Rebecca L. Frencl's Blog

We're at T-2 days until the start of summer vacation. Ah yes, summer vacation....that time of year when I can have bathroom breaks when I want them, take more than 10 minutes to eat lunch and I can drink a pot of coffee after 3pm. Glorious days. Anyway, back to the point. This summer, I decided that in order to make a little money, I'll have to spend a little money. I heard something at the RWA (Romance Writers of America) Chicagoland Spring Fling this year, "you have to give away a bunch of books before you sell a bunch of books." Huh? That refrain, have free stories, novellas even novels up on Amazon was repeated over and over again. Of course, I thought, these are those people who can crank out two hundred pages in two weeks. That's not me. I am a slow writer. A book and a novella a year, maybe with another story tossed in, is as quick as I can write. Can I?

Well, this got me thinking. So, during May I set aside the full-length novel I was working on (another in my time travel/historical series--more on that later) and plotted out 4 stories that were going to be Amazon freebies. Or for $.99. I haven't completely decided yet, but I'm leaning toward free even if it goes against my little Italian/Bohemian heart. I finished one this week and it's currently with an editor. It will be going out to beta readers (something else I learned about at this conference) as soon as the editor is done and should be up for order by June 15th at the latest. I'm actually shooting for a June 11th date, but that's to upload and I'm told it could take a little time to do that. I'm also not all that confident in my formatting skills on kindle at the moment.

In addition to the freebies I am in promo after promo this coming month! One June 1st, the Sizzling Summer Reads Party kicks off at TRR https://www.theromancereviews.com/event.php. Check right here for that link. I'm trying to get the banner up on my website, but I might need some technical help with that. Hmm.... I'm also part of a FB multi-author event on June 15th and next week I'm participating in a Book Birthday Bash with another Rebecca in Perth, Australia. It might require me to get up at 5am to play along and the math involved in the time zones is making my head hurt, but I'm game.

Will any or all of this work? Not a clue! All I know is that they can't fault me for trying. I'm targeting my Ascended series, which I am now officially calling my Ascended Series, instead of the Fallen Series and I promise I will change that on the website as soon as I can get into it. (I need to do some things from home). I'm hoping in August, when I'll be able to see my Kindle sales and page reads from June, that I'll see some more sales. Maybe I'll be able to buy fries with my burger next time!! Livin' the dream and promo on!!

So, I'm attempting something this summer that I've never before thought I'd attempt. I'm going to try to publish a couple of smaller pieces myself instead of going through my publisher. Now, that doesn't mean that I have anything against my publisher. I don't. I love my editor and I've had nothing but a positive experience with them. However, I've been hearing over and over at the various conventions I've gone to this year that indie, what used to be called self, publishing is the way to go to really earn money.

Here's a fact of life in publishing, no matter the means....you need to spend money to make money. That doesn't mean that you pay a vanity press to publish your manuscript. No, a publisher should always pay you and not the other way around. What I mean is that the publisher or the author, depending on who is putting out the book, is going to need to pony up some cash for marketing. Now, unless you're Stephen King or your publishing company is enormous they're not going to do much by way of marketing that isn't free. They need to make money too. If you publish through a company you're stuck with what they can do for you or for what you, the author, wants to pay for. Now, I've done boosted FB posts, I did an Amazon giveaway (messed that up), and I've done a few other things. If you're the sole proprietor of your work, you can adjust prices yourself and use the Amazon Marketing Services, which is apparently the holy grail of making money at this.

So, I'm willing to try it. I'm currently finishing up a novella in the same world as Ribbons of Moonlight--the Commander gets his comeuppance a the hands of Connor's cousins in the highlands, a clever and pretty trio of highland lassies who are not going to benignly accept his presence. It's been kind of fun diving into their stories. My plan is to put that story out either free or permafree and use it as a reader hook. I also have some Star Circle story plans and one for my angel series which I'm thinking of rebranding.

So much to think about. My head is kind of spinning. I'm not going to neglect my main novels. I promise. I'm finally getting to Redemption of the Fallen this summer and outlining Guardian of the Fallen, the next one in line. There are still four novels in the angel series that are going to be written. My goal is a July 1 release for Torrents of Darkness, quickly followed (within the month, I hope!!!) of the next time travel romance A Strange Wind. So, there it is. It's an aggressive schedule and here's hoping that life doesn't explode all over me as it has a tendency to do.

Please, sign up for my brand spanking new email! You should (if I got the automation set up correctly) get a sneak peak of Redemption of the Fallen for your trouble. You'll also be eligible for special giveaways and chances to get books in your hand first. All you have to do is visit my website and sign up on the little pop up box that appears!

https://rebeccalfrencl.weebly.com/

So, the title of this post isn't all that surprising. I'm certain there are a lot of things that I'm missing, but I'm speaking of marketing tactics in particular. I was at Capricon last weekend, a local science fiction/fantasy and writing/gaming convention. I love it. It was a great Con. There was a wonderfully positive vibe this year. I also got to sit next to Timothy Zahn on a Star Wars panel for an hour and a half and completely geek out. So, that was good.

There was a panel on marketing your book. Unfortunately, I was moderating a panel on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at 200 years old at the same time. So, I send my husband to the marketing panel armed with a pen and paper. He can back with a ton of scribbled notes. One of those notes, one of those things that everyone mentioned was BookBub. Now, I've heard of BookBub. I get emails from them all the time. I don't know why it never dawned on me to look at them from an author's perspective instead of a reader. Duh. Like I said, there are some things I miss.

So, I logged on, got my books vetted and added and set up my first ad. I've then stalked my "click" rate and my Amazon book rank. In two days I've only gotten about 12 clicks. And that book rank? Yeah, hasn't budged. Maybe I didn't think big enough. Maybe I didn't pony up enough cash for the ad. I'd actually like to eventually make some money on my books. I listened all weekend to other authors, some of whom were self-published, many of them without as many books as I have out, talking about how they were making hundreds of dollars a month. Or how they had hundreds of downloads or over 50 reviews. It's frustrating. I'm struggling to make a quarter a month in royalties. I'm struggling to see any downloads. I'm struggling to get the people who are related to me by blood and marriage to leave me a one or two sentence review.

I'll just keep writing. Keep trying. Keep shouting into that abyss of marketing trying to get my voice heard. They're good books. At least that's what the few people I know who have read them tell me. It's just so hard to get your name out there. I'll also go back and research everything I know about this BookBub service. Like I said, there must be something I'm missing.

So, I've been really crabby this past week or so. We decked the halls, I've been baking, wrapping and shopping. I've watched all the Christmas movies that make me sniffle and laugh and I've tipped back a couple of glasses. To no avail. I'm still crabby and I cannot seem to get into the holiday spirit this year. I finished another book, had a release and even gave a release party. Which reminds me, I have to send out messages to my winners tonight. And still...

What do you do when you just can't count your blessings? I know they're there. I can list them for you if you'd like me to, but I won't. It just all seems too much like bragging. There are reasons I don't really want to get into at the moment since they don't completely concern me and I've never been one to air anyone else's business, but it's bringing me down. And if it's bringing me down, I can only imagine what it's doing to the principals involved.

It reminds me of the Christmas after my grandmother died. Grandma loved Christmas. It was her favorite holiday and she'd go crazy with presents and food. So, when she was gone and we were facing the first Christmas out there it was hard. Everything I'd ever known was different. This year even the house we used to have Christmas in is vacant. So, another era passes. I think the older I get the more and more difficult it is to adjust to changes. I'm happy in my little ruts. I think we all are. The older and older I get I also realize how things can change. Maybe it's the thought that this current change isn't temporary. It's a new normal that I don't want to get used to. I want to stomp my feet and have a temper tantrum and tell everyone to stop being stubborn and just get over it all, but it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple, is it?

So, I'll kindle the candles and pass the cookies. I'll roll the meatballs and layer the lasagnas and if my heart isn't in it completely, I'll soldier on. Eventually, we'll all get used to the new normal, and relearn how to count our blessings, even as we mourn what we've lost.

So, Flames of the Fallen, my next fallen angel story is off to the proofreaders, where they'll find all the typos my eyes skimmed over because after three edits with an editor is still after three edits on my own. After a while your brain sort of shuts off and you don't even see the issues. Then you have good old Word, which decides to change a character's name EVERY time you type it. I'm pretty certain that I missed at least one of them.

Flames is the third novel in the series. I have seven novels planned. There are also two completed novellas and a third one I'm currently writing. The hope is that I'll be getting that one done by the end of the year and off to Solstice. It's the last novella I have planned right now. Of course, Flames was supposed to be the last novella and it turned into a full-blown novel. It's the same old story with me....get to a certain point in the story and have to make a decision. Do I go where I'd originally planned on going? Or do I take this detour here that will make it a much better, but much longer story? I usually take the detour. This detour was actually inspired by a character someone else created.

Two years ago this May, I auctioned off the chance to create a character in the next Fallen book. It was an epic fail at the charity auction. I'm honest enough with myself to admit that. I thought it was a cool idea--the opportunity to create a character that would be in print. Apparently, I'm the only one who thought so. It sold for the minimum bid to the school secretary who gave the opportunity to her daughter. Her daughter created the character, but left one crucial choice up to me. When I asked what she'd like her character to be---human, angel, fallen angel or demonic baddie--she left that up to me. So, I decided to think outside of the box. It then lead to a twist that I can't reveal or I give away too much in the new story. Suffice to say that I loved this character so much, she's now one of the main characters of the last Fallen novella.

Stay tuned...

So, I've been a very neglectful blogger this year. I was so good for the first couple of years, but sort of tapered off this past year. It's not a bad thing, though. It just means that life has gotten a lot fuller and left me less time to spend spilling my thoughts out into the internet ether. I have been writing. In fact, I just finished a new Fallen book. Initially Flames of the Fallen was supposed to be a novella for last summer's Solstice anthology. I also auctioned off the ability to name/create a character for this book at my daughter's school auction last May. Thought it was a cool idea. Thought it would be unique enough to get some bids. Added signed copies of the other Fallen books, a bottle of wine and some chocolate to the basket. Got a total of 2 bids and one of them was a pity bid from a member of the family. Ouch. Yeah, so I learned my lesson about trying to be clever. Just donated wine this year. That one went much better. Tells you the priorities of the people bidding! Of course, if you were paying for Catholic school, you'd drink too! We have a nice little wine collection downstairs ourselves.

Anyway, the daughter of the school secretary came up with this character called Magen. Tall, red haired with green eyes and a klutz. She was supposed to be a minor character, but she was just so funny! I had such a good time writing her, and added in a more than a little twist into her character, that she became one of the main characters. I hope she likes the character she created. I know I do. Now, to start trying to come up with the back of the book. I hate that part. Seriously, hate that part. And work on a book launch idea. Hmmmm. Time to get back to work!

Ever written yourself into a bit of a corner? I have. I changed something in my latest WIP (work in progress) and it opened up so much in terms of the story. It'll honestly be a much better and much stronger story at the end. It's just going back and unravelling that wearies me. I know what I need to do. I know what I need to write. It's a little like weaving. I'd gotten so far in the scarf and then realized that if I went back and changed the pattern a little bit here it would turn out so much cooler than I'd originally intended. It's just going back, picking out the stitches and restarting. I just have to get going and plow through. I'm looking forward to parts that come later, the neat plot twists this change opened up.

I've done this before. These angel stories have a tendency to warp on me. They start off as one thing and something else occurs to me about eighty pages in and it sends the story off the rails. It turns out to be a stronger story in the end, much more complex and much more interesting, but it takes time to work backwards through the story to fit in those little hints and clues.

I have my spring break coming up. No one else in my house is out of work or school that week. After spending the first day doing absolutely nothing useful at all, I'm planning on settling down to plow through those changes. Then, I can spend more of my time getting to the good parts. This is going to be good, if I do say so myself.

You know, I had several bog ideas this past two months. I did. I really did. To quote Shakespeare, "Tis gone, tis gone..." The best laid plans, right? I've been writing and working and working out this past couple of month. My daughter started guitar lessons and we still have karate and art club and now glee choir on top of my own committees and commitments, so life has been a little packed and the blog has suffered as a result. But that's all to the good. As I tell my students, you can't write the great American novel without having lived the great American life. I don't have a great American life. I'm no Hemingway or Twain, but I've got a good little life.

We also got a puppy. His name is Magnus, after Magnus Chase of Rich Riordan fame. The daughter and I read book one together last summer on our Walt Disney World trip and she loved the name. My husband looked at me a little strangely, but went with it. Now, the name fits. Interesting the way that works, doesn't it?

I've had characters whose names I've had to change for one reason or another. In Ascent of the Fallen, I was asked to changed Serafina's cousin's name. It was originally Sam, but was changed to Dan because there were too many characters with "S" names. The editor didn't want people to get confused. I get it, but even for a minor little character it was pretty difficult to do. When I was in 6th grade, I came up with my first characters. I lived with those characters, loved them and wrote hundreds upon hundreds of pages about them. It became my first trilogy. One that will most likely never see the light of day because, well, I wrote it starting in 6th grade. I pulled it out a while ago...pulled out the idea, that is. Can't pull out the actual files anymore unless someone has a big 5 inch floppy disk drive anywhere around, provided I can find all my hand labeled floppies in my dad's basement.

I digress. One of the things I looked at when I looked back over the idea was changing the character's names. I mean, I spelled Michael--Mikel, and thought I was cool. They can't be changed though, can they? Even as childish as some of the names were, and some of them were (a bad guy named Darklor, what was I thinking?!?) I can't change them. Their names have become over the years and the part of the fabric of who they are. So, the idea will still sit in the back of my head. I pull it out and tinker with it when I'm between angel books, but I don't think I'll ever get that far with it. It's nice to visit with those characters for a while, though. They were quite important pieces of my young imagination.  

It was a great idea--a little novella, no more than sixty to eighty pages--wham, bam and we have another publishing credit under out belt. Yeah. Cocky much? Apparently so. That little idea morphed on me. It's going to be good, but it's in that part of a book that you drag yourself through. I don't know about you, but 20,000 words is my Achilles heel. I'm flying until then and next thing I know, I hit that word count and SPLAT!! Smashed to bits, the wreckage of ideas floating around me.

I know what I have to do. I know I have to get my inner lazy teen to just sit down, focus and plow through. Once I get the story to the half way mark--usually around 30,000 to 35,000 words I'm golden. I can see that long slide to "The End." It's the uphill climb I dread.

Ironically, it reminds me a lot of the plot map I'm poun--er, refreshing the memory of--in classes this past month. I'm excited to start a new project, so the new setting, the new characters, the new conflict they all fly like the exposition in a story. It's the rising action, the mountainous climb to the climax. I get about halfway up and want to make base camp. For months. Well, it's move or freeze time.

Like last year, I wanted to finish FIRST OF THE FALLEN by the end of my Christmas Break. Same deal here. I was hoping to get it finished over summer break, but I admit I let my little kid out to play and once released after two weeks in Disney World, she didn't want to sit down at the dining room table and get back to work. It's been hard enough keeping that personality in the box for the beginning of the school year. Particularly a school year in which I'm under evaluation. Yikes! Don't need to let her slip the leash.

So, yes, back on track. FLAMES OF THE FALLEN done by the end of Christmas break and a new angels book (though this one is more ifrits and demons and magicians, oh my!) in the new calendar year. I promise!

I'm at t-minus three days and counting to starting the new school year. It wasn't as prolific a summer as I'd hoped. I had great big plans. I was going to finish up FLAMES OF THE FALLEN and make a huge dent in REDEMPTION OF THE FALLEN. Yeah. No. Flames got a little out of control--ha! No pun intended. So, it's the next book I'm working on. I think. It was supposed to be another novella like SHADES OF THE FALLEN. However, I had a brainstorm and it's growing up before my eyes.

Ah well. I also really enjoyed my summer. We went to Florida for two weeks and I got to spend a ton of time in Walt Disney World, which is one of my favorite places in the universe. My dream is to some day be able to be a snow bird. That requires selling a lot more books.

Is it funny that I can't seem to concentrate on anything this week? This is my 20th year in the classroom and some things never change. I never can the week school starts. I start thinking about everything I need to get done in the first few days of school. I start to kick myself back into that hyper-organized gear I need to be in during the year. Ironically, I get a lot more accomplished during the school year than the summer. I'm hideously inefficient in the summer.

So, I apologize to everyone who thought there'd be another release so soon after the last one. I try, but it takes me a while. My goal is to finish this one over Christmas break, so the same pattern as FIRST OF THE FALLEN, which was supposed to be two short stories, by the way. I'm heading back into the classroom, so my children have to come before my characters for a little while!