Writers in the Storm

By Melissa Cutler

I'm so excited to be on Writers in the Storm today talking about Facebook book launch parties. I’ve thrown three virtual launch parties and participated in many more, and I’m eager to share what I’ve learned from these great experiences.

There are a lot of different kinds of Facebook parties, ranging from week-long events to one hour Q&A sessions. All I can share is my own experience and hope that it helps you stay ahead of the curve.

First of all, why throw a virtual launch party?

My #1 reason for throwing a virtual party, complete with lots of party favors and giveaways for attendees is as a thank you, first (for my debut release) to my loyal supporters during my publication quest, and then to my loyal readers. It’s great fun to laugh and joke with them, answer any questions they might have about the books or myself, and shower them with giveaways and thank yous for their readership.

The #2 reason for hosting a virtual launch party is to spread the word about your book release. It is perfectly acceptable during a launch party to post buy links for your book and ask attendees to share the links on their Facebook profiles. Remember: everyone’s there because they love your books and you, and they don’t mind being asked to post links. To this end, I have found virtual parties very effective in spreading the word of my book releases to people who wouldn’t normally know about it.

A 3rd reason I love to host these parties is because, otherwise, release day can be anti-climactic. You’re alone in your house and it’s quiet and, uh, yeah. Throwing yourself a party with other book lovers as guests is a great way to stay festive and celebrate the launch of your creation into the world, which is a huge deal that you should be very proud of.

Here’s a caveat

I love social media. I love chatting with my readers on Facebook and Twitter every day. I look forward to it. I understand that not all authors dive into social media as merrily as I did because it can be scary and awkward and sometimes you don’t know what to say. If that’s the case, then maybe virtual parties aren’t for you, or maybe you need the help of a company like Author Elf, which will host a virtual party for you and all you have to do is show up and reply to comments.

The Nuts and Bolts about Hosting a Virtual Party

1.  Attend one and observe what you like and don’t like about it. It seems that virtual book launch parties are happening weekly and finding one to attend isn’t difficult.

2.  Create a banner for the Facebook event page, much like the banner type and dimension for your Facebook author page. Rarely does uploading the book cover work. It doesn’t have all the great details and only a fraction of the cover will show. Here’s a link to the most recent Facebook party I hosted. https://www.facebook.com/events/416526788452374/  I created the banner in about ten minutes using silly old Microsoft Paint. I not only uploaded it to the event page, but I used it to publicize the party by posting it to my Facebook author page, Twitter, and Pinterest.

3.  Create the party description in a Word document before you even create the event page, then when you create the page, copy and paste it into the field on the Facebook event page. How much or little description you add depends on you. I like to include at least one link where people can find out more information about the book and/or read a sample chapter. Sometimes I put the pre-order links right in the description. Remember, this is a safe place to shamelessly promote your book!

Here is what I wrote for the Cowboy Justice launch party:

COWBOY JUSTICE is coming to stores and e-retailers in North America in October (and other points around the globe in November). Join Melissa on Wednesday, October 2nd for a rockin’ good time celebrating the book’s release.

Handy Reminder: receive a ONE TIME ONLY email reminder about the party on the afternoon of the event so you don't have worry about remembering the time and date. Click here to opt in: http://eepurl.com/E3GJr

RSVP for the fun by clicking the "join" button in the upper right corner of this event page. And don't forget to invite your friends!

Learn more about COWBOY JUSTICE at my website: http://www.melissacutler.net/

4.  Party Favors: Giveaways are not, technically, allowed on Facebook unless they’re Facebook sanctioned giveaways. That being said, I’ve never once heard an anecdote of an author who ran into a problem with this. I will say that I never use the word “giveaway.” I hand out party favors. I hand them out at least every half hour and use random.org to select the winners—er, “recipients.” How you do this easiest is by exporting the guest list to excel. This is very easy to do from the event page. Then I copy and paste the guest list into random.org’s list randomizer. When it’s time to hand out a party favor, I re-randomize the list.

I like to hand out virtual gifts, such as e-books, MP3 songs that remind me of the book’s themes or characters (Amazon lets you gift individual songs), and e-gift cards to Amazon, Sephora, Cold Stone Creamery, and Starbucks. Other authors I know do mail physical gifts, but I like to get my gift distribution done and over with on the night of the party.

5.  What else do you do during the party? I love inviting the attendees to ask me questions, about my books, my life, or my writing process. It usually keeps us really busy. I also try to shake it up by posting links to Youtube videos of fun, party songs and posting funny memes like “what’s your cowboy name?” where attendees use a chart to determine what their silly cowboy name is. This is where an obsession with Pinterest comes in handy. Other authors I know like to post trivia and fun facts about the place/setting/topic of the book and/or post discussion questions like “If you were stranded on a deserted island like the characters, which celebrity would you like to be stranded with?”

Georgie Lee, author of the Harlequin Historical romance Engagement of Convenience, had this to say about her most recent launch party: “One thing I recommend doing before the Facebook party begins is to prepare a number of questions, fun facts, and pictures. When the party is in full swing, it's easy to forget what you're planning to say. I kept my questions and fun facts in a Word list and checked them off as I used them. I kept the pictures in an easy to find folder on the desktop. It made running the party much easier.”

Quick fire tips:

• Think wisely about the time frame. All day parties can be exhausting, but I know authors who love long, multi-day parties in which guests just check in once or twice per day. I prefer 3 hour parties that begin at 4:30pm PST (which is 7:30 on the east coast), because it allows for maximum people to attend after work, but when it’s not encroaching into their bedtime.
• I learned the hard way that it’s very important to clarify what time zone your invitation is in, and also that the event is taking place ON THE EVENT PAGE, not somewhere else, such as your author page. Trust me on this.
• You can create the event from your Author page, but all posts must be done from your profile, so be sure to list your profile as one of the party hosts (this is done in the “edit details” field). Also, you can only send Facebook invites to friends of your profile, not people who have “liked” your author page, so you must be diligent in spreading the word in the weeks leading up to the party.
• Post a variety of links for attendees to share, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes, but also be sure to ask them if they’ve added the book to their Goodreads shelf (and provide a link), and if they’ve subscribed to your newsletter and “liked” your Facebook author page. Space the links out to maybe one every half hour.
• Above all, have fun and stay enthusiastic. NEVER comment that it’s quiet or that it’s boring. Fake it ‘till you make it!

Scroll through the posts of my COWBOY JUSTICE party to get a feel for how the party shaped up. It was so much fun and I had a great time, as I believe my guests did. Here’s that link again: https://www.facebook.com/events/416526788452374/

Have you hosted or attended a Facebook launch party? What worked? What didn't?

My thanks to Writers in the Storm for hosting me today. I’m really easy to find at www.melissacutler.net, on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MelissaCutlerBooks ), and Twitter (@m_cutler).

Melissa Cutler is the author of COWBOY JUSTICE and many other romance novels. She knows she has the best job in the world, dividing her time between her dual passions for writing sexy contemporary romances and edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense for Harlequin, Penguin, and Kensington Books. She was struck at an early age by an unrelenting travel bug and is probably planning her next vacation as you read this. When she's not globetrotting, she's enjoying Southern California's flip-flop wearing weather and wrangling two rambunctious kids.

COWBOY JUSTICE is in Stores Now:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/ZN8Bqb
B&N: http://bit.ly/Zn2yvl
iTunes: http://bit.ly/12jejAv
Kobo: http://bit.ly/17xaXMX
Walmart: http://bit.ly/151XfBS

 

Note: Congratulations to Jeannie Intrieri. She's the winner of the giveaway from Chuck Sambuchino's November 1 post.

By Kerry Lonsdale

First off, I have to credit Natalia Sylvester’s October 8, 2013 post at The Debutante Ball as the inspiration for this post. It was the first post I’ve read where an author confessed they don’t write every day.

Hallelujah! That post kicked a 50 pound self-inflicted guilt monkey off my back. Do I write every day? Heck no! I have a life that includes a husband and kids and more animals than I ever thought I’d adopt.

When I write I go deep in my head. It takes a lot of energy, and time, for me to write well. Even if my schedule permitted, I am mentally incapable of writing every day. While writing for me is a necessity—we’ve all heard the expression: writing is like the air we breathe, we have to do it or we die—it is simultaneously invigorating and exhausting.

But still…

We are supposed to write every day, right? That’s what the “experts” tell us.

The Rules of Writing

1. Write every day. Even if you’re suffering from writer’s block, just sit in your chair and write anything and something will come.

I admire any author disciplined enough to write every day, rain or shine, weekday or holiday. I don’t. I never have, and I never will.

Strike 1.

2. Set word counts. 1,000 words/day for 30 days. Or #1k1h. Or a chapter/day.

Hyperventilating. (frantically searches for paper bag)

I tried word count goals. My 1,000 words/hour always read like … well, they stink. And the time pressure stresses me out. For someone who already has enough stress in her life, I don’t need to inflict any more on myself. So I write what I am capable of producing during the time I have available. Some days it can be 3,500 words over a four hour period or one perfect sentence that has taken the entire day to construct.

Strike 2.

3. Read vast and often across multiple genres. The more well-read you are, the better writer you’ll be.

Confession: I am the slowest reader. Ever. I’ve always been this way, was even sent to after school reading tutorial sessions to improve my reading speed. I failed miserably. And it took many years for me to be okay with the fact I’m a slow reader.

But I LOVE to read.

Some months I can finish one book per week, when I have the time. Other months, I’m lucky to finish one book. Yes, I’m that slow.

My reading time is limited by the speed at which I read, so I don’t read vast and often. I read the most enjoyable book I can find in that moment I have available.

Strike 3. I’m out. If I can’t stick to the rules, maybe I shouldn’t write. Right?

Wrong. No more guilt monkeys.

Set Your Own Rules Guidelines

And don’t feel guilty about it, because your guidelines are right for you.

My guideline? Finish what I start.

Plot a novel? I finish.
Character templates? I finish.
Fast first draft? I finish.
Second draft? I finish.
Edits and revisions? I finish.

Plotting a novel may take a week. Character templates may take two hours. A fast first draft may not be very fast, taking months instead of weeks. But I finish each step, because every step gets me closer to a completed novel. And that’s more than fine with me.

What writing rules do you break? Which ones bother you the most? Have you set your own writing guidelines, and if so, what are they?

About Kerry

Kerry has written professionally for over twenty years. Prior to discovering a passion for fiction writing, she was a marketing executive. These days her writing is focused on Women’s Fiction and her work has received recognition in numerous writing contests.

She is a Co-Founder & Vice President of Programs of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She is represented by Jen Karsbaek with Foreword Literary.

WITS is happy to welcome Cynthia D'Alba. And psst, she has a giveaway . :-)

Hi all! Cynthia D’Alba here. Today we’re going to talk about going with a publisher, be it digital first (such as Samhain Publishing) or NYC publisher (like St. Martin’s Press, Harlequin, Penguin, etc) versus Indie Publishing (do-it-yourself, aka self-publishing). I have one short story, Texas Two Step: The Prequel, that I indie published. The rest of my work is with various publishers (Samhain, Running Press, and Cleis.)

If you are relatively new to writing and the publishing world (like the last 2 or 3 years), you might not be aware of how much and how fast this world is changing. I’ve watched the world of “self-publishing” transform from a looked-down-upon sneer to “indie publishing” where writers of all levels of experience, from newbie to established, are exploring the new publishing frontier. Before digital became popular, authors who wanted to self-publish were usually bamboozled by unethical “publishers” who took their money and produced poorly edited, cheap paperbacks. (I realize this is a broad generalization but bear with me.)

With the digital revolution, authors were given direct access to the reader via online stores such as Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Nobles, etc. Writers could hire the most professional editors, the best cover artists, format the book themselves or hire that done, and publish their work to these online stores ready to be purchased by the reader. No driving around with books in the trunk of the car to sell.

I confess that I don’t blink at buying a book at $3.99 or less. Click. Bought. It’s that simple. I probably buy MORE books digitally than I ever bought in print. Those of us in this writing world hear fabulous stories of wealth and riches to be made via indie publishing. Authors report six-figure incomes without a hitch. So the question Laura Drake posed to me was … Why are you using a publisher when you could do all this yourself and make mega bucks? (Okay, she didn’t say megabucks but she did ask the first part of the question!) And it’s a good question!

Today, I read an article in Publisher Weekly that we may be seeing print no longer being the norm even for the big publishers. The pressure on the author and the publisher to get books out faster is changing how our industry works. Every major NYC publisher now has a digital only or digital first line. In fact, I’ll go further and say that when I first started, digital publishing was thought of as second rate at best.

So if readers are demanding faster turnaround for books and willing to the pay the author directly, why did I decide to go with a digital first publisher and not just indie publish my work?

1. Editing. With my publisher I had an experienced editor to work with. Now there are excellent freelance editors out there. You’ll see ads all over the place. I’m sure some of them are better than others, but how would I know? I was a relative newbie author. If I got a hack job from an editor, I don’t believe I would have known it. So the key was research. Lots and lots of research. Talk to other indie authors. Review editor websites. Read the books these editors had worked on. And while I’m researching who is a good editor, I have to also be researching what one pays a good editor. This is going to take time. Unfortunately, some indie authors use a good friend, or a relative, or another inexperienced author to “edit” the work and then pops it up for sale. Then the mistakes begin to surface … misspelled words, missing words, incomplete sentences, story holes, story plotlines unresolved, etc.

Bottom line is, I wanted to write, not spend time researching editors. And while I was new, I wasn’t so wet-behind-the-ears to believe my writing didn’t need much editing!

2. Talented Cover Artists – With my publishing company (Samhain Publishing) I am fortunate enough to have major input into the design of my cover. In fact, the last two (TEXAS TANGO and TEXAS FANDANGO) used a picture I sent them. So the cover department has been receptive even when I didn’t know what I wanted. Somehow my cover artists have been able to take my rambling on the cover art form and pull together exactly my vision, even when my vision wasn’t clear in my own head.

Again, there are independent cover artists for hire. Plus some authors are doing their own covers for their indie published work. Just as with an editor, who do I hire? What do I pay? What if I had a friend who can do it for free or cheap?

I think if I knew what I wanted on the cover, this is the smallest hurdle (for me) when thinking about indie publishing. I’ve seen some fabulous covers produced by freelance artists. But having Samhain's art department behind me on my first book was liberating.

3. Built-In Readership – As a newbie author, readers had never heard of me. Of course I could do lots of advertising, blogging, searching for readers online, participating on forums, etc. To do all the work to get my name out there for the readers “to discover” would be time consuming and possibly expensive. Going with an established publisher gave me a base of readers. Now, these readers may or may not like my book but at least it gave me a good starting point to build a readership.

4. Distribution – With indie publishing, I would be responsible for getting my digital book on all the sites, i.e., Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance ebooks … shoot, I don’t even KNOW where I need to put my books. With a publisher, they took care of that for me. They got my book all the places it needed to be to be found by readers. In addition, my book is available in print in the Ingram catalog, meaning bookstores COULD stock it if they wanted and the books are available to order for book signings. With indie publishing, getting your book into print and into the Ingram catalog is pretty much impossible.
5. Foreign Copies – Even though I haven’t sold enough to get picked up by a foreign publisher for my books, a book has to be with a US publisher to even have a chance to be picked up for foreign sales. One very well known author who had a best selling indie-published book, sold it to a NYC house based on that fact alone. She was getting interest from foreign publishers but without a US publisher, the foreign publishers wouldn’t move forward. She got a US publisher and the book is now an international best seller. So if you want the option for foreign sales, you have to be with a publisher.
6. Marketing – Now I’ll be the first to admit I don’t take advantage of most of the marketing services Samhain offers me, they do get my book to reviewers, a task that would be another time suck for me to do myself. I am positive there are marketing services Samhain has that I don’t use but that’s my error. I know that my publisher will send Samhain labeled promo items (pens, mouse pads, etc) if I requested. Again, I just haven’t. Still, it is a benefit offered.
7. Conference signings – Conferences (RWA, RT, etc.) are becoming much more friendly to indie authors. However, to participate in a signing as an indie author, I would have to front the expense of printing the books and getting them to the conference and that’s IF the conference allows indie authors to sign. There are changes coming down the pipeline. New and exciting innovations to allow for signing digital books may produce a positive change for book signings in the future.

In a nutshell, I choose to go with a digital first publisher rather than an indie publisher because I wanted to share the post-writing workload. I didn’t want to spend my time researching editors, cover artists, distribution channels, book reviewers, reader locations, etc. I enjoy the marketing (i.e., blogs, chats, Facebook, Twitter, etc) but beyond that, I like having a team behind me.

And I like that I provide employment for others.

There’s nothing wrong with indie publishing and in all likelihood, I’ll do more in the future. But I’ll have an established reader base then and maybe not such an uphill struggle with sales.

About Cynthia & fun stuff ...

Maybe you’re curious about Cynthia D’Alba. Here’s a little more about me: I was born and raised in a small Arkansas town. After being gone for a number of years, I’m thrilled to be making my home back in Arkansas living in a vine-covered cottage on the banks of an eight-thousand acre lake. I started writing on a challenge from my husband in 2006 and discovered having imaginary sex with lots of hunky men was fun.

My first book, Texas Two Step, released in 2012 to outstanding reviews, was a Samhain Publishing best seller. The second book in the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series, Texas Tango, released November 5, 2013, again from Samhain Publishing. In February, 2014, Texas Fandango, a Novella in the Texas Montgomery Series will be released by Samhain Publishing. I am currently at work on book 3 of the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series (Texas Twist).

I love love love to hear from readers and there are lots of ways to find me. Online, you can find me most days at my website or my group blog.

Follow me at Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Goodreads or Pinterest.

or email me at cynthia@cynthiadalba.com

To send me snail mail, write to: Cynthia D’Alba, PO Box 2116, Hot Springs, AR 71914

Now some fun stuff! :-)

In the spirit of Christmas sneaking up on us, I’ll pick among the comments for someone to take home a western-themed ornament. Here’s just a sample…

Plus, I'm doing a TEXAS TANGO Jewelry-Themed Rafflecopter Giveaway. Since we are on a WordPress.com blog, the widget can’t be embedded. BUT if you click HERE, you’ll be magically transported to my Facebook page and a back-up Rafflecopter widget.  Also check out my personal blog for other places you can enter! Here’s the loot you can win…

AND I have swag for the asking! But when it’s gone, it’s gone. Pens, jar openers, postcards, bookmarks, trading cards…just go by my contact page and send me a note.

Thanks for coming by! Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win one of the Christmas ornaments!