Ethan and I are at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival for the next six weekends. The first weekend has been great and quite inspiring. So very many fans have stopped by the booth asking when the third book FIRE OF THE FEY will be out, so I’ve been working hard to deliver.
After a certain point, of course, things are out of our hands. But, if we can get the final editing and cover art to the printers by September 15th (yes, just 8 short days), then we might just have copies in our hands for the last two weekends of the show (October 9/10 & 16/17).
That’s of course if nothing goes wrong, which something almost always does.
But I’m choosing to keep the hope alive!
Our editor is confident he can have it completed by our deadline, barring any major changes (with has me a little scared). The publisher has nearly completed the layout. The manuscript is already at the Beta Readers team. The final cover art is on its way. Copyright & LCCN, check.
SO LOOK FOR AN MID-OCTOBER RELEASE! … just the same weekend as WITCH was out last year. We hope to avoid cutting it so close next year with Power of the Zephyr. We’ve already started outlining for that, and don’t forget, we’ll be publishing short stories monthly, very soon.
Back to FIRE OF THE FEY:
I’ve just completed the first draft of the back cover copy, and I’d like your opinion.
Adventures continue for Cullen Knight and his band of misfits in this third installment of the Rowan of the Wood fantasy series. Still possessed by the wizard Rowan, Cullen settles into his new home with his sister Aidan and their Uncle Moody Marlin, but all is not well. A series of fires raging through the redwoods puts Aidan in the hot seat, as the group looks to the fire elemental for an explanation.
Maddy’s mother discovers a dark and disturbing secret, Ralph and Max are off to a rocky start, and Rex adopts a holy crusade. Meanwhile, Rowan finds some freedom and a new purpose, but little does he know that he hasn’t seen the last of his evil vampire bride, Fiana.
What do you think? Too long? Too varied?
Should it end at “for an explanation”?
We’re get to know some of the other characters better in this book, particularly Aidan, Moody, and especially Maddy, so I don’t want to leave them out of the summary.
Writing summaries suck, btw. Just fyi.
Next up is the cover art. There has been much ado on our end around the cover art, but that looks to be coming to an end. I’m confident that we’ll have a completed cover by the end of the week one way or another.
Look for a post later this week, like maybe Friday, for unveiling of the cover art.
I’m quite excited and feeling good about the possibility of this getting out on time. Keep your fingers crossed for me…
…and leave a comment about your thoughts for this back cover copy.
We all judge a book by its cover. More so than I ever thought.
As you well know, gentle readers, Ethan and I have been busting our tails for the past two years promoting our award-winning series Rowan of the Wood. People love it. Our fan base is growing. We do event after event, and things are going quite well for us! After all, we sold over 4,000 books in 2009. That’s 800% more than the average book sells in its lifetime!
Still, at every event we get these exact same questions:
“Is this a children’s book?” or “Is this a graphic novel?”
We sold as many books as we did because we were there literally selling each book. 85% of those 4,000 sales were when we were there to explain that it, although appropriate for children, is not solely a children’s book.
It’s the covers. They are beautiful works of art by Ia Enstera. We adore those covers! It’s been a pleasure looking at them every day. People comment on the beauty of the art constantly!
But the questions remain:
Does it make people want to pick up the book?
Is it reaching our target audience?
This is a difficult question, as our target audience is fantasy readers of all ages.
After doing this for the past two years, we’ve learned that our largest readership seems to be women from 15-85.
Seriously.
Kids do read the series and enjoy it. Teens read the series and enjoy it. Families read it together and men love it as well, but by far the largest percentage is women.
I think this is because of our dual protagonist: Cullen and Rowan. Cullen, a 12-yr-old orphan hero-type, pulls out their maternal instincts. Rowan, the handsome, love-sick Scotsman/Druid and his tragic story of love, speaks to their romantic side. They also identify with the antagonist Fiana and her plight.
This theory about the cover art was driven home when my long time friend and colleague O. M. Grey told me that a literary agent contacted her based solely on her cover and book premise. After reading the book, the agent loved her story and writing so much, she offered her representation!! Congratulations Olivia!
The response to her Steampunk book has been overwhelming, and it’s not even released yet! (It’s a great book, btw… I got to read it early!)
It’s been so great, that the publisher decided to do a pre-release special on the KINDLE! It’s sold more copies in 2 days than WITCH did in a month! And that’s all based on the cover and the premise! (**& it probably has at least a little to do with the popular Steampunk theme**)
It is a pretty awesome cover:
(I suggest you get it, actually. Quite a good read if you like steamy Paranormal Romance with Vampires… sprinkled with Steampunk & Mystery.)
So… we’ve decided to do an experiment. We’ve decided to go a different direction for the third book FIRE OF THE FEY, and we might even be changing the first two covers as well.
Fans of Rowan of the Wood, please consider getting the sequel Witch on the Water from Amazon today!
It is the single greatest thing you can do to help other readers find and enjoy this magical series… and RELEASE THE MAGIC!
STEP ONE: Just click here:
You’ve got our greatest appreciation for doing so.
STEP TWO: Bitten by Books is hosting the HUGE RELEASE PARTY today, and we’re giving away some really COOL prizes, like signed books and vampire slayer kits.
It is the dream of every author to have their book become a best seller.
NY Times
USA Today
Amazon
These are all lists authors strive to be seen upon. However, just selling a lot of books isn’t enough. There is a strategy, it seems.
For example, let’s take this example of two authors:
Author Q and Author V. They both had their books released the same day. They also both sell 100,000 books during the first year, but only one is a “best selling” author. Why?
Author Q sold 20,000 books the week of his release.
Author V only sold 2,000 books the week of his release.
The second week after the release, Author Q sold 10,000, keeping him on the best seller list, while Author V sold another 2,000.
Best seller lists are compiled by what the industry calls VELOCITY. It’s about how many books sell in a specific (short) period of time.
After the first month of release, Author’s Q sales quickly decline while Author V sells a steady 2,000 books a week through word of mouth. At the end of the year, they have both sold 100,000 books. Which one will get the new publishing contract and advance? Author Q. Because he had velocity.
Although Author Q’s sales declined in this example, they don’t always. Being on a best seller list raises visibility to potential readers. It gets the books better placement on the shelves. It helps the author pay the mortgage and write more books.
So, the lesson here is, the most important thing is WHEN you buy.
If you’ve read Rowan of the Wood and want to know what happens to Rowan and Fiana. Or how Cullen is coping with his possession. If Ms. MacFey will get the guy… read Witch on the Water!
If you want other readers to enjoy the magic of the series, then please buy Witch on the Water from Amazon this week, preferably on October 15th (that’s tomorrow!!):
SEND WITCH TO THE TOP of AMAZON day
It is the single greatest thing you can do to help our series entertain more readers.
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TOMORROW IS THE DAY!! Don’t forget! Time to get WITCH!
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Today on our Samhain Blog Book Tour, we’re visiting Sidhe Vicious Reviews! Read our guest post “The Lonely Hero” and enter to win signed books and an Oberon Design pewter bookmark!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Rowan of the Wood….
Happy Birthday to you!
The end of this month will mark ONE YEAR from the release for our award-winning book Rowan of the Wood!
To celebrate, we’re offering Rowan of the Wood for only $0.99 on the Kindle for an entire month! Don’t have a Kindle? You can also get it for the same price at Smashwords during this time.
I’m thrilled to announce the release date for Witch on the Water, the second book in the Rowan of the Wood series!
Everything is set for an October 12th release date! This was my first choice for the release, as it’s the birthday of my mentor/friend Dr. Ralph Pease, to whom the book is dedicated.
It’s Columbus Day as well (those of you who know me know how I feel about Columbus Day), and we’ll be at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival signing, selling, and celebrating our new novel.
Witch on the Water is currently in the hands of a test reading group, and so far we’ve had incredible feedback! “Love it!” “Better than Rowan” And stuff like that there!
Ia Layadi-Enstera, the awesome illustrator who designed the Rowan of the Wood cover and the Geekalicious Gypsy Caravan, is hard at work on the cover for Witch on the Water. The preliminary sketches are very exciting, and she assures me the cover will be complete by the end of the month! I can’t wait to share it with you all!
We’ll be running a “SEND WITCH TO THE TOP” campaign right around that time, asking all our readers to buy Witch on the Water the same day to give us a boost on Amazon. If you’d like to participate in this, please email me!
Today I’m preparing the shipment to the Barnes & Noble Small Press Department. I’ve spoken directly with Diane Simowski at Barnes & Noble, and everything is correctly set up via our printer/distributor Lightning Source to move forward. Returnable. HEFTY discount (55%), etc.
We’re submitting the second edition of Rowan of the Wood to be re-accepted into the Barnes & Noble warehouses. We have a good chance because the first edition was accepted by them. So, keep your fingers crossed for us.
We’ve prepared both a letter of intent and a marketing plan to submit along with the book, so hopefully by the end of the summer Barnes & Noble will carry the second edition of the book in their warehouses as well as the few remaining copies of the first edition.
None of this inhibits your ability to get a book through Barnes & Noble! You can order them online or get them at any Barnes & Noble store even now! They are available wherever books are sold right now!
This is something that will enable us to continue to do signings… it’s all the intricacies of the inner-workings of the Barnes & Noble bookselling machine. They must carry them in their own warehouses for us to be able to do booksignings there.
It’s bizarre. I know.
Still, they carry them because the books are available at the major book warehouses: Ingrams and Baker&Taylor.
In this video, Ethan and I are at a signing in Elizabethtown, KY. This is the first signing in over a MONTH! We did pretty well though. About average.
We also approved the proof for the second edition of Rowan of the Wood by our new publisher. Now we’re sure not to be in the position we were in last month. No more unavailability in major trade outlets. If you want Rowan, you can GET ROWAN!
Enter to win a KINDLE 2 just for telling me what you’d do for a Kindle 2 on THIS BLOG. (click) Easiest contest EVER! Great prize!! (no registration necessary, just comment!)
Secondly, I’m so very confident that you will love Rowan of the Wood, that you will end up buying a copy for your bookshelf.
The third reason for my decision is of a more personal nature. Only about 15,000 people worldwide have seen my first documentary Liberty Bound (even less saw my 2nd). Those who did see it, enjoyed it. It was a no-budget documentary made with a camcorder, but it spoke to people. They responded to the passion and how it addressed what was happening politically in the post-9/11 US society in 2003/2004. Many people on activist websites told me I should put it up for free online so everyone could see it without having to pay anything. At the time, all I saw was the enormous $100K debt from making the movie, so I said that I couldn’t afford to put it up for free.
Turns out, I couldn’t afford not to put it up online for free.
One year later during the summer of 2005 another documentary of similar scope and quality called Loose Change was released. The producers put that documentary for free up on Google Video. They had 4 million hits in the first two weeks. Although most of those 4million people didn’t buy a copy of the DVD, 25,000 of them did. Small percentage, yes… but it’s still 25,000 sales.
To date, Liberty Bound has sold less than 10,000 DVD copies over a 5 year period. (BTW, both Liberty Boundand my second documentary Internationally Speaking are now both up for free on Google Video and also available from Amazon. But, too little, too late for marketing purposes. Those were documentaries of current events. Now they’re historical documents…but still good movies!)
As always, the most important thing for any artist is to have their work viewed and appreciated, so we’re putting up Rowan of the Wood for free at least until the New Year. Read it. Enjoy it. Tell us about your thoughts. Tell your friends about your thoughts. If you really, really like it – then buy a copy for yourself or someone you love this Christmas. But for now – ENJOY IT, and tell everyone where they can read it for free, too!
Besides, the market of people who shop for books on their iPhone/Kindle/etc is a completely different market than those who browse bookshelves at a bookstore. Both these are different markets than those who attend Celtic Festivals & Renaissance Faires. And yet a different market shops at Amazon. Without even considering the population of the planet, the USA has plenty of people in its near-300million population to market in unique ways. After all, the goal is to reach as many readers (and future readers) as possible. We must cover all our bases: libraries, schools, festivals, faires, bookstores, blogs, tweets, etc. Even if you are a bookstore shelf browser, read a few chapters online – it’s like the “search inside” on Amazon. If you like it, buy it!
After a three year process from concept to publication, I’m more concerned about our first book being in the holiday shuffle than I am with making a few bucks.
Please, read Rowan of the Wood – share it – tell us about it! And most importantly, tell your friends and family about it.
If you see us on tour, stop by and tell us how much you enjoyed it.
Also, sign up for our monthly newsletter (below) or check back soon for information on a contest where you can win a gift card for posting your review of Rowan of the Wood on Amazon.com.
We’ve learned a lot over the past few weeks. We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. We’ve learned some general things about the American Public. We’ve learned things about our friends & family. We’ve learned things about ourselves.
What works: vendor events like Renaissance & Celtic Festivals- even Fantasy Conventions.
What doesn’t (as unknown authors) – everything else. I had a theory, and I was proven wrong. My theory (which was mine) was that even unknown authors can attract a small crowd of the general public if they have interesting, themed, fun events along with some publicity, offering something more than two strangers behind a table full of books. I was very wrong. Very, very wrong. So, other unknown authors, save your time and money for going the extra mile because ultimately it doesn’t matter. You are still two strangers behind a table full of books. Bottom line.
Bookstore signings are great. Hour for hour, we sell more books at bookstore than the festivals just from the walk- ins! So, I’m not dissing bookstore signings, but the extra effort with the spooky treats, costume contests, etc…is just extra time, money, and effort– and that doesn’t make a difference in interest or sales. Except the BookPeople event, a few people did come in costume for that one. Thank you so much to those who did!
Our friends & family ARE AWESOME!! They’re very supportive and wonderful. Without them, our big opening would have consisted of 7 people. Thank you all so much for coming!! You made that event fun and successful!!! And also thanks to the 7 people I didn’t know — now I do!!
One thing, though, I was right about: you do have to actually show up and pitch it to anyone who will listen. I can’t tell you how many sales we’ve made bacause I SOLD the book, both at faires and bookstores. Then the reward truly comes when I hear how they “read the book in a day,” or they “couldn’t put it down.” You can’t win the lottery unless you play it.
So, we’ll finish up the spooky treats ourselves. It might mean a few more kickboxing rounds for me, but that’s okay. As for the cake, we preserved the book cover in the middle, and we’re freezing it until we hit the bestseller list. Then we’ll thaw it out and celebrate.
After all, the road to the bestseller list is paved with one book at a time.
Happy Birthday to you!
Thank you so much to those who did!
