#Free & Discounted Easter Ebook Reading Bonanza

Ever since the religious celebration of Easter became a four-day break in the UK, the long weekend has been earmarked for DIY, gardening, decorating, or just getting away from it all. In the last few years it has become a time for filling an e-reader with discounted goodies to be read during the lazy hours of nibbling at chocolate eggs. To add to the temptation I have news of two group promotions, both running until 16 April.

First is the 99c/99p SFF Book Bonanza joint author promotion for Kindle (only): Click the following link to be taken to its landing page: http://sffbookbonanza.com/99c-books/

My title in the promo is Torc of Moonlight, book 1 in a trilogy of British Mythic Fantasies set close to where I live. Only the characters are fictional; the historical research is accurate; every place is real and can be visited. 

Not that Nick Blaketon appreciates this, at least at the beginning. A student at Hull University, he’s more interested in playing rugby than studying... until the inexplicable brings obsession, alarm and murder to his door in the guise of Alice Linwood. And she's no idea she's funnelling it towards him.

Click HERE for further background info on the trilogy, and for links to all formats at 99c / 99p.

Second is a free SFF Mega Book promotion via Instafreebie running at the same time: http://sffbookbonanza.com/freebooks/  A chance to try out some new authors for free by signing up to receive their newsletters.

   

 

And yes, I have one in this promotion, too: Contribution to Mankind and other stories of the Dark – see HERE for further information on this collection of short stories. Or you can hit the blue Newsletter button, top right of this page, to jump to it direct. 

What better way to get out of DIY than to sit in the sunshine and read. Can’t be bettered. Okay, it can... by sipping a glass of something interesting alongside.

Enjoy your Easter break. And your reading.

Author Interview: My Heritage Books

Today I’m in conversation with Rhoda Baxter on her website HERE. We’re talking Heritage Books: which book gifted to me in my early years made such an impression it stayed with me for life, and which I’d like to pass on and why.

Guess which I chose... the clue isn't necessarily in this image.

Discussing which books make an impression in our early years is an interesting concept for an interview, and when a website offers interview spots something out of the norm is needed to draw in readers. It is part of a writer’s marketing strategy and comes under the umbrella of author cross-promotion. It’s the reason Hornsea Writers set up a group website.

Do you read author interviews? What sort of questions do you prefer to see answered? Have you, in fact, a Heritage Book?

If you’re interested, I’ve also been interviewed at Library of Erana and quizzed on a very different set of questions.

Book Trailer Anyone? #4 Native American

On my quest for book trailers for some of my novels, I took advantage of an offer made by the organisers of the mini litfest at FantastiCon held recently. The novels didn't have to be SciFi/F so I opted for my Native American historical Beneath The Shining Mountains.

I did not discover the identity of the trailer's creator, but the requirements seem more or less universal. It was seen with others in a loop playing at the Con, which was the first time I saw it. Now it's all mine. What do you reckon? I think it turned out rather well.

For more info on the novel and a full set of buying links, visit The Historicals page.

Next year's FantastiCon, to be held during Hull's City of Culture 2017, is scheduled for the weekend of 02-03 September. 

Free SciFi & Fantasy #eBooks!

Yes, it's promo time again. This is a joint Freebie promotion for this weekend only - 3 & 4 December.

Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror titles are up for grabs, as is SF/F Romance, from short stories to novels to whole collections. So fill those winter wellies and try out new authors who otherwise might not pass before your eyes.

The central link to the individual titles via all major e-retailers is http://www.pattyjansen.com/promo

My offered free title is Scent of the Böggel-Mann – alas Amazon won’t allow me to offer the title for free for the Kindle, so to get it you’ll need to download from Smashwords and choose the “mobi” format. Those who read via Nook, Kobo or iBooks can download direct.

This dark fantasy is set very much in the present day, and if you didn't catch its trailer, you can watch it HERE   "European folklore come to the UK..." 

Do I take my own advice? Of course I do. Mine are already in the bag. Or at least my Kindle. Happy reading!

Book Trailer Anyone? #3 - Result!

After months of drooling over book trailers on YouTube I decided to have a go at creating one for my Horror Short Scent of a Böggel-Mann. Catch up on my tentative steps – and coming to my senses – in Post 1 and Post 2.

When an expert is needed, an expert should be researched. One of the best places to start is on Fiverr.com. Jobs, "gigs", begin at US$5, but I’d already discovered how much work is needed to create a book trailer, so surely not? Well, Yes and No.

Offered services are explained and each provider has samples to view. From this I drew up a long-list, which became a short-list, which became a choice. For me that service provider was yourbooktrailer. The requirements included 3-4 phrases, 4-6 high quality photos... the sort of thing I’d been practising. So while I was searching for another couple of images I practised some more. It paid off.

These are some of images I sent. See how they were utilised in the trailer via this Blogpost or direct on YouTube.

Not only were the text font, effects and music sourced by the provider as part of the gig, I received a draft to review. I had the temerity to ask for tweaks, and received them almost by return. I doubled the fee by way of a tip. Why wouldn’t I? For a trailer supporting a title that retails at 99p, it remains a bargain.

Now all I have to do is utilise it as a marketing tool. Any suggestions?

NOTE: prices and requirements have adjusted a little in the four weeks since this gig was actioned, but it remains amazing value.

Speculative Fiction #99c PROMO!

This weekend – 5-6th November – I’m taking part in my first joint 99p/99c promotion for Science Fiction and Fantasy full-length novels. Torc of Moonlight, Book 1 in the trilogy, is my test title. Should you be interested?

Of course you should. There’s a choice of 180+ titles. For ease they’ve been split into groups: Science Fiction; Dystopian, Apocalyptic & Horror; Fantasy (where Torc of Moonlight sits); SF/Fantasy Romance; Boxed Sets & Collections – yes, for 99p/99c.

The titles are spread across the main five retailers: Amazon, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, Smashwords & GooglePlay. Visit the promotion site www.pattyjansen.com/promo and click on your preferred retailer below the welcome image. It’ll jump to the list for that retailer. Clicking on a title takes you to its page where you can read its blurb in full, look at reviews, and purchase. Stock up for winter reading.

The promotion is organised for writers to find new readers, and for readers to sample new writers or sub-genres. Each writer is doing their bit to publicise the event during the weekend. If you could give me a tiny hand I’d appreciate it: just click HERE to go to my Twitter feed and RT the pinned Tweet. Or share this post via the Share links below. Many thanks!

Enjoy your chosen books.

Book Trailer Anyone? #2

Following on from my last post HERE, a book trailer there will be. But as can be taken from this post’s non-appearance last weekend, there proved more to producing one than simply making the decision. It’s a job for a clear desk and a clear mind.

Let’s backtrack a bit. The main elements needed in creating a book trailer are:

• software
• images
• text captions
• music
• a host for viewing the finished trailer

Going the DIY route does not mean purchasing a top-of-the-range software application. My Windows laptop came bundled with ‘Movie-Maker’; an AppleMac may have ‘iMovie’ lurking on its hard-drive. If you are intending dipping your toes for a test run, these will suffice. A search of the Web will flag other free applications available to download.

Having the software doesn’t get over the time element, not only of learning to use it but learning to use it well. It is one of the reasons I now rarely create my own book covers; I’m better at manipulating words than I am at manipulating images. But if I had the time I’d certainly give it a go.

Even with my tentative try, I learned a lot, and that knowledge colours future decisions. Advice: first, go onto YouTube and watch a few trailers. Make a note of the links to those you particularly like and those you particularly dislike. As I found, there’s a reason for this, so bear with me. Okay, back to your own.

A book trailer needs to be planned – storyboarded – to give an idea of the number of images and/or amount of video, plus the amount of text needed. Start with the basics and work outwards.

The priorities are the cover and the link to buy the book. Make that link short. Use Bitly or Booklinker or something similar, and alter the link to ensure it reflects the book’s title. Viewers won’t be able to click the link; they need to recall it. These two elements encompass your call to action. All else is the tease that leads to this.

The next consideration is the genre, and if appropriate, sub-genre. If the book is Romance, is it Comic Chicklit or Historical Drama? If Crime, is it Cosy or Urban Noir? This relates to the tone of the trailer, both in the types of images and the soundtrack to be chosen.

The text comes next. Even if video clips are used, unless you have the right sort of voice and can act well, written text is less problematic for the DIYer and cheaper if the trailer is produced by a third party. In the first instance take the book’s back-blurb / product description and cut it to the bare bones. List the sentences or phrases 1 to -- then put it aside.

Re-watch the book trailers, paying particular attention to the ones which catch your eye. Is there a common denominator? Watch them again and again; slo-mo the action and write the text in the order it appears. Are full sentences used, or is a sentence split? Into how many words? Did the text give a taste, or the entire story? Did it finish on a question or an denouement? Re-watch the ones you disliked. By now you should be getting an idea of why you disliked them. Moved too fast? Too many words? Music too loud, didn’t fit the genre? Each time you do this you are honing skills for your own.

Back to your own text. Does it stand scrutiny? Mine didn’t, and after another edit I binned the lot and started again with a different approach. Writing copy, and that’s what this is, proves very different to writing fiction.

From this point, for me, it became a two-handed search: for the images to go with the words, and editing the words yet again to go with the images. If you have an account with one of the larger royalty-free image distributors, such as Shutterstock or DepositPhotos which charge for their downloads, now is the time to open a lightbox on site and begin trawling for suitable images to longlist. If you’re looking for total freebies you’ll have less of a choice, but try Pixabay or Morguefile. Read the instructions and fulfil the conditions. Remember, you can’t just use any image you find on the internet. Most are copyrighted, just as your book will be copyright to you. And we hate our work being pirated, don’t we? The bigger distributors use digital robots to sweep the internet for their wares, and they don’t just issue ‘take down’ notices, they issue expensive invoices.

With a longlist of possible images to complement my book’s cover and genre, I turned my attention to background music. Search something like free music clips for videos and a whole new, and *enormous* world opens up. Again, read the instructions and fulfil the conditions: some need crediting via a Creative Commons attribution.

However, it was here that I drew the line. I simply couldn’t afford the time necessary to DIY. So I shall be looking for a third party producer to fulfil the promise – cheaply yet effectively. Then I shall look to create an account with YouTube to host the trailer.

AMENDED: And I did. Read all about it on Book Trailer Anyone? #3 Result!

Book Trailer Anyone?

Writing a novel is easy. Marketing that novel is akin to climbing the Game of Thrones' Ice Wall using only a couple of toothpicks. 

Okay, so I exaggerate: writing a good novel is damned difficult, but the rest about marketing it still applies.

Late last year, when I was coming out of creative hibernation, I ran a post on using images via Twitter. That I felt I could manage. Now I’m thinking Book Trailers.

Trailers are part of every movie’s marketing plan, and they are ubiquitous on television when promoting drama. I’ve just watched the trailer for series 2 of the BBC’s historical Poldark. Catch it HERE, because it encapsulates all the necessary ingredients:

It’s short. The Poldark trailer is 60 seconds long, but it is live video, out of the financial reach of most indie authors. When dealing in only text and still images give it a bit of leeway, but no longer than 90 seconds in length. Then cut it by 15 seconds.

Keep each text snippet down to a snippet. Viewers will be taking in tone and atmosphere from the still images (and the accompanying music) as well as from the text, and they need time to collate all three into a reaction. Aim for a tease, not an explanation. The initial Poldark voice-over used four snippets of 3 / 4 / 4 / 6 words – notice the lift to a crescendo, in length, meaning and to a flurry of emotionally-charged images. The voice-overs that follow are far longer, but it takes less time to listen than it does to read, so that luxury isn’t available to a text & images trailer.

Still images need to be in keeping with the book’s content. If the cover has a multi-image scope it may well do on its own via close-ups and panning. But keep the speed down; images that flicker past the eye detract from the focus, and the text.

Music. Ever watched part of a movie without its background soundtrack? Unbelievably bland. When choosing music make sure the tone fits the genre, but as with the Poldark trailer, it doesn’t have to match the period or its genre – just its tone.

I’ll talk about the steps of putting one together next time, but for now watch these for inspiration, not produced by the authors, but by their small press publisher, the power behind FantastiCon:

Young Adult – The Boy In Winter’s Grasp by John Scotcher HERE

SF – The Methuselah Strain by Stuart Aken HERE

Comic short story collection – On Shallowed Ground by Walt Pilcher HERE

If you own a good one, or have watched one that spoke to you, please add a link in the Comments section. I could do with all the help I can get!

AMENDED: See how I fared in Post 2 and Post 3 Result!

Launching: Scent of the Böggel-Mann

Is the heating on? Are you cosy? Good - you're going to need to be.

Scent of the Böggel-Mann is a supernatural short-read determined to prompt the shudders.

Elaine haunts auctions held in crumbling country mansions, dreaming of a find that will make her and Gary rich. A plain wooden shipping trunk has no key to its iron-banded locks but is far heavier than it should be. What might it contain? Bricks laughs a suave competitor. A body retorts Elaine.

Both are wrong. Both are right. Beware the Böggel-Mann. 

Kindle ¦ Kobo ¦ iBooks ¦ Nook ¦ Smashwords all formats


Enjoy the read.

Update for those following my previous E-Book Marketing Doldrums? posts:

• two days ago (late, I admit) my newsletter went out with advance notice, buying links, and additional info.
• yesterday (launch day) I hit Facebook and Twitter and shall continue to do so across this weekend.

E-Book Marketing Doldrums? 1: Make a Plan

I look at my web presence, and particularly my e-book sales, and I cringe. But it can happen to us all – life overwhelm, health issues, burnout – for whatever reason, we blink and our business enterprise falters. Or in my case falls off a cliff.

This summer I had routine, if major, surgery. I thought I’d planned my writing life reasonably well around it. Alas, the rehabilitation has extended far beyond what I expected. Moreover, it is liable to impact my life until the New Year. If you are one of my readers awaiting Pilgrims of the Pool, the final novel in the Torc of Moonlight trilogy, I can only apologise for its delay. Life happens.

However, I do have a short Supernatural Suspense ready to upload. And this leaves me in a quandary. To do so at the moment would be to upload the title into a vacuum. Linda who? Not only will it need to be promoted, but a signposted path needs to be cleared to ease its launch, and that means marketing both my name and my current titles so as to ring a few bells in the ears of prospective e-book buyers. How to go about this?

My initial step has been to take stock. I listed available titles, indicating which could be aligned to the Supernatural Suspense. I then listed all titles in development, where each stands in its schedule, and sub-headed the sequence necessary to bring each to fruition. It was a bit of an eye-opener, to put it mildly, but the sub-headed sequences will help to break projects into manageable chunks. At the very least it gives me something to tick as and when completed.

My second step has been to check my current marketing plan. Ah... not so much a marketing plan as a badly corroded colander. Time for a rethink.

Nearly all e-book marketing gurus and would-be gurus emphasise the need to identify a target market – difficult, as I don’t write in a single genre – and to make personal connections across the spectrum of social media in order to hand-sell titles. The main problem with this is that it takes time and an awful lot of energy. The secondary problem is that Christmas is rushing up at speed.

So where and how to expend my limited time and effort?

I’m sure manufacturers of cars or laundry detergent have dedicated teams to hand-sell their products to their target markets, but they also use passive marketing. You’ve never passed a billboard or read an advertisement on the side of a bus? It is derided as a scatter-gun approach, renowned for its hit & miss effect; mostly miss. But the odds can be altered a little by targeting where, for instance, the billboard is placed.

Back to taking stock, this time of where I have, or have had, a digital presence: this website, other blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Yahoogroups... and that will have to do for the amount of time available. I again sub-headed possible To Do strategies for each along the lines of research promotional pages and add myself in; be active & helpful on... A bit airy-fairy? Of course it is, but even an airy-fairy plan is a plan of sorts.

How long to run with this before uploading the Supernatural Suspense? Good question.

I offer my titles for all the main e-reader portals: Kindle, and Nook, Kobo and iBooks via Smashwords distribution. Therefore, despite Amazon being my most profitable portal, I have no titles in its KDP Select. I can, however, offer Pre-Order to all. I’ve done this once and it wasn’t particularly successful. This time around I doubt I have enough wiggle space: both Kindle and Smashwords require a minimum of 10 days Pre-Order, so on this occasion I am counting that one out.

To give the title its best chance on launch I’ll pick a Friday to go live ready for weekend e-book buyers, which means 27th November or 4th December. As I type I realise that 27th is Black Friday sales day on the internet, and even an idiot with hardly a plan (ie me) knows that any squeak I can make will be drowned before its first breath. On the other hand, launching 4th December means that the title will still be listed in Amazon’s Last 30 days New Releases across the Christmas and New Year period.

Decision: 4th December will be Launch Day.

So when will I start to put the new marketing plan into action? You’re reading this . If you’re interested in seeing what and how I do, I’ll be posting regularly about my forays into segments of social media, so do call back or ‘Follow By Email’ to have the posts drop into your Inbox.

If you have made it all the way to the end of this post, many thanks for hanging in there. Like me, I'm sure you're gagging for a coffee. I both appreciate your patience and promise that following posts won’t be as lengthy. Have you been in e-book sales doldrums? Are you in them now? What are you doing to counter it? Please share your experiences, good or bad. They will be most useful.

Finally, may I ask a favour? If you found the post useful, quirky, or just plain laughable, please consider giving it a Tweet, or copy & paste the following handy RT. Y’see, every little helps, and so does saying... Thanks!

RT @LindaAcaster #Ebook Marketing Doldrums? How to Plan for a Christmas Launch http://ow.ly/UW4n7 #indieauthor

Books Launch Promotion Timing

Two ebooks launched this past week - Torc of Moonlight : Special Edition and Contributions to Mankind and other stories of the Dark - just in time for Christmas buys. Not that it was supposed to happen like that, but life just got in the way, mine and a few other people's. I'd had promotions booked well in advance, an interview at Molly's Musings on 9th and this weekend promoting on Kindle Author, but in the end it was a close run thing to have the books available.

It reminded me of last year with the paperback of Torc of Moonlight which kept getting delayed at the printer (I was told by its publisher), so that finally I had to pull all the promotion I'd readied and by the time it was available it had missed the deadline to go into local shops for Christmas buyers. I hand-sold copies, but the flush passed me by. It was one of the reasons I decided to go indie. Despite this close call, it's a decision I've not regretted.

While I was being interviewed on Molly's Musings, also in the USA Publishers Weekly put out a piece stating ...e-book sales posted their slowest growth rates in 2010 in October. Still, sales jumped 112.4%, to $40.7 million...

And this is supposed to be bad?? It only covered 14 US publishers, not the industry as a whole, an industry that insists on windowing - a practice of putting out hardbacks, then paperbacks, then ebooks, often with months in between - or even worse, pricing ebooks higher than hardbacks - something ebook buyers have taken huge exception to, showing their discontent by slapping one star reviews on such ebooks regardless of contextual merit. Poor author, who wouldn't have had a say in any of it.

But what about indie sales in all this? Not mentioned. Indies are the elephant in the room. From initially eyeing indies with suspicion, readers are beginning to realise that, just as with print books, there are good and not so good, and the good outnumber the rest. For the price of a paperback they can read three indie ebooks. Not only are they doing so, but they are spreading their reading net outside their usual fishing zones, and liking what they find.