What do you do when you’ve written a contemporary novel, but then it takes you 15 years before you’re ready to publish it? Do you update the manuscript for current events, technology, etc.? Leave it as-is, despite the fact that it’s now dated? Make everything as vague as possible and hope no one notices when exactly it’s supposed to be set?
This is the issue I faced with my first novel, Even Heroes. Although the initial draft was completed around 2007, the editing took place in spurts over more than a decade. All throughout the process, I flip-flopped between updating the time period and keeping it the way I originally had it.
At various points during revisions, my main character was listening to music on either a Walkman, a Discman, an mp3 player, or a smartphone. Social media platforms changed as they went in and out of style, seemingly with the direction of the wind. Current events were mentioned, taken out, then added back in again.
As I came close to a blessed final draft, the setting dilemma got settled once and for all, much to my relief.
Here’s where I landed:
The original 2004-2005 time period stayed put, however, many of the more dated references to technology were eliminated.
In the end, I hoped for something that would feel almost timeless, like a kid could pick the book up in 5-10 years and understand that it was set in the past, but not be stumbling over outdated references every five minutes.
I decided not to update the setting for several reasons.
1) Technology changes too fast! Even if I made all the references current at the time of publication, it would be outdated within a year or two anyway.
2) Political climate. Parts of my book take place in Detroit, which was going through a really hard era when I was writing the book. Some of the issues the citizens were struggling with back then fit with the story I needed to tell, so it made sense to stick with that very corrupt, dark period in the Big D’s history.
3) Social climate. This is just a purely personal opinion, but I feel like we, as a society, have fundamentally changed in the last 20 years. We are harder, we are meaner, and there is no longer any such thing as “sacred” or “off limits.”
Remember when The Sixth Sense came out back in 1999? There is a twist at the end of that movie, and there seemed to be a conscious effort by most viewers to preserve that secret for others, rather than spoil it. We wanted other people to have that same moment of surprise that we felt.
There was something magic about that–the unified effort to keep a secret, the basic consideration people were showing for their fellow man.
I think that magic is gone now. If The Sixth Sense came out today, people would be vying to be the first to spoil it for as many viewers as they could in the splashiest possible way.
In my book, the main character is a superhero. Despite his precautions, someone could manage to follow him home one night and blab his secret to the whole world. Back in 2004, in that kinder world where “good” secrets were still something precious, someone would be much less likely to do this.
There is one element of my book that I actually wish had become outdated, but sadly it hasn’t come to pass.
I began writing Even Heroes in 2004, a mere 5 years after the tragic events at Columbine High School. My book deals with a similar tragedy, aiming to look at bullying, school shootings, and youth in crisis through the lens of a superhero story–something I didn’t think had been done before.
At the time of writing, I could never have even imagined that school shootings and mass shootings would become so commonplace over the next two decades that many are not even deemed newsworthy.
Four months before my publication date, we had the worst school shooting in our state’s history.
As much as I want my book to be timeless, this is one way that I would absolutely love for it to become a relic of the past. I want kids in ten years to read it and wonder how such a thing could’ve been possible–a phenomenon so heinous, it’s shocking that it was ever allowed to happen.
If we ever get to that point with school shootings in America, where kids are reading about it in history books, rather than living it in the form of practice drills (or worse), I will gladly welcome in that new era.
In the meantime, if my book–even with its slightly dated references–provides hope for even one kid out there who’s struggling, then it has more than fulfilled its intended purpose.
There you have it, folks! The cover art for Scars. 🙂 This one was pre-made and came from SelfPubBookCovers.com, courtesy of artist billwyc. Check out the rest of the artist’s gallery here:
I had a tough time choosing which cover to go with, but only because there were so many great options for werewolf stories and for romance. In the end, it came down to three finalists: a pretty picture of a wolf with roses around it, a gorgeous bit of art with a rose and a full moon, and the slashed chest. The image above won out because it most closely fit the title and the story itself. The main male character, Jack, actually has similar slashes on his body, albeit in a slightly different location. And it’s definitely not a “pretty” story. There’s some gore in this one, and some fairly graphic descriptions of violence. So, the ragged claw marks seemed appropriate.
As before, I had such a blast cover shopping. There is some amazing artwork out there. Kudos to the incredible artists whose images were the most delicious eye candy I’ve seen in a while. 🙂 Also as before, I did the lettering myself. I would prefer to have someone else do it, and maybe next time around I’ll be able to afford that, but for now I did the best I could. I did at least try to make it a bit more dynamic than I did with Even Heroes. That was one thing I was kicking myself over after the fact – just seeing the creativity of what others were doing with their lettering, I felt I probably could have done something a little less basic and bit more WOW.
In general, I am a lot less stressed about publishing this time around, mainly because I know what to expect from the process. And also, possibly because I’m doing more things right in round two, including getting my promotional options lined up ahead of my release, and getting some ARC reviewers on board.
Speaking of early reviews, check out this absolute gem I got from Asha over at Books and Readers:
Honestly, this is the type of review that would make any author’s heart soar, and I am so grateful to be on the receiving end of it! 🙂
Sooo, now that you’ve seen the cover and read Asha’s epic review, are you ready to read the story? If all goes well, my next post on here will be an announcement of publication. 🙂 In the meantime, if you’re an indie author, feel free to share a link to your own latest cover art in the comments. Did you buy a pre-made, commission an original, or create the cover yourself with your mad art skillz?
For all those who have self published a novel or are considering doing so, there’s one very important thing you should know: your book has a superpower. Sounds awesome, right? Until you realize what that superpower actually is: invisibility.
That’s right. Your book is invisible. No one can see it except you. So…not as awesome as what you were imagining (admit it – you thought your book could fly or shoot lasers from its title page). And let’s face it – invisibility is definitely not what any author wants for their precious newborn novel.
But that’s not the end of the story: YOU, the author, have a special power too. You are the only one on earth who can make your book visible to others. And that is an amazing power, if you can just figure out how to use it.
Below is a chronicle of my efforts thus far to make my debut novel appear in the eyes of the world.
After some initial sales to kindhearted friends and family members – and three wonderfully detailed reviews from book bloggers – my YA novel quickly returned to its original state of invisibility, where I sadly left it for several months. I didn’t really know what to do or how to move forward, so I just let it stagnate.
Eventually, I pulled myself together and made some kind of effort by enrolling the book in Kindle Select (This is what it’s called on the author side of things. On the reader side, it’s known as Kindle Unlimited.)
Enrollment has several perks. Readers with a KU subscription can read the book for free, and authors are paid a certain amount per page read (typically about half a cent). The program also allows authors to give their ebooks away for a certain number of days per enrollment period, or reduce the price for special, short-term sales called Kindle Countdown Deals.
The one main downside is that you can’t have your ebook available anywhere else – it must be an Amazon exclusive (not a dealbreaker for me, since my ebook wasn’t published elsewhere).
With much excitement, I arranged my first giveaway. I posted on this blog that my book would be free, and promoted it on Twitter (is anyone actually calling it X?) as well. All told, eight people downloaded the book during its free days. In my mind, that was pretty good – eight more people had discovered my book and might actually read it.
A few months later I tried another giveaway, this time promoting only on Twitter. Zero people downloaded the book. It was a definite low moment for me. Apparently, I couldn’t even give my book away. Then there was the fact that my one and only KU reader made it through 158 pages, then abandoned the book, never to pick it up again, and I would never know why.
After these glaring failures, I slumped into despair for a while, and my book sales were at zero for a good 5-6 months. Eventually, I picked myself up, dusted the self-pity particles off the butt of my jeans, and got back to work fighting for my book.
The first thing I did was spend weeks researching proper categories and keywords for my novel – something that should have been done prior to publication. I’ll try to do a separate post on this because it’s vitally important.
Bargain Booksy
Once my book was as well-categorized and keyworded as possible, I decided to try pairing a Kindle Countdown Deal with a paid promotion on Bargain Booksy. Bargain Booksy sends out emails to subscribers about discounted books ($4.99 or less) in each reader’s chosen categories. The discounted books are also listed on BB’s website.
In my case, I paid $25 for my book to be emailed out to the 150,000+ subscribers in their “Young Adult” category. My book was already priced low enough that I didn’t have to reduce it further, but I dropped it to $0.99 just to sweeten the deal.
My Bargain Booksy promo email went out on a Monday (the first day of my countdown deal). One person bought the book that day. I made another two sales the following day, and one later that week. Four sales, in all, and though I didn’t make back anywhere near what I spent, it still felt better having people buy my book than giving it away for free and having no one even take it.
Despite not selling oodles of copies, I will say that Bargain Booksy was very easy to work with, and gave clear instructions on how to set the timing of the Countdown Deal so that it would match up perfectly with the promotional email.
Also, I signed up for their newsletter (they strongly encourage all authors to do so) and while I enjoy getting the daily emails featuring bargain YA books, I do wonder how many of their subscribers are actually fellow authors who signed up in the process of advertising their books.
Amazon Ads
Having gotten a taste of people actually buying my book, I didn’t want to turn back. My next foray into paid advertising was through Amazon Ads. I found an awesome tutorial which simplified the process of setting up different kinds of ads, and got to work.
My first campaign was a sponsored product ad with automatic keyword targeting and a small amount of custom text. In this model, Amazon would choose my keywords for me, I would get impressions (views) if my bid was competitive enough against other advertisers, and I would only pay if someone clicked on my ad.
I set my bid at $0.40 per click, sat back, and waited. Not much happened. My impressions were at zero, and I got impatient, so I upped my bid by five cents every day until I started getting impressions.
I think my bid was at $0.65 or $0.70 by this point, and I was getting about ten impressions per day – very low, but at the time I had no idea ten was a bad number (FYI: if you get one click per 1,000 impressions, and one sale for every ten clicks, that’s pretty good). I left it alone for a month, got no clicks (and therefore paid nothing), but felt good that at least a few people were seeing my book. It was no longer invisible.
The next month, I tried a manual targeting campaign (i.e. I chose my own keywords). This was fun because I had researched the heck out of keywords several months prior, and since you can only choose seven for your book’s metadata, a lot of really good ones didn’t make the cut. This gave me a chance to use them all and then some.
I unwisely set my default bid at $0.60, allowing it to go up to $0.90 for prime advertising real estate (e.g. the top of the search results page). Right away my impressions were in the upper hundreds/low thousands, and I started getting clicks. Sometime during that month, one of those clicks resulted in a sale. I was ecstatic – someone had discovered my book, read the description, and decided the novel was worth spending money on.
The next few months ran in a similar vein, though the spend gradually increased from $15 a month, to $20, to $25. I typically sold between 1-3 books per month through ad clicks, and was definitely in the red, but still feeling good about investing in my novel.
Things went both right and badly wrong in January. About a third of the way through the month, my sales jumped to $111.92. I thought it was a mistake. It turned out not to be.
Apparently, I had sold eight paperbacks from a single $0.75 click. This was really cool, but also confusing. Why would someone buy eight? I felt like I was missing something, something bad, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Part of me wondered if Amazon periodically buys books from its own advertisers, then resells them, all the while keeping authors addicted to ads via the sweet taste of making the occasional sale. I doubt this is the case, but wouldn’t it be a massive scandal?
No matter what the reason for the weird eight-book click, my impressions soared, as did my clicks, yet I failed to make another sale that month, landing me deeper in the red than ever before. In the end, I spent over fifty dollars on ads in January, and only made ten of it back in royalties.
Being on a very tight budget, I couldn’t afford to continue at this rate, and after a panicky and disastrous effort to quickly lower my bids, I ended up having to pause both my campaigns (the manual, and the automatic, which I had left running because it occasionally came alive and generated a few clicks, though never any sales).
I am not done with Amazon Ads, but I do need to regroup and figure out how to do it on a budget that works for me (i.e. much lower default bids). I also need to view it as a long-term investment and let things grow and build momentum slowly, rather than jacking up the bids in the first few days just to see some results.
Voracious Readers Only
Even though I sold some books through paid advertising, I felt that I could have sold more if readers had more than 3 or 4 reviews to peruse for info and opinions about my novel. In an effort to gain reviews and new readership, I did a free twenty-book giveaway on a site called Voracious Readers Only. This site focuses on connecting readers with fledgling authors, in hopes of the experience being beneficial for both parties.
Authors gain new readers (who are encouraged by the site to leave reviews), and also get to add those readers’ email addresses to their mailing lists. Readers get a steady stream of free books and the chance to help authors out by joining their mailing lists and leaving reviews.
To get the most out of my giveaway, I decided to first set up a mailing list. I signed up for a free account on MailerLite.com. They quickly informed me that sending out my newsletter from a free email address (e.g. yahoo, gmail, etc) was very bad and likely to go to spam instead of my readers’ inboxes. They recommended that I purchase my own domain and a professional email address to go with it.
Thus, what started off as a free venture ended up costing me $$$$$. When all was said and done, I owned my own website, and had a pro email address. Later, I got to thinking and decided to check the sender addresses of the author newsletters I am subscribed to. They were ALL free emails. **facepalm**
On the bright side, since I upgraded my WordPress site, you won’t have to look at those gross adds for reducing belly fat anymore. So, you’re welcome. 🙂
My experience with VRO was…interesting. Unlike Bargain Booksy, I didn’t find VRO’s interface to be user friendly. I was confused several times while setting up my giveaway, had no idea what information was going out to readers, and began to wonder whether it was even okay to put anyone’s email on my list, should I be lucky enough to get any requests.
Also, when entering info about my book, there was apparently a word count limit in the “reviews” section…however, the site didn’t let me know that. I included the three reviews I’d gotten from book bloggers (VRO asked for 3-5 reviews), but one of my reviews got cut off in the middle and there was no way to see this until after the form was already sent. I thought my form looked like a pile of crap, and worried that this was what readers were going to see.
The day of my giveaway arrived, and requests began to trickle in before the one-hour window opened, and continued all the way until the next morning, until I accumulated the promised total of 20 opt-ins. Thankfully, the communication from VRO on that day was clearer, and I at least understood that everyone who opted in had voluntarily signed up for my mailing list.
Time to get to work! I dutifully sent out copies of my ebook to everyone who asked for one, thanked them profusely, and signed them up for my newsletter. The automated Welcome message I’d set up on MailerLite seemed to go out exactly as planned. Roughly half of the readers opened the newsletter, while the rest ignored it or it got lost in their spam traps. One person immediately unsubscribed, which didn’t feel great, but I tried not to take it personally.
Still, I had a few subscribers, and that felt good. Roughly a month later, a new review popped up on Amazon from one of the VRO readers. Just a single word – “Stunning” – accompanied by a five star rating. It was definitely one of the better days I’ve had in a while. 🙂
Takeaways
Investing in my novel feels so much better than giving up on it.
Paid advertising DOES sell books, but so far not enough to cover the cost of the ads.
Giving my book away in exchange for subscriber email addresses seems more beneficial than just giving it away for nothing.
In case you missed that big purple button up there, I have a newsletter now! Here’s where you can sign up: https://subscribepage.io/gabassier_newsletter (if you’re on the fence about clicking, there’s a REALLY cute pic of my cat Black Canary on there).
I can’t wait to save up a bit of $$ and try more adventures in advertising!
Are you an indie author trying to market your books? What have you tried so far? What works for you and what doesn’t?
Once you’ve been to a few baby showers, you get to know the drill–pick out a gift from the registry, buy a cute (and unnecessarily expensive) card to go with it, then show up at the appointed time ready to watch the mom-to-be open oodles of packages containing bottle sterilizers, diapers and impossibly small socks.
So, when the invitation for my cousin Sarah’s baby shower arrived in the mail, I for the most part ignored the adorable jungle animals smiling up at me and focused solely on gleaning the pertinent info: time, date, location, and stores where the parents had registered. I was almost finished skimming when something near the bottom of the invite caught my eye:
“In lieu of a card, the parents ask that you bring a book inscribed to the new baby.”
A little thrill of excitement shot up my spine.
Being a writer, this idea naturally held way more appeal for me than simply picking out a bib from a list of three pre-chosen patterns. This was a book. Any book we wanted. This was freedom.
As the shower date approached, my mom and I eagerly tossed titles back and forth–books we’d loved as young children, stories that had captured our attention and held it hostage in the best possible way.
Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
There were so many wonderful choices: funny books, sweet books, educational books. Books with bold colors. Books with flaps to lift and fabrics for chubby little fingers to touch. Even books where the pictures pop up right at you!
Though it seemed impossible to narrow the field, I eventually selected Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Mom chose Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig. Then we got to work planning the perfect wording for our inscribed messages to the baby. As is typical of authors, we both wrote several drafts before finally etching our words in permanent ink inside the book covers.
The whole ride to the shower, I was half excitement, half nerves. I couldn’t wait to see what books the other guests had chosen, but at the same time, I was a little worried, too. What if the baby got not one but five copies of Guess How Much I Love You? After all, an inscribed book is a nonreturnable one. Mom pointed out that with young children, having extra copies of a favorite story is a good thing–pages get ripped, flaps get torn off, corners get chewed on. I knew she was right…but still, I fretted. Giving a duplicate book seemed like showing up to prom and noticing someone else wearing the same exact black spaghetti strap dress as mine.
As soon as the gift portion of the shower got underway, however, I quickly saw that my concern was for naught. With every new gift my cousin opened, there came a different book title. There was indeed a hungry caterpillar, and a bunny in need of patting. But there were also books about tractors, bears, princesses, giraffes, elephants and every other thing you could imagine.
I actually got a little teary, realizing that we’d all chosen different books based on the different things that had touched us and shaped us throughout our lives. We’d all been moved by reading–not in the same way, but in a hundred different ways, and that just made it all the more beautiful.
In my case, I grew up surrounded by books. With two teachers for parents, it couldn’t have been any other way. As a child, I sat curled in the silence of our basement for hours, aching at the bittersweet ending of Princess by Carolyn Lane, a tale about two cats–one tame, one feral. My bathwater went from toasty to frigid without me even noticing as I lost myself in the adventures of Alec Ramsay and his magnificent Black Stallion. My breath steamed the windows of our Jeep as I devoured Dick King-Smith’s Babe: The Gallant Pig start-to-finish on a rainy afternoon. During a late-night power outage, I sat huddled in the bathroom, candlelight and a book called The Great Green Apple War by Barbara Klimowicz the only two things keeping my gnawing fear of the dark at bay. For months when I was a young teen, I actually slept with a dog-eared copy of Geary Gravel’s novelization of Hook under my pillow, so in love with the story of a grown up Peter Pan that I felt certain I’d never go a day of my life without rereading at least a few of its pages.
And that’s just a small sampling of my childhood. My journey as a budding young reader.
Gazing down at all of the baby’s new acquisitions, I knew I was looking at the start of a brand new adventure. A new life to be molded and inspired, a new imagination to be kindled–maybe by one of the books given this very day.
Didn’t matter if it was my book, or one about a kitten, or one about a train. Something would start that fire, ignite that passion for reading. And, once lit, this little girl’s life would never be the same.
Good luck getting all that from an overpriced greeting card.
as the HERO flies... 