When I was about eight, my parents took my sisters, my brother, and me on a six week camping trip in a tent.
Yes, I said six weeks.
No, my parents had not lost their ever lovin’ minds. My father had a sabbatical, they were sick of the city, and they wanted out.
We all piled into our long black Ford. The Ford had an uncanny and somewhat creepy resemblance to a hearse, but we ignored that part.
We tossed in our dogs, Frisky and Alphy. Frisky bit people, Alphy bit dogs. They were both bad, odd dogs. The Ford, immediately, was in total chaos.
We left Huntington Beach, California and camped up and down California and Oregon in a big, sagging blue tent which we later learned was not waterproof, as advertised.
My mother got a scary case of hypothermia, all three of my siblings threw their guts up because they drank the lake water in Lake of the Woods, the dogs got sick in the middle of the night, and we constantly had to drop by local hospitals so I could get my regular allergy shots so I wouldn’t start wheezing like a freight train.
A lantern dropped on my sister’s head, and she had to be rushed to the hospital for a bunch of stitches. Two days later she fell head first into a pond and soaked the stitches. My father had to dive into a river in Jedediah Smith State Park to rescue my brother who would have drowned had my father not been so quick.
Alphy tried to get in fights with other dogs, and Frisky tried to bite people.
The chaos continued. We persevered.
The result? Overall, we had a fantastic time camping in that saggy blue tent. It was a pivotal moment in my life as I saw the value, and beauty, of nature.
We saw mountain ranges and beaches. Elk and raccoons. Campfires and bears. Sparkling lakes and rushing rivers. For city kids, it started a lifelong love of nature for all of us.
All we had to do was go and play outside.
If I could offer you one piece of writing advice for 2018, I would tell you to go and play outside.
I wish my advice was more profound. I wish it sounded wiser, more knowledgeable. I wish it was more craft or skill oriented.
It isn’t.
Friends, head into the woods.
Camp. Hike. Stick your toes in the sand, run in the ocean. Go sledding. Grab time for yourself under the trees. Do not get hypothermia, and don’t drink lake water or bring bad dogs with you.
Be quiet. Be still. Listen. Notice colors and the weather, birds and ducks, the wind and the silence.
Bring chocolate chip cookies. Everyone knows that they’re nutritious and help brain power. Or wine. Wine will do.
I know your life is busy and traipsing into nature can be hard to do. I so get it, but try.
It’s on your hikes in a state park that you’ll find the theme of your story.
It’s in those serene moments beside a waterfall that a tricky sub plot or a mischievous character or a slippery storyline will germinate or solve itself.
It’s in your sleeping bag listening to crickets that you’ll know exactly what your next writing project should be.
Nature gives your soul time to relax. If you want to write well, you must relax and relieve and replenish your soul. Nature, and solitude, also forces us to be honest with ourselves, about our lives, our relationships, and our writing. If for nothing else, go play outside for the honesty.
In 2018 I am wishing you time by a trickling stream, time to lay on your back and admire the stars, time to get up early to catch a sunrise, and time to stand on a mountain and admire a snowy, blue view that goes on forever and ever.
Cheers and happy writing.
Have you ever gotten an idea for a book, while out in nature? Has the break helped your writing?
About Cathy
Cathy Lamb recently finished her twelfth novel. She is tired and is headed out to walk through the woods.
We at WITS are so happy to have Margie back with us, after a too-long hiatus! Wisdom ahead!
Ready for two treats?
First Treat: This blog is loaded with examples of power, power, power. The kind of power that boosts your writing toward contracts and awards and bestseller lists.
Second Treat: I’ll deep edit analyze some of the examples. You’ll see how the author created that power.
We’ll start with a paragraph about silence. The silence that happens when a parent enters the room.
Silence—the sort of silence that sucked movement, breath, life, out of a room—descended. A presence behind her sent out a chill. It wriggled down her spine and she shivered. Mum stilled three teenage boys, a man, and a girl, just by entering a room. Her brothers were named after superheroes, but her mother owned the power.
I let five seconds slide into eternity before I speak. “So-o-o-o-o what happened?”
I’m tired, I’m emotional, I’m stressed. And in the context of who we’re talking about, my sense of humor has put on a tutu and pirouetted onto centre stage at a totally inappropriate time.
I buckle up with laughter and Josh joins in, but not for long and certainly not as hysterically. I hiccup my way to a stop, and remember Tess, my darling sister Tess, and guilt rolls over me and in me and through me like a toxic fog.
Wow. Hear the BOOM? Powerful writing.
Deep Edit Analysis – for the third example
Power Words – joins, hysterically, stop, darling, guilt, toxic, fog
Rhetorical Devices:
Polysyndeton (Many Ands) – …guilt rolls over me and in me and through me.
Amplified Simile – like a toxic fog
Read the last example again. Notice how Andrea Grigg shifted the POV character’s emotional set. The girl went from silly to sad, and so did the reader.
You need to know -- Bernie is the POV character’s therapist.
But even my breathing feels sharp and wrong, and I open my eyes again and lock on to Bernie. My lifeline, my savior. My paid friend.
I’ve been steadfastly stuck now for five years, the weight of my determined inertia too much for even a force of nature like Bernie to budge.
Bernie lets the silence grow until it is cosmic, then sighs, sinks back, and lets her hands fall to her lap. The gesture does me in, it’s so full of futility. Even Bernie doesn’t know what to do with me.
Love the way Kerry Anne King shares the POV character’s emotions. Her internalizations about the therapist run deep and true. Readers will nod. They’ll feel her despair.
Wild Women and the Blues, Denny Bryce, 4-time Immersion-Grad, Golden Heart Winner
The small room with its dropped ceiling stoked my claustrophobia. No windows. No air. No natural light. Just stark-white walls out of focus like cheesecloth over a camera lens.
Deep Edit Analysis
Rhetorical Devices:
Anaphora (Triple Beginnings) – No windows. No air. No natural light.
Themed Description of Walls – out of focus. The POV character is in film production.
Themed Simile – like cheesecloth over a camera lens.
Her expression was like the pages of the screenplay I never wrote. Blank with a heavy shot of I don’t care.
Wow. That’s a fresh and empowered way to write a blank face.
Plus, Denny Bryce themed the facial expression to the POV character’s career. And she amplified, deepened characterization, in that second sentence too. Smart, smart, smart.
“You know I want to be more than your friend.” The raw quality in his voice was like the snap of a rubber band against wet skin.
My gaze locked with Patrick’s and in that moment, my fear hardened into something firm and fierce and fiery. Something that whooshed in my eardrums and marched in my chest. Something that wouldn’t allow me to walk away.
Wow. Wow. Wow!
Deep Edit Analysis – for the third example
Power Words – locked, fear, hardened, firm, fierce, fiery, marched, wouldn’t allow, walk away
Rhetorical Devices:
Polysyndeton (No And) and Alliteration – firm and fierce and fiery
Strathcairn smiled at her in that lethal, tomcat way.
She kissed as she was—agile and acrobatic, curious and capricious, delightful and determined. She was light and air and sunshine in the velvet dark of the empty room. She tasted of danger, dark and bittersweet like morning chocolate, and after one kiss, already deeply addictive.
Deep Edit Analysis
Rhetorical Devices:
Triple Alliteration in the first sentence – A’s and C’s and D’s
Alliteration in the last sentence – danger, dark, deeply
Polysyndeton (Many Ands) – light and air and sunshine
Simile – like morning chocolate
Wow! Fresh visceral response. Stellar writing.
Thank you for clicking in and reading my blog. I love teaching writers how to add the right amount of power in the right places on their pages.
Kudos to all the Margie-Grads I cited here. Brilliant writers. They deep edited their writing, and it shows. They put Wow on their pages.
A BIG THANK YOU to all the wonderful WITS gals for inviting me to be their guest today. I always love hanging out with them — cyberly, and in person.
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Margie Lawson—editor and international presenter—teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners.
She’s presented over 120 full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France, as well as taught multi-day intensives on cruises in the Caribbean.
To learn about Margie’s 5-day Immersion Master Classes (in 2018, in Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Richmond, Calgary, Atlanta, and in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, Australia), full day and weekend workshops, keynote speeches, online courses through Lawson Writer’s Academy, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit www.margielawson.com.
Many authors talk about the complexity of book marketing, but sometimes it doesn’t have to be that hard. Sometimes all it takes is a tweak here or there to give your books a lift.
And with this being a new year, maybe it’s time for a new promotional boost that drives sales!
Adjusting a book price is often the last thing an author thinks of, but it’s a great tool to keep in your book marketing tool box if your book sales seem to be lagging.
You’ve probably heard this from other indie authors, or even experienced it yourself: once your book is on Amazon, it stagnates. You see virtually no movement.
And it’s disheartening to see your hard work just sit there. Believe me, I know. I hear it all the time. And, as an author myself, I understand.
But here’s the good news: it could be an easy fix.
There are lots of things you can consider, but playing with pricing can be a huge trigger to get that needle to move. And here is what you should keep in mind as you explore this option.
1. Be Competitive
I see this a lot — books that aren’t priced competitively with their markets. Keeping in mind what the market will bear, as well as your page count, your book should be priced accordingly.
Sometimes I’ll speak to authors who have their book priced very high with the intent to “earn back” the money they invested in producing it.
That’s a bad plan.
Now you may not have a lot of choice with regards to your print book. Thing like images and graphics can drive up the printing cost, but with your e-book you have a lot more wiggle room.
As you’re doing research, be sure to stay away from authors who are household names, because they can command higher prices. But check out top books, books that are performing well, and find the sweet spot. Then adjust your regular price to match that optimal number.
Remember, it’s never a good idea to price your book outside of what the market can bear.
2. Do Regular Price Rotations
The ability to change your book price is a benefit you have as an indie author. And you want to take advantage of this, because it triggers Amazon’s algorithm and can give your exposure there spikes each time you make a change.
So consider changing your price at least one time each month. By this, I mean shift between the $2.99 and $5.99 sweet spot reported by Amazon sales data.
Unless, of course, you’re doing a special promo, which I’ll discuss below.
3. Make Quarterly Promotional Price Drops
Every three to four months, I recommend that you dip below that sweet spot and do a big, multi-pronged book marketing push to support it.
As a rule, I suggest $.99, but sometimes $1.99 can get you decent exposure too. And you should plan to keep it at that price for a solid 3-5 days.
As part of the marketing push, list this price drop several e-book promotion sites as well.
Don’t forget to promote everywhere — your social media, your blog, your newsletter, any way that you are able to communicate with your audience.
4. Understand the Power of Free
Listing your book as free can be a hard pill to swallow. And I know that if you add up all the hours you spent working on it, you probably couldn’t charge enough for it.
But the thing is, you can’t focus on what you see as your worth or your book’s worth. Instead, you have to focus on what drives sales. And buyers love a good deal.
So definitely consider freebie e-book promotions as well. For these you can drop the price for just a day or two and really promote the hell out of it.
This book marketing strategy is especially effective for indie authors with multiple books. Offering your book for free gets you in front of more readers. And once they love your book, you’ve made a new fan that will continue to buy what you publish.
5. Take Free to the Next Level — Permafree
You may have heard “permafree” before. But what does it mean? Basically, it’s an e-book that’s always free on Amazon.
Enroll in Kindle Unlimited. It’s a good option for indie authors who write in genres that tend to be really popular for KU. Readers who subscribe to the service get the book for free.
Keep in mind, this isn’t beneficial to all authors. So definitely do your research, and then give it a shot if it looks promising. You commit to 90 days at a time.
Another option, albeit an unofficial one, to get a free-to-everyone book on Amazon is to ask Amazon to price-match it.
For this, I recommend choosing an older book, or Book One in your series. Make sure you have published it everywhere. Not sure how to do this? Sites like Draft2Digital and Smashwords offer simple platforms to upload your book and make it free.
These sites will publish the book on sites like Nook, iTunes, and Kobo, among others.
Once your book is free on these other sites, you can notify Amazon by clicking the “tell us about a better price” link under the book details on your Amazon page. Sometimes you have to submit more than once, so be diligent and check back every few days.
And as soon as Amazon lists your book for free, you’ll see it starting to surge up the Amazon ranks (under free e-books).
The key to making this really pay off is to ensure your readers are aware of your other books.
It’s important to keep your About the Author section current and ensure that your Amazon Author Central bio is current as well.
If it’s a series, make it easier for readers to find the paid ones in the series. Achieve this by naming the other books in the description of Book One. And be sure to include a list of your other titles, as well as excerpts and links to any bonus content in each of your books, but especially your permafree title.
If the idea of doing an entire book as permafree is making you crazy, what if you did a free teaser book?
David Baldacci did this with one of his titles, and it worked brilliantly. Essentially, he made the teaser book free (and the teaser book was clearly listed as such, so readers weren’t misled), and the teaser book was free. Within the teaser book, there was a link to his paid title, the full book, which wasn’t discounted at all.
Putting it All Together
Book marketing as an indie author is both complicated and exciting. There are so many options, so many opportunities, and only so many hours in a day. So I think you’ll really have fun with the different pricing strategies I’ve listed here. They’re quick and easy to implement. And most importantly, playing with the pricing can really help give you a sales boost when you feel like you’re doing everything else right and it’s not making those conversions.
About Penny
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert and an Adjunct Professor with NYU. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. She is the author of fourteen books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload. AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through online promotion and their signature program called: The Virtual Author Tour™
