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Month: April 2012

Six Sentence Sunday 4/29/2012

Published by Kelly on April 29, 2012

It’s the end of April and I’m getting closer and closer to getting Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook ready for showtime. Today’s six is from one of the stories from this collection.

In this story, we meet Kasey, a young woman in denial about the aggressive nature of her mother’s cancer, a denial that takes the form of trying to give her another grandchild, thinking it will restore her will to live.

Kasey’s birth mother had only been thirteen when she became pregnant, and her birth mother’s aunt (whom Kasey had lovingly referred to as Murr for years) had stepped up to take care of her, become her mother in the loosest definition of the word.  Murr was a lot easier to say than “Great Aunt,” and lot less awkward than calling her by “Grace,” her first name.  Kasey watched her through the glass, seeing tears of what Kasey hoped was joy (but could have easily also been from one of her increasingly frequent coughing fits) collect in the wrinkles on her face, creasing starkly as she laughed watching her grandson dance in front of the fire.  Hopefully he wouldn’t take after his father and think the fire was a toy.

“Is Gracie really going to get a tattoo with you tomorrow?” Shannon asked, her bottom lip shivering in the cold air.

“She says she is, so she better,” Kasey shrugged.

That’s all for now! Be sure to check out all the other talented peeps at Six Sentence Sunday. We all toil away in obscurity; this is just one way we get our names out there.

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Why I Turned Down My First Book Deal

Published by Kelly on April 16, 2012

Loyal fanbase, you are, I’m sure, already aware of the fact that it took me seven years from the time I wrote my first word of The Redheaded Stepchild until I published it.  What was I doing in that time besides getting divorced and attending wine and cheese parties for one?  I was querying publishers and agents, building up an impressive collection of rejection letters, which I often used to line the litter box back when I could stand cats.  I had my copy of The Writer’s Market and I was going to go through every entry in the book until I found that rare Prince Charming gem all writers hope for: the right publisher for my book, and one who was willing to take a chance on me.

Five years from the time I wrote the first word, I finally got an email from an acquisitions editor at a publishing house, while playing pool and drinking beer in a dive bar on a visit to my hometown.  My book was in the batch they were going to accept during their next publication period.  I probably played my best lifetime game of pool that night, because I was over the moon, thinking I’d finally gotten the big break I deserved.  I won’t say who it was – because as you can tell from the title of this post, I turned them down anyway…

The happiness ended the minute I started digging deeper into the company and I got the contract.  For the most part, it was pretty standard for what I read in the reference book, except for the following teensy line items:

  • They weren’t going to let me have any input on the cover.  They were going to throw my book over a wall to their creative team and give the nod to whatever came back.  Still, the covers I saw looked pretty good, so I was willing to go with it.
  • They weren’t going to give me any marketing support.  Sorry, but my minor in advertising in promotion did not prepare me for how to successfully market my book.  When I asked about this, they gave me a stock response about how the author is the best person to do the marketing because they are closest to the project.  Okay, true, but don’t you guys do this like, professionally? I’m just a wordmonkey.
  • And here’s the kicker… they wanted me to pay them a “non-refundable deposit” as remuneration for taking a risk on my book.

Um, yeah… that was the red flag for this redhead.  When I told them I was uncomfortable with this, they sent me a list of their author references as a way of reassuring me that I would be happy, successful, and quickly earn back my “refundable deposit” if I took the deal.  I read all the references, but then I went and found the authors’ websites.  Most of them had long since given up on their books from this publisher or hadn’t published any more books, but there were a few still kicking around, so I contacted them.  They all told me the same thing… it was not the greatest decision they’d ever made in their lives.

But still, this was a book deal, a real one, the thing I had been waiting for for five years of my life.  Who was I to say it wasn’t good enough?  I’m a nobody, and they want to take a chance on me.  I did what any girl would do – I called someone smarter than me.  Specifically, my most-likely-to-succeed counterpart from high school (or would have been, if I’d been popular enough to even make that section of the yearbook’s radar), a lawyer pal with a lot of contracts experience.  No, he’d never seen a book deal contract, but a contract’s a contract, right?  And yeah, he said it sucked.  He wasn’t going to tell me what to do, but he didn’t mince words about the drawbacks of the contract.  He was even kind enough to draw up a list of suggested revisions, reminding me than any contract is just a starting off point for negotiations, and that if I really wanted a book deal, I should fight for one that worked for both me and the publisher.

Well, negotiation must’ve been Swahili to them.  I emailed my carefully crafted list of negotiable revisions to their people.  And waited a week.  And emailed them back, asking if they’d had a chance to view my revisions, to which they assured me their legal team was giving it “careful consideration.”  Then I waited another week.  And emailed again.  Finally, they came back and said they weren’t willing to make any concessions with their standard contract (gee thanks… you coulda just told me that 2 weeks ago).  I wanted a book deal.  I really did.  But this one smelled an awful lot like the rejection letters after the litter box got a hold of em, so I politely declined, determined that I had not yet found my Prince Charming of publishing. And had another wine and cheese party for one.

But… that’s not the end of the story… tune in next week, when I tell the story of “Why I Self-Published.”

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Six Sentence Tax Day

Published by Kelly on April 15, 2012

It’s everyone favorite holiday, Tax Day!  I did mine back in February – sorry, suckers.  Today, I’m sharing with you an excerpt from my current work in progress (but not for long), Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook.  In this story we meet Sarah, a 38-year-old divorcee who’s getting ready to get her first tattoo.

She’d decided on the Celtic scroll several years back.  Her family was originally Scot’s Irish, a stark contrast to Jason’s wealthy British heritage.  She looked at the sunlight pouring in though the patio doors in the home she’d made for herself.  Buying the place was like getting back to her roots, the roots she’d had before Jason had grabbed her by the hair and uprooted her.  It had taken a long time to get here, but she loved living simply, with a great new group of friends, a new career, everything he’d convinced her wasn’t worth her time.  Now, if she could just get back to her old friends.

That’s all for today. Since I’m stuck in sunny Miami – go ahead and check out all the other talented folks on Six Sentence Sunday for me!  My personal favorites… Carmen DeSousa, Wendy K. Russo, and Monica Enderle Pierce.

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A Parley with Carmen DeSousa

Published by Kelly on April 9, 2012

Today I am joined by fellow author extraordinaire Carmen DeSousa.  I recently read DeSousa’s debut novel She Belongs to Me and enjoyed the hell out of it. I invited her here today to talk about her novel, writing, and reaching self-actualization in the Author’s Hierarchy of Awesomeness.

KH: Where and when did you first get the idea for this book?

CD: Honestly, I just started typing. I’ve seen a lot in my life, and my husband was a police detective, so I’ve heard hundreds of stories over the years. One line in a country song can put an entire story in my head. One day a comment a line popped into my head of what a guy might say to his girl and I wrote an entire book off the one line, and the funny thing is, I haven’t even used the line yet, but it’s coming. I am the epitome of a pantser.

KH: Your book mixes romance with whodunit. Which do you enjoy writing more?

CD: I will not read a strictly romance novel, but then again, I don’t have much interest in just a mystery novel either. If I had to choose, I’d lean toward the whodunit, but I like a fifty/fifty mix. I would classify my novels as romantic-suspense. Although my third book will lean more to women’s fiction, and my fourth novel has a slight paranormal aspect—no vampires though.

KH: She Belongs To Me is the story of Jordan and Jaynee Monroe. Are there people in your life who you drew on for inspiration for Jordan and Jaynee’s characters?

CD: Yes. And that’s all I have to say about that. 🙂

KH: She Belongs To Me is your debut novel. From inception to publication, how long did it take?

CD: Twenty months

KH: Why did you decide to go with 5 Prince Publishing for She Belongs To Me?

CD: This is a long story, so I’ll cut right to the chase. I had several options on the table with agents, publishers, and of course self-pub. But in the end, going with a smaller publisher, allowed a more intimate situation and enabled me to maintain more control of the final published work. All the books end up on Amazon anyway, so this was the best choice for me to get my first book to readers quickly, as I have many more stories to tell.

KH: Aliens, love at first sight, writer’s block. Which of these is real?

CD: Without a doubt, love at first sight. I don’t get writer’s block; I just move to a different story.

KH: What’s your next big project?

CD: Land of the Noonday Sun will be available spring of 2012.

When Carmen DeSousa was in college, she wrote her first novella. Her professor wanted something that entailed drinking and fishing—he was a huge Hemingway fan. Well, he sure received a surprise when he read her short story. It did have drinking and fishing, but there was nothing funny about it. It was sad; it was real life. Luckily, he enjoyed it, even admitted she was the first student who ever made him cry and that she had potential.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t in her future at the time. After all, she needed a roof over her head and food on her plate. At seventeen, she was on her own and a career as an author just wasn’t feasible at that juncture in her life. At that time, if you didn’t live in the mecca—aka New York—you didn’t stand a chance, or at least that is what her peers insisted. So, she set out to conquer the business world, and she did. She spent the last decade and a half in sales, rising to the top of a Fortune 500 company.

Now fifteen years later, she’s back. And guess what, it’s a new world where dreams really do come true. Her first novel, She Belongs to Me, has reached bestselling status and is currently in the top .5% of eBooks on Amazon. But more importantly, she has many stories waiting to share with her wonderful readers. She’s waited twenty years to share her love of the written word, and hopes that you will be just as excited as she is.

She loves connecting with avid readers, so please feel free to connect with me via the links below:

Twitter

Website

Facebook

Goodreads

Thanks to Carmen for joining me today, and thanks to all of you for reading and checking her out!

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Six Sentence Sunday 4/8/2012

Published by Kelly on April 8, 2012

Welcome to another Six Sentence Sunday! Today’s snippet comes from the “Hitchhike” vignette in my debut novel The Redheaded Stepchild.

Even in the blurry vision in front of me I could tell there was no wood paneling in this place. No ugly orange-pink flowers, no stiff brown shag carpet, no made-from-cardboard picture frames, no stacks of Lynyrd Skynyrd records, no made-from-pantyhose pillows, no Barbie dream houses made out of various shoe boxes with Tootsie Roll wrappers for doormats.  I bet Aunt Paulette never hitchhiked.

No, this was the real deal; this was what real city people lived like.  I decided that this was what I would have someday: a minivan with plush seats that drank the water from my soaking children’s bodies like a towel when I picked them up from the pool, a finished basement with a large orgy of brand name toys on the floor.  And wallpaper that swallowed diamonds.

Want more than six sentences from The Redheaded Stepchild? It’s available from Amazon and Smashwords for $2.99.

And be sure to check out the other talented authors at Six Sentence Sunday.

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The End of My KDP Select Era

Published by Kelly on April 2, 2012

The end of March marked the end of my three-month enrollment for The Redheaded Stepchild in the KDP Select program. If you’re unfamiliar with the program, I explained the crux of it in an earlier post. There is an option to automatically renew enrollment in the program, but I’ve decided I’m done with KDP Select. Here’s why:

  • Over the 3 months, I didn’t have a single “borrower”. These are people who have Amazon Prime and can borrow from the Kindle Lending Library for no charge, while the author gets a cut.
  • I think the free ebook promotion has worn out its welcome. There are so many independent authors putting their books up for free now that it’s impossible to get to them all after awhile.
  • Author “support” sites have figured out that they can monetize on author’s promotional days, asking them to pay a premium so they can give away more of their books for free.
  • The success of a free promotional day no longer seems to translate to as much success after the promotion is over. The Amazon rankings in “free” don’t carry over to the paid days.

Don’t get me wrong, The Redheaded Stepchild is my first book and I don’t expect to make a fortune on it. It’s just the first step in building my “long tail” of success. But if I really want to get my book into the hands of more and more readers, I need to be on more and more sites. And I think $2.99 is an impulse-friendly enough price that I can keep building on that success. Not to mention that if I decide to offer my book for free sometime, Amazon will price-match it.

Because I am a huge nerd, I wanted to look at the data of my promotions and see what kinds of trends were there:

The first day, the KDP Select giveaway was fairly new, I tweeted like crazy, blogged, and it paid off. The second day, I decided to see how much impact my own efforts had, and only sent a couple tweets. The third day, I stepped up the efforts, made sure I was featured on a few promotional blogs (before they figured out that they could monetize on this process), and again tweeted like crazy. The success was pretty unparalleled, as you can see. I did a 2-day promotion while I was at SXSW because I wanted the people I met to have the opportunity to download it for free. I didn’t have much time to tweet about it, plus the network was overloaded with tweeting nerds, so the success wasn’t as big. I also wanted to see if consecutive free days had any compounding impact.

Also, my best dates were about a month apart. I’ve heard from other KDP Select authors who’ve expressed that subsequent promotional days didn’t yield as big a return as a previous one a couple of weeks earlier. This seems to be the same for me. I did, however, sell more books in February than any other month, so I can’t complain.

It was an experiment, more than anything else, and I wanted to try it out so I could see if it worked. I can’t say it was a total failure or anything, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again for awhile. I want to get my book back in other channels, and I’m not too worried about how this will impact getting my book into the hands of more readers. The common denominator in all my successful days wasn’t KDP Select – it was me. The more effort I put into getting the word out about my book, the more downloads I had. It’s been fun, KDP Select, but I think we need to see other people for awhile.

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Six Sentence Sunday 4/1/2012

Published by Kelly on April 1, 2012

Today’s six comes from The Redheaded Stepchild, my debut novel. In this vignette, Catherine and her siblings are saying goodbye to their father and hello to their mother for the summer.

Dad was one of the only people Luke would hug.  It took him almost a year before he was able to give Katrina a hug, and even that was like watching a walking stick try to hug a caterpillar.  He stretched one arm just above where Teresa was still attached and nodded as Dad told him to be good.  I’m sure Dad didn’t want another late July call from Mom about how his two oldest children had broken her blender trying to make a concoction called “Gross” which they made their baby sister eat by tying her to a chair.  Oddly, Mom had been angrier about the broken blender and wasted food than the sibling abuse. Teresa unleeched herself and went skipping off, holding the My Little Pony that had replaced Mr. Monkey Man as number one toy.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to check out all the other talented peeps over at www.SixSunday.com. Some of my favorites are Carmen DeSousa, Monica Enderle Pierce, and Wendy S. Russo.

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