Musings of Two Creative Minds

I'm sure most of you will remember that I got some business cards for "The Vampyre Blogs" which I will be releasing in December of this year.  I know a lot of people wished me luck and were curious to find out whether or not I've seen any difference in the traffic to the ongoing blog that goes by the same name. So today I'm taking the opportunity to tell you what's happened in the two weeks since the cards arrived.  As you can guess, I began handing out cards up at the university the very next day.  I left some lying around in the coffee shop area, as well as in the lounge where students hang out to be found by anyone who happened to sit down in either of those areas.  I also handed cards out personally in my classes saying, "Here's some free reading you can enjoy during the summer break, especially if you like vampires..."   Very few people declined, while others asked for extra cards.  They became even more excited when I explained...

Last week I talked about getting business cards to help market my other blog site "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition".  Yesterday, the cards arrived and here is what they look like... Front (click on card to get a better look) The front view contains information about me, the blog site and where to find it, along with my e-mail and a little note at the bottom letting people know the site is a precursor to the book which will be coming out in December of this year. Back (click on card to get a better look) The back view talks about the novel itself.  The title of the book and it's release date is clear and visible in the center, with a quote from Nathaniel above it.  Underneath the title, is another note that explains that "The Vampyre Blogs" is part of my Para-Earth series and that other books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online outlets. "So what happens next?", I hear you ask.  This is where the fun...

Okay gang, I have a special treat for you all today.  My good friend and fabulous author Keira Kroft has agreed to talk to you all about building a fan base for your writing.   Now, a little about Keira before I unleash her on you all.   Keira carries a vet assistance degree; her love for animals is as great as her love of people. She gives a percentage of her personal book sale profits to the animal welfare league. Residing in a quiet suburb in the outskirts Chicago with her husband, she manages their comic book store fulltime, spending any spare time that she has working with her cats Scamper and Sawyer to achieve total world domination, one shared Twinkie at a time. Her passions include reading, writing, football, comic books and family.  And now, without further ado.  Here is Keira...  remember to take notes, there may be a quiz afterwards. Building a fan base... If you follow a few simple steps, you can be in paradise within day...

Well, as you all know last month I did my first free promo on Amazon, where 400 people snatched up their own Kindle copy of my paranormal/mystery "THE BRIDGE".    Now, one of the things that inspired me to take that risk was the fact that I'd read in many different articles and blogs, that such a promo could help actual paying sales.  Those who grabbed a copy start spreading the word about how much they liked the book and tell others to get their own copy.  I can safely say, I've seen a slight increase in the number of actual purchased copies of the book, but nothing astronomical.  So this last weekend I did a special .99 cent promotion which netted about 5 or 6 sales total and that's all.  Now a number of you may be thinking, "Wow, that wasn't very impressive."  And you'd be right.  But, it's about what I expected because, "THE BRIDGE" is my first book.  I'm still an unknown author.  I did try and foster a following in adv...

Okay, yesterday was a big day for me.  My novel "THE BRIDGE" is now available in two 'brick-and-mortar' bookstores.  How did I make this happen?  Are sales jumping through the roof?  Is my name out there so much that fans are demanding it be available everywhere?  Two words.... I WISH! No, the simple truth is when you're an Indie Author (someone who has published through Createspace or other means to make a printed copy of your book), you have to do a lot of things yourself.  One of them is marketing and getting your book into stores.  Now, if you've done a good job marketing and your sales on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites are going really well, you might land up in bookstores.  Some chains look to those sites to see what's the hottest sellers going and is it available in print form.  They don't want to be left out of the loop and fall behind.  But you have to have great sales for that to happen.  But if you're just star...

The last 7 days have kept me busy.  I mean REALLY busy.  And the sad thing about it all is that some of this could have been avoided....up to a point.  Now I'm talking about re-editing my first novel AFTER it had already come out.  Why would I do that?  Because in spite of the combined efforts of myself and 2-3 other people checking the novel over for grammatical errors, a number of them got past all of us.  From day one, I was determined to try and put out as good a product as I possibly could.  And when I found out I'd failed, I felt obligated to go back and fix things. Now, I'm sure a number of you are wondering to yourselves, "Is he saying he never got it professionally edited?"  The answer is, "I did not."  Now, this is not because I was so arrogant in my own writing abilities, nor was it because I was being cheap and didn't want to put the money out.  The truth is... my wife and I have applied for Food Stamps and have been gettin...

Okay, as you all know my first book is out.  "The Bridge" is available on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, I-Tunes, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords, Createspace, and a bunch of other places.  How did I do it?  And how are the sales coming so far?  Are probably what you are asking at this point.    Well, I'll be honest, the sales are going slowly.  The book has only been out maybe 2 weeks and during that time it took over a week for it to appear on a number of those sites.  But that's no excuse.  It is definitely out there, so why aren't more people buying it right away?  The answer is simple, "They don't know it's out there!" Now here's where we get into today's discussion.  I'll briefly answer the first question "How did I get it in so many places?"  Then we'll address how I'm going about to correct the problem of getting the word out. Now I published my novel both in e-book form and trade paperback for those who ...

Okay, so I've had my debut on Smashwords and learned a lot from just going through the process.  Today I'd like to share a bit of my experience of working in Smashwords with you all.  First up, it wasn't all that hard and I say this as someone who is NOT "Tech-Savvy".  Luckily I do know MS Word. Now I want to say, simply follow their directions.  Make a back up copy of your work and then totally do the conversion on the back-up copy NOT the original.  This is because all that lovely formatting you did originally to your piece is about to got out the window and be undone.  Why?  Because Smashwords is helping you re-format your work so it can operate in the e-book program world and will look nice and readable.  Remember, if you're going this route you want to present a beautiful product for your audience.  Plus, your work deserves to be presented in the best fashion possible.  You're not doing this just for your readers, it's also for yo...

A quick Vlog entry about book covers and what to watch for in making your own from scratch.  I don't recommend necessarily doing one yourself, unless you are an artist.  It's fine to maybe make a rough sketch and get an artist friend or even hire someone to do it for you.  There are plenty of artists who specialize in doing book covers and you can find them all over the internet, or through friends on FB.  In my case, I am an artist, but also my cash flow is very tight.  So I basically HAD to go this route.  So this vlog entry is about the thoughts I put into the image and how it would appear to the casual reader going through a bookstore, or skimming through Amazon or Barnes and Nobles' websites. I would also point out that there are a number of very good book cover programs available on the internet, including through Createspace, Smashwords, Lulu and the others.  The nice thing about those is that they are already formatted to fit whatever stan...