A Goal Set- And Why Promotion is So Hard

It's good to have goals. Goals keep you moving forward, give you something to strive toward, and provide incentive to work harder. 

The Chicago Cubs made their goal of winning the World Series last year. I think I can give myself a kick and try and achieve something just for me. 

I've been rather lax on promoting my Birth of Saints series lately. It goes against the grain to beg people to read my books, as epic fantasy isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea. (Though those who give it a try are pleasantly surprised.) I'm much more comfortable working for other folks and using my contests to try and match writers with agents, or reading and promoting for friends' books. Much easier to speak up for others than for myself. I've been told that's quite a common feeling.

Self-promotion seems like a mixture of bragging and being selfish and we've been trained since forever to put others first. By we, I mostly mean ladies. We're supposed to give, not receive. Take care of others and neglect ourselves. Not shout about our accomplishments from the roof tops. 

But hey, "I GOT AN EPIC FANTASY SERIES PUBLISHED BY A BIG 5 AND IT'S AMAZING!!" (Yes, that was hard to do.)

I'm setting my goal small and manageable in hopes it inspires me to keep going. I want to see if I can get 11 more ratings on Goodreads for GRUDGING by June. That will take the overall number to 100, which is a nice round number.

Just a small goal to help me work toward getting over my reluctance to promote.

Total bonus if the ratings include some honest reviews or get copied to Amazon or elsewhere. Even better if it results in some new fans. You never know, it might help me feel a little better about promoting my own writing. 

So deep breath. Here goes. I'll be checking back in with my progress. Here's the blurb and some links in case you want to help out. And if you have this same problem speaking out and self-promoting, I'd love to hear how you get over that feeling. 

A world of chivalry and witchcraft…and the invaders who would destroy everything.

The North has invaded, bringing a cruel religion and no mercy. The ciudades-estados who have stood in their way have been razed to nothing, and now the horde is before the gates of Colina Hermosa…demanding blood.

On a mission of desperation, a small group escapes the besieged city in search of the one thing that might stem the tide of Northerners: the witches of the southern swamps.

The Women of the Song.

But when tragedy strikes their negotiations, all that is left is a single untried knight and a witch who has never given voice to her power. And time is running out.

A lyrical tale of honor and magic, Grudging is the opening salvo in the Book of Saints trilogy.

Find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Goodreads

  

Marketing Your Novel: Promo Tips from a Newish Author

Hi everyone – so I’m a newish author with a YA dystopian book (published by a small press) that’s been out in the market for six months now (has it really been that long already—wow!). Anyway, all I have to say after six months is that if you think writing is hard…well, promo is at least TWICE as hard (at least it has been for me so far).

Now, this post isn’t a “how you should market your book” post. Far from it, actually. I admit it, as much as I’ve delved whole-heartedly into the whole promo thing, I’m still learning the ropes, even after six months. After all, it’s a gigantic topic with an overwhelming abundance of info you can find all over the Internet—it can be exhausting just to try to research and sift through it all.

So…rather than go through an incredibly long list of alllllll the types of marketing/promo you can do for your book (in fact, I’ll list a few of the absolute necessities right now that I’ve heard countless times on industry sites and blogs: have a website, create business cards with your book on it, find the social media applications your readers use the most and interact with them, etc.), I thought it would be fun to list a few things that I know for a fact have led to at least a few sales and/or have expanded my book’s presence in the marketplace.

1. Find Facebook reading promo groups that deal specifically with your book’s genre and post in them about your book (be sure to include the buy link). There are TONS of reading groups on Facebook, but after posting in a lot of them, I found that hardly any sales resulted (very sad, I know). The only exception was when I posted in the very few groups that deal specifically with my genre. Not only did my posting in those groups result in sales, the readers were the only ones who even reacted to my post at all—and they were EXCITED to hear about/read my book. Interestingly, it was the groups that deal with the dystopian genre that got the most response, rather than the age category of young adult (at least for my book, anyway).

2. Locate (or establish if it’s not already) your book on Goodreads, and then start adding it to groups that deal with your genre in the listopia function. If you’re not familiar with listopia, it’s comprised of a bunch of lists of books that anyone can create and that anyone can add books to. Just make sure you read the guidelines of each group before you add your book. Some group creators don’t want outside people (i.e., not them) adding to them, or outline specific things that may not apply to your book (i.e., they want only standalone dystopian novels to be listed versus series, and you have a series). I haven’t been able to tell for sure if this has resulted in actual sales, but it has definitely resulted in people adding my book to their “to-be-read” lists, and thus has resulted in some ratings and a review so far for my book, so I imagine at least some people have bought the book via the listopia function. If not, my book is definitely more visible in the marketplace.

3. Participate in other authors’ Facebook release parties (I would also recommend having a release party for your own book when it comes out). This can admittedly sometimes be hit-or-miss, as it depends on how many readers are attending the party, and that, of course, depends on how popular the author is or how much advertising the author has done for the party, but it can be a great opportunity to do a giveaway of your own book and interact with readers on Facebook. Plus, it’s just good karma—us authors need to help each other out, after all! I’ve participated in a few release parties so far, typically giving away a free e-book copy of my book to a randomly selected reader, and it has always been a fun time at the very least.

4. Making your book free or putting it on sale for 99 cents for a limited amount of time. My publisher told me that 99 cents usually garners the best response from the market, and I have to say it has led to a few sales for me. Of course, you still need to get word of the sale out into the world, but who can argue with getting a book for free or for under a buck? SPEAKING of which, my book is STILL on sale (OK, OK, so this is the shameless plug part of the post; you can find my on-sale-book here: Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/z474hq9 ) for only 99 cents now until February 14.

Anyway, funnily enough, these four things are the only ones that I know for a fact have translated into actual sales, or have expanded my book’s spot in the market at the very least. I still have a long way to go in terms of learning the way of promoting and building a platform, but I’m sure I’ll be employing these four things again down the line—with this book and others down the line. If anybody here knows of any awesome marketing tactics that have worked for them, feel free to drop them in the comments below! Again, us authors need to help each other out! :-)

In the future, no adults exist. Ever since the plague swept the world 100 years ago, no one has lived past seventeen.

Sixteen-year-old Gorin, a collector of curious artifacts left over from the pre-plague civilization, is on the verge of perishing from that deadly epidemic. And his last wish is to find a way to visit the rulers’ reputedly magnificent, off-limits mansion.

Up against the clock, he and his friend Stausha steal into the mansion and discover a secret more horrifying than they ever could’ve imagined—a secret that holds the key to the survival of the whole human race.

Buy Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble 

Chris von Halle has had many different lives in many different worlds—the near and distant future Earth, other planets, and even other dimensions—and his books recreate his childhood memories of such outlandish locations. In thisworld and life, he lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and enjoys such extraordinary activities as playing videogames, tennis, and basketball, and writing the occasional comic strip.

Website: chrisvonhalle.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.v.halle?fref=browse_search
Blog: http://chrisvonhalle.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @ChrisvonHalle

How To Get Your Con On with S. Usher Evans

Before I started this whole author-thing, you wouldn't have caught me dead at a comic book convention. But as a self-published author, I realized very quickly that the best way to get my book in the hands of new readers was to go where the readers were. And as a science fiction/fantasy writer, that meant going to every comic book convention I could find. 

Example of a poster I used to release my second book at Pensacon. So far, I've hit eighteen, and I'm about to hit my nineteenth this upcoming weekend. During that time, I've learned a couple things that have allowed me to sell anywhere from 10 to 100 books in a single weekend. While those aren't NYT bestseller numbers, they're enough to pay my mortgage. I will mention that this post is geared towards comicons, but the lessons can be applied to any convention. Also, since I do own my books, book covers, and book copyrights, I have free use of my images. If your publisher owns yours, check with them on limitations.

Find an Event

First and foremost, find one! Believe me when I say that most every single city across the great US (and abroad, too) has some kind of comic book convention. The trick is to make sure that you find one that is big enough to make your costs, or make sure you're going into it knowing that you'll lose money. And don't do six money-losers in a row like some idiot author who shall not be named. There's pros and cons for going big and the same for going small. Big Cons with Big Celebrities bring Big Numbers of people. But you usually don't get the kind of one-on-one attention that turns passers-by into superfans. Also, they usually cost more, so if the event is a bust then you may lose money. Small cons are inherently riskier, even when you've only paid $50 for a table. I went to one three day convention where the only books I sold were to other vendors and the convention chair's mom. You want to do a little research before you put your money down. If you can't name any of the celebrity guests, don't pay more than $50. 9 times out of 10 all conventions need is your hard earned cash to get a table. Some cons do a little screening of their participants, so be aware if that's the case. The only one I've ever been rejected for was DragonCon, which is a BIG CON. Besides, it never hurts to ask!

Get Yer Swag On

Once you've got a con and a date, it's time to focus on your booth. You'll be pulling people into your booth with your pearly whites and charm and charisma (right?), but you need to make sure your booth set up looks professional. Trad pubbed kids--talk to your publisher. They might even have stuff that they can send you to use and then you don't have to make your own. They can also send you books. For me, I have three eight foot banners that I hang behind my booth. Sometimes I use all three, sometimes just the Razia one and the Empath one.

My booth set-up at a convention. For my Double Life banner, I use quotes from reviewers whereas Empath simply was the dragon. Both banners pique interest from different sets of folks. I got all three from Vistaprint and they cost around $75 to print, including the holder (I made them myself). Don't forget a tablecloth, either. If you want to splurge on a printed table cover,  you can, but for my money, the banners give you more bang for the buck.

How Many Books?

As far as how many books I bring to an event, it really depends. The most books I've ever sold was 183, and that was when I was selling my second book for $5 more. You want to buy enough that you won't sell out (or if you do, you won't sell out at, say 1pm on a Sunday *cough*), but you don't want to waste all of your potential profit on books that won't sell. My own optimistic rule is to bring enough of my first book and standalone to break even (to include books themselves, flight, hotel, food, etc). Sometimes I'm sinking more money in than I could ever hope to make back, and in that case, I stick with at least a box of 40 for each.

The Schpiel

When a person comes up to my booth while I'm talking with someone else and reads the back of the book, I've yet to see them stay. There's simply too much activity going on at a convention for a person to comprehend what a space pirate bounty hunter is. So in order to sell the book, I sell the book. As in I look at them in the eye and convince them why they should give me their $10. I start by saying hello to every single human (and non-human) that walks by. Sometimes they look like I'm going to murder them, sometimes they ignore me completely. But sometimes, they return the hello. Then I ask, "Are you looking for a new book today?" Sometimes, a "No, thanks." But sometimes, that light goes off in their eyes and they come rushing over. Then I say, "I have two flavors: space pirates or anxiety dragons. Pick your poison." Quick and easy topic synopsis so I can gauge which is going to land. Then the schpiel, which I have memorized before the con even begins (but after saying it 10,000 times, I would have it memorized anyway): "Double Life is about a young woman leading a, you guessed it, a Double Life. Subtle title, no? (pause for laugh or eyeroll). In one life, she's Lyssa Peate, planet discovering scientist, and in the other, she's Razia--space pirate bounty hunter (the more interesting one is second to land the blow). Unfortunately, neither life is going very well (pause for laugh). As the bounty hunter, she's one of the least (emphasize) wanted people in the universe and as the scientist, she just got a new intern who is definitely (emphasize) spying on her. Then that intern is mistaken for her hostage by the universal police (pause for effect)." Blah blah, more about the other books, release dates, etc. "Empath is about another young lady with a dragon-sized avoidance problem. She's stuck in breakup hell until she hears a mysterious voice promising an easy escape from her problems. Transported to a new world, she now has the power to feel what others are feeling. Just one small (emphasize) problem: there's a dragon in the mountain that eats people like that, and oh by the way, she may be hearing it in her head, tempting her deeper into her own darkness (pause and add "dun dun dun!")" When I finish a day of a convention, I am physically and vocally drained from doing this bit on repeat. But I know with utmost certainty that when I do the song and dance, I make sales. And I see other authors who sit behind their booth and say nothing, and they don't make the sales that I do.

The Takeaways

You are at the convention to sell books, but not everyone you talk to is going to buy a book. So you want to make sure that you have some kind of something for them to take away. My old standby is a business card (I also keep a stack in my wallet), but I have also seen people flip out for the Empath bookmark. 

Complete with yarn. My Empath bookmark[/caption] I started off with having Double Life on one side, then S. Usher Evans and my website on the other. But after I published a few books, I switched it up to focus the business card on the free download of Double Life and the Razia Series on the back. I don't usually carry business cards for Empath, but I might consider doing that in the future. The other thing that I always do is make sure I have a sign up available for my newsletter. Since I have an old iPad with a keyboard, I keep that out with the Chimpadedoo app from Mailchimp. I may never speak to that person again, but if I have their email address, I can send them a monthly newsletter with all the pertinent information about new releases and general happenings. Consider your newsletter mailing list to be akin to your Facebook Page likes or your Twitter followers. It's not a silver bullet, but it's another tool in your marketing arsenal. Now that I have three books, I've started bringing small brown paper bags with my self-pub imprint stickers on them. Just one more thing to give away that has my info on it.

Care and Feeding

Don't forget to bring a plethora of pens, and I would actually consider bringing something to eat and drink (and your favorite caffeinated beverage). I usually work alone, so I don't get to leave my table but to pee when absolutely necessary. Smoothies are a good option since someone always walks up to the table when you take a huge bite of a peanut butter cracker.

And of course, if you decide to eat this all day long...

Summary

Working a convention is the most exhausting thing you might do as an author, but they also provide the biggest opportunity for making money and meeting new fans. I can't tell you how it fills my heart with joy when a fifteen year old girl runs up to your table and says, "OMG It's you! You're my favorite author!" Squish! Got questions? Need some help? I'm always available on Twitter @s_usherevans. 

About the Author

S. Usher Evans is an author, blogger, and witty banter aficionado. Born in a small, suburban town in northwest Florida, she was seventeen before she realized that not all beach sand is white. From a young age, she has always been a long-winded individual, first verbally (to the chagrin of her ever-loving parents) and then eventually channeled into the many novels that dotted her Windows 98 computer in the early 2000’s. After high school, she got the hell outta dodge and went to school near the nation’s capital, where she somehow landed jobs at National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and the British Broadcasting Corporation, capping off her educational career with delivering the commencement address to 20,000 of her closest friends. She determined she’d goofed off long enough with that television nonsense and got a “real job” as an IT consultant. Yet she continued to write, developing 20 page standard operating procedures and then coming home to write novels about badass bounty hunters, teenage magic users, and other nonsense. After a severe quarter life crisis at age 27, she decided to finally get a move on and share those novels with the world in hopes that she will never have to write another SOP again. Check her out at www.susherevans.com.

Behind the Scenes: Thereafter Cover Art

Nothing in life is free. Turns out, nothing in the afterlife is, either.

When recently-deceased Irene Dunphy decided to “follow the light,” she thought she’d end up in Heaven or Hell and her journey would be over.

Boy, was she wrong.

She soon finds that “the other side” isn’t a final destination but a kind of purgatory where billions of spirits are stuck, with no way to move forward or back. Even worse, deranged phantoms known as “Hungry Ghosts” stalk the dead, intent on destroying them. The only way out is for Irene to forget her life on earth—including the boy who risked everything to help her cross over—which she’s not about to do. 

As Irene desperately searches for an alternative, help unexpectedly comes in the unlikeliest of forms: a twelfth-century Spanish knight and a nineteenth-century American cowboy. Even more surprising, one offers a chance for redemption; the other, love. Unfortunately, she won’t be able to have either if she can’t find a way to escape the hellish limbo where they’re all trapped.

Cover Art, Marketing, and You

Hi everyone! Did you know that today is the first day of Lemuria or Lemuralia—an ancient Roman festival to placate and exorcise the restless dead? Make sure you follow the traditional rituals to drive out evil spirits that may try to take up residence in your home! J

I’m thrilled to be here today, talking about the cover art and marketing of Thereafter, the second novel in my Afterlife series. I’ve had the unique experience of being able to redesign my book covers/re-issue my books with different covers—and not just with different covers but with covers that convey a completely different genre/feel of my books—and I wanted to share with you a bit of what I’ve learned from this.

Originally, my first and second books (Hereafter and Thereafter) were published with a publisher, which means I had very little input into the covers. When I received the cover art for the first book, I was over the moon. It was beautiful. I loved it to death. It was bright, it was vivid, it was eye catching, and it captured the main highlights of the book (sexy red-haired chick, city of Boston in the background, ghostly glow around the woman). However, I wasn’t sure it fit the genre of my book.

Book covers are the primary marketing tool of any book; they don’t have to just grab readers’ attention, but they also subtlety convey a lot of information about the quality of the book (low quality cover suggests low quality editing and writing), the genre of the book, and the overall tone of the book. Chick lit book covers tend to be drawn and have a kitschy/cartoony feel. Women’s fiction and literary fiction tend to feature photographs of people, usually with their heads out of frame/cut off (why is that?). Mysteries and thrillers usually have dark covers, featuring a gun, a policy badge, a bomb, a dagger, or some other weapon. Et cetera. Et cetera.

If you’re an author, it behooves you to spend some time scrolling through book blogs, just to look at covers. Check out blogs that specialize in a particular genre or two and then scroll through all their book posts (book hauls, reviews, and spotlights) to get a feel for the cover conventions of that genre. I had spent a lot of time doing just this when I got the cover art for the first edition of Hereafter so I was pretty familiar with the different genres’ covers’ look and feel; looking at the Hereafter artwork, I felt that it had an urban fantasy vibe, which worried me, because my story wasn’t urban fantasy. However, the books are hard to classify—they are a combination of women’s fiction, literary fiction, and contemporary fantasy. It’s hard to convey all that in a cover. Sometimes you just have to pick one genre and go with it. So I went with it.

It turns out I was right—people assumed the first edition of Hereafter was urban fantasy, or, at the very least, it drew a lot of urban fantasy fans. But this wasn’t a bad thing. Many urban fantasy readers cross genres, enjoying paranormal romance, chick lit, general fantasy, and literary fiction with fantasy elements (like The Time Traveler’s Wife and The Lovely Bones). So for every person that went, “Um, this was advertised as urban fantasy and it really isn’t,” there was another person who went, “Not what I expected, but I loved it!” So I wasn’t unhappy with the original cover, but I was aware that it didn’t quite fit the book.

When it came time for me to re-release the books under my own imprint, I knew I wanted covers that more accurately reflected the books’ women’s/literary fiction with fantasy elements content, getting completely away from a paranormal romance and urban fantasy feel. But I also knew this meant my marketing was going to take a hit. I was going to lose the market segment that had been drawn to the old cover’s urban fantasy vibe. I agonized over this decision for quite a while—did I want to keep going after readers who happened to like my book despite the fact that it wasn’t what they expected (the people who thought they were getting urban fantasy but ended up getting something else) or did I want to go after readers who were purposely looking for the type of book Hereafter is? Ultimately, I decided on the latter; It just didn’t feel right to be advertising the book as something it’s not—it’s not a plot-driven, action-adventure story featuring a kick-ass heroine. It’s a slow, thoughtful, character-driven story and I wanted the cover to show that.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what style I wanted the new covers to be in—more women’s fiction or more fantasy? When I saw Shelby Robinson’s artwork, I knew the answer was, “BOTH!” What drew me to her art is that it looks almost like a painting. Not quite a photograph, not quite a painting. They are somewhere in between, just like Hereafter and Thereafter—not quite fantasy, not quite literary fiction. Her work also has a unique mix of whimsy and melancholy, realism and fantasy, also exactly like my books. The first comment everyone made when they saw the new cover of Hereafter was that it fit the book much better than the old cover, which is what I wanted. Yes, the old cover was gorgeous and eye catching, but it also seemed to make a promise it couldn’t keep: “Read me—I’m urban fantasy!” The new covers definitely say something very different.

Giveaway Details and Rafflecopter Code

Launch Party Blog Tour Giveaway  – May 1st – May 31st

2 $50 Amazon gift cards

5 signed paperback copies of Thereafter (U.S./Canada Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway Read More: http://terribruce.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=311#ixzz30SvkFRm6

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Author Bio
Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. 

Email:      tbruce@terribruce.net
Website/Blog:     www.terribruce.net
Goodreads:    www.goodreads.com/TerriBruce
Facebook:     http://www.facebook.com/authorterribruce
Twitter:     @_TerriBruce 

Book Buy Links (available at all major book retailers)
Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Thereafter-Afterlife-Series-Volume/dp/0991303628/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8
Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/thereafter-terri-bruce/1115324247?ean=2940149344697
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/423765

Lessons Learned the Hard Way: Terri Bruce

All professions have a learning curve and writing is no exception. Yet in writing more than other professions, you're on your own. It's a solitary job after all, which means important aspects of the task sometimes get missed. These posts will be a chance for writers to mentor other writers through their confessions of lessons they learned. Lessons that might have been as painful as a pencil poke in the eye.

You all know how it is to write. Many of us have suffered through the querying stage. But what happens after... Thank goodness Terri Bruce is here to share a dose of reality. Prepare yourself. This is an eye-opening post.

We’re Going to Have to Work on Your People Skills Edition 

The beginning of one’s writing career, the “aspiring author” stage is about honing writing craft, about learning the technical skills that go into building a story—plot, pacing, obscure grammar rules, that sort of thing. There’s also a whole lot of learning about the publishing business—query letters, agents, advances, that sort of thing. The great thing is that there’s a TON of advice out there for people at this stage. You can’t throw a rock in the blogosphere or self-help section of the bookstore without hitting someone giving advice on how to write and get published.

So, then, you get published. Hooray! ::party party party:: And then…nothing. 

The world goes sort of quiet about what comes next. It’s kind of the same with baby books—lots of books about pregnancy, not so many on dealing with colicky infants. Turns out there is a reason for this: the people who are going through this stage are too damn tired and too damn strapped for time to write down any advice, and by the time they’ve passed through to the next, they’ve forgotten what it was like because it was all a blur.


You’re not just farbot, you’re magra-farbot!
This might be why so many debut/early career authors act like paranoid delusionals—it’s the fatigue and stress talking. I’ve seen authors have meltdowns over three-star reviews (“OMG! They’ve ruined my perfect 4-star rating on Amazon! My authorial career is O-VER!”). I’ve seen authors (and publicists and agents) have “I’m gonna cut the bitch” style meltdowns over 1 or 2 star reviews that were very fair and balanced, with legitimate criticisms. I’ve seen authors have meltdowns because a blogger would not accept their book for review. I’ve seen authors have meltdowns when a blogger was late posting the author’s guest appearance to his blog. I’ve seen authors create “sock puppet” accounts and post fake reviews of their own books and vote down the good reviews of other authors. I’ve seen authors have public meltdowns (and accuse publishers of theft) because they know, with deadly certainty, they sold two copies of their book during the last quarter but didn’t get any royalties. Damn it, they want their $2!!!


Quite a lot of the time I feel like channeling Chuck Wendig and shouting, “just chill the fuck out!” On the other hand, there might be a good reason authors at this stage of their careers get so stressed out.

Sure, they’re cute now, but in a second they’re gonna get mean and they’re gonna get ugly somehow, and there’s going to be a million more of them 
You know that scene in Galaxy Quest where Justin Long’s character, Brandon, comes up to Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen’s character) at the convention and starts pestering him with what he (Brandon) perceives as an inconsistency in the show? It’s a squirm-inducing scene because on the one hand, we realize Brandon is trying so desperately hard to impress his hero, but on the other hand, he’s going about it all wrong and having the opposite effect by being a dick, trying to show that he’s smarter than everyone else. Well…those people exist. I just had my first run-in with one at a convention, and it was not fun. To compound the situation, what my “Brandon” was pointing out was not, in fact, incorrect. However, both he and a fellow author sharing the table with me both cut me off mid-explanation, talking right over me and emphatically declaring I was in the wrong—which, of course, made me really, really angry. Like, Tim Allen going off on Brandon angry, which, of course, is not a thing an author wants to do.


This isn’t the worst of it. I’ve had other authors (even those at the same press as me) enter contests against me (after they knew I had already entered), and then plug their book/entry at the top of their voice to the community we both belong to (such as the publishers’ readers’ list), thereby sucking up all the votes in the shared pool for themselves. In one instance, this was a monthly contest and the author in question entered EVERY SINGLE MONTH, even after she won one month, thereby ensuring none of her fellow publishing house authors could have a shot at the limelight. I’ve had unpublished/aspiring writers snub me after I got my publishing deal (presumably out of jealousy), and I’ve seen respected members of the writing community sneer down their noses at other authors’ routes to publication in a high-school level mentality of “my publisher is cooler than your publisher.” I’ve seen authors harass and stalk bloggers/reviewers and I’ve seen bloggers/reviewers harass and stalk authors—including publishing personal information such as home address and the location of the other party’s children’s schools, and ordering their followers into a crusade to destroy the other party. I’ve seen authors hounded out of the public arena—some have had to shut down their twitter or facebook accounts, or even their blogs, in order to deal with the flood of vitriol. When I recently shared that I had sat next to a well-known author at a convention, ten people shrieked that he had no right to be there, he should be home writing, damn him! How dare he spend even one day away from the computer! I’ve seen authors give up writing altogether because the negativity—from their fans!—got to be too much.

So many days I feel like a caterpillar gazing out across an eight-lane mega-highway I have to cross and thinking to myself, “How am I ever going to survive this?”

So, what’s the lesson learned here? Being published is terrifying.

You think putting your work out there for public consumption is the scary part? Excuse me while I laugh—long and loud and with just a touch of hysteria. The reviews are only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t mean to frighten you, soft, squishy newbie writer, but if open and honest criticism by a crit partner or beta reader reduces you to tears, you aren’t ready to be published. As much as I loathed querying, and would rather stab out my eyes with a spoon than go through that process again (a vain wish, I know), it does serve a useful purpose: it builds resistance. It builds strength and endurance and fortitude in the face of criticism, self-doubt, and negativity. It teaches you to revel in and relish the small victories and to take the long view of things. Things that are large setbacks in the short-term are revealed to be mere bumps in the road in the long-term.

So far there hasn’t been a lot of “hard way” for me around this lesson because I was accidentally smart. In the five months between the time I signed my contract and my book hit the shelves, I lurked about the internet, getting a feel for things. I read book blogs and learned what kinds of things book bloggers care about—what they were reading, what they liked and didn’t like in books, what they liked and didn’t like in author behavior, how they liked to be approached with review and tour requests. I dipped my toe into Twitter and figured out how to have conversations with strangers—and how to turn the other cheek or keep my mouth shut when provoked. I watched authors implode on the internet and I watched other authors successfully navigate situations that could have gone south. I learned just how deep a footprint we leave on the internet, even when we think we don’t. I’ve seen bloggers recreate tweets and facebook posts from cached images and screen captures—even after the posts were deleted—and I’ve seen bloggers reveal fraud by tracing I.P. addresses and conducting sophisticated analysis of text to link blog posts, reviews, and even blog comments to one individual.

Through all this, I’ve learned patience and tolerance. I’ve also learned that the long-tail of the internet values honesty and genuineness above all else—don’t interfere with people’s right to their own opinion or free speech. Don’t try to cheat or fool people. If you make a mistake, own up to it immediately. Apologize. Be humble—after all, you’re the one that screwed up. Be a real person—it’s okay to just chat with people, without trying to get something from them (a review, a spot on their blog, a sale). Be grateful—say thank you. Give more than you take. Don’t use people. Don’t get big-headed. Share the limelight—let other people have a turn. Don’t sneer at others or look down at them. Don’t be defensive—it’s always a deflection of what you’re actually feeling and it just pisses people off. If you’re embarrassed, say you’re embarrassed; if you’re disappointed, say you’re disappointed; if you feel like an idiot, say you feel like an idiot. Learn to let shit go. Relax. Keep in mind that disliking your work is not the same as disliking you personally. Learn to value the people who understand this. Ignore the people who don’t. And remember: you got into this business because you have something to say, something to share. It doesn’t matter if people recognize the importance of what you have to say—their recognition (or not) doesn’t change its value.

About the Author

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Her second novel, Thereafter (Afterlife #2), will be released June 1, 2013.

Contact Details

Email:                     tbruce@terribruce.net

Website/Blog:       www.terribruce.net

Goodreads:          www.goodreads.com/TerriBruce

Facebook:             http://www.facebook.com/authorterribruce

Twitter:                   @_TerriBruce

Getting the Call: Heidi Vlach

I'm surfacing just long enough from a week of heavy editing on Kindar's Cure to post a dose of inspiration. I met Heidi on Twitter and invited her to share her story. I know many writers whose stories don't fit into a neat and tidy cubbyhole of what is considered marketable--I'm one of them. I really love how Heidi didn't let that news stop her. Thanks for telling us about your journey, Heidi. And your cover art is beautiful. 

  

Thanks for having me, Michelle!

I didn't receive a call -- it's more like I unearthed one. I'm just grateful this happened during the ebook revolution, where I have the tools to excavate.

When I'm taking in a book, TV show or video game, I usually find the non-human characters most interesting. The human experience has lots to explore, but that bounty grows even larger when you consider how another sentient being might see things. I want to know what the anthropomorphic cat is thinking, or how the intelligent squid feels about life and love. I don't think you need a human-looking face to be considered a person. If everyone thought that way, humans might even have more empathy for fellow humans.

When I was 18, I decided to develop a novel full of the things I wanted to see. It took six years of work, and my awful first manuscript getting trunked, but I developed the world of Aligare. This place is completely human-free. The peoplekinds are feathered dragons, and insect-like folk, and bright-eyed weasels -- all of whom live peacefully and collaborate to solve their problems. No senseless wars or xenophobia here. This would be a cool place to mentally explore, the really unique story I had never been able to find in the library.

My second full-length manuscript was Remedy, a medical drama. It's the story of deaf miner Peregrine and his hearing assistant Tillian. Peregrine is a proud old dragon who secretly fears that he made the wrong life choices; Tillian is a friendly little weasel who swore to stay by Peregrine's side as long as her own lifespan allows. These two pitch in with the relief efforts for gripthia, a dreaded sickness which can only be survived with labour-intensive nursing care. It's a big step for Peregrine to get by without Tillian, but he's determined to give her some independence. The core of this story is the struggle to do what's right.

I was proud of this novel. Still am. Years of finessing had gone into the worldbuilding, and the storyline was unlike anything I had ever seen in mass-market fantasy. But I sent out about 50 query letters and I got all form rejections. Not one nibble. I didn't want to become one of those writers who wastes their whole life waiting on query letters, stuck in a depressing, directionless purgatory. So when I saw a charity fundraiser auction for a meeting with a New York editor, I jumped on it. Quite a road trip, from Ontario to New York, but I was glad for it!  Face to face, I explained Remedy's concept to one knowledgeable editor-- and I was flatly told that this thing wouldn't sell. It wasn't a children's "animal book" and it wasn't a fantasy war epic, so it was clearly unmarketable.

I've never believed it possible that "no one" will like a new concept. There are billions of people in this world and they all have different tastes. No matter how odd the subject, there are always a few people willing to try. More importantly, if no one is ever willing to try a new concept, how does the modern fantasy genre exist in the first place? Did <i>Lord of the Rings</i> leap fully formed from Zeus's head and land on bookstore shelves?

On the bus home from New York, I realized I had found a calling. A fragment of potential that needed to be dug up, cleaned and put on display. And instead of hoping some agent would unearth my calling for me, I decided to self-publish. I'd be able to explore my Stories of Aligare on their own merit, without worrying about making them "normal". Over the next few months, I consulted a freelance editor who liked atypical stories. I agonized over how Remedy's cover should look. Finally, on February 2011, I clicked the Publish button for my first completed book.

I wish I could say that Remedy has sold ten zillion copies so far. Heh, it sure hasn't! But building a niche can be a slow process, especially when the story doesn't fit cleanly into popular genre categories. I'm playing a long game, here. A story doesn't have to be an instant bestseller to be an enjoyable story: in our modern world of high-budget blockbusters, it's easy to forget that.

After Remedy came Ravel, a romantic novelette set in Aligare. This spring, I'll be publishing Render, a mystery-ish novel of Aligare. Each story stands alone and has a slightly different flavour. There'll be more stories -- and I just hope to find readers who like seeing through other creatures' eyes like I do.

Find out more about Heidi and the world of Aligare at www.heidicvlach.com. Heidi's books are available through Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers.

Links:

http://www.heidicvlach.com

http://www.amazon.com/Heidi-C.-Vlach/e/B004QJ8KS0

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/heidicvlach

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/heidi-c.-vlach