Thursday, June 21, 2012

Now What?

The sales/sample downloads for KILLING MEMORIES have definitely slowed down this past week. Publishing it is pretty easy (for the most part, despite the multiple edits and reposts), but now that it's slowed down (stopped really), I need to figure out how to market it. Where do I go to find more readers? E-publishing doesn't really come with a handbook, you know, and I'm feeling a little lost. I've thought about posting something new on FictionPress (but then I don't have anything new besides my new supernatural YA novel (THE SPIRIT KEEPER) and I'm not sure if I want to post that, although getting more feedback would be nice). FictionPress was a great place to develop a readership. I think it hurt me when I stopped actively using the website. I didn't necessarily stop because of the plagiarism issues, it was mostly that I was going to school or working, etc, and didn't have time to write new stuff and post it.

I've been thinking about editing MY DARLING BUNNY and posting that as a free ebook. Maybe even CHEMICAL GAMES. I haven't re-read either in a while, so I'm not sure how much work they need. Probably a lot considering everything I ever posted on FictionPress was a first draft.

I feel so consumed by editing. Don't get me wrong, I actually love it, but it gets hard at times. Especially when I want to write something new but my brain is like "NO, FINISH THIS FIRST!" Well, with three more KM books and HOSTILE KISSES I feel like I'm never going to be done editing! And "editing" isn't just about cleaning up typos... it's revising sentences, taking things out, adding things in, putting more detail.... it's basically re-writing in a lot of ways.

It took me like a week to re-write the first chapter of KILLING MONSTERS (that was actually really hard). I really hope the books take less time to edit as I go along. I think they will as the writing got stronger as I progressed in the KM series (in my opinion). I'm reading KM4 now and Estela still makes me laugh out loud. I forget some of the things I have her do. Like in this novel, she get's caught eavesdropping on Vanessa Winwright (Moo's modeling agency) and to cover, she runs across the room, sticks her arm into a salt water fish tank and tries to grab at the fish because they're "so pretty, I had to touch one."

HAHAHAHAHA... honestly, what was I thinking!

4 comments:

  1. You could always repost the first chapters of each of the KM books... and then use them to tease to them buying the first one and to "look out" for the rest of the released soon! That's usually how people get drawn in, right?

    I think Chemical Games would be a good one to sell, too. I remember how that began as an experienment, using many of the formula stuff we thought made HSM famous, haha.

    Marketing is always a struggle for all writers, I think. Follow a few other author blogs, ask them questions, see how they do it.

    I can only offer editing advice :/

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  2. I do think that I'll post the first few chapters of each book (when they're ready). I've also toyed around with the idea of posting all of KM1 (limited time) on fictionpress when I put KM2 up on amazon.

    Marketing is difficult for sure. I need to go through all of the writing magazines that I've kept and see if there are any articles about marketing. I also need to find a good ebook author who has only done ebooks. Traditional publishing gives authors an advantage I think (a small one at least) as far as readers are concerned.

    I need to put Chemical Games on my nook and read it next. It's not high on my list of things that I want to focus on (editing wise). I wouldn't mind putting up A Starter Boyfriend soon... I don't think that one only needs light editing and I've already found a great cover for it.

    And your editing advice is always super! :)

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  3. You can always bargain with your readers! For example, you can say that you'll post A Starter Boyfriend for a limited time if Killing Memories sells a certain amount of copies! I have been dying to read A Starter Boyfriend again, btw! lol :)

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  4. You mean my Fiction Press readers? :) That would probably work for a few, however, I do plan to turn ASB into an ebook soon! I need to reread it first to see how much work it needs. :)

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