Writers in the Storm

All of us here at Writers In The Storm are happy to welcome Cynthia D’Alba, a genuinely nice person and a debut author of Texas Two Step, a new Samhain release. I’ve often wondered why authors do blog tours. They seem like a bucket load of work. Are they worth it? Cynthia thinks they are and thanks to her blog today, I now know not only the benefits, but the pitfalls to avoid.

By Cynthia D'Alba

Thank you to the Writers in the Storm ladies for inviting me here today. I share the talented Laura Drake with these gals as I twisted Laura’s arm to join my group blog, Everybody Needs A Little Romance wherewe almost never discuss writing. It’s more a slice of life, story-telling and jokes . . . a “get-to-know-us” blog for our readers. So I am flattered to be asked to contribute to a writer educational blog.

I rarely, if ever, blog about the craft of writing. Because I’m a debut author, I figure there’s always someone else who knows more than I do about the subject. But not today.

Today, I’m discussing Book Blog Tours. Why am I such an expert on this topic? Because I’m currently completing a tour of twenty-seven blog stops. Some things I did right, some things wrong, and there are some things I wouldn’t do again.

What I Learned

I picked up more new people via posts on book review sites than I did from fellow author sites. I didn’t expect this. I’d thought that an author would have fans who visited her blog on a daily or regular basis and that they’d be interested in this new author (aka…me) and check me out.

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  Finding new potential readers worked best at book review sites, followed by group blog sites, and finally single author sites. Some of the commenters were people who followed my blog from stop to stop rather than new viewers.
  
  
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  Bottom line . . . my hosting author may have benefited as much as I did.
  
  
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  So, something to keep in mind: The next time an author wants to guest blog on your personal blog site and promote their book, consider the benefit as a host.
  
  
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  What would I do different? Focus on book review sites and other book reader sites.
  
  

Plan far in advance if you want to schedule a blog on a book review site. I learned this when looking for sites to host my tour. One site was scheduling for February posts back in October. All their blogging slots were gone in hours. Most of my February posts were scheduled in September, October and November. So PLAN AHEAD. Months ahead.

Take advantage of reader yahoo loops sponsored by your publisher. Texas Two Step is published by Samhain Publishing. Samhain has a yahoo loop, Samhain Café, which was set up for their authors to interact with Samhain readers. I snagged quite a few blog tour followers from posting at the café.

Extra Steps I Took To Help Make My Blog Tour A Success

I wrote a prequel for my debut book, Texas Two Step, and posted episodes from the prequel for the two weeks prior to my book’s release to stir up interest in the main characters.

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  First fact – This was a TON of work.
  
  
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  Second fact – it worked!
  
  
• Third fact -- I had more hits on my tour during those two weeks than before or since.

I jumpstarted the project by creating a separate blog at Texas Montgomery Mavericks.

Each of the prequel episodes were written in MS Word, converted to pdf and uploaded in a separate blog post. This allowed me to schedule that day’s installment of the prequel to go live on the right day at the right time. I used pdf because it prevented readers from copying and printing the files. Uploading a pdf file on a Wordpress.com blog is just like uploading an image.

Would I do a prequel again? Absolutely.

What would I do differently?

First of all, I wouldn’t have waited until the last minute to write each prequel episode. They should have been written about two months before the tour started. Writing and editing each installment required a sizable chunk of time. It was a ton of work, but I have no regrets.

Realize that each installment of Texas Two Step-The Prequel required that I prepare THREE separate documents.

• Each episode of the prequel was edited and converted to pdf.
• A separate post was made to the Texas Montgomery Mavericks blog (to set up
  
  the upload for the scheduled time and list links to previous posts.)
• A third post was made for the guest blog host.

Second, if you are going to do a book blog tour, write guest blogs four to six weeks before the tour begins. There is a reason for this. Writing so many guest blogs in such a short time drained my creativity. I’ve hardly written a word on my current WIP. By the end of each day of my tour, I was brain dead. I’d used my “daily allotment” of clever phrases on blogs, instead of my WIP. Prewritten blogs save a lot of headaches, plus they can be tweaked as the tour proceeds.

Third, I crammed lots of blog visits into a tight window. My thought was to blast the internet with my presence. That was a mistake for a number of reasons.

• When you guest blog, you’ll want to notify RWA chapters, friends, Yahoo loops, Twitter, Facebook and everyone else you can think of. If the blogs are too close together, you risk having all these great sources becoming sick of your promo, promo, promo.Soon, they begin to ignore your posts and they certainly won’t show up at your guest blogs. Trust me! They won’t love you for this.
• My advice is to limit your guest blogs to no more than three (max) per week. I attended anywhere from 4 to 7 blogs a week for four weeks. Too much! Limiting guest spots keeps you sane, gives you time to write, and allows your friends and fellow writers a break from you. If I were do another tour, I would do 3 days one week, 2 the next, 3 the next, etc.
• While guest blogging, you must continue to “chat” and be normal on Facebook and Twitter. Saying, “Hey! Leave me a message today!” doesn’t work. Normal chatty interactions like “Ugh. Dog bath day. Don’t you hate those?” is expected and needed. Readers don’t want to be slapped across the face with nothing but promo. The idea is to make friends with your readers. Friends will buy the books of friends.

What Makes Your Blogs Popular With Commenters

Guest posts with no giveaways will draw fewer people. We (the normal public) like freebies and prizes. Many guest bloggers have a backlist that they use as prizes or give-aways. Not me. Texas Two Step is my debut. What to do?

My author friends stepped up to the plate and donated books to use as blog prizes. The vast majority of these books were digital thus eliminating postage expense. Getting them into the hands of winners was easy. Plus, my friends got PR out of the deal when I posted links to their websites, Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as posted a small cover picture of the book of the day.  I also had two freebie giveaways for anyone just for the asking. Those are still available! See the bottom of this post.

Readers love book gift certificates. I also gave away five $5 gift certificates to the Samhain Bookstore. Since during my tour Texas Two Step was discounted from $5.50 to $3.85, winners of the gift certificate could buy my book (hopefully) and have money left over to go toward another Samhain book. One of my winner let me know that when she went to the Samhain Bookstore, she got a 40% discount for being a first time buyer. With the $5 gift card and a 40% discount, she bought multiple books including Texas Two Step. A win-win for me, my publisher and the reader.

Recognize the person who faithfully follows the tour. I have a “Faithful Follower Award” to give to the person who visits and comments on the most stops on my tour. The prize is a $25 gift card to the online store of the winner’s choice. This award has prompted commenters to come back time after time.

Respond to comments. I hate to visit a guest blog, leave a comment, and the author on tour doesn’t have time to stop by and respond. IMHO, that’s just rude. If you are going to blog, then you need to respond. I went on my tour to connect with people. Yes, it’s a enormous time suck to respond to each person, but this is person-to-person marketing, the most powerful mode of reaching potential readers.

A Note of Caution: Do not giveaway copies of your new book. I am told that this will prompt people to wait on buying the book, trying to win a copy instead. I think I ended up giving away only 3 advance reader copies.

Those are a few of my thoughts about my experience. Feel free to ask me anything. I never could keep a secret!

If you want to learn more about me check out these links:
My website, CynthiaAlba.com, Facebook. Twitter, group blog, Everybody Needs A Little Romance , and my personal blog, Cyndi's World 

And if those aren’t enough, Sign up for inside scoops and special contests by receiving the newsletterI share with my blog buddies.

Texas Two Step is available at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble or you favorite online bookstore.

And as I mentioned above, I do have a couple of freebies just for the asking! 

Writers In The Storm welcomes publishing attorney and author, Susan Spann. Susan  practices law in Sacramento, California. Her debut novel, tentatively titled SHINOBI, in which a Japanese ninja and a Portuguese priest must save a teahouse entertainer accused of murder, will be available in 2013 with St. Martins/Thomas Dunn Press.

By Susan Spann

Royalties are the payments an author receives on sales of a published work. Some contracts link royalties to advances – the money an author receives up-front on the deal – but even contracts without advances contain a royalty clause.

Generally speaking, royalties are calculated as a percentage of sales, sales price, receipts or profits, but publishers have many ways of defining these deceptively simple terms. Authors must read contracts carefully and be absolutely certain the royalty terms are clear and unambiguous before the contract is signed. Afterward, it’s too late to clarify the terms and almost impossible to change them.

Royalty percentages are usually stated clearly, but the calculations can be harder to understand. In the interest of flushing the lurkers from the weeds, let’s take a look at three common ambiguities in royalty calculation:

Wholesale vs. Retail vs. “Price Received.”

Authors’ royalties are calculated as a percentage of some base amount per book (or copy) sold. The basis for that calculation varies from publisher to publisher – and sometimes from contract to contract.

“Wholesale price” is the price the publisher charges to distributors and retailers. This number will be lower than “retail price” (or “standard/suggested retail price”) which is the price at which resellers offer the book to consumers – or, in some cases, the price the publisher suggests resellers charge. “Price received” is a third category entirely, and represents the actual price the publisher receives from the person or entity who purchased copies of the author’s work. This can be lower than wholesale, in the case of discount sales, or higher than wholesale, in the case of publishers who sell directly to individuals via websites or other direct forms of public sale.

Gross Receipts vs. Net Receipts.

In addition to basing royalties on the price of works, publishing contracts may also calculate on the basis of “gross” or “net” receipts. These terms may be used in combination with other pricing factors, for example, “Ten percent (10%) of gross price received.”

Gross receipts means the amount the publisher actually receives from the relevant source, without deductions. This is the best kind of calculation for authors, because it makes accountings easier and gives the author a larger share of the take.

“Net” receipts means gross receipts minus certain expenses, which may or may not include taxes, distribution fees and other publisher costs. Contracts which base royalties on “net” receipts without further clarification are dangerous because they provide no limitations on what the publisher can deduct from receipts, potentially reducing the author’s share to zero. Authors should not agree to royalty clauses with “net” receipt calculations unless the contract specifies – in detail - what the publisher can and cannot deduct when calculating royalties due to the author.

Discounts, Returns & Promotions.

Most contracts provide that authors receive reduced royalties on works sold at deep discount and no royalties at all on copies returned to the publisher or distributed free of charge for promotional purposes. In some cases, “deep discount” pricing results in no royalties at all. There isn’t much most authors can do about negotiating better terms in these categories, but careful reading of the contract is still a must.

Discounts, returns, and promotions should be defined in a way that prevents an unscrupulous publisher from including all works sold at any discount in the “deep discount” category or from giving away too many free copies of the author’s work (for example, as a “freebie incentive” for buyers to purchase a different author’s work).

A note of caution: publishers are in the business of making money. It’s very rare for a legitimate publisher to produce print works and then give them all away. Inappropriate levels of giveaways are more common in e-only publishing, but even there it’s not in the publisher’s best interest to produce your work for free.

The relationship between an author and a publisher should be one of mutual benefit. Don’t assume your publisher is out to harm you – but be alert to contract terms that work to your detriment.

In the end, the author should remember two key factors about royalty calculation:

1. Never, ever sign or agree to anything you don’t understand or which seems ambiguous when you read it.
2. Always, always obtain the opinion of your agent or an attorney before you sign.

Professional review is never as expensive as a lawsuit, and lack of understanding now almost always adds up to sorrow later on.

I blog about writing and publishing and tweet @SusanSpann. If you'd like to read more about publishing contracts, be sure to visit my website.

I first learned about the 12 Stages of Physical Intimacy from Linda Howard, who used to give a very popular talk on the subject based on the work of Desmond Morris, Intimate Behavior: A Zoologist's Classic Study of Human Intimacy.

On the downside, Linda gave her last edition of this talk to our RWA chapter in 2010. On the upside, Linda has spoken to enough writers that I was able to Google and find a great post on the topic by one of my online pals, Terry O’Dell.

I’ll give the stages and my thoughts here but if you want a more detailed description of how to use the 12 Stages in writing romance, skip on over to Terry’s blog and read her wonderful post called the 12 Steps To Intimacy. :-)

Believe it or not, I’ve always found it terribly hard to write sex scenes. I don’t mind talking about sex, as most of my readers over at More Cowbell have noticed. BUT, when it comes to my characters, I’ve been stymied by "The Big Sexy," as we call in at my house.

WHY couldn’t I write a sex scene?

1. I felt like a voyeur. Like I was intruding on a personal moment between my characters.
2. Evidently I’m more prudish than I thought and it was embarrassing.
3. What if my friends and family read this?!
4. I found all of the “A” goes into “B” details boring to write.

The last one was the real key. I’m pretty well-practiced at overcoming fear. But boring is not a word I want associated with me and my writing. Plus, it’s a pretty good guarantee that if you’re bored with your sex scenes, your reader will be too. So...I was back to Square One where I wanted to tattoo, “I HATE SEX SCENES” on my forehead.

Enter Linda Howard.

Not only is she a warm, amazing lady but I LOVE the way she writes sex scenes. She is the very best at using sex as a plot device and her books are fast-paced and hot. My favorite of hers is Son of the Morning, but you pretty much can’t find a bad read with her.

When Linda came to our OCC/RWA meeting and gave her wonderful talk, lightbulbs went off for me. I began to understand why I found Janet Evanovich’s books so sexy, even though most of the sex happened off-screen. I started to understand why Nora Robert’s sex scenes are so hot, even though she rarely discusses how “A” goes into “B.”

My “a-ha” moment opened the door to how to get intimacy onto the page, and how to escalate the intimacy logically throughout a novel so the readers are satisfied. Below are the steps - use them wisely!

The 12 Stages of Physical Intimacy

1. Eye to body – this is the first “summing up” glance where one character notices the height, weight, dress code of another and registers an “overall impression.” A man will never approach a woman without this step and it’s important to get that first glimpse onto the page.

This step is why “the heroine studying herself in the mirror” is considered such a rookie writing mistake. We want to be in one character’s head when they see their fellow main character. Even if the glance is between two friends or business associates, this is the first step in building the emotional intimacy between them.

2. Eye to eye – the first step of active interaction between characters. There is a lot of tension to be found in eye contact and writers need to take a moment to get it on the page. Whether it’s a menacing stare or a long glance, you need to bring it to your reader. Remember, the point of view character needs to always be the person in the scene with the most to lose. When you bring up eye contact, make sure you’re in that vulnerable character’s head.

3. Voice to voice – once the two characters have met, they must speak. Who speaks first is important, as is what they say. What if one character touches the other before they speak? Whoa! Serious tension. It’s your story, so I’ll let you figure this out but think about how to get the most mileage from your scenes as you move through this chart.

4. Hand to hand (or arm) – “Mom, he’s touching me!” Don’t you remember how invasive you found the slightest look or touch from your siblings during a fight? My brother standing at the door of my room staring, or putting a fingertip over “the line” and touching me were a big deal when we were at war. It wasn’t about the touch, it was about crossing my boundary. Remember this when you write and be purposeful in your touching. Push boundaries when it helps your story.

5. Arm to shoulder – Ah…it’s the old yawn and drop the arm around the girl move. Why is this a Classic? It’s because this is serious intimacy. Up close and able to kiss or smell. This is a gateway move to more intimacy.

I HATE it when someone I don’t know well puts their arm around me. Why? Because it’s intimate and invasive. But if I know them or feel close to them, it’s loving and welcome. It’s all about boundaries. How wide are your character’s boundaries? Why? How quickly does your character relax those boundaries? Again, why? These are important questions for you to answer.

6. Arm to waist, or back – Oooh…the hand on the small of the back to guide a woman through the room. *sigh* It melts me every time my guy does this.

Why is this so romantic? Because a warm hand against the small of the back sends the message to the woman and the rest of the room that this man is allowed to touch her, right above her bottom. There is physical comfort between these two people and they are engaging in non-verbal behavior that’s nearly always sexual. Yummy.

7. Mouth to mouth – Have you ever wondered why a kiss is so intimate? You’ve skipped though half the intimacy chart with this one move. Depending on how the kiss progresses, several more intimacy levels may be skipped. WOOT!

Why do so many romance authors spend time and tension on the kiss, breaking it off or prolonging it? Because it works! Seriously, kissing creates tension in the pages of your novel, if you do it right, and keeps your readers fanning themselves and turning your pages to see when your characters are going to do it again.

8. Hand to head – Perhaps your first kiss back at Step 7 was a lip-lock, possibly including some stroking of the back. Sexy and intimate, but not a “skip-a-level” moment. What about when a man holds a woman’s face or vice-versa? What about when the yanking of hair ensues? It’s hot, hot, HOT because it’s extraordinarily intimate to touch a person’s head or face.

Use this in your books. The back of a fingertip along someone’s cheek and down their neck…is it good, as in hero and heroine? Or evil, as in villain, heroine? You are the creator of your world, be it loving or creepy.

9. Hand to body – As Terry says in her post, this step moves the couple into the beginnings of foreplay. This is a key place to break your couple apart, have deep emotional issues surface or just to collide your internal and external conflict. You haven’t reached the “point of no return” yet, so break the intimacy up a bit. Throw your characters up a tree and shoot at them...it's a nice gift for your readers.

10. Mouth to breast – My baby sister is going to laugh when she reads this. I always told her, "No matter what, keep your shirt on until you're really sure you want to sleep with a guy."

A woman can still turn back at this point, as can a man, but there’s likely to be some stomped feelings on both sides if she does. That's not why I told her to stay clothed. Most women excrete the bonding hormone oxytocin, the “love hormone,” when they have skin to skin contact. Why bond with some schmuck if it could have been avoided by just keeping your shirt on?

11. Hand to genitals – OK, we’re pretty much at the point of no return at this stage. If somebody changes their mind, labels like “tease” are likely to be assigned and major conflict will ensue. I love the idea of having the external conflict be the coitus interruptus. There’s some major mileage to be gained from messing with your characters in these final stages.

12. Genitals to genitals – He shoots, he scores! You’re at the sex act and your characters will commit violence if you interrupt now.

It’s nice to decide in advance what you want from The Big Sexy. You’ve made your readers pant for this step throughout the journey, dragging them through ALL the other stages to get here. It is up to you whether this is the payoff, as it is in many romance novels, or if it’s just a step to something else in your story.

The entire point to this chart is to get the most from your characters' intimacy. Being deliberate in your steps will pay off big in your stories.

Have you heard Linda Howard give this talk? Were you familiar with this Intimacy Chart? How do you see this changing your writing process? What is your favorite step in terms of breaking down barriers between your characters?

Jenny

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites and here at Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.