostly stick to the rules, I look for ways to help others, even at my own expense, and I try to keep a lid on the things people say they don’t want to know about.

But that isn’t completely authentic, is it? I’ve compartmentalized myself to a degree, and I don’t always like it. For one thing, it’s hard to remember what I allow myself to say when I’m with this group of people versus that group. Some of that holding back is good because I prefer not to offend my friends. 🙂 Other times, I’m not sure there is any benefit to following the crowd.

This past week I made a decision to stop trying to keep the spiritual side of myself out of my business, out of my web site, out of my social media presence. I’d been trying my best to follow the “don’t talk about religion or politics” rule in my business (writing), but it wasn’t working that well anyway. It was like telling me I can talk about any part of my body except my left foot. It’s a part of me, necessary for normal living, and great for having fun (dancing, skipping, foot massages).

I followed that rule partly because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I don’t want my friends to think I’m a Jesus freak, afraid that I might try to baptize them when they aren’t looking. Neither do I want them to think I’m just playing at being a Christian, that it’s not real to me because I use bad language sometimes, and have sex and violence in some of my books.

For the last fifteen years, I’ve not entirely fit into the romance writers world, where I’m probably seen as a bit of a prude, nor the Christian fiction market, where I’m probably seen as too worldly and a bit shocking. The answer to why my books haven’t sold to traditional publishing houses lies here. I’ve spent these years overcoming my worry that my writing is too diluted for any market. It’s true that I don’t have enough sex and steaminess for most of the popular romance lines and subgenres. And I don’t have the right storytelling mix for the Christian market either.

But there is a market for my books. I’m just calling them Kitty books now. 🙂 They are about women like me who live lives similar to mine, who worry about the things I worry about, and care about the things I care about.

On Monday, I posted to my blog that I am going to start being my real, authentic, whole self. The last part of me that has felt like it has to stay partly hidden is my spiritual side. So I’m going to stop trying to keep God out of the public side of my business life just because I don’t want to offend anyone. I know my books will offend some of my Christian friends and some of my non-Christian friends. But I’m going to be real now, more so than I’ve ever been.

I’m not a shock-jock; I won’t try to offend people just to make an impact. But I’m not going to be afraid to say, “I love Jesus! He rocks!” or “I love sex! It’s the best thing God ever made!” (Well, I might still be nervous about it, but I’m going to do it anyway if I feel like it!) I’m going to be wholly me for a change.

And like the characters in my books, “me” will definitely change and grow with time. But I think the changes and growth are going to be more wonderful than they ever could’ve been before I made this decision. I’m a little scared of what mean things people will say (because we all know that happens). I’m a little nervous that I’ll lose my nerve. But mostly I’m getting more excited every day!

The comments on my blog post are so encouraging and come from so many different kinds of people that I can’t help but want to reach out and encourage others to take a step toward being their most authentic self. If you aren’t yet the person you want to be, if you’re holding something back, consider letting go! Integrate all the parts of yourself. Be real.

Be your authentic YOU!

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released March 28, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.