Rinelle Grey's Blog, page 21

I ran my second free promotion on my novel, Reckless Rescue, last week on Amazon. Compared to my last free promotion (in March), it was a resounding success! As you can see from the graph on the left, my first day’s downloads topped out at around 400 the first time around, this time they’d hit around 1200!

And they didn’t stop there. In four days, my book was downloaded over 7000 times, and made it to the #1 place in two of my categories. Overall, I climbed to #31 in the Amazon Top 100 Free list.

Most of the books above me were running paid promotions, but I didn’t pay a cent, nor did I get mentioned (that I’m aware of) by any of the big free promo sites (like Pixel of Ink) so I’m pretty pleased with my success.

So what did I do differently this time, to make my promotion so successful?

Write a good book

This goes without saying. Writing a good book is essential to a successful free promotion, and many of the following suggestions aren’t going to work unless your book holds up to the bargain once it’s downloaded. I’ve also had my book professionally edited, which I think is well worthwhile. (Thought it hasn’t paid for itself yet!)

Get as many reviews as possible

When I ran my first promotion, I had one, maybe two reviews. This time I had five, and when you have five reviews, Amazon starts putting up quotes from reviewers next to your ratings graph. So I’d say five was the minimum number to really boost your free sales.

Make friends

This time I had far more friends on Twitter, and many people retweeted the links to my free books. I’m sure this contributed to more people hearing about my promotion, and thus more sales.

Be aware though, that followers aren’t the same thing as friends. Friends are people you interact with, who’s links YOU tweet, and who you really get to know. Building a huge following just isn’t the same thing.

In my case, I used twitter extensively, but I’m sure Facebook, Google+, or any other social networking site would work the same, so long as you had genuine friends, not just followers.

Plan ahead

Unlike my last promotion, where I made the decision with only a couple of days notice, this one I had nearly two weeks. I submitted my link to as many sites as I could find, and collected a list of places (links to Goodreads threads, forums, facebook pages/groups, blogs and accounts that retweeted free book links) to post in on the day. If I had had a full 2 weeks notice, there are more sites I could have submitted it to, so the more planning time, the better.

I also send messages to people who ran Facebook pages about free ebooks, letting them know my book would be free, and asking if they would mention it. Many of them agreed, and asked me to remind them on the day, so I added them to my list so I didn’t forget!

Get the word out

This is one of the advantages to being in Australia! My book promotion goes live between 5 and 6 in the afternoon/evening, so I’m ready to go with all my links, and start posting as soon as I see the price change. DON’T schedule in advance, as you can’t know the exact moment the promotion will go live, and there’s nothing worse than having a tweet go out, and the book not be free yet!

Once you know your book is free though, schedule some tweets! Especially important for me, as I’m asleep for some of the biggest download times. I avoided doing this last time, as I was new to twitter, and didn’t want to bug anyone. This time I still kept them spaced apart (no more than one ever 3-4 hours), and made sure they were varied. Many were retweeted.

Don’t stop!

My first day was great, and the temptation is to leave it run it’s course after that. But instead, I kept looking for new places to mention my book, mentioned it again on pages where the updates were moving quickly, or there were new free posts each day (like Literary Cafe), and kept tweeting.

Run the promotion for longer than a single day.

As you can see from this graph, though my downloads were steady, they didn’t really take off until day 3 of my promotion, where I had over a thousand downloads in about 4 hours!

I have no idea if this was because of the day (it was Friday), because it was mentioned somewhere I missed, or simply because it had gained momentum, but if I’d run the promotion for one or two days, I would have missed it!

I had set my promo for three days, but when it did so well on day 3, and I made it into the Top 100, I wanted to see if this would keep momentum up by itself. The results are clear in the graph. I kept getting downloads, but nowhere near as many as that third day. Again, this could be due to Saturday over Friday, or it could be due to my stopping actively promoting. (I ended up with a cold, so was too miserable to do anything other than check stats that day, making it a really good experiment.)

Pick your days

This is easier said than done. My last promo was on a Thursday, so I ran this one from Wednesday to Friday (then added Saturday). Logic tells me that some days are going to be better for downloads than others, and from my experience I’d pick a Friday, but one experiment isn’t enough to say for sure at this stage. I’ve also heard that mid month is better.

Don’t run your promo’s too close together

I ran mine about 2 months apart. Running one promo on top of the other will lead to people ignoring your promo because they’ve seen it before. It also won’t help with follow up sales, as people will figure it will be free again soon, so they’ll get it then.

What do you think? Do you have any great tips for running a successful promo? Do you agree/disagree with any of my points?

I’ll be writing another post on how well I did on sales AFTER the promo was over too, but I want a bit longer to collect data for this one. Check for it next week some time.

Today’s SFR (Science Fiction Romance) Brigade Presents snippet is from near the beginning of Reckless Rebellion, the sequel to Reckless Rescue. It’s currently in second draft stage, so this snippet hasn’t been extensively edited yet.

SFR Brigade Presents are a snippets from a group of Sci-Fi Romance authors. Check them out to discover other cool snippets.

Marlee is realising just how little she knows about Tyris, and his world.

They walked down a corridor and into an open room with comfortable looking upholstered seats around the edge. The woman looked around with a frown at the half a dozen people who were sitting there, commenting, “It looks like Tyris is still in his medical exam. Are you okay to wait here for him?”

Marlee was just looking uncertainly around the room, when an elegant looking woman who was sitting near the door stood up and said, “I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying. Are you waiting for Tyris Bekkert?”

Marlee hadn’t, until that moment, considered the fact that the beautiful dress Jaimma had made her would be out of style with those around her. But the tawny evenness of the close weave skirt and the light femininity of the blouse that the woman wore, tailored so perfectly to her shape, left her feeling unexpectedly dowdy, and suddenly at a loss for words.

“Yes, can I help you?” the nurse asked.

The woman smiled, and held out her hand. “I’m Milandra Harrington. Tyris’s wife.”

When Tyris and Marlee return to his home on Urslat, not everyone is pleased to see them, or to find out that Marlee’s people survived the meteor impact. They are, however, delighted to have a new source of anysogen. And they’ll do anything they can to gain control of it as soon as possible.

Marlee thought things would be simpler once they were on Urslat. After all, Tyris said no one would try to break up their relationship there. They hadn’t counted on Tyris’s wife, Milandra, who is determined not to let her husband go now he’s famous. But Tyris and Marlee have one very good reason for keeping their relationship a secret, and for that, they need Milandra to believe her marriage isn’t on the rocks.

In the meantime, there are people who find the idea of a planet where having children is encouraged very interesting indeed. Especially since some of the contraceptive chips have been malfunctioning…

Currently in editing.

Second draft

If you’d like to be notified about the release of Reckless Rebellion, you can sign up for my mailing list to receive updates on book releases and promotions.

Today I’m over at Amanda Martin’s blog (writermummy), answering some great questions about my novel, writing and sci-fi in general. Come and check it out!

What do you do when your sheets get a rip in them? For most of us, the first reaction is to throw them away and buy a new set.

Maybe, if we’re feeling industrious, we might tear them up and use them for rags. Almost no one repairs them anymore. And even less people use all that material for something else useful.

And yet, there are so many things you can do with sheets that are past their used by date, from repairing them, using them in quilting, or making entirely new items. Essentially, a flat sheet is just a large piece of seamless material, and a fitted sheet isn’t much different. And pillowcases have their own potential as well!

Extending the life of sheets is fairly easy. The wear of a sheet is predictable. Bottom sheets wear much faster than top sheets, and mostly in the middle. In days when material was scarce, they used to cut a worn sheet in half, and sew the outsides together, putting the worn areas to the outside, and the stronger areas into the middle. Simple tears in otherwise strong sheets can be easily repaired, prolonging the life of the sheet.

Once a sheet is past the point of repair, there is still usually a lot of usable material left in them, especially around the edges. I’ve previously used sheets to make long skirts, my favourite piece of clothing! I made this one out of two contrasting sheets, and wore it until it wore out! The long pieces of material required for this project suited the nature of worn sheets perfectly.

An advantage of using sheets for clothing is that they’re already soft and already pre-shrunk. Some of these older sheets have lovely patterns too. And if you’re wondering, no one has ever guessed that they used to be sheets!

The soft nature of the material means it’s perfect for children’s clothing or toys. These cute little dresses are made from pillowcases, and require very little sewing. Nice and cool for summer.

I’ve also used sheets for making cushions, shopping bags (even more eco-friendly than the typical ‘green bags’ you can buy at the shopping centre), and patchwork floor rugs.

For me, making things out of old sheets is a fun exercise in creativity and recycling. A hundred years ago though, it was necessity. New material was hard to come by, and expensive, so it made sense to use it as many times as possible before it was turned into rags.

For the characters in my novel, Reckless Rescue, it’s even more necessary. Stranded on a planet, with no contact with the outside world, they can’t buy new sheets, or skirts, or quilts. So every piece of material they bought with them is exceptionally valued, and used many times.

Have you ever considered recycling sheets? Or is there anything else that you’ve discovered a cool new use for?

It’s been a busy month. After not making my 50k goal for Camp NaNoWriMo in April (though I did write 30k), I’m determined to finish the second draft of Reckless Rebellion this month.

So far, it’s not looking promising. I’ve written less than 5,000 words. Between homeschooling, blogging, promoting the just finished free promotion, and now, catching a cold, I seem to be struggling to find the time.

But, all that stops now. I want to finish this draft this month, as I said. So I’m cutting back on my blogging time, and social media, until it’s done. No more checking my downloads twenty times a day. I’m going to write first. I’ve signed up for 15k in May (check for us on twitter at #15kinmay), and I’m ready to catch up!

I know where the story is going now. I have the ending planned out (and even written down), so there shouldn’t be any major issues. There are 10 days left in May, and I’m sure I can finish in that time. So for now, I’ll leave you with a little excerpt. This is where I’m up to as of the last writing session.

Kerit came and gave her a hug. It helped a little, but it wasn’t Tyris.

Where had everything gone wrong? What could she have done to bring them to a different outcome? She searched over the events of the last few months, but came up empty handed. It was as though fate had been pushing them relentlessly in this direction, leaving no escape.

Marlee gave herself a shake. She didn’t believe in fate. She had control over her own destiny. And she needed to figure out how she could make things right again.

If you’re looking forward to the release of Reckless Rebellion, you can sign up for my mailing list to receive updates on book releases and promotions.

Today’s SFR (Science Fiction Romance) Brigade Presents snippet is from near the beginning of Reckless Rescue. No prior information needed for this one I don’t think.

SFR Brigade Presents are a snippets from a group of Sci-Fi Romance authors. Check them out to discover other cool snippets.

Milandra laughed, and twisted in his arms to return his kiss. “Good morning to you, too.” She wriggled out of his arms and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “There’s a letter for you.”

Her words sent a sudden chill down Tyris’s spine. “There is?” His voice sounded faint, even to his own ears.

Milandra nodded towards the kitchen bench where she’d thrown the mail. Tyris stared at it from across the room. The pile contained mostly junk mail, but hidden under the stack was an official-looking letter with a government seal.

Why did bad news still come by mail when for years everything else had arrived by e-mail?

He’d been dreading this moment for three days, since the announcement of the government’s radical new plan to combat the chronic overpopulation.

It wasn’t the first time the Colonies had faced this problem. Thirty years ago, before the discovery of anysogen, when they were limited to the half a dozen planets they could reach via slow shuttles, they’d tried to limit population growth by suggesting that people stop having so many children. They paid scientists to draw up frightening graphs of how quickly food would run out.

It hadn’t worked.

Reckless Rescue is free to download from Amazon Kindle for one more day only. Get your copy now!

What would you risk for love?

Marlee’s people are dying—the valuable anysogen gas that covers their planet is making the entire population infertile. When the council tells her she must leave her partner and choose another to improve her chances of having a baby, she’s devastated. She swears she’ll never love again—it hurts too much.

Tyris thinks he has everything he wants, despite his world suffering from overpopulation—until his wife leaves him because he is forbidden to have children.

In an attempt to convince his world, and his wife, that he’s worthwhile, Tyris goes hunting for a lost planet said to contain untold riches in the form of anysogen gas.

When he crashes on her world, Marlee and Tyris agree to pretend to live together while they try to repair his ship and escape from the planet. But as they battle the harsh winter on the planet together, keeping their distance becomes even more challenging than the snow, the council and the risks of a real relationship…

9:00 am - I woke up this morning to find Reckless Rescue at #354 on the Amazon Free list! (And #1 on Romance->Sci-Fi/Futuristic and Sci-Fi->Space Opera!)

That’s huge. I didn’t expect to reach that point until late this afternoon. And for that, I have to thank so many people who have helped me to get the news out, commented, tweeted my links, and posted them on Facebook. I want to publicly thank you all!

But – I still have two and a half days of the promotion to go! So I’m aiming for the top 100 list, and then after that, seeing how high I can make it! I thought I’d juse my little temperature graph here to update this thread with progress updates throughout the promotion, so check back on this post to see how we’re doing!

10:30 am – Amazon’s list updated as I was writing this (unlike downloads, the lists only update every hour or so), and now Reckless Rescue is at 281!

Can’t believe how quickly it is climbing! I’m sure it will slow down as I get closer to the top though, as there are more books there, and higher numbers of downloads between them.

1:20 pm - At #275! (Not enough difference to make a new image). Moving slowly now.

3:40 pm – Another list update. At #242 now. Agonisingly slow, after how fast I was jumping earlier.

Giving away something for free is very hard for some people to get their head around. I mean, for a novel, the author has spent many, many hours writing and editing, surely they deserve to get paid for that work?

There are lots of things we ‘deserve’ in this life, but the truth is, deserving something doesn’t mean you’re going to automatically get it. I prefer to look at what works. What helps me sell more books.

It’s easy to think that every book you give away is one that someone might have paid you for. It’s easy to think that you’re losing money by giving away your ebook for free. But I don’t believe it works that way.

I think, when you give something away for free, you’re trading it for good will. People love to get something for free (especially if it’s something good, an ebook that’s well written and edited). They’re likely to tell their friends, even after the promotion has ended. They’re likely to come back and buy another book later on.

Yes, many free ebooks are downloaded, and many don’t ever get read. We all have ebooks on our devices that we haven’t gotten around to reading. It’s true. But the more your book cover is in front of people’s eyes, the more likely they are to remember it later, and the more people download it, the more people will read it (even if it’s just a portion of the downloads). I know that at least some people read my book during the last promotion, since I had several hits on the Reckless Rescue extras I uploaded and linked to from the back of the book. I’m sure there were more who didn’t visit.

Reckless Rescue will be free from today (the 15th of May), to the 17th. Please help me spread the word using the buttons below.

Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt that if you’re an author, and maybe even if you’re not, you’ve heard of Amazon’s exclusive self-published author club, KDP Select.

This program offers authors a couple of benefits, in return for them selling their book exclusively through Amazon. So without getting into an Amazon war, I thought I’d list the pros and cons for KDP Select, and briefly explain why I’m choosing to enrol my book.

Pros – What Amazon Offers:

* Books enrolled through KDP select are available through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. This means your book is available for Amazon Prime users to borrow for free, and you get a slice of the KDP Select Global Fund. These amounts vary, but from the examples I’ve seen, they’re comparable with a book sale through normal means, if not higher. These borrows currently account for around 10% of my book sales.

* The ability to offer your book free for 5 promotional days out of 90. Though free book promotions were a lot more successful before the Amazon algorithm changed to make them count less towards the books overall ranking, many people still like to offer their book for free for a limited time to bring it to reader’s attention, gather reviews, or generate buzz.

* You get 70% Royalties (rather than 35%) for books sold in Japan, India, or Brazil. Probably not a big concern unless your book is specifically applicable to these countries, but worth mentioning just in case.

Pros – Extras I see:

* You only have to upload your book once, in one format – if creating and uploading ebooks is new to you, this can be a big plus, and make things seem less overwhelming.

* All your sales are through the one outlet, meaning they all count towards the one ranking. No matter how much you may hate Amazon’s business tactics, it’s hard to deny that at the moment, they’re the biggest ebook retailer, and most authors I’ve read have said most of their sales come through Amazon. I figure the more sales I can get through Amazon, the higher my Amazon sales ranking, which will lead (hopefully), to more sales.

Cons:

* You lose readers who have a different ebook reader, or prefer not to buy through Amazon. Of course, it’s hard to judge how many people this is, since most of them don’t write and tell you, they just go buy another book!

* Some people object to Amazon’s business practices, either because they’re asking for exclusivity, because they seem them trying to gain a monopoly, or for other reasons.

Why I choose to be Exclusive with Amazon:

Most of the above Pros were considerations when choosing to enrol Reckless Rescue through the KDP Select program. I wanted to at least try the free days promotion (I wrote a post on my experience here), I wanted to see how high I could get my Amazon ranking, and I figured mastering one format at a time was enough!

I am also no stranger to the exclusive business model. I’m an exclusive photographer with IstockPhoto, and while I’ve had my ups and downs, I’m happy with that position. Uploading and tracking a product once is enough. Also, my experience with Istock means I’m used to a lot of the practices many people are upset about. (Only getting a payout after reaching a certain amount of royalties, and not getting paid into an Australian bank account etc)

Overall, I’m happy with the KDP Select program, and don’t plan to change at this stage. In fact, I have a three day free promotion of Reckless Rescue coming up on the 15th of May!

promotion

How about you? Do you have any pros or cons to add to the list? Any experiences with KDP Select to share? Or do you only buy books for certain e-readers or from certain companies. Please let me know!

Today I have author Amanda Martin here to talk about her writing, blogging, being a mum, and her YA fantasy novel, Dragon Wraiths.

Have you always wanted to be an author, or did something else inspire you to write?

First of all, thank you Rinelle for letting me visit your lovely blog! It’s so nice to have a change of scenery, particularly as I spend far too much time on mine these days.

I’ve always loved stories and when I was younger I enjoyed creative writing. However a desire for grades took over and I discovered a passion for academia. Fiction fell by the wayside until I became pregnant with my first child and started a Creative Writing course to give me something to keep my brain active. I found that writing stories was even more fun than writing essays.

I had attempted to write a novel before, but never got past the first page because I didn’t think I had a good enough imagination. The Creative Writing course, together with discovering NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month – writing 50,000 words in 30 days), introduced me to an ability to write that I was previously unaware of. Thank goodness!

I know you have two small kids, any tips on finding time to write as a mother?

I am fortunate that they go to nursery for two days a week. Before starting the daily blog challenge I mostly wrote on those days. Now I do have to find time to write every day, as well as keeping up with the social media that accompanies self-publishing. I write my blog in the evenings after the children are in bed, often not getting to bed myself until midnight. The social media I do during the day on my phone or iPad. I do get told off by my children, but they are beginning to learn that Mummy has to do some work during the week.

I also write while walking the dog. I have an old-fashioned phone that still has a number-pad and I can tap out 1500 words in text messages on a 45-minute walk. I find the rhythm of walking particularly conducive to writing dialogue or the diary section of my daily blog.

This year you’ve committed to writing a post a day for the year. What inspired that, and how are you finding it? (I think you’re really brave by the way!)

Brave, or maybe crazy! The idea to take part in postaday 2013 came on New Year’s Eve. I was struggling with the lack of routine caused by my husband being made redundant (laid off) in October. I didn’t want to start a new manuscript as I was meant to be promoting Dragon Wraiths and editing my contemporary women’s fiction novel, Baby Blues & Wedding Shoes. I thought writing a daily blog would give me a challenge without detracting from my other projects (I was wrong!).

I came up with the idea of writing a first draft of a novel in daily instalments, with a separate bit that originally was to be about the writing process but has ended up being more of a parenting diary.

As part of your blogging every day, you’re writing an instalment of “Two-Hundred Steps Home”, a story about Claire and her job to visit all the Youth Hostels. Do you have this planned out, or are you pantsing it?

Pantsing it, definitely! I’m a pantser to the core, although I did discover with Dragon Wraiths the pitfalls of making it up as you go. Sometimes you get in plot cul-de-sacs that are hard to get out of. With Two-Hundred Steps Home (named for the 200 YHA hostels in the UK) I obviously have the journey around the UK hostels as a rough guide, but the actual story is evolving daily. Some days I know what needs to happen next – for example I knew a week or two in advance that Claire’s niece would be travelling with Claire or I have an idea what the month-end cliff-hanger might be –  but I don’t know what I’m going to write on any given day until I open my laptop.

I’ve really enjoyed reading about Claire (The catch up novels are free by the way). What do you plan to do with Claire’s story once you’re finished? 

I have no idea! The daily blog was intended as a way to promote myself as a writer, bring more people to the blog and hopefully help build up a following. I suspect that hasn’t been entirely successful, as it is hard to write good prose every single day. I would like to edit Claire’s story down into a novel – it’s likely to be the length of three novels by the end of the year, and definitely needs cutting down as there is a lot of repetition for people who haven’t read from the beginning. Unfortunately the thing I have always found nigh-on impossible, as an academic and a fiction writer, is cutting out significant word count. For essays I had to write tightly to the necessary word target or I would fail. My novels are all over suggested length by an agent’s standards but I cannot cut out huge chunks of words.  Hopefully that will be something I learn to do as I grow and develop as a writer.

I loved your first published novel, Dragon Wraiths, do you want to tell us a little about it?

Dragon Wraiths follows the journey of orphan Leah as she learns to fight, love, and above all, survive.

It’s the day before Leah’s sixteenth birthday. Instead of planning the perfect party she’s stuck in a shabby B&B in the middle of nowhere. She’s not worrying about pimples and presents: she has bigger things to freak her out. Like her Mother’s dying words telling her she will die on her sixteenth birthday. Spending her teenage years escaping from falling trees, burning buildings, killer bees — and the unseen enemies trying to murder her. Or falling in love with a boy who won’t admit she exists, even though they’ve been on the run together for months.

As her birthday approaches, Leah tries to piece together the events that led her there and wonders if she’ll live past lunchtime. What she doesn’t know is her future will include conspiracies, dragons, new powers: Her first kiss. 

And the responsibility to save two worlds

What inspired you to write YA? Is it your normal genre?

YA was not my normal genre at all when I wrote Dragon Wraiths. You could say the book wrote me. I woke one-day with the story in my head, including the first line, and it grew from there. Initially I began writing because I needed a new challenge, after getting bogged down in revisions of Baby Blues & Wedding Shoes. I shelved the manuscript after the first 30,000 words as I couldn’t really see where it was heading. Then I read about the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition and decided to enter it for that. It was meant to go in for the Chicken House competition also but it ended up being 30,000 words too long. Did I mention I tend to over-write?

The dragons in your novel are rather unique, I don’t think I’ve read anything quite like them before. Where did the idea for them come from?

Thank you! It is a relief to hear that, as dragons are so often written about and it is difficult not to steal someone else’s great ideas. I love dragon stories – the one I read most recently (although after finishing the first draft of Dragon Wraiths) was Eragon by Christoper Paolini, so some of the finishing touches may be influenced by that. One reviewer compared the novel to Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern novels but I haven’t read any of them (and I’m scared to now!)

Mostly, the dragons evolved organically from Leah’s story. I can’t quite recall, as I draft from my subconscious rather than conscious mind, but I believe I had the title, Dragon Wraiths, in my mind from the beginning and the dragons evolved to fit the Wraith concept.

What do you think you’ll write next? YA again, or something different?

I really want to have a go at writing Middle Grade fiction. I’ve gone through a long period of reading only MG books (apart from Reckless Rescue!) and I love the genre. I like the world building and character development, heroism and morality, in MG fiction that is not overly-bogged down with politics or too much introspection. I also find that, while MG Fiction can be sad or scary, because it is aimed at the younger age-group it is gentle and uplifting to read. Since having children I find I can’t read books that affect me too deeply because it gives me nightmares. The joy of hormones I suppose!

Thanks for visiting today Amanda. If anyone wants to know more about Amanda or her books, you can check out the links below.

Links:

You can catch up on Two-Hundred Steps Home by downloading the free ebooks via Smashwords. This is my author page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/writermummy

Dragon Wraiths is currently only on Kindle but will hopefully be on Smashwords next month. The Kindle Links are:

Amazon.com:  http://amzn.com/B00BKZTRP8

Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BKZTRP8

If you want to read more about Claire, or catch up on the story of Dragon Wraiths, do please visit my blog: http://writermummy.wordpress.com.

I also have a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WriterMummy?ref=hl and spend far too much time on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WriterMummy