Once again so many things have happened it’s hard to believe it’s only been a week. But in true E.N. Chanting fashion there’ve been some hiccups too. I have Force Majeure in my possession finally and it’s beautiful. I’m dying to have the printed version. Unfortunately, one of the bumps in the road is with the cover.
When you make a book it needs a cover, right? When you do this the first time you find out how complicated that is in reality. When I made Haunted Hunting Camp, the first thing I published, I did the cover creation myself. Let me clarify, my daughter did the artwork on the cover, I put it together in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing remember our acronyms). This creation of a cover seems simple, you use their Cover Creator and upload your front cover artwork and then you can use their app to create the rest of it. Simple right?
No. It took me hours to make it work just right with my blurb and on that book, I put my picture and an author bio on the back too. Won’t do that again and would love to remove it in the future. I hate having my photo on there, but I thought it’s what you do. Plus, I had tons of space with a small blurb, it’s a short story. Now I would fill the space with artwork instead of my face. The book has a black back cover because the app doesn’t allow for art on the back the way I tried to do it.
When you hire a professional, they make the whole cover. The front, spine, and back. It’s one continuous piece that’s the exact size of your book. To do this, you tell the designer your finished print page count, they translate those pages into the correct spine size to accommodate the pages inside. They also figure your trim size, the actual size of the book a standard paperback is 5x8, the size a little bigger is 6x9, like my books. Then they calculate the size of the print needed to go on the spine. They size the front and back images and words to exactly fit your finished product. Because they’re professionals they leave space for a barcode where it belongs. Trust me, none of this is easy for a tech challenged author to figure out. Some of the best money I ever spent was on a cover designer. (and an editor)
If you’ve been following my journey for a while you know nothing ever goes smoothly for me, technology hates me and somehow it can tell when it’s my work, even when a pro does the formatting. I uploaded the file for Force Majeure easily. Yay me! But when I tried to load the cover, it doesn’t fit into the pre-sized box on KDP. I’m assuming it’s somehow the wrong size. Because of this error it won’t accept the cover or allow me to move forward. So, I have to wait longer to get an actual printed copy into my hands. Sad face.
I’ve contacted my designer for help, but I haven’t heard back yet. Not for a lack of checking my email every five minutes. She’s just busy and with the holiday she may be out of town. She often travels over holidays so here I wait, chomping at the bit, dying to hold Force Majeure in my needy hands.
Don’t worry, that’s not the only issue. Well, knock on wood, it’s the only issue with Force Majeure. I’ve also revised Force of Corruption and had my new formatter reformat the changes, she’s done a beautiful job of making it as pretty as Force Majeure inside. It has beautiful chapter headings now like Force Majeure. I’m so excited to get a print copy of this new version of it as well. But, true to form, the formatting person is having issues getting my dedication and song list to show up. Not to mention my multiple ISBNs. She’ll figure it out, but again, I have to wait. It’s a struggle.
Not to be outshined, I’m also in possession of the completed version of Origin of Violet. I won’t have the cover for a bit yet, but it’s okay. Origin of Violet isn’t being released until October 13th along with VioleNt. Origin is a novella, and I’m calling it half (1/2) book. Violet’s Tales are a duet and a half. With Origin being the half. VioleNt is book One and will be released with Origin on October 13th. My editor is hard at work on VioleNt and I’m hoping to get it at least a week before my surgery on the 23rd. Not sure she can finish that quick, but she’s fast.
My plan is to recover from surgery without needing to write anything with my left hand. Have you ever tried to use a mouse with your non-dominant hand? Yikes! I’m not doing anything for the first three weeks after surgery. If I’m up to it faster than that cool, if not it shouldn’t mess me up. My release for Force Majeure isn’t until August 31st.
The ARCs are going out July 19th, hopefully the readers won’t need me during my recovery time. I’ll warn them I’m having surgery and ask them to try not to contact me during that time. I’ll let you know how that goes. I’m planning to reach out to my reviewers from FOC tomorrow. If they come on board, I’m hoping that will help me get more review returns than the average 10%.
I have about five people signed up so far, at least last time I looked. I’m hoping if I can get the paperback in hand, I can send out a few copies to ARC readers. Many of them want the paperback copy to show on social media. I’m willing to give out a small amount to reviewers in the US. I’ve modeled my ARC application form after a professional ARC application from a publicity/promotional company.
Last time I asked things I was curious about, which were useless in the grand scheme of things. What you really need to know, and this application asks, is what are their social media handles? Which social media do they plan to post something about your book on? Where do they usually post reviews? Amazon? Goodreads? TikTok? Instagram? Facebook? The best thing on there is the statement that “The author at their discretion, may authorize some paperback copies to reviewers in the US or if they’re willing to cover shipping costs outside the US” it also asks them to give a link of the post they made for my previous book, Force of Corruption. This will give priority to those who delivered a review last time. I appreciate that caveat, because it gives me better odds on getting a review out of people who get the paperbacks.
Last time with FOC, I sent out 10 paperbacks. I paid around $7 each to get them printed and sent to me. Then I paid a ridiculous amount in shipping because I stupidly agreed to send one to a reviewer in Kazakhstan, and a few in Canada. I have to acknowledge that she, the Kazakhstan reviewer, was the ONE recipient of a paperback who did post a review. But it was a fortune to ship it to her.
With these rules in place, I’m more likely to send to those reviewers who are more likely to post. I’m not going to send any ARCs to brand new ARC readers again. I don’t need a repeat of the spoiler filled shred fest from FOCs new reviewer. I don’t mind her shredding me; any art is subjective and I’m perfectly fine knowing my writing isn’t for everyone. It’s the spoilers that killed me. Why would you DESTROY the suspense in a suspense novel for every future reader?
Sorry, I digress, it still bugs me. Regardless, I’m still optimistic about ARC readers and I hope to garner some great, as in clear and concise, honest, lengthy reviews. Cross your fingers for me. This will be a whole new experience, releasing a second book. I’m curious to see if it gains any interest in FOC. Especially if people like FM, maybe they’ll go back and read FOC. But I can’t lie, as happy as I am about FM, I’m SO ecstatic to release Violet’s Tales. It’s a romantic horror RH, which wasn’t at all what I started to write. I can’t wait to put it out in the world. I hope people love Violet as much as I do.
I made an email account for Violet. I asked my group if people thought that was weird, and I got surprising responses that they thought it was a cool idea. My plan is to have Violet email readers occasionally, and readers can email her if they want to. We’ll see how it works out. Of course I’ll keep you posted.
My friend Louise Glass, author of Dream Lover and soon to release, Arianna’s Story, has started a new group. She kept having issues posting in other groups, so she made her own. I want to share it with you and invite you to check it out. She’s extremely funny and her group is fun and engaging, I enjoy her content. Lots of people have been having trouble with Facebook bots. They’re on a rampage suspending and blocking accounts they believe are spammy, whether they are or not. Yet I keep getting dick pics on my feed. How can they get away with that and Louise gets suspended for posting her book? So frustrating! Here’s the name and link for her group: Romance Authors especially Paranormal is the name. Here’s a link: https://www.facebook.com/share/96Jks7sXDe59xdP5/?mibextid=K35XfP
I’ve been having an influx of followers and friend requests on Facebook and TikTok. Facebook must be suggesting me on people’s feeds because I’m getting around 20 or more new followers a day. I think once you cross over the 1000 follower mark, they advertise you to others. I’ve heard at some point they’ll pay you too. No clue when or how that happens yet, but I’ll let you know if it happens. My group has around 350 members now. TikTok is over 400, it took me MONTHS to get over 100. Lately every few days I’ve got about 20 new followers. Maybe they’re putting me in a suggested feed as well? I really have no idea. I’ve opened a Patreon account, but I haven’t posted there yet. It’s my back up if Facebook shuts me down at some point. I plan to start posting there once I get the books finished. I’ll probably do some readings.
Social media and marketing are my weakest skills and I need to work on them. Gain some confidence and make more entertaining posts. It’s so confusing to know what works. I got some lollipops that have my name and Beautiful Badass design on them. I posted a photo of one. I added background music on TikTok, and it got almost 500 views. It’s literally a lollipop on my kitchen counter. I posted a gorgeous ad for a fellow author with a beautiful photo of a couple embracing and some attractive ad copy about the book, 22 views. Why?
If I ever figure any of it out, you’ll be the first to know. I’m going to give you Violet’s email address. If one of you emails it and tells me you saw it in my blog, I will send the first person, something special and maybe a lollipop! Just make sure I can get in touch with you for your address!
As always, Thanks for reading. US readers, Happy 4th of July!!
Contact Violet: violent1robndahood@gmail.com
If you want to be an ARC reader and/or get a free book for subscribing to my newsletter both links are on my website:
https://www.enchantingauthor.com