Friday, September 28, 2012

IT'S ALIVE! (But doesn't have a face)

Hooray! Apprentice Swordceror is now ready for purchase on Amazon here. It still does not have a cover, but that should be remedied shortly. I've got everybody and their dog working on that. Excited to get it out there and see what people think, diving into the sequel, and seeing what it will take to fan this out into additional distribution channels. But first: a nap.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Tuesday Tip: September 25th

Marketing, self-promotion, social networking. If you’re going to target or build an audience for your work, these tools are a necessary evil.
I know we would all rather be writing, or on the flip side, we should want to be writing instead of devoting excessive amounts of time to these secondary activities. The question is, how much time to spend on them, and where is that time most effective?
These terms are generally interchangeable, with Marketing having a more fiscally-connected connotation. But it’s all Marketing. Whether you are at a book signing, purchasing advertising, or tweeting about your latest chapter, you’re marketing your product, and yourself.
How much time and money do you spend on marketing? It depends. Where are you in the lifecycle of your product? Naturally, you are not going to spend much time when you first begin writing, you’re wrapped up in your story, as you should be. When you are nearing completion of your first draft, you find yourself talking to everyone about it. This is important self-promotion, priming your warm market. Then when you have your work polished and ready for submission, you build a website, and start trying to drive traffic to it from your existing social networks. These are all reasonable steps in the progression of your book.
But it is a delicate balance. Some writers can get caught up in their own hype, and spend more time Facebooking than writing. Others might overspend on ineffective advertising for a product they have not had properly prepared. Some writers choose to avoid marketing, or even publishing altogether, and have multiple volumes of a series lying in boxes, never to see the light of day. These are extremes you want to avoid.
First, have a professional with no vested interest in your work look it over. It may not even be worth pursuing. If that is the case, step back, evaluate whether or not you want to continue down this path. Take a few classes, rework, and resubmit. If your writing is worthwhile, have it edited. Friends are good for reading and catching some mistakes, but unless they are professionals, don’t treat them as such. I saw the episode of M.A.S.H. where they saved a guy’s life by jamming a pen in his throat, but I wouldn’t want me attempt it. It’s the same thing with your work. If it is valuable, treat it as such, spend the time and money to refine it.
Next, backburner your marketing efforts, but have them within arm’s reach. Log on and check your social media, but when you set aside time to write, log off and keep that time free of distraction. As you near certain points in the book’s progress, you may want to shift more time toward marketing, but be realistic. If your writing suffers, extra marketing may get you initial sales, but poor reviews and lower total revenue.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Tuesday Tip: September 18th.

Organization, or more specifically, the lack thereof, has been the downfall of more than one potential author. While keeping organized is a task that itself takes time away from your primary goals, if done correctly, can focus your efforts beyond what you would normally accomplish.
There are several tools that can aid in the task of organization, depending on your situation. This week, I am going to focus on my two favorite: The Kindle ‘My Checklist’ program, and ‘Microsoft One Note’.
I discovered the Kindle ‘My Checklist’ program shortly after getting my Kindle. It’s a free download from Kindle Direct, and is fairly simple to use. You can create up to 25 checklists, with up to 50 items per list. It’s useful for grocery lists, inventory management, various to-do lists, etc. This is, of course, assuming you have a Kindle device, or the ability to run Kindle apps on another portable device.
The other useful program I use is Microsoft OneNote. It is a program I have seen on computers I have used before, but I had never opened it until a few months ago. It allows you to organize different document types in various pages, sub-pages, and tabs. There is still a lot of functionality I have yet to discover, but it has already replaced my Kindle lists for my writing. I have a ‘Writing’ tab in my notebook, and the top page has Projects, Goals, and Action Items. In the Projects section of that page, I have links to different documents I am working on, reducing the need to navigate through my folders, while still keeping the different document types and projects separate in my filing structure. Under that, on the left-hand side, I have goals, each with tagged with different priorities, labeled with general time frames. On the right side, I have Action Items - broken down tasks that move me closer to my goals. These are also tagged by priority.
One important thing to remember is time management. Personally, I do not have a great deal of time to devote to my writing, the marketing or other developmental aspects of the publishing ordeal that still need attended to. I need to maximize every minute that I do set aside for these purposes. For that reason, I have a shortcut to OneNote in the startup folder on my working computer. I boot it up, log in, and hop to my current project from my Project links. If I am not feeling inspired to write, I tab back over, and see if there is anything else that I can complete on my Action Item lists. If I think of something that I need to do, I can add it without a second thought. All of my notes on world-building, character profiles, timelines, future plots, and societal organizations within the world my novels are set in have been pulled into my notebook and organized in tabs. It’s a little bit of work at the beginning, but when you have a time budget of approximately 70 minutes per day to spend on a venture, you’d better make it count.
So get organized! Try and put this to use in your endeavors, and let me know how it works.
Next week, I’ll talk about what it takes to get noticed, and the drastic measures I’m considering.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Tuesday Tips

New Blog feature: Tuesday Tips! Learn from my mistakes in this weekly posting. Next week's topic: Organization.

Monday, September 10, 2012

LEO Listens.

Just went down to he Ontario Public Library to check out their online lending system for Kindle. It looks like methods may vary from system to system. I will post directions for the Ontario system, and research a little more,maybe add some relevant links.

Asked about what they had for local author promotions, and it turns out they are organizing a Local Authors Night in October, either the 23rd or 25th at around 7pm. Hopefully the 23rd, so I will be able to attend.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Q & A

It was brought to my attention yesterday that some people have had a difficult time finding my blog. I'll try and fix that.
I also thought it would be a  good opportunity to answer any questions people might have if they're looking over the site.
If you're curious about something, just ask. I'm going to be monitoring things more closely as I get closer to the release date for volume 1.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Artwork Update

Drove up to Weiser to take a gander at the cover art Mike is working on. Looks very promising even in pencil. Can't wait to see it in color.

Bravo!

Found out my Editor was back east screening his film, checked it out on his site. Added links to his site and the Bravo! site. Can't wait to see it.