Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover?

Please let me introduce to you my very first guest blogger who is a fabulous author and also a dear friend, Kenneth Rosenberg.

Thanks so much to Janice for letting me guest post on her blog this week!  I thought I’d talk about something that she and I have in common as “indie” authors, and that is cover design.  Or more specifically, title, cover, blurb, marketing and everything else that independent authors have to take care of all on their own!

Followers on this blog know about Janice’s recent cover re-design and branding effort.  She’s done a terrific job tying together her cover for Bagpipes and Bullshot with her forthcoming Reaching for the Stars, as well as this blog. 

For a traditionally published author, this is the type of thing that a publishing company would normally take care of, but not so for us indies!  We have to figure this stuff out all on our own.

When I came out with my first novel No Cure for the Broken Hearted at the beginning of this year, I came up with the title, wrote the blurb and designed the cover.  I was happy with the outcome, though I still didn’t know what to expect when it finally went live. 

I tried to temper my expectations.  Would I sell a few hundred copies?  A few thousand?  I had no idea.  Maybe I’d earn enough money to buy myself a cup of coffee every day?  It ends up, the book took off almost from the start and managed around 25,000 copies sold in the first six months.

When my next book came out last month, I tried to temper my expectations again, though this time it wasn’t so easy.  Even if I only sold half as many copies as the first, it would be a great success.  I came up with the title Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues.  I thought it reflected the off-beat style of the book; a story of love and redemption set in Hollywood.  I designed a cover with a face representing the character Ophelia.  The book went live and… crickets.

In the entire first week that my book was on sale, I only had one sale on Amazon UK, and that was to Janice! (Thanks, BTW).  In the next three weeks, I managed about one sale per week.  Sales on Amazon U.S. were only slightly better.

So what went wrong?  Was it the title?  The cover?  The blurb?  The sample?  It was hard to say for sure.  Perhaps the book just isn’t connecting with readers, but I feel pretty good about it myself.  There’s nothing I can or would change about the book at this point. 

And so I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to come up with a new title and cover.  This is one of the great things about independent publishing.  Maybe I don’t have a big publishing company behind me, test marketing covers and titles and doing promotions, but on the flip side, I can make changes to this sort of thing at will.

A publishing company would have a print run, and ads running, and hard copies out to reviewers.  Once a title was set, that would be it.  Writers like Janice and myself can make changes to these things almost instantly.  We can see what works and what doesn’t, and move ahead accordingly.

So far I’ve been throwing around ideas and bouncing them off of friends and family, but now I thought I’d throw it out to readers here to see what people think.  Should I give it some more time with the current cover and title?  Or change it ASAP?  Any ideas for new titles? 

I look forward to your comments, and remember, honesty is the best policy!

Kenneth Rosenberg's Blog

Kenneth's books on Amazon UK

Kenneth's books on Amazon.com

Just to say thank you...

To everyone who took part in my Author Roast & Toast on Friday and Saturday.

Who would have guessed that having an on-line party could be as much fun as having a real one or that virtual drunken revelry could last much longer than normal drunken revelry?

My Highland Gathering party to celebrate my humorous romance novel Bagpipes & Bullshot kicked off at 10am on Friday morning and by 6pm that evening, I had been sitting at my laptop for most of the day, typing, giggling, and having a fantastic time.

When the sun went over the literal yard-arm as well as the virtual one here in Scotland, believe me, I was ready for a very real glass of bullshot and was happily singing ‘The bonny bonny banks of Loch Lomond’ for real too!

As early evening became late evening and there were something approaching two hundred comments on the blog, my wonderful Author Roast & Toast hostesses and I declared the whole event to have been amazing fun and a tremendous success, and I thought about collapsing on the sofa next to my dear husband (who had tried hard to understand the concept of a virtual party but failed).

But I had forgotten one very important and crucial thing to do with the world being round and not flat - and that was of timing and time difference. You see, as I saw the sun go down and the moon come up, for my dear friends across the pond and beyond, the opposite was true - and they were all raring to go and very keen indeed to join the virtual party.

So party on, I said, and by gosh we did - all around the world and back again!

Do pop over to my friend Gilly’s new blog if you have a moment. She’s a very interesting journalist and romance writer and this week she is talking about her monthly column in glossy DG Life magazine and about the subject of e-book marketing - in which she gives me a wee toot.

On Wednesday this week I’ll be taking part in Talli’s Roland’s “If I could be anyone, I’d be...” blog hop extravaganza. So do pop back to see which celebrity I’m going to choose to be. It’ll be great fun!

On Friday I have very special guest, Kenneth Rosenberg, talking about the launch of his brand new novel to Amazon Kindle in the wake of his Number 1 Bestseller ‘No Cure For The Broken Hearted’. Not to be missed!

Love, Janice

Just one more day...

 ...to my Bagpipes & Bullshot launch day of Friday 1st April!

I'm excited to tell you that I've got a lot planned for throughout the day tomorrow, and I cordially invite you to join me, here at Bagpipes & Bullshot HQ. I really need your help on that day to try and push my e-book into the realms of visibility on Amazon and perhaps even into the Kindle charts. Because of the way Amazon calculates its sales, just a few sales on one particular day, can make all the difference. Please consider buying Bagpipes & Bullshot for your Kindle, PC, Mac, Ipad, IPhone, Blackberry, etc, on Friday 1st April or please pass on the word to those who might like to buy it. I'll be forever grateful!

The book is priced at £1.38 or $2.24.

First off, I've got a fantastic prize draw. I'm giving away not one but two Kindle Beach Protectors - a stylish accessory for every Kindle owner. (Alternatively you could use it to protect your phone or camera from sun, sea, and sand!) All you have to do to be in the prize draw (which will be independently adjudicated) is leave a comment on this blog on Friday 1st April or ReTweet one of my Tweets on Twitter with the hashtag #bagpipes. It's as easy as that! (Prize is the Kindle Beach Protector and does not include the Kindle e-Reader).

Then there is the Grand Bagpipes & Bullshot Blog Tour. Eight fantastic writers and bloggers will be hosting me on their own blogs and we'll be chatting about e-books, the Amazon Kindle indie-publishing experience and the writing life. On Friday, I will be here to announce each blog as it goes live and direct you to each one. Allow me introduce my wonderful blogging hosts:

Anita Burgh has had 23 novels published, numerous articles and short stories. She has been a member of the RNA for many years, was a committee member, and has been short-listed for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year award. She continues to write novels and enjoys teaching and mentoring.

Liz Fenwick is a writer, expat, wife, mother of three, and has just been snapped up by Carole Blake of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. She grew up just outside Boston USA but now lives in Dubai and Cornwall. She is a writer of women's fiction and is inspired by the landscape and history of Cornwall.

Kenneth Rosenberg is a California writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Surfer Magazine and other publications. Kenneth attended UCLA where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. When he is not writing, he spends his time surfing, snowboarding and travelling the world on a shoestring. His first novel, No Cure for the Broken Hearted, is available on Amazon Kindle.

David Wisehart is a writer, director, and producer living in Southern California. He received his B.A. in Film and Television from UCLA. He is the author of a forthcoming Kindle novel, Devil's Lair. He famously interviewed Amanda Hocking last summer on his blog ‘Kindle Author’ just before she hit the NY Times Bestseller List.

  

Rosemary Gemmell is a Scottish freelance writer. She writes short stories and articles which have been published in a variety of magazines in the UK, US and online. Her first novel, Dangerous Deceit, is being published by Champagne Books in May 2011.

Bill Kirton has written books on study and writing skills, a series of crime novels set in Scotland, a Scottish historical crime romance and, most recently, The Sparrow Conundrum, a dark comic satire on the crime/spy genre. As Jack Rosse, he’s also published the first in a series of stories for children, Stanley Moves In, and a children’s novel, The Loch Ewe Mystery.

Angela Barton (@angebarton) is a company director and writer. She is represented by literary agent Juliet Burton, who is working hard to get Angela’s first book, Lies and Linguine, published. Angela is busy working on her second novel, Sugar and Spite, in between company work, looking after children, two daft dogs, blogging, and being a member of two writing groups.

Sue Houghton is a freelance writer who regularly contributes to most of the UK women's magazines. She has also been published in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, India, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and South Africa. Her short stories have appeared in many charity anthologies.







So come and join in the fun, the frolics, the virtual fizz, and the prize draws, this Friday, 1st April!

An Interview with No.1 Bestselling Kindle Romance Author, Kenneth Rosenberg...

Back in January, I grabbed a last minute flight and needed some Amazon Kindle books to take on my trip. One of the books I downloaded, after skim reading a couple of reviews and seeing some five-star ratings, was Kenneth Rosenberg’s No Cure for the Broken Hearted. It seemed like my kind of book. I wasn’t disappointed.The love story between Katherine and Nick, which had began when they were teenagers together in a small town in Connecticut, is reawakened twelve years later, when Nick is engaged to be married and Katherine is determined to focus on her career rather than dwell on her broken heart. I was engrossed. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the man behind the book, Kenneth Rosenberg.

Kenneth, have you always written romance novels and is it a genre in which you will continue to write?

I’ve always had a soft spot for romantic stories, though this isn’t something that is easy to admit for a man.  I remember once when I was working as a seaman in the merchant marines, I had a copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary along with me.  It had a big close-up picture on the cover of a woman’s lips.  I had to keep that one pretty well hidden!  I enjoy writing romance, but I also have varied interests.  The next book I’m working on has a strong romantic element, but the one after that is more of a thriller.

What gave you the idea for the story and inspired the characters?

I tend to find myself thinking back about the past a lot and what my life was like at different periods.  There are always those romances from a person’s life that just didn’t quite work out, and in retrospect you sometimes wonder why they didn’t.  There’s a pretty strong well of emotion to work from as a writer.  As for the two main characters in my novel, I think they’re both drawn from different aspects of myself.  Peripheral characters are mostly based on people I know.

The book has been in the Amazon Kindle bestseller charts for months and has lots of great reviews - but how did you start out - how have you achieved this level of success as an indie author?

First I became involved in the forums over at Kindleboards.com.  That is a fantastic source of information, with a very supportive community of independent writers.  They have a Book Bazaar where you can promote your work and a Writer’s Cafe that is full of informative threads.  The next thing was that I was lucky enough to have received some very positive reviews on Goodreads.  The community over there took me in to some extent and helped promote me, especially the Clean Romance group, to which I owe a lot.  The next thing was having book blogs agree to review my book, and hold giveaways to help promote it.  The last thing, which is very touchy, is that I took part in some discussions at the beginning on the Amazon forums.  People over there really despise self-promotion, though.  If you take part in those discussions, you have to be careful about mentioning your book, or risk being brutally flamed.  I think a few discussions over there helped me quite a bit, though, in the beginning.

How much personal experience do you put into your novels and how much is research?

A lot of both.  I’ll take personal experience from one place and use it in another.  For example, the town on the lake in Connecticut in my novel is actually based on a town I’ve spent time at in British Columbia, Canada.  The experiences of the kids in that town, and the characters of the kids themselves, were all based on summers I spent growing up in coastal California. For specifics, the Internet is a lifesaver when it comes to research.  If I need a restaurant for my characters to go to in New York City, I just look one up, along with photos, and I can describe it as it is.

Where is your favourite place to work?

I split my writing time between home and coffee houses.  Writing is such a solitary pursuit, sometimes I just need to get out of the house and join the world of the living.

To plot or not to plot – how much of a planner are you?

I’m a big planner, but my books rarely turn out quite as planned.  One of the most important things I’ve learned as a writer is how important it is to listen to your characters.  Sometimes you might have an idea about where a story is supposed to go, but when you get to a certain point, you realize that your characters wouldn’t go there at all.  They’d go someplace else entirely.  You have to be able to listen to them, and revise your plot as you go, or you run the risk of your story feeling contrived.

Can you tell us about what you are working on now and when it will be available?

My next novel is called Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues. It’s about a homeless guy in Hollywood who sneaks onto a set looking for food and ends up with a part in a movie.  This one has a theme of unrequited love as well, but from a completely different angle.  I’m really excited about it, and I hope to have it finished and available within the next few months.

  

Kenneth Rosenberg is a California writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Surfer Magazine and other publications. Kenneth attended UCLA where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. When he is not writing, he spends his time surfing, snowboarding and travelling the world on a shoestring.

Blog: http://kennethrosenberg.blogspot.com/

To Plot or Not...?

Are you a Plotter or a Pantser? Do you plan your novel meticulously scene by scene or do you fly into the mist?

As a writer of fiction, it’s the question and answer I avidly look for in an author interview. Myself, I’m a pantser, but one who yearns to be a plotter and that’s because I have written myself into the most awful mess so many times, usually at a point where I’ve invested too much in the work to even consider chucking it in the bin. And I’ll admit, it’s the reason I took gratuitous pleasure in a Tweet from author Ian Rankin this week, who said he’d ‘hit a wall at 60k’. Ian, it seems, is a pantser too.

One of my much-loved books on writing is Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ and in it he admits to favour not plotting, although it obviously frustrates him too because he says, and I quote, ‘I won’t try to convince you that I’ve never plotted anymore than I’d try to convince you I’ve never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible.’

But plotters, I hear, use systems by which they avoid sagging middles at 45k and writer’s block at 60k and they catch inconsistencies before they cause huge holes in the plot and indeed before they even begin writing. How appealing it all seems!

But what if careful planning stifles creativity? And - if the writer knows what will happen next - does the reader know it too, and will the reading experience be spoiled? What do you think?

Next Friday, 25th March, I’m interviewing the Amazon Kindle Number One Bestselling Romance Author of ‘No Cure For The Broken Hearted’ Kenneth Rosenberg, and if he ‘plotted or not’ was one of the questions I asked of him. Join us next week to find out the answer!