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Kelly I. Hitchcock Posts

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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SXSW 2012 Redux

Published by Kelly on March 26, 2012

I went back to South by Southwest Interactive this year – 3rd year in a row. Every year, I come away with at least one big idea for how I can get a leg up on technology with my books, and I figure out what the trends are.

I have to admit – I was a little disappointed, because I felt like I was hearing the same things I’ve heard for the past 2 years. Writers are still wading slowly into the waters of self-publishing, publishers are still scared and coming up with half-ass ways to adapt, and more and more ebook startups are sprouting up around us. Not to say that it was an empty experience; quite the contrary actually. I just needed to cut through the “heard this already” to get to what I needed to learn, which was this:

  • Self-publishing was a great fit for The Redheaded Stepchild. It was my story, and kind of a pet project. Something like Portrait of Woman In Ink, however, might be worth going after a traditional publisher.
  • Even if traditional publishing is my goal, I need to find a publisher that will let me do my own thing, who won’t turn my book into some crazy bastardization I don’t want to write.
  • I need to be on Pinterest. Almost every young woman I know is on Pinterest, and that’s my audience. And here I thought it was just for people decorating nurseries and planning weddings.
  • I’m doing the right thing by working my own network first with my book, but I need to be a little more pressing about getting my network to write me an honest review.
  • I shouldn’t try to be elitist about my first book. It’s there for me to get my name out. After my KDP Select period is over, I’ll be dropping the price of The Redheaded Stepchild. I can charge a little more for Portrait of Woman In Ink.
  • I need to start promoting Portrait of Woman In Ink now. And because it is a book about women and tattoos, there’s plenty for me to engage readers about. Also, I shouldn’t be afraid to call up the tattoo shops and see if they want to have a copy in their lobbies.
  • I volunteer at a library. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have my book on the shelves there. I already have friends there.
  • I need to encourage my friends who like the book to recommend it to someone else. It’s not icky. I don’t know why I look at it like it’s icky.
  • Yeah, my sales aren’t going to take off immediately. I learned that lesson. I was encouraged by several panels that it’s all a process, and I need to set it on the shelf (or web page) and let it do its thing.
  • I shouldn’t be afraid to talk to the local paper and area bloggers about taking me on as an interviewee.
  • I need to engage with other people who write about tattoos for Portrait of Woman In Ink. I already got a PhD to agree to write a foreword for an unknown author; it’s probably not much harder than that.

That’s my bullet point redux from SXSW. Also here’s some cool shit I discovered:

  • SmallDemons.com: It’s a startup that will show you (in popular books anyway) what references there are. So, for instance, I am reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (just to see what all the hype is about), and it will show me that the book references John Coltrane, Martin Luther, Adolf Hitler, Hopalong Cassidy. Also, Doc Martens and Armani. Pretty cool stuff.
  • Libboo.com: It’s a startup author support community. I haven’t delved into all the ins and outs of it yet, but I met their CEO who had an appealing accent.
  • BookCountry.com: It’s Penguin’s critiquing community for genre authors. Again, haven’t looked at it too closely, but I applaud Penguin for doing something innovative.

Next year, I’ll probably opt for a vacation that involves a Betsey Johnson bikini and a beach. Take advantage of this vacation’s knowledge.

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Six Sentence Sunday 3-25-2012

Published by Kelly on March 25, 2012

It’s another Six Sentence Sunday! Today I’m sharing a snippet from one of my short stories from new collection about women and their tattoos – Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. In this story, Hallie is on the verge of starting a new life with her son, and working her way toward the tattoo from her old life removed.

She inched the SUV up to a stop light, a bright green corvette idling in the next lane over.  She suppressed the urge to examine the door panel to determine the easiest point of entry to unlock the car, steal it, and drive into oblivion.  The check engine light in her SUV’s instrument panel flicked on, as it typically did when the engine idled for longer than it liked.  You couldn’t think about those kinds of things when you were a mom.

Ever since Lucas had gotten too heavy to carry into their small, rent-controlled, two-bedroom apartment, Hallie began letting him take her keys and run to the front door of their building.  She didn’t know how he knew at three years old that keys were a symbol of responsibility, but today – like every day – he took the keys she held out for him with an air of deference, like she’d just handed him the cure for cancer.

Don’t forget to check out all the other talented peeps on Six Sentence Sunday!

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What’s in a Review?

Published by Kelly on March 19, 2012

I knew the day would come when I got my first bad review for The Redheaded Stepchild. That day happened to come today, which was also my first day back in the office after vacation, and the day that Peyton Manning signed with the Denver Broncos. Blech!

Because I knew this day would come, I’ve done some reading up on how best to deal with negative reviews and how to cope with them. We writers are a sensitive bunch, and it’s hard to not take these kinds of things personally. Luckily for me, my bad review was pretty mild as far as bad reviews go. The guy (or girl, but I’m pretty convinced it was a dude) who wrote the review could have ripped on the writing, on me personally, or on the character’s personal lives, but he/she didn’t. Really, the book just wasn’t the person’s cup of tea.

To be honest, it was actually much less soul-sucking than the “Dear Author, After carefully reviewing your work we find it does not meet our needs at this time. Good luck.” letters I could line a litter box (if I had a cat) with several times over. I know my book’s not going to be for everybody. I’m in good company – all the top selling authors have a few God-awful reviews under their belts. So what am I going to do about it? Not a damn thing. Except listen to Radiohead, eat a whole pint of Blue Bell Orange Dream, look at some pictures of cute baby animals, and move on.

And hey, my bad review sold me two books today. Could be worse right? They say it’s even good to have a few not-so-great reviews. People like balance, and a book with all fantastic reviews is a little misleading. Makes it look like all the author’s friends ganged up and told everyone how much awesome sauce was smeared over the book, not that they’re biased or anything. So, now I can say I don’t know all my Amazon reviewers and they’re not all what you’d consider “mom reviews”. Though my mom didn’t like the book, so that doesn’t apply in my case.

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#SXSW Report: Days 2 and 3

Published by Kelly on March 12, 2012

I’ve been going pretty well nonstop so this is the first opportunity I’ve had to sit down and write my summary of the past 2 days of interactivity at SXSW 2012. Hashtags for panel twitter discussions I participated in are in parentheses.

I began Saturday with a panel about copyrights (#sxcopytrolls) which was grossly underattended and somewhat informative about obtaining and protecting copyrights, which was something I knew next to nothing about so I’m glad I went. After that, I was able to pull up a spot on the floor in the hallway for the simulcast of a conversation with Joss Whedon (#sxjosswhedon) since the room was full. Naturally, I was all too happy to pick up on some insights from the master storyteller of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and I could go on and on but I won’t. Plus he’s a very funny ginger, which I respect as a semi-funny ginger. Just a note, he wrote the screenplay for his new film Cabin InThe Woods in 3 days. That’s a hardcore writer for ya.

After that, I headed to The Rise of Analytics: Impacting the Editorial Process (#sxeditdata) which wasn’t as much about the impact of the need for data, keywords, links, etc. on the editorial process as much as I would’ve liked, but more about the data. Then it was off to the Hyatt for some 15-minute talks about books and content, including Books Win the Attention Economy (#sxbooks_win) and Delivering Content Experiences Across Platforms (#sxplatforms) which closed out Saturday for me.

Sunday was a good morning of panels, starting with Publishing Models Transforming the Book (#sxpubmodels), where panelists from the new publishing industries spoke about their models and the panelists from the traditional publishing industry defended theirs. Up to and including this panel, I have to admit that everything that I heard in most of these sessions was all stuff I have heard before, some even at previous Souths By. Luckily for me, I stumbled into a panel that proved to be worth the price of admission: Discoverability and the New World of Book PR, where I got some amazing ideas for how to keep getting The Redheaded Stepchild noticed and how I can start building a campaign for Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. I furiously took about 3 pages’ worth of notes – the advice was just that good. I wish I had time to test out some of the stuff I heard about today, but I have more sessions, beer, and parties to head off to. And I might actually watch a film today since many of the bookish panels are more of the same stuff I have heard before over and over again.

Oh, and last night I got a photo with Steven Moffat – writer for Dr. Who, Sherlock, and Jekyll (again, I could go on, but I won’t). Worth the wait in line for sure. I also watched Rainn Wilson give a talk about his project Soul Pancake. It’s pretty rad. Go check it out.

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