Blog

To sequel or not to sequel?

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

My debut novel is approximately 30 days old this week, and like any new baby, is still keeping me up at night. My gut tells me that by this point my friends and family who were thinking about purchasing it probably already have, and so any sales from this point on would be from strangers. This is a prospect that both excites and alarms me.

I unfortunately have a taste for writing now, but do I truly have the skills necessary to convert it from hobby to business? Only time will tell for sure, but until history decides to weigh in I am faced with some difficult questions:

Should I begin work on a new project knowing that energy spent on that project will take away from energy being spent on promoting my first book? Another blogger, Chris Ward wrote about his views on writing a sequel, and I definitely am taking his experience into consideration.

If so, though I never identifed my inital work as being part of a series in order to give would be readers a reason to leave it on the shelf, should I focus on creating a sequel to the first book not knowing mass market acceptance, or should there even be a sequel (have I not already put my protagonist through enough) or should focus on bringing forth one of the other ideas currently co-habitating my brain?

Can I use a life line to phone a friend?

Supporting other indie authors!

by Allie P., posted in Indie book promotion

The Zombie AxiomGoodreads has a number of groups which are free to join, and I happened upon a group called Pure Indie Promotion. The rules are simple: A group member’s work is selected for promotion, then all group members do what they can to help improve the visibility of this work in the hopes that their work might be selected next. I am more than happy to do my part as it is very difficult to get noticed when there are so many other books out there with larger marketing budgets than available to most indie authors.

This week the group is featuring a book called The Zombie Axiom by David Monette (http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Axiom-Time-Dead-ebook/dp/B00FJDF2DS/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1381484812). Halloween might be over, but I still enjoy the occasional zombie fix (unfortunately I missed The Walking Dead this week) and this book has alien’s to boot! I am adding this book to my rapidly expanding “to read” shelf, and may review it at a later date.

Did you know that there is a real risk of a zombie epidemic rooted in science? It seems that there is a bacteria that infects and takes over the bodily functions of a caterpillar, causing them to climb high up into the tree top where their bodies dissolve until they ultimately plummet back down to the ground in a pile of goo, repeating the process by infecting healthy hosts. For the other comic book nerds out there, think of Venon from Spiderman. You get the idea.

Could you have gone your entire life without knowing this? Probably.

Should we be worried that the bacteria could evolve and impact more developed organisms? Maybe.

Want to think about something else now? Should you pick up a book by an indie author to read? Definitely.

If you are an indie author, and if you help promote my book, I’ll help promote yours.

Related articles

Gaining Reviews – The Quest Continues

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Writing and Publishing Tips

One of the tips sent to me on soliciting reviews when you are self publishing was to join the author program with www.goodreads.com. Up until very recently I was unaware of this site, but I am happy that other bloggers were helpful enough to suggest it as an option. I have joined the groups and have already gained some traction from interested parties. I have heard that some authors view other writers as the competition, and I have to admit that until I had a project ready to send to an editor I was very nervous about sharing it – worried that I would be discouraged by the success of others. Obviously in storefronts we are competing for limited shelf space, but I am glad to see that there is a huge community out there willing to help offer advice for us newbies.

I am looking forward to a future where I too might be able to help another struggling new author. If the statistics are anything to trust, there should be a fair number of us out there.

 

Related articles

My Obsession with Amazon

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Writing and Publishing Tips

Ever since I discovered that Amazon’s SEO was more complicated than merely a word for word keyword match, I have been visiting my book on its virtual shelves daily. I was very happy to see that I now have top billing when searching for my book, at least I have top billing based on my searches. Who knows where I may still rank with other people’s searches, and that unknown keeps bringing me back to Amazon day in and day out as if Amazon would suddenly take pity on me and say, yeah we know you are interested in this product. We’ll sell it for you if only so that you move onto other product pages and start buying those as well. Of course if they did come out and say that directly to me, I would turn around and sign up for a multi-year prime membership. I hear that is only mildly less addictive.

Related articles

So many hats

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

When writing an Uncertain Faith I struggled to contain the many roles the main character has into a single story. Each of her roles could have taken over the entire story. This week life imitated art. We found out that a former employee was breaching his non-compete contract and actively attempting to steal clients, I was pulled into multiple international conference calls, and had to somehow find the time to plan a five year old’s birthday party while also pulling together last minute Halloween costumes and candy runs. Daylight Savings time ended, so does that mean I gained an hour? Why do I instead feel like I lost 12?

Related articles