writing

Updates on Publishing

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Another chilly Sunday in the Kawarthas and it’s April. At least the ground here is bare of snow for now.

I’ve been working for the last few weeks on re-editing The Facepainter Murders and I’m happy to say that the new, better version is up on Amazon and Create Space.

I’ve also explored some further advertising opportunities.

Bublish

I’m in the midst of a 2 week free trial with this company, in which a membership costs 99$ US a year. A lot, but that lets me upload all my books and get them before the thousands of people who follow the site. Every weekend, Bublish hosts a twitter campaign that ends with a virtual bookstore on Monday. Whichever bubbles(see below) are new the week before are featured.

The bubble includes an author biography, an extract from one of the books and an insight section. The latter is a short paragraph about what ever the author might think would interest a reader, such as an introduction to why the book was written or how the writer coped with a particular scene. I started with book 1 of my Dangerous Journeys series last week, wrote two bubbles and have had 187 views so far and 2 clicks thru to Amazon. I’ll see how it goes by Thursday.

Amazon Ads.

You know the books that appear below the one you have searched for on Amazon? Those lists result from Amazon Ads that are written by the author or publisher. Amazon runs a bidding programme so that each ad, once clicked upon, costs the author what she bid for placement of that particular ad. It’s not a great system. The results are delayed, sometimes by as much as six weeks and the sales are not in real time. However, the clicks data and the information about sales form Kindle Direct can help determine whether or not an ad is working.

Brian Meeks wrote a book on the subject called Mastering Amazon Ads, which is helpful although a bit confusing for a non-analyst(Brian is one). There is also a oa free course in the subject. You can find it here. I’m in the midst of both the book and the course and setting up ads. I think it’s useful to do all three in conjunction. Brian runs a Facebook group about the ads as well.

 

Launch in 2 days

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

A Superior Crime and other stories, a collection of five Anne McPhail Dangerous Journeys shorts plus seventeen others, launches on Feb. 13, 2018. This is the sixth publication of my company, From The River Publishing. For new readers, the others are:

Murderous Roots

The Facepainter Murders

No Motive for Murder

The Child on the Terrace

The Jewelled Egg Murders

See all of them at Amazon world-wide.

I’m re-editing all but The Jewelled Egg Murders. Murderous Roots is done, reissued and available on Amazon. It is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited as are all the others except The Jewelled Egg Murders. I’ll enroll it when a NetGalley subscription runs out in March.

In the early summer, From the River Publishing will bring out Painting of Sorrow, the story of a young woman hiding a brutal past who discovers a Caravaggio painting, long thought destroyed in the bombing of World War II Berlin. That discovery resurrects her past and brings both danger and love into her life.

This autumn, if all goes well, Stolen Children, the story of a young woman who exposes a criminal enterprise that kidnaps children and feeds them into the illegal adoption trade.

We’re expecting freezing rain today so indoors it is. That’s about all for a snowy Sunday in the Kawarthas.

Publishing, Cont.

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

A Superior Crime and other stories is set to go on Feb 13. at Amazon. Karen Phillips(PhillipsCovers) completed the final version for print and I think it’s terrific.

Anthology_5_25x8_final copysmall.jpg

I’m continuing with the re-edit of Murderous Roots and The Facepainter Murders. I completed No Motive for Murder some time ago. Only one to go after that—The Child on the Terrace.

Painting of Sorrow is back from the editors at Books Go Social with a gold mark of excellence. I have only a few corrections to make so perhaps it will be out in May rather than September.

I noticed discussion recently on some of the author sites I follow about writing programmes, editing and publishing.

Over the last year, I developed the following steps:

  1. Write in Scrivener.
  2. Export to Word as a docx file.
  3. Upload to Vellum.
  4. Edit chapter by chapter in Autocrit and Grammarly.
  5. Generate books from Vellum in all the formats available. The print version should be generated separately as it requires a different ISBN. Also, ISBNs for Smashwords differ from those at Kindle. Amazon doesn’t require an ISBN for books published on Kindle.
  6. Publish at Kindle and Create Space.
  7. Market. I use the book promoter service at Books Go Social and tweet with askDavid.

That’s about it for a snowy Sunday in the Kawarthas. We’re supposed to get 10cm more today and there’s about that much on the ground. Winter was hiding after all.

 

Writing projects update

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

I have four writing projects and one puppy project on the go for January and February. Cully, our new Standard Poodle puppy is banging at the door to get in. Puppy classes began a week ago and we are making some progress in sitting and standing.

Graphic designer Karen Phillips and I are working on the cover for Dangerous Journeys: A Superior Crime and other stories. I’ve finished editing and the launch date will be sometime in February after the manuscript makes it through the process at Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing. I still have to write the cover copy.

Painting of Sorrow, a stand-alone novel outside of the Dangerous Journeys series, is out for editing. I’ll work on getting it publication-ready through the summer and publish in September or October.

I re-edited Murderous Roots, book 1 in the series and I’m proofreading the hard copy now. I hope to finish that by the end of February.

The Facepainter Murders is at the beginning of the re-edit phase. It should be finished and republished by the end of March.

That’s about it for another Sunday in the Kawarthas. Mild and sunny today. Has winter left or is it hiding, waiting to pounce on us again.

 

Five Writing Plans, 2018

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I outline my upcoming projects. So far:

    1. Reedit the first 4 in the Dangerous Journeys series. I’ve completed No Motive for Murder and have 5 chapters to go in Murderous Roots. I hope to finish by the end of January and republish February 1.
    2. I’m working on a short-story collection that will be titled Dangerous Journeys: A Superior Crime and other stories. Some of the stories have been published, some not. Five of them are Anne McPhail adventures. I’m editing at the moment and plan to publish in mid-February although I’m behind in ordering a cover.
    3. The next in line is a novel called Painting of Sorrow. It is ready to go, but for the cover. Out March 1, I hope.
    4. I’ve been working off and on for several years on a book called Stolen Children. Major reedits needed on this one, so I doubt it will be ready until June 1.
    5. After that, I have 2 novels in very brief outline and I hope to plan a 6th in the Dangerous Journeys series. Perhaps a trip to France for Anne and Thomas. These three will take me well into 2019 or 2020

 

So that’s it for the next 6 months, If I get to #5 on target, I’ll start work on Finding Caelon (tentative title) a novel about a water war in a drought-ridden rural county.

That’s it for a grey morning in the Kawarthas. -28C with the wind chill.

 

To Press(continued)

/ ginny200 / 2 Comments

The proof copy of The Jewelled Egg Murders arrived last week. Proofreading revealed further work needed. That’s now complete and the final editions uploaded to Smashwords(for Kobo, iBooks, Barnes&Nobel, and others, Amazon, and Create Space.

JewelledEggcoverSmall

I’m working on my short story collection and, as well, a re-edit of Vols1,2,4 of Dangerous Journeys. I completed Vol. 3, No Motive for Murder, and published on Amazon and Create Space. Add managing and improving a backlist to the routine chores of a self-published author. And I still need to find time to write!

On a personal note, we met our new puppy on Saturday, a black female Standard Poodle who is very active and friendly.

IMG_0318She will come home the first week in December.

That’s all for a lovely winter’s day in  Kawartha Lakes.

Kindle Select Progress

/ ginny200 / 2 Comments

Two months ago, I decided to take my books into Kindle Select. Since that time, my sales have continued, although somewhat lower than my best month. However, the pages read in Kindle Unlimited have made up for the lack of sales and extended my readership, so I am pleased with the result.

The Jewelled Egg Murders is on track for release on December 1. I haven’t decided about taking it into Kindle Select, although doing so would give me more options for sales and promotions. My current chore is proofreading.

Steps in Editing and Proofreading.

  1. I reviewed the manuscript in Autocrit, correcting as I went.

2.  I ran it through Grammarly.

3.  I submitted it to Books Go Social for their Quality Mark programme. The manuscript received a Gold Mark, but the reviewer noted that it needed further proofreading. As well, she found a mix of British and American spellings, i.e. Canadian. She suggested I choose one, but I prefer to write in Canadian English.

4.  I used Word for Mac 2016 to identify spelling and grammatical errors. Word does allow one to choose Canadian English as the default.

5.  Now, I shall upload to Vellum and use its proofreading tool.

Why not engage a professional proofreader? Cost.

I shall rely on Books Go Social for most of my marketing efforts and turn my attention to the next book.

I have a collection of short stories in mind, five of which are Anne McPhail adventures and the remainder Dangerous Journeys of other kinds. Taking a page from Agatha Christie, I could expand one of them into a novel as she did with her short story, Yellow Iris.

That’s all for today from the beautiful Kawartha Lakes.

Kindle Select, first month

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Sixteen days ago, I pulled my books from all other sites and enrolled them in Kindle Select. A few observations:

My sales have plummeted. I hadn’t had a day with 0 sales since I took over the publishing of my books, but since enrolling in Kindle Select, no sales on four days.

Pages read have replaced some of those lost sales. My readers are strong users of Kindle Unlimited, but unless the earned per page royalty is higher than July’s .00402, it won’t replace those sales.

In fairness, I haven’t used the promotional tools yet, although I have a promotion on Murderous Roots scheduled for October and will use the available promotions for the other books, including the boxed set of Dangerous Journeys, in November as part of the launch of The Jewelled Egg Murders.

Sixteen days don’t make a trend, but those 0 days were a shock. The question now is what to do about The Jewelled Egg Murders. In Select or out?

 

Choosing Kindle Select

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Another Sunday, another beautiful day here in the Kawarthas. I’m working on a revision of The Jewelled Egg Murders and as always on marketing.

I decided this week to enroll all my books and the boxed set in Kindle Select after they had been in Kindle plus Smashwords for six months. My receipts from Amazon have been steady although not spectacular and from Smashwords, nil.

Removing my books from other ebook sites should have been easy and indeed all it took was a few clicks at Smashwords. I checked around the net to ensure that they were indeed no longer offered at Kobo et al and then did a further few clicks at Kindle Direct Publishing and it was done.

The benefits I hope to see in the three months period of exclusivity include an income stream from the borrowed books, increased exposure at Amazon, and the facility to run discounted or free periods in the lead-up to release of The Jewelled Egg Murders. I will keep the latter out of the boxed set for a period of time.

I had the usual fear that no one would bother to access the books on Kindle Unlimited but so far more the page read count is above 3000(in 2 days). As far as I can determine from checking information around the net Amazon pays about 0.005 US cents per page, with a limit of 3000 pages per book per customer.

Next, I have to use some of the promotional tools available to Kindle Select books. I hope that the exposure will create interest and readers prior to the release of The Jewelled Egg Murders.

After The Jewelled Egg Murders, I’m planning to release a collection of short stories, five of them Dangerous Journeys adventures, and others that have been published over the years.

In 2018, I plan to release two books, neither of which are in the series.

That’s about it for this September Sunday.Dangerous-Journeys-Kindle

 

Publishing Journey: Boxed Set

/ ginny200 / 4 Comments

Summer’s over, unless we get a spell of warm weather in September. Like so much in 2017, it came and went so quickly we almost missed it.

I’ve been writing and editing my next Anne McPhail novel, The Jewelled Egg Murders, these past few months and the end is now in sight. At least, I hope it is. My projected date for publishing is November 1, 2017 and I need to get advanced reading copies out before then. This business of working for yourself is great but the deadlines loom regardless of who sets them.

Before I publish The Jewelled Egg Murders, I’ve gathered my first four books to form a boxed set of e-books at Amazon.com, .ca, etc. Look for it as Dangerous Journeys Vols. 1-4.

Dangerous-Journeys-KindleI used Vellum for this task as well. This was amazingly easy and no rejects from Kindle Direct because of formatting or other issues. I can’t say enough about this programme. Tasks that took as a long as a month to get through, now take minutes. Well worth the cost.

Marketing, as always, must be done but I enroll my books at Books Go Social, Laurence O’Bryan’s terrific business in Dublin, Eire. Reasonable rates and terrific results.

That’s about it for today. Do check out Dangerous Journeys Vols. 1-4 and let me know what you think. Cover art as always by Karen Phillips of PhillipsCovers.