Tag Archives: The Brevity of Roses

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The Role of the Storyteller

I watch Harry’s Law, partly because the character Harriett (Harry) Corn is not young and whip thin. She’s a criminal defense lawyer, who also owns the shoe store on the street level of her building, and feisty as all get out. Sure, the story lines often stray from reality—no, on second thought, they’re probably as real as the scripted shows disguised as reality TV.

Anyway, I’m particularly glad I watched this week. One of the two cases in the episode concerned a British man under threat of extradition for a crime he’d committed twenty years earlier. In the years since, he’d moved to Cincinnati and bought a tea shop in a depressed neighborhood where he entertained his customers with tall tales.

Many of these customers came to court and testified in the shop owner’s behalf, saying how much he’d enriched their lives with his stories. In a moving defense to the judge, one of Harry’s associates illustrated how the man provided a humanitarian service to his community. He pointed out that the shop owner had taken his customers to places they’d never be able to go, given them adventures they’d never experience, made them laugh and given them hope.

I took that to heart. Since I published The Brevity of Roses, a  few people  have insinuated the book was beneath them, it was only a love story, fiction for the masses. Yeah. It’s fiction for real people. I won’t apologize for that. I’m real people. I won’t apologize for that either. I’m proud that I told my story to so many who let me know they liked it—loved it, even—and I’m happy I could transport them out of their life and into my imaginary world for a few hours.

So, I raise my cup to all the storytellers who’ve enriched my life. How small it would be without them. Won’t you join me?

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You Won’t Be Anonymous, And I’m Not Crazy

I’ve noticed that some of you who take the time to leave a comment have become somewhat anonymous. Since WordPress made changes to their comment policy last month, now, unless you’re a WordPress blogger, the avatar that appears next to your comment might not link to your blog. That’s unfortunate because the real reason you bother to comment is in hope someone will click your avatar and visit your blog. Right?

Okay, it’s not the only reason, but it’s a benefit. I don’t mind at all. And I discovered I can help you out. That is, if I know the address of your blog, I can help. I finally noticed that from my dashboard, I have the option to edit the email address or link-back URL in your comment. So from now on, if you leave a comment and it doesn’t link to your blog, I’ll try to correct that.

I’ve said many times on this blog that I find it necessary to edit as I write. It’s almost impossible for me to move on when I’m aware that a sentence is clunky, or I’ve made a poor word choice, or otherwise phoned it in. I’m not saying I never do those things, but when I know I’ve done one of them, I have to fix it before I can continue writing. It’s the same when I know I’m not going deep enough into a character, I fuss and fume until I break through.

But something weird has happened as I write my current novel. I know I’m leaving out things and I’m okay with it. In some scenes, I’ve skimmed the surface of my main character. I know there should be a lot going on in her head, but I’m not exploring it yet. She’s doing things, saying things, but she’s mostly shut me out of her head—if you know what I mean.

That seemed just plain crazy to me because that’s not the way I usually write. Always before, though I wrote the dialogue first, I’ve just as clearly known what my characters were only thinking. This new, seemingly chaotic, way of writing bothered me, but I’d delayed so long already on this book that I had to keep writing.

Then I started to feel excited about these missing pieces of narrative, as if I were waiting to open a gift. Recently, I’ve been hearing passages of my character’s thoughts, and they were worth the wait. I’m not sure where they’ll fit in the book yet, but I wrote them down. For now, what can I do but write and look forward to all my future gift boxes?

FREE BOOK: If you missed getting a digital copy of The Brevity of Roses on the free days in February, you have another chance. Tomorrow and Friday (May 3-4), you can download it free from Amazon. Remember, you don’t have to have a Kindle to read a Kindle book, just install the free reader for your computer or smart phone.

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Yes, we have a winner!

We have a winner in the book anniversary giveaway. I entered all the entrants’ names once, twice, three, four times per the rules and Random.org chose Christa Polkinhorn as the winner of the signed copy of The Brevity of Roses. Congratulations, Christa! Please send me your mailing address, so I can get your prize in the mail.

I’m sorry you couldn’t all win, but thank you for entering—and tweeting, plusing, and facebooking. I appreciate the free advertising. :-)

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It’s all about exposure, baby!

Some of you may have wondered why I would give The Brevity of Roses away for two days last week. It was exciting, to be sure. It’s amazing to think that thousands of people can now read it, of course, but that’s not all I expected. I knew the giveaway would increase the book’s visibility on Amazon while it was free, but what about after that period?

I believe Brevity is a good story and its reviews confirm that, but only a limited circle knew about it. People can’t buy a book they don’t know exists. As an independent author, specifically one with no influence or marketing budget, I’ve had a major challenge getting Brevity noticed, so when I heard about the KDP Select program, I had to consider it.

In the first three months after Brevity’s publication, 74% of e-book sales were through Amazon, and that increased to 91% during the last seven months. That fact weighed heavily in my decision because to enroll your e-book in the KDP Select program, you have to remove it from all other distributors. Obviously, for me that restriction was practically a non-factor.

Also, enrollment in the program makes your book available to the Amazon Prime lending library, and each borrow earns the author a percentage of a monthly pool of funds. I would earn less for a loan than for a sales, but far more than zero.

So, did the giveaway give my book more visibility on Amazon? Heck yeah! It rose to #4 on the Kindle contemporary fiction chart. Did the promo result in increased sales after the free period? You betcha! It maintained a rank of #22 in all fiction sales for eighteen hours. It’s also racking up borrows.

From others experience in the KDP Select program, I expect my current sales rank to gradually lower over the next few days, but not return to what it was before the giveaway. As people read Brevity, they’ll tell their friends about it. Some of them will leave reviews at Amazon. Word of mouth will continue to give the book exposure. I deem this experiment a success!

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Wow! The KDP Select Giveaway Experience

I’m excited to say my first KDP Select giveaway experience was a success. It thrilled me, amazed me, astounded me, and left me dizzy. If you follow me on Facebook, you might have thought I’d been hitting the wine bottle after reading my frequent updates, but I promise no wine was involved. I was just giddy from following the download numbers for The Brevity of Roses.

I apologize for the length of this post, but some of you may be considering such a giveaway for your book, so I think it’s important to share my experience. Also, some of you invested your time to spread the word or cheer me on, so I thought you might be interested in the results.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to check the rankings at the Amazon stores in other countries, but I didn’t, so all the action I’ll cite was for Amazon US, and all rankings were for free Kindle books. Here’s how it went. The ebook’s price was supposed to switch to free at midnight PST on Wednesday, but I stayed awake until 12:30 am and it hadn’t changed, so I went to bed.

My promo blitz began when my pre-scheduled blog post published at 5:30 Thursday morning. When I woke about 7:30 I announced the giveaway on Facebook and Twitter. I forgot about Google+ until later. I had not arranged to have the giveaway promoted at any free Kindle book sites.

However, I want to say right here that I have the greatest “tribe” of supporters ever!!! So many of you shared my announcement on Facebook, Twitter, and I don’t know where else, that I don’t think I needed any help from strangers. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Seriously, THANK YOU.

I was afraid to check the stats at first, so I didn’t see them until 8:30 Thursday morning. At that time, Brevity had been downloaded 665 times, and I ranked #30 in contemporary fiction and #60 in contemporary romance. (I forgot to note the overall rank.) I thought those numbers were great. Little did I know.

All day Thursday, Brevity climbed in the ranks, taking a big leap around 2pm that first day. From 6-7pm PST, it reached its peak download speed, averaging 12 copies per minute! By 7pm, 6,623 people had downloaded the book. It ranked #5 in contemporary fiction and #6 in contemporary romance. The overall rank was #25, and it sat at #24 in Top 100 Kindle ebooks, and #20 in Top 100 Fiction.

I was exhausted from all the excitement and last checked the stats at 11pm before going to bed. At that time, it had moved up one notch in all those ranks, and had been downloaded 8,014 times! I truly couldn’t believe that.

The second day, I started tracking stats at 7:00 am. The first stats I recorded were 9,023 downloads, it ranked #5 in contemporary fiction and #5 in contemporary romance. The overall rank was #17, and it was #16 in Top 100 Kindle ebooks, and #14 in Top 100 Fiction. That meant Brevity finally appeared on the first page of free downloads. Yay!

In all, Brevity maintained its ranking at #5 in contemporary fiction and contemporary romance for nineteen—19!—hours! I can’t tell you how unbelievable that was to me. Trying to wrap my little brain around that literally made me dizzy. By 2:30 PST on Friday, the book had been downloaded 10,733 times! And then, in the next hour it took a mystifying leap to #3 in contemporary fiction and held that spot for five hours.

As the timer ticked off the final hours, Brevity descended a bit, settling back in the #5 spot in contemporary fiction, dropping to #12 in contemporary romance, then rising again to #8, and staying there to the end. The final tally for US downloads was 12,604. Add to that 1,184 in the UK, 58 in Germany, 2 in France, and 1 in Spain for a total of 13,849 downloads worldwide!

Since these were free downloads, I earned no royalties from them, but the EXPOSURE, oh my! I feel like Brevity finally got a chance to be a contender. Of course, the lure of FREE means that not everyone who downloaded Brevity will actually read it. But even if only 30% read it, that’s nearly 5,000 more readers! Can you imagine?

One thing I’d been warned about beforehand was that I might see a few bad reviews after the free promo, I don’t know why that should be, but on Friday morning when I saw that my review count had increased by one, I was afraid to look. My fear was unfounded; it was a lovely 4-star review. A bit later, I received an email from that person saying she’d bought the book on Thursday and stayed up until 2am Friday to finish it. Now, wasn’t that just the cherry on top?

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The Brevity of Roses is free on Amazon!

Today and tomorrow, February 23 and 24, the digital version of my novel The Brevity of Roses is FREE at Amazon. REMEMBER, you don’t have to own a Kindle to read a Kindlebook. Amazon provides a free Kindle reader app for your PC, Mac, smartphone, or iPad.

If you haven’t read Brevity yet, here’s your chance to get it free. If you have read it, PLEASE spread the word about this promotion. I’m excited. Brevity is all dressed up in its beautiful new cover and waiting to be read. I want to see the book rise to the top of the Amazon ranks in its categories. If you tell your family and friends, on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and anywhere else you can think of about this giveaway, I will be eternally grateful.

Am I being melodramatic? Yes, I am. I really need this promotion to work. There are millions of books for sale on Amazon, so even though mine has a 4.6 star rating, it’s virtually INVISIBLE. With this promotion, I can make its existence known to thousands of readers who would love it.

Deep breath. Here we go!

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Do you judge a book by its cover?

We’re told not to judge a book by its cover. Then again, we’re told how important first impressions are. Hmmm. Well, when I scroll through a list of books online, it’s their covers that make a first impression, and I do judge them. If a cover is not well designed, or doesn’t fit the tone or genre of the book, it’s not the best cover for that book.

Do you see that book cover there on the right? It’s about to change, which I guess makes that cover a collector’s item. I designed that cover with my own artwork. It’s not horrid, but it really only makes sense after you read the book. In that sense, it’s a fail. It also doesn’t make the genre clear. Fail. I did the best I could, but I didn’t really understand the job a book cover plays in selling the book.

This is not just my opinion. Four graphic designers told me the same thing. One of those designers is also a friend, and she offered to help. She doesn’t design full time—she’s also an author—but I’d seen covers she designed for herself and others and thought they were all beautiful, so I said, “Heck yeah!”

I’d never worked with a designer before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I confess I’m not always easy to work with. I’m a perfectionist. I worried about how much I might bug her with my nitpicking, but so far we’re still friends. :-) Now we’re down to the fine-tuning, and I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

The new cover is GORGEOUS!!! She took the two stock photos I selected, added another, and created a cover beyond my dreams. I can’t wait to share it with you.

So tell me:  When you’re faced with a screen filled with small cover images of books you know nothing about, do you judge those books by their covers, or do you read the description of each one?