Writer's Wednesday: Promotion with Digital Book Spot

Hello writers! As I am always looking for new and effective methods of promotion, here's one that came across my email the other day: Digital Book Spot, which makes all their arrangements through Fiverr. Has anyone used DBS? Some authors are saying they have a pretty good bump in sales, so it might be worth trying, especially for the low price of $5-20.

Haven't heard of Fivvr? It is this very interesting website where anyone (truly, I think almost anyone) can post a service they will do for $5. Often you can add on other services for an additional $5, but that's the bare-bones start. Just for kicks, I looked at the home page today to see a sample of services up there:

I will translate English into Chinese or Chinese into English 
I will write contracts or any agreement 
I will professionally design a Facebook banner or cover 
I will make your logo or message appear out of clay as a video greeting...

So there you go! Promo food for thought today :)

Monday Mentionables: A Writer's Retreat that Turned into Something Else

Happy Monday! This past weekend, I treated myself to a solo getaway in Charles Town, West Virginia. The goal was to see hubby at a car show in Pennsylvania Friday night, then spend some solid time writing in a town I'd never been to before, snuggled away in a bed and breakfast with my laptop and nothing else.

You know that saying about "The best laid plans..."??

I arrived at the Carriage Inn late Friday evening (gorgeous place, by the way, and the owners are lovely hosts and great breakfast cooks) and plugged in my laptop - only to discover it didn't work. There is a very long and boring story behind why it didn't work, but suffice to say that after about 30 minutes of fretting and swearing and trying everything I could think of, I realized that my writer's retreat was going to be minus the writing.

For a few minutes, I actually considered going out early Saturday morning and buying a new laptop.

Then I said to myself, hang on. Thousands of people wrote before laptops ever came into existence. I can write without one. 

So instead, I went to the local grocery store, bought a $1 notebook (and some bulk candy and wine for sustenance), and spent the rest of the day thinking and brainstorming and drafting ideas. I didn't end up getting the massive amount of writing done that I originally planned, but you know what? There was something very relaxing about walking around town, sitting at an outside restaurant for lunch, napping on the day bed back in my room, and jotting down thoughts as they came to me. I even had time to go to the historic village of Harper's Ferry and watch the train pass by as I lounged on the grass after wandering around the recreated village buildings. Relaxing. Rejuvenating.

While it wasn't the writing-intensive weekend I originally envisioned, in many ways it was better. Just a reminder that when our plans fail, the best thing to do is look for another way, search for that open window and carry on :)

Friday Fun Facts: Boxed Set Coming Soon!

Hey everyone, look what's coming June 23rd!

(The books, not the guy, unless you bring your active imagination). Counting the days!

Writers' Wednesday: A Taste of Tequila Sunrise

OK, I know this is a very belated Wednesday post...BUT would you like a little taste of Tequila Sunrise? (the novella, I mean, not the drink). This is the first in the Cocktail Cruise Novella series coming out this summer (P.S. it will also be part of a different boxed set releasing in August). It just went out for its final edits today, so hooray!

Here is the scene where our hero and heroine meet for the very first time:

Louise turned away from the speed dating crowd and stared outside, where the sun was just beginning to slip toward the ocean. For a moment she wished she were one of the birds on the horizon, soaring and dipping far above the water. Carefree. Removed.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Lou froze. That voice. A tanned elbow touched hers. Spicy cologne sent her hormones rocketing. In slow motion, she turned. And bit her bottom lip. And tried to remember how to breathe. Well there you are. Chocolate brown eyes caught and held hers. A smile, framed on one side by that deep dimple, sent something sinfully wonderful squiggling straight down to the pit of her stomach. Lower, actually, to a spot below her stomach that hadn’t felt anything in months.

“Hi. I’m Toby.”

Lou’s entire world splintered, and it was all she could do not to drop her drink and dive into his arms. Maybe Charming Hearts hadn’t been a bad idea after all. 

Friday Fun Facts: More Teasers from our Boxed Set!

Hang onto your hats, readers, because the lovely ladies at Passionate Kisses have some steamy reads for you coming up June 23rd. Here are some teasers to whet your appetite...

Don't forget to Like our Facebook page. Lots of info there about our upcoming launch party and all the goodies you can win!

Writers' Wednesday: A Tease from Beacon of Love

How about a little tease from Beacon of Love to start your day? This is one of the 10 sizzling novels that will be included in the Passionate Kisses Boxed Set, releasing June 23rd. Have you liked our Facebook page yet??

In Honor of Those Who have Served

Friday Fun Facts: It's Cover Reveal Day!

Friends and readers, I'm so excited that I'll be joining 9 other romance authors in releasing the boxed set Passionate Kisses: Ten Sizzling Contemporary Romances next month! Today it's time to reveal our gorgeous cover:

Also, please "Like" our Facebook page, because we'll all be posting teasers, excerpts, bio information and more, over the next month. And THEN, on June 24, we'll be holding an awesome Facebook Launch Party with chats and giveaways all day long! 

This boxed set will be available on all online retailers for $0.99 for a limited time. Can't wait until June 23rd? If you'd like to review an Advanced Reader Copy, sign up right here. But hurry - there are only 100 ARCs available!

Finally, one more peek to whet your appetite:

Passionate Kisses Boxed Set!

Monday Mentionables: New Books Coming Soon!!

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm excited to share the news that JUNE 23rd will be the release date of a boxed set of contemporary romances that I'm part of. 9 other authors and I will be featured in Passionate Kisses: Ten Sizzling Contemporary Romances, and it will be on super-sale for only $0.99 when it releases at the end of next month! The cover reveal will be this Friday, May 23rd, so make sure to stop back so you can see it!

In other news, I'll be featured on The Hummingbird Place online radio show on May 26th at 7:30 pm, and the featured topic is Small Town Romances. I'll be chatting all about my Hometown Heroes series, so mark your calendars and I'll post my information here and on my social media sites that day.

And finally, speaking of small town romances, I was so happy to read this 5-star review on Amazon of The Promise of Paradise:  

"The characters were very vivid for me. I was glad to see somebody discuss what home towns, small towns have to offer. Those are pretty stereotypical characters but still each one has their worth. I appreciate the romance and the beautiful story, thank you."

Have a wonderful day!

Writers' Wednesday: Results of my BookBub Ad

Hello writers! Today I thought I'd share my experience with running my very first BookBub ad. If you're not familiar with BookBub, you should be. As a reader, you can sign up for free, and each day you'll receive an email listing 5-10 discounted or free books in the genres you pick. It's tailored to your reading preferences, which is nice. As a writer, it's become one of the hot places to advertise your book. Their email lists number in the hundred-thousands, which is remarkable. They're also very selective about whose books they take, which makes it tough to get an ad. They also aren't cheap, though many writers claim they make their money back in anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

I applied for an ad with them last year and was turned down. Last month, I tried again, with my novel The Promise of Paradise which has been free since the beginning of March (note: I had 33 reviews the 2nd time I applied, which I think helped them say yes). Because the ad to run a contemporary romance novel for free costs $290.00, I was nervous - even more so because I wouldn't be getting any sales money from this novel, since it's free, so any sales where I could recoup the ad $ would have to come from my other books.

It's now been just under 1 week since my ad ran, so I thought I'd share some early numbers:

On the morning of May 8, my ad day, these were my sales/downloads for the 3 books tied together in the Hometown Heroes series:

The Promise of Paradise (prequel) = 681 free downloads since May 1
The Promise of Paradise = 103 audio books total sales since June 2013
Beacon of Love (1st book in the series) = 2 sales since May 1
Inferno of Love (2nd book in the series) = 2 sales since May 1

BookBub gives a range of 11,400 - 34,300 downloads for free contemporary romance novels. Here are my numbers as of last night. (This is for Amazon only, not Barnes & Noble)

The Promise of Paradise = 55,089 downloads (and 4 paid sales)
The Promise of Paradise = 213 audio books total
Beacon of Love = 56 total sales this month
Inferno of Love = 34 total sales this month

I think I broke even on Sunday night, about 3 days after the ad ran. The Promise of Paradise also went to #1 on the entire Free Kindle List, for about 12 hours, and to #1 on Women's Fiction, Contemporary Romance, and New Adult & College. It's still in the Top 10 on all the genre lists, as well.

I would say that BookBub definitely delivered for me on this one! Now, I know many people say that 55K free downloads is a lot of lost royalty $$, and I certainly respect those authors who don't want to give away anything for free. For me, this is about getting name exposure and getting my book into the hands of people who hadn't read it or heard of me before. I have 8 new reviews and 3 new reviews on Barnes & Noble, all of them 4 or 5 stars. My books in the Hometown Heroes series continue to sell, stronger than before, so I'm happy with this outcome. I'll definitely apply for another ad with them, though I may run a $0.99 special next time and see what happens.

I'll keep you posted!

Monday Mentionables: A Sizzling Box Set Coming Soon!

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day :)

What's worth mentioning today? Well, I'm super-excited to share the news that I'll be joining 9 other contemporary romance authors in a box set due to release within the next 2 months, called Passionate Kisses: Ten Sizzling Contemporary Romances (don't you love the title? Ooh...I do...)!

The other authors are Wendy Ely, Nikki Lynn Barrett, Liz Kelly, Kylie Gilmore, Rebecca J. Clark, Magda Alexander, Jessi Gage, Victoria Barbour, and Sydney Holmes, and we're all including full-length novels with awesome heroes and heroines and steamy scenes that will be the perfect beach read. Stay tuned for more release info!

Writers' Wednesday: Length Matters

LOL..turns out, according to this article anyway, that length DOES matter...when it comes to grabbing attention and getting hits and click-throughs online. The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research, is a pretty interesting read that breaks down the number of characters that get the most attention or engagement from readers who are surfing the Web. Read the whole thing to get the full explanation, but here's a handy highlight of the parts I found most interesting:

Ideal Length of Tweets = 100 characters (Twitter gives you 140, which sometimes doesn't feel like enough! but apparently even shorter is better)

Ideal Length of a Facebook Post = less than 40 characters (really??!? have you seen the way some people rant online?) Follow-up best practice with this one is to keep it under 80 characters.

Ideal Length of a Blog Post = 7 minutes or 1600 words (mine are usually NEVER that long!)

Ideal Length of an Email Subject Line = 28-39 characters

Ideal Length of a Presentation = 18 minutes (sounds about right)

Ideal Length of a Domain Name = 8 character (whoa - I'm over by 9 on this one)

Interesting, right? Though I'm not sure these are make-or-break guidelines, I'm definitely going to keep them in mind as I move forward on social media. What about you? Is this something you've been conscious of in the past? Do you think length really does matter?

Monday Mentionables: Win an Amazon GC or Fire TV!

Who wants to win a $200 Amazon gift card OR an Amazon Fire TV? A Girl and her Kindle is giving away both through the totally awesome Mega Summer Giveaway - and there are a lot of ways to enter! Click right here to find out more: a Rafflecopter giveaway!

Writers' Wednesday: Have You Ever Tried PickFu?

Hey writers, have you heard of PickFu? It's a marketing website where you can ask a question and get a quick response from targeted consumers. A couple of authors on one of my writers' loops have used it to test book covers and book titles and see which was more appealing.

For $20, you get 50 responses. I copied this from the general info page:

Complete the form below to start collecting crowd-sourced insight about your question.

Once you complete your order, PickFu will immediately poll 50 responders to answer your question and explain their choices.

Looks potentially interesting, especially if you're torn between covers (or anything, actually - characters' names or taglines or series' locations or...)

Has anyone out there used PickFu? I'd be interested in your thoughts, if so. And for you writers, it's one more potential site to check out on your writing and marketing journey!

Monday Mentionables: How About Those Series?

Happy Monday! What's worth mentioning today? Well, I just got back some of my edits on my Cocktail Cruise novella series, and here are some questions for you:

When you read a series, do you prefer books that go in chronological order, one after the other?

Or do you like series that read concurrently; that is, it's the same time frame/experience told from different characters' points of view?

Does it matter to you how much story time elapses between books in a series?

And does it matter to you how much real time elapses between books released in a series? (I read an article recently by a woman who won't buy any book in a series until at least the first 3 are out. She wants to have them all available the minute she finishes reading the first, to go on to the next).

OK, chime in please! I'd love to know your thoughts!

Writers' Wednesday: A New, Fast, Free Way to Make Book Trailers!

Hey writers! You know those book trailers that some people say are cool, others say don't sell books, and still others spend a lot of time and money to make? Well, if you haven't heard of the website Animoto, stop right now and go check it out. I just became familiar with it about a month ago, though it's been around for longer than that. It's basically this oh-so-cool way of creating videos that takes literally minutes.

All you do is upload your pictures, text, and video clips if you want, and Animoto arranges them into a short video for you. That's it! You can play with the organization of your items and change the music too. Best of all, the basic version is FREE and allows you to create 30-second videos that you can download or share on the web or through email.

Awesome, right? Now, the downsides are that you don't have a lot of control over the background/slides/transitions (although you do have some; play around with how you order your items, and the background and transitions will change), and if you want a video that's longer than 30 seconds, it will cost you $. But the next version up is only $5/month. Still a great deal! And in my opinion, 30 seconds is enough time to give readers a taste of your book and leave them wanting more.

Want to see the one I made for my upcoming Cocktail Cruise novella series? This one took me probably an hour total to make, because I didn't know anything about the website and because I wanted to change the music, so I took some time to go through their library of music options, which is pretty extensive. Other than that, it was painless.


Copy of Cocktail Cruise Trailer

Have you used Animoto? Give it a try if you haven't - and share your video if you end up making one! I'd love to see it :)

Monday Mentionables: A Trip to Iceland!

Every once in a while, a girl has to take a break from the usual and the familiar and just get away from it all. So last week, during our spring break, Hubby and I took a trip to Iceland.

Yes, that's right, Iceland, the land of fire and ice, wayyyy up there near the Arctic Circle, where about 320,000 people live on a landscape that is constantly shifting and erupting and cracking. And you know what? It was beautiful. We took probably 100 photos, at least, but I'll only post a few here, to give you the highlights :) My advice: GO, if you ever have the chance. It's about a 5-hour flight from the Northeast United States, the flights and tours are very reasonable (check out TravelZoo for ongoing deals) and it's a beautiful place, peaceful and quiet with super-nice people and hot springs/baths to die for. If it wasn't so darn expensive to live there, I might actually consider moving to Iceland one day...

It's called "the land of fire and ice" for a reason - there are geysers, hot springs, and glaciers everywhere! 

Downtown Reykjavik

One of the many massive waterfalls  

Iceland sits on 2 opposing tectonic plates, which means it's actually separating at a rate of 2 cm/year. Crazy!

We got to spend an afternoon hiking on a glacier - one of the high points of the trip

Guilfoss Waterfall, one of the most beautiful sites there!

Friday Fun Facts: New Reviews for Inferno of Love!

TGIF! This is also the beginning of spring break here, so hallelujah! Finally!

Two new reviews for Inferno of Love this week:

Roxy's Reviews said "This was an interesting read with plenty of twists and turns. Lost love was rekindled, old secrets resurfaced, and guilt over a haunting past was shed. This story was different while adopting all the makings of a great romance."

Lindsey Grey said "The combination of suspense and romance kept me turning the pages as fast as possible. This is one book you want to read in one sitting because you can't bear to wait a moment to know what happens next. In all honesty, I wish I could give it more than five stars. I just love how the story enraptured me and I hope to read more of Allie Boniface and the people of Lindsey Point."

And if you haven't been following me on Facebook or Twitter, The Promise of Paradise has also enjoyed a nice surge in free downloads this week! By mid-day yesterday, its highest ranking in the Top Free Kindle store was #32 overall, and for a few hours it was #1 in Romance, Women's Fiction, and New Adult. Super cool! It's since slowed a bit but still in the Top 100 overall and still #1 in New Adult as of this morning.

What the heck is New Adult? I think I'm going to devote a future blog post to this (and how it helped boost me on the Free Lists) but basically it's a newish genre that's growing in popularity and features a main character somewhere in the college-age range to early after. Figure 18-24 or so. New adult meaning older than Young Adult but not yet completely "grown up" and living on their own with careers and homes. More like muddling through the college years and trying to find oneself.

Anyway, I'll be away next week, so no blog from me until April 21st. See you then!

Monday Mentionables: It Was a Cover Reveal Weekend!

Hey gang, in case you didn't see my shiny new covers on my Facebook page this weekend, here they are! These are the official 3 covers for my upcoming Cocktail Cruise novella series, due out this June. Do you love them??

Three stories...one ship...lose yourself on the waves...

Writers' Wednesday: Inferno of Love Blog Tour Starts Today!

Hey gang, my blog tour through Black Lion Tours starts today! And along with reading reviews and interviews with Yours Truly and a few fun blog posts, you can win prizes: a $20 Amazon gift card OR a copy of Beacon of Love! Here's the main tour page, and I'll try to post the links from each day so you can tour along with me.

Enjoy!