Category Archives: Writing

Love is Murder 2012

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 1 comment

I know, it’s been a while since I posted. It is always hectic just before I go to an event. February’s event was the Love is Murder 2012 Conference. If you have not been to this event, you really are missing out. It is not your typical writers’ conference or readers convention, it is a lovely mix of the two.

First, let me congratulate (and thank) Mary Connerty. During LIM 2012, we offered an entry to win a FREE Kindle for each Echelon eBook guests purchased. Mary has a new Kindle, thanks to her purchase of the eBook Totally Buzzed by Gale Borger.

Second I would like to congratulate Echelon Press Mystery Author Robert Goldsborough for his well-deserved Lovey Award for Best Historical Novel for his mystery Terror at the Fair.

The LIM board, as they are affectionately known (or sometimes, “Hey, you!”) is comprised of one of the most committed group of volunteers I’ve ever met, and I know each of them rather well. I consider this an honor. At any rate, LIM caters to readers and authors of the mystery genre, with a splash of romance thrown in to keep things lively.

The con offers workshops for writers of any level, as well as panels and events to keep the readers (and everyone else) entertained for the entire weekend. One of my favorite things to do is the editor/author appointments. I have been doing them for many years, and I have found a large number of my Echelon authors, past and present, at those appointment tables. If you are an aspiring mystery writer, or even an already published author shopping a new manuscript, the editors and agents at LIM are among the most gracious. And I’m not even including myself in that statement (though I am kinda cool sometimes.)

And if you are a reader, I don’t know of any other conference or convention that offers the opportunity for such intimate interaction with the speakers, guests, or professionals. Whether it’s in the lounge, at one of the meals, or at any of the other social events. The special guests go out of their way to make themselves accessible to the fans. For example: In 2004, I heard David Morrell (creator of Rambo, and the author one of my favorite books, Creepers) talk about the value of marketing for authors. I was at a point in my publishing career where I was perched on a very precarious edge and considering quitting. His keynote that night at LIM changed my life and inspired me to change my thinking and forge ahead. We are celebrating our 11th anniversary for Echelon Press this month. On Saturday night at LIM 2012, David Morrell spoke again and this time he indicated that he was making a correction to his previous keynote. I couldn’t wait to get out of that banquet room so I could pull him aside and let him know that I didn’t consider his keynote a correction, but a wealth of additional input that will hopefully serve both authors and readers. To paraphrase, he reminded authors that the book business isn’t just about marketing, and that they should look deep inside themselves and write the stories they are meant to write. Forget about chasing the “market” when writing, just write from within yourself. It is some of the best advice I’ve heard in a long time. Because when you write the right book the way it is supposed to be written, it will ultimately be the greatest gift you can give readers. I have said this before, but it bears repeating, David Morrell is not only a brilliant writer, but also a brilliantly inspiring person.

Aside from the keynote, there were a number of other awesome events, including one of my favorites, The Chicagoland “Those Were the Days Radio Players,” who perform actual radio shows as they were performed in their glory days. It is an amazing thing to watch and I hope they continue to do the shows each year.

Well, I’ve gone on a bit. I’ll pop out for now, but stop back by later in the week to read my next LIM 2012 post, “Burning Bridges: or 5 things you should have known before attending LIM 2012.”

Until then…

1 Comment

Posted in Blatherings, Just for Fun, Recognition, Writing

Lightbulb!

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 4 comments

I am always surprised when people say something won’t work. Been hearing this about Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads for a while. Here are a few key things everyone should remember.

You only get out what you put in.
Nothing is easy.
You get what you pay for.

They are all pretty much the same thing, but roll into one giant idea. All three of those networks sell books. FOR SURE. I can track numerous sales to my activity on all three networks. How? Interaction. I give away books on all three. I have thousands of friends, followers, buddies, whatever, on all of them.

When I first starting networking years ago, I was happy with 100 of my closest friends and family, until I realized I wasn’t selling any books. At some point I had a moment…”Lightbulb!” –Gru

I wasn’t getting anything out of any of those because I wasn’t putting anything into. I decided to give it a three month effort and see what happened. So I began upping my friends, etc. As my followers increased, I started a huge rise in my sales. Now when I say huge, I mean from ZERO sales to 4 or 5. I know, it isn’t much, but 4 or 5 after two years of zip, nothing, nada…I was tickled. So I kept at it. Then I started having months where I was selling dozens of books and stories. Holy crap…could it be?

Now keep in mind, these were my ONLY forms of promotion…period. It could be nothing else. So I ramped it up a bit more. So at this point, about 6 months later, I was hitting triple digits on some of my books/stories. Lesson? IT TAKES EFFORT.

Don’t say nobody on Facebook cares what you had for dinner. I have people ask.

Don’t say the senseless chatter on Twitter is of interest to anyone. I have a couple people who REMIND me when it is time to go get my hair done so I can post the pics of my new dos. Seriously.

And as far as GoodReads goes…it is a site for READERS. Seriously folks, they are LOOKING for books to buy and the key search function on GoodReads is Amazon.com. This must click somewhere for someone. The more people you interact with the better your chances of selling them a book or two.

Last example. Yesterday, I posted a recommendation on GoodReads to go buy our new Steampunk anthology, “Her Majesty’s Mysterious Conveyance.” Within ten minutes we had sold five Kindle downloads. Coinkidink? I think not.

Good promo doesn’t have to be expensive, but it will take time and effort, and often that time is far more valuable than money.

4 Comments

Posted in Blatherings, Business, eBooks, Just for Fun, Marketing, Writing

Tagged author promotion, Facebook, GoodReads, Gru, social networking, Twitter

One Mountain at a Time (Guest Blog: Thomas Wilson)

Posted on January 21, 2012 | 1 comment

I was asked if I would write a post explaining about overcoming obstacles and finding my “Happy Place.”

Let me preface this post with the fact that I’m one of those people who can pick up a book and teach myself almost anything I want to learn. Two major failures in this category have been English and Calculus. These two subjects make it apparent that I’ll have to go back to the basics with the care of a good and patient instructor to make any new headway.

If I never learn how to do calculus before I die, it will be all right. It falls into the category of things I’d like to learn, along with playing the piano. I taught myself about music and can read sheet music; I just can’t keep a beat to save my life. I have to put my hands in my pockets at church in order to keep from falling in with the crowd if they start clapping. I’d rather not advertise to the entire church how challenged I actually am because I have no rhythm.

English, I am probably going to have to figure out a solution to learning. I never dreamed I would become an author!

What obstacles?

Let’s start with writing every day. It takes time, that one thing that we all never have enough of. Secondly, my old computer was antiquated to say the least, and the version of Word I had didn’t interface with anything on new machines. Thirdly, why would you expend all this effort and time with no guarantee it will even sell, or that I have any talent at writing whatsoever.

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As I started this quest, something strange and unexpected happened.

My biggest hang up at first were my horrid English skills. The ladies of my book club said they could help edit my work as a group in order to help me get started. This was good and bad. Good, because I was forced to start writing more of the story down in order to stay ahead of where they were reading, this got me writing from month to month as we only meet once a month. Bad, because to use this method one book would take three years to get edited–once!

I shelved the book they were helping me with and picked my worst and least developed story to begin writing with the goal of finishing one story. In 2010, I finished the rough draft of “Whisper,” my first book. I’d picked that book because I knew it would always be my first and worst book of all time. The other story can wait until my skill as an author rises to meet the caliber of story it is in order to do it justice. From what I’ve read of authors whose work I admire, that will be a million words published or ten books whichever comes first. They say it takes that long to find your style and niche. I didn’t believe them then, but I do now. Elements of my writing style are just now emerging as I endeavor to write my third and fourth books.

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That still left editing! I found a friend of a friend many states away that was retired and used to be an English teacher who agreed to edit my first book for free. While she worked on it, I started and finished the rough draft of my second book, “No Rules Of Engagement.” By December of 2010, I’d written two novels, and was almost done editing the first one. For Christmas my wife bought me a new laptop. Next, I installed Microsoft Office 2010 with the new Word. One by one, I was knocking my way through the obstacles.

I spent a considerable amount of time researching the publishing industry, types of publishing, the terminology, reading what authors had to say about writing, and publishing, learning about writers’ rights, and the plethora of horror stories about authors, agents, and trying to get published. I decided with myself being an unknown quantity, no following, no money to invest, and being impatient, I decided to join the revolution which was just getting under way known as self-publishing. “Whisper” could have been edited better, much better, but ready or not, I self published it for no other reason than to just see if I could.

After publishing “Whisper,” I found a new editor and started making corrections to “No Rules Of Engagement.” It became apparent, very quickly, that the entire book needed to be re-written. That’s the last thing I wanted to do. I’d already been doing nothing but editing since October on my first book. I’m so grateful to my editor for dragging me around the corner toward the light, and that I re-wrote and edited the entire book. It took me until the end of August 2011. The sad part is, I still missed a lot of mistakes, though not through a lack of effort.

The strange thing that happened during the last year was that I’d been worried about burning the candle at both ends. In the evenings, after my two boys went to bed, I’d write or edit from 8:00 p.m. or so for four to five hours almost every night of the week. I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life with no end in sight. Instead of my life coming apart at the seams, the opposite happened. I had the best year ever at my day job. I became a better father and husband. My body adjusted to the long hours. I found out that most of the time I was happier than I’d ever been in my life.

I realized the source of this phenomenon was that I was doing what I loved. This made all the difference in the world. Everything else was a means to get back to my writing. The writing, and even the editing, became my passion, my release, a daily mini vacation. It was still work, but I wanted to do it.

You grow up hearing about how God has a special gift for everybody, that we all have a purpose, and I’d found mine. At first I got upset that it had taken me forty-five years to find it. Then I realized that if I’d discovered this at age twenty-one there’s no way I’d be as good as I am now. It took forty-five years of seasoning, wearing different hats, massive amounts of reading, and life experiences to make me who I am now.

Last year at this time I didn’t know if I’d really be able to publish my first book, or if it would be any good. In the last year, I discovered I could do it and I did. I’m a good author and my books are selling more each month with no advertising and very little promotion. I published my second book. I’ve arranged to make both books available in paperback and have actually been asked to sign copies of for family, friends, and fans. I’ll only be as good as my editor. With a great editor, I have the potential to be a great author.

I implore anybody who is reading this, that if you haven’t found your special gift or passion in life, keep searching. I’ll give you a hint: It’ll be something you enjoy doing. Something you’ll do whether you get paid or not. It’ll transform your life. New vistas of opportunities you didn’t even know were there will open before you. There won’t be enough hours in the day to do all you want to do. You’ll jump out of bed in the morning with drive, direction, and purpose to get on with the things you want to do. You’ll be more serene and happier than you can imagine. Success is the journey, not a destination!