Everyone,
Did you know that my latest interview about Cecylee is up on AuthorsAnon? Please click here to find.
AuthorsAnon is one of those great websites where authors and readers meet. It also has a list of agents, editors and publishers who are interested in first novels. So dust off that manuscript now!!
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!
As part of my marketing strategy, I sent THWARTED to every prize I could think of once it was published. My source for prizes were Poets & Writer’s database of contests (and grants) and a newsletter put out by C. Hope Clark called Funds for Writers.
On the one occasion when I surfed the internet to find a contest, boy did I get a nasty surprise. I signed up for International Book Awards, paying $69 via Paypal. Then I tried to send my work. Over the course of the next week, I tried around 5 different email addresses. I discovered that the company who’d taken my money was called JPX media with an address in LA. Naturally, they didn’t have a phone number. After initiating a dispute with Paypal, I got my money back. But I never did receive an explanation or apology.
This is another way of saying that C. Hope Clark’s newsletter and Poet & Writer’s database are solid gold. I’ve never had a problem with them, and I don’t think you would too.
Filed under How to Publish Your Novel, Promoting Yourself
Many people have asked me recently what a blog tour is. So I thought I would talk about it in this post. A blog tour is the modern, 21st-century, virtual way of doing a book tour. In a book tour, an author would go from bookshop to bookshop signing copies of her book. Publishers still do this for authors these days, although I have heard many complaints that they are a waste of time due to the small number of people who typically show up for a book signing.
A blog tour is where an author promotes her book online by means of “visiting” a number of blogs during a given time period. This means answering questions about the novel, the novel’s characters and sharing about one’s writing life. In May of this year, I signed up for a blog tour with Pump Up Your Books, hosted by Rebecca Camarena. The tour ran from May 1-25, and I got onto 20 blogs. It was quite a bit of work answering the blogger’s questions, but so much fun! I loved sharing insights about my novel and talking about Cecylee and her friends. My tour schedule is given below:
Cynthia Haggard, Thwarted Queen Book Tour, May 2012
Tour Page
http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2012/04/23/thwarted-queen-virtual-book-tour-may-2012/
Reviewers Page
http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2012/03/28/new-book-for-review-thwarted-queen-by-cynthia-haggard/
Group Video Link
http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2012/04/25/pump-up-your-book-announces-may-2012-authors-on-virtual-book-tour-watch-video/
May 1
Paperback Writer – Character Birthday Party and Giveaway
http://rebecca2007.wordpress.com
May 2
As the Pages Turn – Interview
http://asthepagesturn.wordpress.com
May 3
Pump Up Your book – Interview
www.pumpupyourbook.com
May 4
Bluebell Books – Guest Post
http://bluebellbooks.blogspot.com
Second Week
May 7
Blog-A-Press – Spotlight
www.blogapress.com
May 8
Celtic Lady – Guest Post
http://celticladyreviews.blogspot.com
May 9
Book Marketing Buzz – Interview
May 10
Splashes of Joy – Guest Post
http://splashesofjoy.wordpress.com
May 11
Writing Daze – Guest Post
http://rebeccasnotebook.blogspot.com
Third Week
May 14
Kitty Crochett WV- guest post
http://kittycrochettwo.blogspot.com
May 15
The Musings of a Book Junkie – guest post
http://themusingsofabookjunkie.blogspot.com
May 16
Literarily Speaking – Interview
May 17
Bound to Be Bookish
http://boundtobebookish.wordpress.com
Fourth Week
May 21
The Self Taught Cook – Guest Post
http://www.theselftaughtcook.blogspot.com
Books, Books and More Books – Book Review
http://dream-reader-dreamer2229.blogspot.com/
May 22
Wordstrumpet – Guest Post
Historical Tapestry – Guest Post
http://historicaltapestry.blogspot.com
May 23
Onyx Book Chateau – Book Review
http://bookchateau.blogspot.com
May 24
My Devotional Thoughts – Book Review
www.mydevotionalthoughts.com
May 25
A Bookish Libraria – Book Review
http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com
Filed under About Cynthia, News & Notes, Promoting Yourself
Here are a couple of sites that I’ve found useful recently:
Filed under How to Publish Your Novel, Promoting Yourself
On the face of it, World Literary Cafe seems like a fabulous idea. What’s not to like about a site that helps an author to promote their book in a number of different ways? WLC promises authors reviews, ebook giveaways and author spotlights. For free. All you have to do is sign up.
And this is where I ran into a persistent problem. Every time I wanted to sign up for one of these free promos, I had to sign into the site. Usually this is no problem at all. But for WLC it was a persistent problem, because every time I signed in it complained about my password. Meaning that I had to change it every time I signed into the site. That was bad enough, but what was even worse was that having signed in, and got to the page to sign up for the promised freebie, I was then told I couldn’t have it because I hadn’t signed in!
Was it the browser? I’d been using Firefox, but perhaps Safari would work better. But that wasn’t true. I got the same problems with Safari. I have spoken to the owner of the site, Melissa Foster, a number of times. She is a most pleasant woman who wants to help. But these problems still persist. So regretfully, I decided to discontinue my subscription because it was just too frustrating.
Has anyone else had these problems with WLC? If so, how were they resolved? I’m using Firefox on a Mac OSX (Snow Leopard).
Post-Scriptum
In response to my email detailing the problems I’ve described above, owner Melissa Foster put me in touch with her staff who helped me to sign up for an Author Spotlight. What fabulous service! She also suggested that I use Amazon Chrome as my browser rather than Safari or Firefox. So far, I’ve been very pleased. Ms. Foster is an example of what a truly caring person can do for authors who need to promote their books.
Filed under Promoting Yourself
This month, I feel that I am last getting some traction. I’ve done more giveaways on Goodreads, and I’m very pleased with the result. To date, 2,658 people have participated in my giveaways, and 369 people have listed my books on their “to-read” shelves.
I’ve also been busy in the blogosphere. I’ve done two guest interviews with Morgen Bailey and with Stephanie Moore. Stephanie not only came to me to ask for an interview, but she’s hosting a giveaway of THWARTED QUEEN, which ends April 11. If interested, please go to: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/847094-interview-with-author-cynthia-haggard-giveaway.
Have a great week!
Last month, I told you that I decided to confine myself to running Facebook ads and doing more videos to publicize my campaign.
This month, I’ve reversed myself. Why? Because the numbers aren’t working for me. As of today, only 22 people have seen my video on YouTube. And the numbers for my last Facebook Ad campaign weren’t that great: For an ad that targeted over 20 million users, I only got 79 clicks. When I looked at the traffic on my website, I saw that it had dropped off when I stopped the Google Adwords campaign. So I re-started my campaign. In the last 14 days, I’ve received 17 clicks. Obviously, I’m going to have to carve out some time to make my ad campaign more successful!
Then I read a couple of articles about Goodreads, and how helpful that had been for getting a book known. At the beginning of March, I started Goodreads Giveaways, and hands down that has been the best investment of time I’ve spent. For about $6 (the price that it costs me to mail the book across the US or Canada), I’ve gotten about 520 people interested in participating in each giveaway (I’ve run three so far), and of those people, on average 70 people have put the book into their to-read list! Stay tuned for updates.
Filed under About Cynthia, Promoting Yourself
Here are a couple of things that might interest you:
I just came upon this recently.
G. Hugh Bodell launched a website dedicated to bringing his characters alive. The basic idea is that you put your character into a difficult situation, then ask your readers to help you solve that problem.
But I thought it would be a very interesting writing exercise to try the following. How about taking your character out of context and seeing what they do? This works very well for historical fiction, because all you have to do is change time period.
So what would your Roman centurion do in another time period?
The reason why I think this is a valuable exercise is because it will help you to get to know your character better. Why not try it and let me know what you think?
To read G. Hugh Bodell’s blog, go to: http://whatwouldsoroshdo.blogspot.com/
For those of you who want to know more about marketing your novel and don’t mind paying $21 for it, here is the link to Joanna Penn’s “21 ways to sell more books online.”
Have a great week!
Filed under Craft, Fiction, How to Publish Your Novel, Promoting Yourself
“Strategic marketing” is a phrase I’ve come upon lately. Basically, it means giving yourself a plan or roadmap of how to go about marketing.
I am always making plans. It comes to me naturally. But I still don’t think I’m a good marketer. For example, I only found out through glancing at my credit card statement that I’d had a campaign running on Google Adwords during the whole of January that cost me $94. Oops. Totally forgot about that one. And I wasn’t happy that Google Adwords hadn’t actually given me any alerts or reminders about it. So I cancelled that campaign.
I’ve decided to restrict myself to running a Facebook ad campaign once a month, and doing more videos to publicize my work.
I experimented with Twitter recently, by actually diving into one person’s conversation and chiming in as opposed to just finding people to follow. The result? I was offered an interview on that person’s website!
Stay tuned for more marketing tips and have a great week!
Filed under How to Publish Your Novel, Promoting Yourself
(Time for some shameless self-promotion:)
It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Why not give yourself a special treat and immerse yourself in an era where high fashion meant pointed headdresses with fluttering silk veils, where gentlemen greeted ladies with a courtly flourish, and where everything was handmade and homemade?
It is the summer of 1441. Cecylee is twenty-six years old and has been married to Richard, Duke of York for four years. Richard has just assumed the role of Governor of Normandy, and he, Cecylee, and their entire household have crossed the channel to take up residence in Rouen, the capital of English France.
During that summer, Richard sets off for Pontoise to teach the French a lesson. Cecylee is left to hold court in the castle of Rouen with the wives of Richard’s generals. Nicknamed The Rose of Raby on account of her beauty, Cecylee’s life laps placidly onward during those sleepy days of high summer, when suddenly, a mysterious young man appears. She soon loses her heart to this charming stranger.
Cecylee’s private name for him is M. Beaujambs, because of his long, and very shapely legs, but history knows him as Blaybourne. Who is he? Is he an aristocrat of the House of Savoy? Or the son of a humble blacksmith? And if the latter, where did he get his exquisite manners? And his university education? And what is he doing in Rouen? By turns baffled and enchanted, Cecylee finds herself confronted by an intriguing challenge.
What happens when Cecylee’s husband discovers she’s had a love-affair with an archer? Does he lock her up? Or worse?
Give yourself a treat and find out by clicking here.
Filed under About Cynthia, Promoting Yourself
Welcome to Spun Stories, where I find books for book groups, give advice on the craft of writing, share tips on self-publishing, make bookclub recommendations, and spin stories from threads of the past
1 member
2619 members
1125 members
...
