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The Art Of Book Marketing with Anna Castle

Stephanie Hopkins
We would like to welcome B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree Anna Castle today to talk with us about her book marketing.  Anna, when partnering up with other authors for cross promotions, what is the outcome of this and is this something you recommend doing on an ongoing basis? I haven’t done this, apart from a series of Christmas blog posts. That was fun, but I don’t think it had any effect on my sales. Still, it’s well to remember that publicity means getting your name out there, while marketing consists of specific efforts to boost sales. Or that’s how I’ve learned these lessons. What are some ways that were successful in marketing your book? The best results I’ve had in terms of sales & downloads have come from using newsletter ad services to promote a discount. I’m not big enough for BookBub, but I’ve had good results from FussyLibrarian and Booksends. This month I’m trying BookAdrenaline, which is strictly mysteries and thrillers and only $8! These services have large numbers of subscribers -- usually in the tens of thousands -- who sign up because they want selected bargains. These are often voracious readers, like I used to be before I started reading…

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Authors' Chat, Marketing an indie Book

“Antagonists Series” with Lucinda Brant

Geri Clouston
       indieBRAG is pleased to welcome LUCINDA BRANT the  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Georgian historical romances & mysteries Would you please take your most notorious Antagonist and answer the questions below about him or her?  This will be a lot of fun and give readers a sense of your character development of different types of personalities. As you know, readers love to read about Antagonist too! Antagonists name. Diana St. John. The villainess in my novel Salt Bride: A Georgian Historical Romance What are two emotional traits your antagonist has? Diana has few if any positive emotional traits. And those she does possess, such as self-determination and single-mindedness, she uses in an evil way. Does your antagonist feel victimized? How so? Of course. Like all truly evil people, she has one perspective, her own. Anyone or anything that is counter to her point of view must be against her. She desperately wants to be Countess of Salt Hendon. She thinks she is in love with the Earl, and so when he marries another, she believes she is the injured party. Nor does she blame him. It is all the fault of his bride, Jane.…

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Authors' Chat, award winning books, Romance, Uncategorized , , ,

Moving Into Spring with Nicole Evelina

Stephanie Hopkins
What are your writing goals for spring? I am writing my first non-fiction book this spring. It’s about the evolution of the character of Guinevere over the course of Arthurian legend, beginning with the first references to her in the Celtic triads and going all the way through my own books and others published in the last year or two. There are a few theses and dissertations that trace her changing nature from their origins through works written in the early 1990s, but they are hard to find, sometimes highly academic and don’t cover more recent history. I’m hoping my book makes the information accessible to the average reader and I’m excited to cover books that have come out in the last 20 years. I’m hoping for a summer release on that book. After that, I am going to do some research for Mistress of Legend, the final book in the Guinevere’s Tale trilogy. I have a draft written, but it’s getting a major re-write. That likely will take me into summer at least. My goal is to publish it by the end of the year. Do you Pinterest? What is your favorite board? OMG! I LOVE Pinterest! I’m actually…

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Authors' Chat, indieBRAG

Inspiration waits for no one

Stephanie Hopkins
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. -- Thomas Edison I wake up groggy and roll to my side. It's 3 a.m. Then, something hits me. It's an idea, a glorious nugget of a story that I just have to get down--somewhere--before it is gone forever. I reach over and snatch my phone. Frantically, I scroll to my notes app and begin feverishly pecking away at the small electronic keyboard until the idea is down in a string of misspellings and typos that only I can understand. I roll back over and slip back into my dreams; hopefully the next will be as fruitful as the last. This is a common occurrence for me. Most of the ideas for my books rush into my consciousness in the wee hours of the night. I don't know why. Perhaps it is because my brain is uncluttered from the events of the day, filtered out through rest and deep sleep. I always make sure to have my phone at arm's length because of this. In fact, the idea behind Uncanny Valley, a trilogy I am in the middle for writing, came to me in such a half-roused state. It was a simple…

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Authors' Chat

Moving Into Spring with Elaine Russell

Stephanie Hopkins
We’d like to welcome Award Winning Author Elaine Russell today. Elaine is the author of the adult novel Across the Mekong River and five other books for young adult and children. Three is her book have been awarded the B.R.A.G. Medallion.  What are your writing goals for spring? This has been a very long, cold and wet winter. We are a bit spoiled in Northern California as normally there are brief reprieves of sunny days and warmer temperatures. Not this season. After five years of drought the rain is desperately needed, but it makes bundling up for a walk or bike ride far from appealing. On the bright side, it has forced me to settle in and work on my newest adult novel. It is a treat to have an uninterrupted day of writing, snuggled up on the sofa, listening to the patter of the rain. My goal is to finish this book, which I started two years ago, by the end of April. I completed a first draft back in September and hired a great editor, Jennifer Pooley, to help me think through the story and characters. Armed with her helpful suggestions, I slaved all winter on revisions. This…

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Authors' Chat

Book Promotion Goals and the Strategy Behind Meeting Them

Stephanie Hopkins
The book writing business can be challenging considering the effort required to produce a good product, significant upfront investment, and a highly-competitive market. And with the invasion of so many self-published authors over the past few years, it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed. In this article, I share my goals as an author and the strategy I used to achieve them. I have been writing novels for seven years and have published five books, the first one released in 2012. My promotion goals, which are tied to my financial goals, have changed over time due to a heightened  knowledge of the industry, the number of books under my belt, discovery of new promotional tools, and an ever-changing publishing industry. The financial goal I set for my first book was to break even—not a very lofty goal, but a reasonable one for a first-time author—and I wanted to do it within six months. Having invested $3,200 in its production (editing, formatting, cover design, press release, etc.), that meant selling either 840 paperback copies, 2,100 Kindle copies, or some combination of the two to break even. Determined not to fall into that large group of new authors who sell less…

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Authors' Chat

Crime Fiction with Award Winning Author Douglas Carlyle

Stephanie Hopkins
We’d like to welcome two time award winning author Douglas Carlyle to take part in our crime fiction week. Doug, when writing crime fiction, there is usually several characters involved. What is your advice in presenting each character so they stand out? There will be a protagonist and an antagonist in any crime fiction novel. Both must have a strong presence. The author must directly and indirectly describe the physical and intellectual attributes of the good and evil characters, but only with enough detail so as to allow the reader to embellish with his or her own pallet of colors. As the author, I find opening the window to the inside of our hero (heroine) and villain equally exciting. However, for me, one distinguishing feature is that as for the protagonist, humor sets that character apart from the antagonist. I’m not speaking of being a deadpan jokester. Rather, he/she may have a dry wit, colorful language, peculiar quirks. Humor attracts the reader to the good side and allows them to fall in love with that character. I think it is important for writers to give conflicting reasons for their characters to be criminals. For readers to find that connection-if you…

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Authors' Chat, Crime and Mystery, indieBRAG

Crime Fiction With Award Winning Author Joe Perrone, Jr.

Stephanie Hopkins
Today Stephanie interviews B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree Joe Perrone about his crime fiction work. Joe, when writing crime fiction, there are usually several characters involved. What is your advice in presenting each character so they stand out? In creating the main character for the first book in the Matt Davis Mystery Series, As the Twig is Bent, I already had an actual person in mind for the character of Matt Davis.  I had seen a television commercial with a man who I thought Matt should look like, and I literally drew my character to physically resemble that actor.  I think it helps to have a specific person in mind, or at least have an idea of what your character ought to look like.  More than that, however, it is important to “flesh out” your character with: physical appearance; clothing preferences; likes and dislikes; quirks; level of education; life experience, etc. I actually make a list of my main characters in a separate document, with their physical and intellectual attributes that I may consult many times in the course of writing a book.  Minor characters who are seen only momentarily can be made up on the spot and described as “the mailman,…

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Authors' Chat, indieBRAG

Writing Crime and Mystery Novels!

Geri Clouston
The indieBRAG Crime and Mystery Series   I am pleased to introduce RAR Clouston author of The Covenant Within Bob, welcome and thank you for sharing with us- Stephanie:   When writing crime fiction, there are usually several characters involved. What is your advice in presenting each character so they stand out? Bob: At the risk of sounding like my social psych professor in what seems like an eternity ago during my undergraduate days as a psychology major, we are all the product of both nature and nurture. And this is never truer than with the villains who populate thrillers and mystery stories.  We are shaped by the multitude of forces, both genetic and social, that make us who we are. What drives someone to a life of crime, or even worse, to become a heartless killer? An obvious answer is that they were the offspring of truly evil parents who gave them tainted genes, or raised them in a cruel and heartless home, or both. But there are also exceptions to this as evidenced by the cases of cold blooded killers who came from a “normal’ home. My point is this: we are all different and as such a writer…

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Authors' Chat, award winning books, Crime and Mystery, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, Words of Wisdom , , ,

Crime Fiction With Award Winning Author Kathryn Guare

Stephanie Hopkins
Crime Fiction is a popular worldwide and indieBRAG has many great award winning authors who write in this  fascinating genre. Today Stephanie talks with B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree Kathryn Guare who wrote Deceptive Cadence. A story we highly recommend. Stephanie: When writing crime fiction, there is usually several characters involved. What is your advice in presenting each character so they stand out? Kathryn: Most of the effort goes into developing the main protagonists, of course, but I think the minor characters are important as well. They offer an opportunity to add layers of color, and the main characters are made richer if they are interacting with something other than cardboard cutouts. When you’ve got a lot of characters, it’s easy to be lazy and pull stock figures from central casting (hairy-chested Russian arms dealer with lots of neck jewelry), but if I spend a little more time on it, I can always come up with a unique and more complicated three-dimensional person that I find more interesting (what if the Russian arms dealer is also a committed yoga practitioner? How would that change his physical appearance, mannerisms and personality?) Stephanie: I think it is important for writers to give conflicting reasons…

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Authors' Chat, Crime and Mystery, indieBRAG

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