Making sense of self-promotion tips for authors…

Now that my chaotic life has calmed down a bit, I’m slowly getting back on track with my writing.  I’m working on polishing Storm Shadows, the second book in my Eternal Shadows series, and yesterday I started a new short story based on the Cherokee legend of Ataga’hi, the Enchanted Lake.  My muse, I’m happy to say, has returned from her extended vacation.  Yippee! 

The thing is…with her return I’ve realized I’m going to have to set up a schedule and worse than that, I’m going to have to follow it.  I hate that!  Chalk it up to years of teaching and having to plan every minute of every school day!  Now that my first print book is out, I find I can’t spend every minute of my day writing.   Well, I suppose I could, but if I ever want to make any money at this new career I’ve chosen, I’m going to have to promote my work and at least try to sell a book or two–or three gazillion!

Yes, I need to promote, promote, promote.  I get it, but…ugh!  That’s not a good thing for someone like me who’s of the W. C. Fields/children school of thought when it comes to people.  You know, “Go away kid, you bother me,” only with me it’s “go away people, you bother me”!  So, in my introverted stand-offishness, I naturally turn to the Internet for promotions.

Problem is, I’ve wasted a lot of time in the last couple of weeks looking for the best way to promote my book on-line.  I get caught up in one site which leads me to another which leads to another which leads me to yet another and on and on an on.  And in all that time spent at all those many sites, I don’t get any promoting done at all.  In fact, about the only thing I’ve accomplished is that I may very well qualify for the Guinness World Records as the person who has the longest “Favorites” list in the history of AOL.

Don’t get me wrong, I love lists, but this one has gotten a little out-of-control.  TMI!  So, in the interest of holding onto at least a little bit of my sanity–and selling a book or two!–I’m making a list of promotion ideas and since I believe wholeheartedly in passing it forward, I’m going to include some of them here on my blog.  I’ve already done that a couple of times and hopefully as I make my way through the mire of self-promotion, I’ll be able to give other aspiring authors some valuable help.

That said, today’s site is a post I came across at The Midnight Hour, a blog hosted by several paranormal authors.  This particular bit of wisdom is by Cheyenne McCray and in it she lists 20 ways authors can promote themselves and their books.  Although it was posted almost two years ago, it’s still relevant today and extremely helpful, especially if you’re a list-lover like me!  

Hmm, let’s see, if I set up a file on my “Favorites” list for each of the 20 points, and assign each of the sites in my “Promotions” file list to one of the files, and work out a schedule with set times for each file then maybe I’ll have this self-promotion gig nailed down within the next millennium or so…

Seriously, Ms. McCray, thanks for the tips and for bringing a touch of sanity back to my sometimes–okay, mostly!–insane world!

Free and Easy Promo Sites for Authors!

I’ve come to the conclusion I’m no good at promotion.  Added to that, I hate it with a purple passion.  But, it’s all part of being an author and something I have to do because, well, I haven’t made anywhere near enough money from writing to hire someone to do it for me.  That’s a dream for the future and a pretty good inspiration to keep promoting.

Anyway, if you’re like me and would rather have a root canal than promote your book, I have a couple of interesting and possibly invaluable sites for you.

The first one is a site called MyBooksOut.  Authors can join the group and list their books, the buy links, any review links, and links to sample chapters and they even provide you with an easy-to-follow format.  You can list as many books as you want, but only once per week for each book and they ask that you do a separate post for each one.  Easy to do and most important for a beginning writer, free!

The second is more of a promotion help-site–I know there’s probably a specific term or even a better way of putting it, but you get the idea.  Promotion_Loop_Schedule posts the different Yahoo groups each day that will accept promos, blurbs, excerpts, etc., on that particular day.  Having tried to maintain a file on the many Yahoo groups I belong to, I can tell you this could prove to be an invaluable tool for promoting.  Not to mention an incredible time-saver!  I belong to over 50 Yahoo groups but in most cases, they only allow authors to promote on certain days–Monday seems to be the promo day!–and they only allow certain things from the authors.  I was extremely glad to find this group, if for only the information on when and where I can promote each day.  But from what I’ve seen, they also include a little bit of information on what I can post, and how–that is, any restrictions or guidelines the group has.  The who is, of course, me as an author.  And yes, it’s free!

The thing is…in my world, writing a book is easy and fun.  Promoting a book can turn you into a feral, potentially dangerous person.  But with sites like these, it’s relatively painless!  I can really get behind that!

New release date and the newest feature on WordPress

I got a phone call from my editor at Red Rose Publishing last night.  Unwilling Angel, the book I have with them, which I was first told would be released in October, and then told it would be released today, September 11th, is now back to October.  Yay!  I was hoping for a later release date, like as close to Christmas as possible, because the story takes place at Christmas.  The holiday isn’t the central focus of the book, in fact, Christmas is barely mentioned, but I really wanted it to come out around Christmas.  Because that’s when people read stories about Christmas, right?  Unless they’re a Christmas junkie like me and start counting down the days in September and keep Christmas decorations up all year–no, not the outside lights, I would never do that, but I do have some of my snow globes and Christmas music boxes scattered all over the house and they never get put away.

So, the new release date for Unwilling Angel is October 9th.  Except wait!  There’s more!  I was just on the Red Rose site and checked the coming soon page to see if the date had been changed and it has.  It no longer says September 11, it says December!  What?!  What!?  Woo-hoo!  That works for me!

But that’s not really why I’m posting this.  Have you checked out the new “Stick this post to the front page” thingie on WordPress?  Awesome!  I’ve been trying for weeks to put the cover of Snow Shadows in my sidebar and never have been able to figure out how to get it up there.  I mean, I followed all the instructions on the “Help” page and I got it inserted into a widget, but when I go to my site, the only thing there is a white box with a little red X in the upper lefthand corner.  Very frustrating!  I finally gave up trying, but with the front page stickie thing, I got it up without a problem.  And I was even able to get the buy links up there!

So I’m doing this totally uninteresting post as a test.  Will the Snow Shadows stickie page remain at the top of my front page or won’t it?  I guess the only way to find out is to click on Publish…

Snow Shadows

 Available at Amazon, B&N, Powell’s, and Fictionwise!

A little clarification, a touch of irony, and then I’m done…

First, the clarification; in my post “Another reason I absolutely WILL NOT vote for Sarah Palin”, I did not say Governor Palin was Hitler, I said that’s what I thought of when I read the articles about her threatening to fire a librarian if the librarian didn’t take certain books off the shelf of the library.  And I’d be willing to bet a lot of people had the same thought when they read that.

Second, to quote Mayella Ewell from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:

“I got somethin’ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more.”

I’ve gotten some pretty nasty comments regarding that post and I’ve chosen not to approve those comments.  I might have let them pass, as I did with the first few, but when they start accusing me of calling people names and/or ridiculing people who disagree with me, well, sorry but I’m not going to let those comments see the light of day. 

The thing is…if you read the post and the comments, you’ll see I wasn’t the one doing the name calling, or ridiculing someone else’s opinions, or objecting to the fact that they disagreed with me.  I simply said it was my blog and my opinion and I had the right to vote the way I chose.  It was the McCain/Palin supporters who called me “infantile” and implied I was prejudiced in their comments.

I don’t like that kind of behavior and I’m not going to condone it on my blog.  If you disagree with me, so be it.  That’s your right, but rest assured, I have the power of veto on this blog and I won’t let your comments get through.  Yes, I know, ironic, isn’t it?  Let’s just call it my own personal version of censorship.  If you want to debate the choice of presidential candidates, there are many, many places you can go, both on- and off-line, to do that and at a lot of those places you can get as down and dirty as you want about the blogger and/or the other people commenting, but not here. 

I’ve made my decision about who I’m going to vote for, and all of you with your objections and comments, aren’t doing anything but confirming that I made the right choice.  If I ever do change my mind about Governor Palin, which I’ll admit is very doubtful, I’ll do it based on my own research and my own beliefs, not because someone disagrees with my choice. 

Like I said in my own comment back to those first comments I received, it’s my vote and my choice.  Added to that, it’s nobody’s business but my own.  And please, don’t come back and tell me–again–that when I hit the “publish” button, I open the subject up for debate.  I’m not looking for a debate and besides, I can’t believe the opinion of one aspiring author makes much of a difference to you.  There are plenty of undecided voters out there, maybe your time would be better spent trying to sway one of them to your side.  Also, I’m not “spreading rumors and lies” about Governor Palin, as some of you accused me of doing.  The attempt at book banning and the shooting of wolves from the air which Governor Palin seems to support have been blasted all over the Internet and in the newspapers for days now.  I didn’t make them up and from everything I’ve read, I choose to believe they’re true.  

And that’s it.  I will not post anything else on this blog about the upcoming Presidential election.  Believe me, I have enough going on right now.  I have an ebook coming out tomorrow, a print book that’s already out and needs my attention, two dogs who need my care and regard, a new home to organize, a husband and a family.  In short, I have a life to lead.  I’m not wasting any more of my time dealing with the anger and hurt that comes from people falsely accusing me of prejudice or implying I’m an idiot because of my personal choices.  So if you want to comment, feel free, but I guarantee you, the chances of anyone besides me ever reading those comments are somewhere down around ground zero.

Another reason I absolutely WILL NOT vote for Sarah Palin

Right now, my time is almost completely taken up with the two new members of our family, Missy and Desperado.  They are sister and brother black Lab mix canines–somehow, the word dog just doesn’t seem to do justice to their beauty–three years old and well, in my eyes, gorgeous!  I’m spending a lot of time with them as they adjust to their new home and deal with the grief of losing their owner to cancer.  Missy especially needs a lot of attention, and poor Des has a tendency to brood at times, but we’re slowly coming to terms with the changes in all of our lives.

So, as I’m busy developing a relationship with my two new best friends, I haven’t been paying much attention to the news of the 2008 election.  Other than to catch a headline here and skim an article there, you might say the election is off my radar right now–until this morning when I happened to catch a recent post on the Mudflats blog about Sarah Palin’s attempt to ban books.  Unfortunately for Governor Palin, she was, as she should have been, prevented from doing that, but still!  Come on, banning books?  There’s nothing guaranteed to piss a teacher/author/avid reader off more than talk of banning books.

According to what I read, no one knows exactly what books she wanted to ban or how many.  Not that it matters because IMO, it only takes one and it doesn’t matter which one it is.  And I have to ask myself what kind of person Sarah Palin is if she not only advocates the mass murder of innocent animals, but also the banning of books?

I admit I’m not as informed on this topic as I could be, but really, Governor Palin brings one person to mind for me; Hitler.  I believe she’s as arrogant as he was, and just as likely to try to shove her beliefs down our throats until we choke on them.  I also believe she doesn’t care how many people have to suffer or how many animals have to die to achieve her goal.  Do we really want someone like that as our Vice President?

Even worse, can you imagine what she’d do if she was given even more power, like say if something happened to McCain? 

I’m not much of a political activist and I’m sure there are many people out there who can give me all sorts of reasons why I’m making too much of these two incidents in Governor Palin’s past.  But all I can think of when I think of her name on the ballot in November is the tagline from the 1986 version of “The Fly”:

Be afraid, be very afraid.