THE Group for Authors! discussion

This is more fun than anything else but as we approach the end of the year, I have started to think about 2015. What is your number one writing resolution for 2015. I have three vying for the top notch

Collaborate more than I ever have before
Write the family saga
Publish some poetry

What's your really big thing for 2015?

Improve my marketing skills.

Mike wrote: "Improve my marketing skills."

Yep this is the big one - I will be aiming at to.

Others to get at least 50,000 words written every month and to publish at least 10 novella length books.

Mike wrote: "Improve my marketing skills."

You and me both, Mike ...

Caroline wrote: "Mike wrote: "Improve my marketing skills."

Yep this is the big one - I will be aiming at to.

Others to get at least 50,000 words written every month and to publish at least 10 novella length books."

Do you write daily? I know some authors write a thousand words a day - I can't do it that way - I write 1 to 8,000 depending on mood and inspiration - today it is currently zero but I was improving my marketing skills so I excuse myself ... good luck with your projects in 2015!

I must concur - Improve my marketing skills and write a sequel.

Not to make this thread sound like a broken record bit marketing is a big one for me.

I published my first work this year, which was a major milestone, but in the interest of continuous improvement I'd like to publish my first 100K novel.

In 2015, I would like to get a good draft of the third Mix Tape story. I would like to blog a lot more. I found so much good material out there I want to write about when I did research.
Meet and greet more authors.

Marketing. How boring. How bleecch. I hate it! But it's my big task in 2015.

GRRR.

About Marketing: I've been making notes, based on experience. This is what I've found:
Promotions via Facebook: useless. About $50 spent, no return.
Via Ereader News Today: good results. $20 spent, more than a hundred sales, some ancillary sales.
Via Choosy Bookworm: The Read and Review program is too expensive, no guarantee of quality of the reviews ($200). The Featured and Premium listing is acceptable ($8 and $20), but requires a minimum of 8 reviews.
Via Kindle Freebies and Kindle Countdown Deals: Some results initially, few or no results later.
Via Kindle Book Review: no results yet; promotion scheduled for January. ($40).
Via eBook Daily: they appear to feature only free books. I'm not willing to offer books free.
Via BookBub: Very expensive; for $1 Action Adventure, $380. If free, $280. For Sci-Fi, $175 and $350. Advantage, statistics are immediately visible. According to one report, you’re likely to gain exposure, gain readership, add to name recognition, not likely to make the investment back.
Via BookGorilla: price is acceptable, promotions sold out until April 2015. Books priced at $1, cost is probably $75-100.
Fussy Librarian, error-free manuscripts, 10 reviews, 4.0 stars minimum.
EBookSoda; one listing for Hands, $10, some return. Try Combat Wizard and Darwin's world? IF low returns, abandon this site until they acquire more readers.
Via Goodreads: some slight effect, difficult to quantize. I’m expanding my ‘friends’ list, which may help.

Jack wrote: "About Marketing: I've been making notes, based on experience. This is what I've found:
Promotions via Facebook: useless. About $50 spent, no return.
Via Ereader News Today: good results. $20 spent,..."

Hey, Jack - that is very useful and very good of you to share. Thank you. What is your big 'go get'for 2015?

Complete my current novel.

Build up my social media and marketing profile, at the risk of copying everyone else so far.

Write in as many different formats as possible - poems, short stories etc.

I've got a novel to finish; Home, the third in a series, will likely wrap up the story of the major character in books one and two of that series. The concept leads to much more, however; it's a new world, no humans, no laws or civilization other than what they develop for themselves, so any genre can be explored in the setting.
I also have a hard-science story I want to write, a different genre for novels. At least for me.
And I intend to whip the promotion dragon down to a small goldfish and flush it down the toilet!
I'm currently exchanging emails with a guy from EbookSoda. They insist on 8 reviews with 4 stars average or better. I just pointed out that all MY reviews are unpaid, they come from readers.
That's the problem with requiring a set number of reviews; those are for sale. Fiverr has people waiting. I think EbookSoda also has a 'Read and Review' program, where they send out lists of books to prospective reviewers. But...those too are 'paid', because the mailer charges $200 and the prospective reviewer gets a book free. And may not review it at all. That smacks of conflict-of-interest to me.
I'd rather offer my book free to anyone who might be interested in reading and reviewing it, with no middleman involved, and no demand for a review.
I've gotten free books, abandoned them in the first few chapters due to lack of interest, and not bothered to 'review' this. My lack of interest is what it is; I'm selective, and critical.
That said, I've got more than a hundred reviews up on Amazon, and under the same name I use for publishing. It's a 'pen name' in a sense; my real first name is Jackie. But if I used that, the first assumption is that I'm female, which, for better or worse, sets the tone of books. I don't want to create false assumptions, so I go with Jack.
Paying to contact possible reviewers...how is that different in essence from contacting someone on Fiverr?
But I'm going to work on all of these things, and if you're interested, read my posts here and my blog, http://jacklknapp.com.
As a new, developing writer, I'm sharing my journey there as well as here.

Jack a friend of mine owns his own publishing company and he will look at your book he just wants the first two or three chapters and if he likes what he reads he will publish it. His company is called Laptiast, it is based in Southerner Il His name is Brooks Kohler. I hope that helps, I am not sure what he charges you would have to get a hold of him.

I'm not willing to pay to publish my books. Amazon, Apple, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, a lot of others will publish for free. I'd rather pay to promote the books, which also has to be done. Even if your friend publishes, I would have to promote and sell the books.
If I wanted paper copies, CreateSpace does that. I'm considering it as a project for next year.
I would NOT advise any author to pay someone to publish his/her books.
For that matter, you can 'publish' your ebooks free. I've done that, submitting the novels as works-in-progress, serialized chapter by chapter. I got feedback as well as readers. One of the sites I used was Beyond the Far Horizon; a number of other Indie writers submit their stories there in first-draft, essentially what Baen and other publishers call ARC's, Advanced Reader Copies. You get the draft version, with little or no editing. It's only worth the money (around $15) if you just can't wait for the book to be published.
A friend did publish an autobiographical book through a vanity press; I bought one of the books, never read it. I won't subject my friends to that. I'm sure that even so, he lost money.
I haven't. I've gotten a lot of satisfaction and even a little bit of money from writing. Even after subtracting expenses, business cards, promotions, etc, I'm still well in the black. I've only just begun promoting, but even so, I'll net nearly a thousand dollars this year.
Not bad for a guy who began writing fiction at age 73 and began publishing for-pay at age 74.
This past March, as a matter of fact. Yeah, five novels, a novella, and a short story published in the past few months, plus another book half-finished. Oh, and I'm editing a friend's newest book, unpaid. I admire his writing, so I edit; he's as good a writer as anyone writing fiction, but his earlier works definitely would have been improved by a good editor. Typos, stuff like that; but plotting, character development, the excitement of reading, if you buy a book by Bruce Bretthauer you won't regret it. He publishes on Amazon, and I've bought his books, read them, and reviewed them. The editing is something I began this year, so all those others, I'm a reader just as so many others are.

Jack, I sorry if you took it the wrong way, My friend also promotes those he likes. Not that he wont like you. I thought I would just let you know about him. For myself what kinds of books do you write, I might like to read them myself. I think is nice that you started writing. I think it is amazing that there are so many writers that don't get the reconsecration they deserve, because if someone has not heard of them how can a person read their book. I just want to let you know I think people who can come up with so many good ideas and things to write about are very talented.

I am genre-nonspecific! So far, all the fiction is SF or fantasy/humor.
Follow up to my earlier post: I just got an answer back from an emailer, eBookSends. No guarantee I spelled it right! They're fast to respond, quick to answer questions. How effective they are, that's yet to be determined.
But FWIW, I promoted via a monster company, millions of users, got zilch for my money. It's Facebook, if you hadn't guessed! And responsive they ain't.

My goal for next year is to write four new novels and publish six.

Also working on getting some reviews and increasing e-mail list and fan base.

what kind of books do you write? It sounds like you are going be busy, A friend is working on writing a book and he is also writing into a screen play at the same time. He is a screen writer also. He is moving back to Nashville I wish him the best of luck.

Mystery/suspense and young adult. This year, I published seven, because I was one behind my schedule from the previous year. And in order to get on track to finish out this year, I published a novel in each of the five out of the last six months of 2014. Going back to a bi-monthly publishing schedule instead of monthly feels like a break!

My next is due to come out in January, but we'll see how long it takes my beta-readers to get through it. They all promised that they had time to read over Christmas break. (It's over 150,000 words, so it's a bit of a brick!)

I have been completing NaNoWriMo and Camp Nano twice a year (or Script Frenzy and Camp Nano) for the past few years, so I have been writing at least three new novels (100,000 words or so) per year. But I decided that leaves the first quarter a bit loosey-goosey, so I'll add another new book cycle in there.

I have a big backlist, which is why I am able to publish more books per year than I am writing. But the older stuff needs a lot more editing, and sometimes a complete rewrite.

It sounds it keeps you busy. What are some of the names of the books I might like to read some of them.

Yes, I keep pretty busy! I am still working full-time as well, homeschooling my teen, and various other roles/projects.

I'm not sure if I am permitted to post a link to my own work or website in this group; some of them are quite strict about no self-promotional links. But if you search P.D. Workman on Goodreads or Amazon, you will find my published work, and if you search it on Google you will find my website.

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you find something that interests you!
Fan mail is so exciting!

I would love to let you know what I find out and what I like. I want to wish you the best of luck with your writing.

Thank you! And you too!

Very interesting...last year my 2014 resolution was to get published and I did manage to get published. But the key to satisfaction and success would be to continue to write of course and do some promotions for the first book. So my top 5 for 2015 would have to be:
Compile a Collection of Short Stories (have already started!)
Write the novel
Focus on reading different kinds of books
Pay attention to marketing opportunities
Request people for reviews

Arpita wrote: "Very interesting...last year my 2014 resolution was to get published and I did manage to get published. But the key to satisfaction and success would be to continue to write of course and do some p..."

I will also try to read a little more widely and although I am close to my goal of 365 books read this year; I need to try harder next year - I picked up on a comment by I think it was Stephen King to the effect - read yourself a better writer ...

Turn my cell phone off when I'm writing.

So many books, P.D.--amazing. Who is actually publishing your books?

Take care and no need to tell you to keep writing, you are certainly doing that.

Ron Reis

I am self-publishing. I don't think there is any publisher who would do seven books in one year for me. I'd probably need at least four separate publishers. LOL.

I'm certainly not stopping any time soon!

Alp wrote: "Arpita wrote: "Very interesting...last year my 2014 resolution was to get published and I did manage to get published. But the key to satisfaction and success would be to continue to write of cours..."

you must read a lot, that is one book every day, I don't see how you do it. Unless you are a fast reader. Please don't take my comment wrong, I just wished I could read that fast. What kind of books do you like to read?

Carolyn wrote: "Alp wrote: "Arpita wrote: "Very interesting...last year my 2014 resolution was to get published and I did manage to get published. But the key to satisfaction and success would be to continue to wr..."

I read mostly m/m romance (which I predominantly write myself) but also thrillers - nothing paranormal and of course my love of SciFi and Poetry influences what I read to a big degree - I guess I do read fast - I love books, reading and writing ...

James wrote: "Turn my cell phone off when I'm writing."

and turn off Twitter!

Thanks for answer my question, I used to read faster than I do now, I could finish a book in a day or two but that is if that was all I did that day. And I would really have to interested in the story.

Carolyn wrote: "Thanks for answer my question, I used to read faster than I do now, I could finish a book in a day or two but that is if that was all I did that day. And I would really have to interested in the ..."

I have the kindle within easy reach day and night; I couldn't imagine not reading something everyday - it's a way of escaping I suppose; mostly from the voices clamouring inside my head, attempting to get their stories written ... stories are sanctuaries. Today, I plan to finish His Protector by Gabriel Grey.

Alp wrote: "Carolyn wrote: "Thanks for answer my question, I used to read faster than I do now, I could finish a book in a day or two but that is if that was all I did that day. And I would really have to int..."

What is the story about, it sound interesting?

Drat! Not even 2015, and I'm already modifying my resolutions!
Write more. Waste less time.
I'm addicted to reading news reports from around the world and spending time on Facebook.
I WILL get those under control in 2015!

I have written many good books, but The marketing in my country is bothering me.
So .. so i shall switch from writing novels and stories to write a research, Or may translating it to other languages, what do you think?.

Interesting ideas above!

I plan to finish a manuscript and query to agents and publishers. Then I'll start a new project.

In 2015, I want to edit and publish the three novella and novel length manuscripts I have written in the last two years.

After that, the sky's the limit. Maybe I'll write a trilogy!

Habit helps. Get in the habit of doing something, it's more effort to break OUT of that habit than it is to just go with it.
So far, so good; I slogged my way through a slowdown, now I'm writing like gangbusters! Where I was turning out maybe 5000 words in a week, I've finished more than 8000 words in three days!

Jack, I am working on getting back in the habit of writing every day to complete my next novel. I had an offer from my publisher that I couldn't refuse and now need to get back in the saddle to meet the deadlines. Thanks for the insight.

Getting into a daily writing habit can definitely do wonders for your productivity and help stave off writer's block.

I think that's a great goal to add to my 2015 resolutions: Write every day.

Great tip, Jack!

I also added getting an audio book on the shelf to my list of resolutions ...

I hope I get better at seeing the bigger picture and more detail. Ha, ha.

The following might be a little off topic but...

I think this looks fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNwWO...

I also think this is amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVqM...

Cheers :)

This is absolutely amazing, it reminds me of my flight, thanks.

yes realy

My 2015 writing resolution is also to write more, especially more blog posts on my website. I also want to do an expanded version of my book.

And the more I think about it, the more I think that the top of the list should be 'to enjoy writing' - first and foremost because it is so easy to get bogged down in the rest.

Thanks to everyone who commented on this thread.

Stop procrastinating ... and get on with finishing my books, writing more blog posts and get more involved in forums (like this one)

My resolutions include a significant rewrite of one of my novels, finishing the first draft of at least one other, and pushing more on making more sales.