Creative Reviews discussion

Hey Everyone, I wanted to express my thoughts and let everyone know what I am up to so I thought I'd create this thread to serve as a place for me to report any news or things I plan on doing. I also figure maybe others have tips and pointers to share as to what I'm doing because maybe they have done it themselves so feel free to share your own progress and experience If you'd like.


Thanks, Justin

So I got my royalties statement the last two days, from February to July I sold nothing but in August I sold 10 copies which may not seem like a lot but to be that's an accomplishment considering I've hardly sold a thing since it's release. So so far so good!

Justin wrote: "So I got my royalties statement the last two days, from February to July I sold nothing but in August I sold 10 copies which may not seem like a lot but to be that's an accomplishment considering I..."

Good news, Justin! I love your honesty...I'd like to be able to advise, but I'm not in a position to, my first ebook only came out three weeks ago. I'm sure you know more than me about this promotion business.
I heard you have to work on publicity and wait a year before you have any idea.
Tell me, how was your publishing company a bad one? Not because I'm disputing that, but because I'm interested...

Lucinda wrote: "Justin wrote: "So I got my royalties statement the last two days, from February to July I sold nothing but in August I sold 10 copies which may not seem like a lot but to be that's an accomplishmen..."

You don't have to wait a year you can start promoting even before your book is published it's just you gotta have patience and wait in order to see progress I suppose, its been a year and 6 months for me and I've just started getting publicity and sales and it's a good feeling let me tell ya.

And my publishing company is PublishAmerica, They are on the list for being one of the worst publishing companies in the business. I went with them cause it cost me nothing to publish but they don't go all they way through with editing, they don't help you promote and they don't do much to help you, always a price with them and anything you want them to do you gotta ask and to which you most likely gotta pay for so yeah that's why their bad. I would suggest looking into a few publishing companies and talking to people on here and seeing what they recommend for a Publisher, I am doing this for my next book because PA isn't getting their grimy hands on it!

Lol Justin. My ebook convesion company scrambled the blurb everywhere, and it's still being sorted out on some ebook stores' details, but they are a very reputable company. Perhaps the exhaustion of promoting this ebook will have killed me off before then. My gothic ghost will, if so, haunt Amazon Kindle...

PenPress, I wonder, if I can ever get about £700 together?

Well at least you have a good company to rely on. and what bout 700?

Lol, as long as my ghosts doesn't have to keep company with Heathcliff, I re-read that recently and detested him more than ever, the jerk! It costs £700 for the minimum package with Penpress. Obviously one should ideally go for some sort of premium package, but it's difficult if funds are short, as you know.
What do you think of Amazon's Createspace?

Lucinda wrote: "What do you think of Amazon's Createspace? "

I've used Createspace for all my indie books (five of mine, plus one for my mother). The quality is fine, customer service is good, and it is absolutely free unless you want to purchase specific services such as cover art, editing or formatting. If you need those services, I recommend you get them elsewhere, as you can probably get better quality for less money.

Lightning Source is the other best option. It's considered better if you expect to get more bookstore distribution, and maybe if you want to order copies in bulk for yourself, but I believe it's not as simple to use (I haven't tried it myself).

For most indies, we'll either sell books directly ourselves or sell print books through Amazon, so why have another middleman? The only reason to go with another printing company (I'm saving the term "publisher" for a traditional publisher that actually pays you, instead of taking your money) is if you need services and feel they offer the best quality for value.

Thanks so much, Chris, I'll check this out.

I haven't heard of either but I'll check them out. One thing I'd want to do is for these companies if I were to consider them is to give me a rundown of how they work as PA most certainly did not until it was too late but either way I hope to get a lot going now that I got a bit of hope so far.

It seems that it isn't what the 'printing' companies say they will do,but what they keep quiet about which one has to watch out for (sorry, I know that's not grammatical!).
How did the physical books look?

I don't know about other companies all I know is that PublishAmerica is awful. Aside from their royalties email they sent me they have done jack squat to help and to alert. But yeah I don't know about whatever other companies and how they are..

So the latest: I recently contributed to fellow author Vincent Hobbes updated Endlands website with two of my poems introducing and welcoming people giving them a scare to the site.
I have recently updated my website with new titles, a lot of new blogs, new features, links, info, etc, there's just plenty of new stuff to take in.

I have also started working on putting touches to what may be my 3rd, yes 3rd book. The 2nd is still being edited and should be done this weekend if all goes well. I am also still looking for authors and bloggers to feature on my site as I will provide yur link on my sidebar, its not much but the least I can do to help fellow goodreaders. That's pretty much my latest rundown of progress!

Check out the websites and enjoy!

Vincent Hobbes' Page-
www.theendlands.com

My Page-
http://jbienvenue.webs.com/

Hey Justin -

I think you just answered a question I put to you on the other thread!!

Congrats on getting the second book done - feels good doesn't it? And good for you, getting it edited. It makes SUCH a difference, not least because when you've written something, you can't see the errors after a while. I know that it took my second editor to pick up on the fact that in my second novella, someone went away to make a cup of coffee and didn't turn up with it until three days later! Now that's got to be well-brewed!!

Re printing / distribution companies, I have used Createspace for my paperback but am also using Lightning source. This is because Createspace is always in stock at Amazon but p&p is much more expensive for those of us in the UK, and also because I want a matte cover, which LSI can give me but CS can't.

So far (fingers crossed!) Createspace has been fine to use, though I did cave and get Trish to format it for me because I'm so short of time at the moment.

LSI is much more complicated, and I think possibly unnecessary now that Createspace covers Europe as well? Dunno. Will let you know when I go live on LSI as well and can compare the books. Certainly set-up is more expensive on LSI.

Anyhow,paperback is now live on Amazon (woot!) sourced from Createspace, and the only slight quibble I have is that the cover curls upwards a bit, but that's not something I would have noticed if I wasn't looking for it.
JAC

hey J.A, yeah it does feel good to have the 2nd book done. I feel its no where close though i gotta tweek some of the chapters and add a bit more to it then ill be satisfied. But for the most part yes its good. Createspace huh? I hear alot about that but never looked into it. I looked into 9 publishers for this 2nd book..yeah all nine are a no go :( either not accepting submmisions, dont accept horror or are ebook publishers only. Its always good to find a good company and get something going, so best of luck to you!

Thank you! I'm self-published, though, so Createspace are only my printer / distributors. They aren't publishers in the traditional sense.

Is Self-Publishing hard? I know I couldnt do it because I like the satisfaction of knowing I got my work published professionally, I feel if I self publish it theres so much more work to be done and hard to get it out there without a publisher behind you. Id consider it for something small but nothing major, Its hard enough promoting a book when u got a crap publisher who hasnt done anything but hide behind their money and shameful claim of being a company

Self-pub is a lot of work but then from the sound of it, so is trad-publishing.

With self-pub YOU sort out an editor, and then either a formatter and cover person, or you do it yourself. If you're short of money but have a bit of time, you learn a whole load of new skills (and actually it's good fun if you're that way inclined). I did that for the original 3 uploads in ebook form over the past 18 months. Now I'm hideously short of time so for the paperback I got Trish to format it for me (lovely job, reasonable rates), and as my bday is near Christmas, asked for money instead of pressies, which I then put with what royalties I had to get a cover by Regina who did Cambria's cover.

I'm really proud of the result, and have taken the proof into various bookstores to see if there was anything obviously below-par that they thought I should change. All of them said it was of a similar quality to other books on their shelves. I'm proud as punch of what I've done, and I know it's up to the standard I expect from a book.

Of course, any publicity or marketing that happens is entirely up to me, but I figure given time and enough sequels, I'm in with a chance of building up an audience. My partner used to be a bookseller and he reckons that with fantasy (which is what I write) you don't necessarily notice till book 3 or 4, and then if it's suitably good, at that point they start trickling off the shelves by themselves, and the growth ramps itself up over a space of years. So given that I'm in it for the long-term, this suits me fine! It's my pension plan, and I have up to thirty years for it to start paying off.

Hold that thought!

Now, trad-pubbed, you'd have to hear from someone who's experienced it firsthand.

My understanding is that you spend month after month putting together submissions and being turned down by all and sundry, (sounds like a waste of good writing time to me).

Then an editor makes it fit the house style and saleability (which can be editing it to make it better but sounds to pretty often be changing it substantially, not to make it better but to make it more fitting with the current fashion).

Then someone makes a cover - and how often have you seen a book where the characters have the wrong colour hair or something as obvious as that? Cos I've seen a few like that).

Then they launch you in a reasonable splash of publicity - except if you're a first-timer, they probably won't invest that much in you cos they don't know if you'll sell yet, at which point most of the marketing and publicity falls to you.

Then they give you probably less than 6 months for your book to earn out the advance you got - because let's not forget that the payment up front is precisely that, an advance on your royalties, only your royalties are 10% maybe? And you have to factor in the agent's cut too, and I don't know if that's 10% full price or 10% after the distributor's 55% discount has been taken off, but I'm prepared to bet it's the latter.

Then if you don't sell enough books in the time you're given, they do seem to pulp the rest, so you haven't got any books to sell at all, but you're still under contract with them for the full period of 2 years or whatever, and can't sell your book anywhere else in that time.

So you waste months upon end doing the submissions thing at the beginning, you have no control over the product that gets sold with your name all over it, you get no chance of building up the slow-growing community, considerably less royalties back per book, probably pretty much the same level of work and a fair chance of ending up with no book, no royalties and no chance of trying elsewhere till the contract's up...

I'm sure this can't be right, because I for one am baffled as to why anyone would do this to themselves when for a modicum more work at the beginning but pretty much the same thereafter, they could produce the book, leave it trickling away and get on with writing the next six, each of which will boost the sales of all the rest. And get 30% or 70% ebook royalties, not to mention all of the profits from the paperback sales after the production costs and distributor's discounts have been taken off.

To me this is a no-brainer, but then I don't really need anyone else to believe in my book; I do and the readers seem to, so I'm happy as a clam with that.

If anyone reading this is trad-published, I genuinely would like to hear of your experiences as I suspect I'm only hearing the extreme experiences.

I'm still too much of a control freak to let anyone else mess up my stuff though; at least any stuff that's not 100% in my books is my mistake and not some typo that's there because the work experience boy got roped in to do the boring stuff...

Back to the point though - Justin, you say you'd consider self-pub for the small stuff. I'd say, do it.

If you can go to an agent and say "I've sold 5000 e-copies of my short stories and have a solid readership who will want to read my stuff" you'll have a far better chance than the newbies who have no proven record of sales at all. Remember, trad-publishing is a business. They want things that will sell. If you can bring your audience with you, that's one foot out of the slush-pile already.

But just make sure it's edited, proofread and of good quality because they might well take a look at what's up there as well as your online reputation to see what they're taking on...

JAC

< edited for typos. Sigh. This is why I have to have an editor!!>

I am both traditionally published (four original novels and 12 work for hire books) and now self-publishing. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Neither path is easier, faster, or a guaranteed success.

I don't have time right now to go into all the details, but one thing to keep in mind is that self-publishing does require that the authors spend money up front, in order to do it right. If you can't afford to hire an editor, proofreader, and professional cover artist, you can't afford to self publish. (Unless you have *professional* level skills yourself, and/or have connections with whom you can trade for professional quality work.) If you self publish – and expect to make money off of it – you are essentially starting a business. Businesses take time, money, and an understanding of the industry.

For people who don't have the money to hire professionals, or who don't have the time (or don't want to spend the time) learning how to market well, I would still suggest looking at traditional publishing first. It works extremely well for many people – and although market forces and editors' personal taste do mean that some good books are rejected, most of the rejected books are not up to professional quality and not worthy of being self published either.

A final note – Publish America is NOT a publisher – they are self-publishing service. With traditional publishing, money flows from the publisher to the author, never the other way around.

J.A that was quite lengthy but very informative. My first book is under contract with a publishing company that doesnt help for shit. they make you pay for everything so while they published, they make me pay to have it reedited and anything else. But thats only that book. I am looking to get a publisher so that its professional because I myself dont know people or enough who will give a damn so I look for a publisher then i promote and work with whoever if they in fact promote.

Hi Chris -

that's quite interesting. Are you US-based? What is the trad-pub market like over there? And have you had a good experience with trad-pub? I'm always a bit conscious that we only hear the horror stories, so a more balanced viewpoint is always good.
JAC

So heres the latest rundown of progress. My 2nd book is on hold although im still looking for beta readers and a publisher rather quietly if i might add. Im promoting my first book since its halloween(perfect time for it) and dangling a small poetry book around the web. Also I have so many ideas right now for halloween stories and stuff..i gotta write em down n share before my brain goes crazy! Thats the latest!

Heres the latest, Its Dead! Ive done next to nothing over the last month when it comes to the book and anything else..laziness? maybe..havent been really feeling it i dont know. I am still looking for two more Beta Readers. I have also started interviews on my website which is slow starting off but hopefully things will pick up soon and ill get back into the swing of things.

I am in total read to go mode however I still need Beta Readers and people willing to be interviewed..anyone interested please let me know about either by sending me a message on Goodreads.

So the latest is ive been buried in interviews(which is good has been fun and has kept be busy), shud be working on my 2nd book again soon and whatever else as i have a few more things to be working on.

So heres the latest, I finished 2012 with 28 Interviews, the page crashed but is back with 2 new ones on there for a total of 30. I have 3 on the new list to do and im going to also tackle my 2nd book and get that going, unfortunately I waited for someone to beta read it only to realize they edited it when it already had been so im going to go over it and fix it up, still open to anyones two cents. So thats pretty much it, interviews and working on the 2nd book. All the best!

The latest, I have finished my second book and have submitted it to a publisher awaiting approval. I looked into this company this time! Hopefully all goes well. Im also still doing interviews here and there but its died down. Although I had 47 people from India on my website the other day.

I got a lot brewing right now! I just got an artist to do the cover for my 2nd book "A Bloody Bloody mess in the Wild Wild West" I got a good deal and the cover looks absolutely amazing! Shes also doing the back cover as well. Also the same person may be working on my 3rd books cover which is a bit more simple with what I have in mind.
Also the book is being re-edited by someone and after that I will go to CreateSpace and put it together, I am very excited for all this great news and progress. Hopefully it all works out

The latest. The 2nd book is currently being edited and hopefully will be done soon. I will also be doing something else for it. As for the 1st book, I am awaiting big news involving its status with PA and hopefully all signs will point to being in my favor.

I am inching close to being done with my 2nd book. After two struggling days the cover is up and next are the other steps I will do in the coming days. I am preparing for promoting it by looking into as many places as possible and yeah..alot of work ahead of me! Heres to it and thats the latest on my progress

My 2nd book, A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West has been released. I have. done a few interviews and theres a few more along with guest posts coming in the summer. The book is showcased on Indie Tribe and will be in Sanitarium Magazines next issue. Also will be having a book trailer done for it soon. So far so good!

Heres the latest! My book is featured on a page in the latest issue of Sanitarium Magazine, very excited about it. You can check it out in my thread about my book also in this folder. I've been promoting to the best of my ability althought some days are harder then the others but I try! I currently have 4 people reading my book and they should have reviews soon which is always good. I'm just taking things day by day and hoping for the best, thats the latest progress.

Been a while since I wrote on here. Now that I'm back in this group thought I'd start this thread up again.

I am currently working on my 3rd book, a book of poetry entitled ''Like A Box of Chocolates''. Its due out sometime this month to honor poetry month. The cover is currently being worked on and I have someone beta reading it right now. Hopefully both will be done soon.

My first ever podcast interview on Writer's Rebellion is now live!

Check it out here @
http://indieauthorhelpdesk.com/episode5/

Here's what I've been up to. I've been getting a little more active in the promoting and marketing scene after hitting a slight dry spell. Managed to land a few interviews, you can check them out here:

Interviewed by Ognian Georgiev
http://ogigeorgiev.wordpress.com/2014...

Interviewed by Kimberly Ibarra
http://kimberlyandcompany15.blogspot....

As for other news, I have found Twitter to be an up and down sort of deal. You gain followers and you lose followers. Whether or not your posts are relevant or reach people is hard to tell until a week later although I usually check in Saturday Nights to old horror movies and tweet with people so my most viewed and liked posts come from them.

I have recently started doing poetry readings on Youtube. I have found it as a fun productive way to get people interested in my book. Also just posted the book trailers here on Goodreads, if you have book trailers remember that you can post them to your author profile page.

I used to post on here so often and now well not so much. Figured I'd bring people up to speed on what I'm up to and what I've come across and perhaps we can all share thoughts.

I'm current writing my 4th novel, Opium Warfare. Its going a bit slow because well I can't seem to get into a rhythm to write everyday but it's coming together piece by piece. Also have been slowly promoting Like A Box of Chocolates, my most recent work. Just came off a book tour to which the book received 5 New reviews which is always nice. Looking to get it some more exposure and looking for the right places to do so. Finally, last about myself I am almost done with a book I've been reading for way too long. Its a great book but I tend to get sidetracked but I'm finishing it up, its a Steampunk book which is my first.

Found out that Amazon tagging is apparently a thing? I didn't know that but it can help increase exposure, rankings and sales. Going to look more into it for sure.
Also simply clicking on someone's book on Amazon counts as a click and the more times it's clicked on the more the rating goes up? I read it in another group.
Amazon has Listmania which is similar to GRs Listopia where people can add books to a list to help people find books better.

Article of the Day:

Outside Promotion
http://jbienvenue.webs.com/apps/blog/...

So lately I have been working hard on my upcoming 4th novel, Opium Warfare. I finished it about a month ago and since then I have created a group for it on Facebook and have had members give me small ideas to which I then write in. It's helped me and I saw it as a way for them to not only contribute but a way for me to give my book some flare and add something I may have missed.

So far they have done a great job with their input and each of the first 6 chapters have had something added. They have also been quite helpful in giving me other suggestions to which I considered and went over. As of right now I hope to send my manuscript off to an editor, finally! While the book is being looked over I will be chatting with the group and will be getting started on creating a book trailer for it.

What is Opium Warfare about exactly?

Well you can find out as I have many fun ways for readers to become more familiar with the book way before it's realize. On my website you will see a picture of the book and next to it are links that bring you to many things about the book that you can check out all for free!

-The Opium Warfare Book Group
-Summary and Introduction to the book
-Pinterest Board depicting images that represent the book
-Character Quiz, see what character you are.

http://jbienvenue.webs.com/ is your source for all things Opium Warfare! I'd love to get your feedback on what you think and am always looking for new members to join the group so if you like what you read then feel free to join for my exclusive access!

The book has been released and is now available on Amazon and Createspace.

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015T0E5XI
Amazon Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Opium-Warfare-J...

Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5674423

Opium Warfare has received a few reviews. See what everyone is saying about it so far.

If you like what you hear, grab a copy for yourself:

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015T0E5XI
Amazon Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Opium-Warfare-J...

Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5674423

So I thought I'd update everyone on what I've been up to and what I'm currently up to, the latest rundown if you will. As you can see above I and continue to promote and market my 4th novel Opium Warfare. I've found that I've been off to a slow start in getting it out there and getting it recognition but it's only because I want to make sure I do the right things for it. Slow and steady wins the race as they say and besides I am piecing together a few marketing strategies that I never tried before so I'm hoping to make the most of them in hopes that they pay off.

Since it's October(and we deem it the Halloween month) I've been writing a poem every day up until Halloween. It just so happened that I had 31 titles listed for a future work and thought since there's 31 titles that I'd write a poem each day for them. While I've got a bit behind and end up writing two to three poems a day to make up for lost days, it's still fun and I'm still putting together some really good poems. By the end of the month I'll have another books worth.

Finally, I've been trying to get into the rhythm of writing more blog posts, useful blog posts for everyone to enjoy and take something from. My latest is actually about Facebook posts and algorithms and how it's hard to reach all your followers. There's an upcoming webinar I'm going to watch that talks about Facebook ad's so it ties into my posts about Facebook content, I'm curious to see what they have to say. But yeah, for the most part I've been writing articles that pertain to Opium Warfare, fictional to real life and some to give more insight. I hope that my latest article/blog posts will be helpful and entertaining to people.

That's the latest on what I've been up to and what I am up to. It may be a while before I give another rundown but that's all for now!

My interview on Book Reader Magazine:

http://bookreadermagazine.com/feature...

Opium Warfare featured on Awesome Gang:

http://awesomegang.com/opium-warfare/

As of right now I am relaxed and enjoying the Holiday Season. I won't lie though I have a bunch of ideas and things to look into for promotion and marketing that I have just not wanted to get into. Why? Well I feel like while I push everything back I want to save all these great ideas and start fresh next year. Over the last few months I've either come up with ideas to help promote my works, useful websites and even will consider spending a little money to get things going which for me is a crazy thought. Here are some of the things I plan on doing next year for myself:

-Go to my local bookstore and leave some copies of my book there and look into doing a possible book signing.

-Run a Goodreads Giveaway for Opium Warfare and implement and idea I have to drive awareness to it aside from the usual ways.

-Look into some services on Fiverr. I used it this year and found an amazing editor so I'm hoping to go back on there and find some other ways to use the site. I've seen some great promotional services on there.

-Run an Ad on Facebook. I recently watched a webinar by Mark Dawson on Facebook Ads and he really broke it down and made it user friendly so I thought I'd give that a try.

-Build my E-Mail List. I felt this one really needed to be tackled this coming year as I've tried drawing interest directly by book to person when I should be trying to establish a relationship to person.

-Attend a Book Fair or Convention. Someone told me about an event around me that I should look into attending, I hope I can as I know I can really use a local boost.

-Further tackle the list of 71 ways to promote and mark your book. I've become obsessed with this list: http://www.kindlemojo.com/bb/2014/05/... but I mean with such great info and reasonable things you can do, how could I not? I'm really going to try and go after this list.

-Create a Goodreads Group. This one is definitely not set in stone in fact I considered making one this year but I just haven't had time and really am unsure as to if I would be able to keep it up and what it would even mainly consist of and be about.

-Keep Writing. The most obvious and the most necessary in my opinion. I will of course keep writing but the only question to be asked is what exactly will I write?

Just ordered two copies of my books today. One is for a reviewer in Shanghai and the other is for a giveaway. I hope this will be the beginning of a good run of reviews for Opium Warfare.

OPIUM WARFARE sounds interesting to me. I read on Kindle so no book to mail, my preference would be a mobi file.

You can reach me at madelonw1011 at yahoo dot com

Madelon wrote: "OPIUM WARFARE sounds interesting to me. I read on Kindle so no book to mail, my preference would be a mobi file.

You can reach me at madelonw1011 at yahoo dot com"

Thanks for the interest Madelon. I have sent you an e-mail.

I got your email and the book! Thank you ever so much. I will let you know when my review is posted.

Madelon

Well I've been surprisingly busy as of late without doing much work! I've submitted short stories and poems to be a part of several anthologies and so far I am confirmed for two of them. I also just reached 500 followers on Twitter which is always good. I finished writing out interview questions for Indie Author Tactics so expect to see interviews within the coming weeks.

Finally, I am looking into joining some indie sites that are looking to feature more indie books and may be participating in a few podcasts.

That's what I've been and am currently up to. So far so good and I hope I can keep the ball rolling!