A Little Book First Aid, Please

Lately, my newest novel, A Collateral Attraction, hasn't been getting much attention from me compared to my earlier book, Loving Ashe.  As a result, its sales are languishing.  My one excuse is that I'm getting book 2 of the Loving Ashe Trilogy ready, and so all my attention is on fine-tuning the manuscript and getting it ready for its release.

But it's not a good excuse considering that I released A Collateral Attraction just last December 15, and the last thing I want to see is to have it languishing on digital bookshelves barely a month later.  It feels like I've just ignored one of my kids, or put them on mute or something - and it's not a good feeling.

But how exactly does one give TLC to a digital book?

If you're traditionally published and therefore, have no access to your Amazon KDP dashboard, you can't.  That's up to your publisher.  But as an indie author, I can do at least three things to hopefully make my book more visible on the Amazon Kindle Store (cross my fingers and wish me luck).

Tighten up my book's keywords

What exactly are keywords, you may ask.  Well, if you've ever gone online to Google something - let's say, identical twins romance, you're going to type those words on Google: identical twins romance.  However, that's just too vast. I mean, you're looking for a book, right?

So where would you go to find books?  Unless you've got something against Amazon and refuse to shop from them (I know a few people), then the answer is Amazon: Kindle.  So I'm going to head on over to Amazon and click on the Kindle Store and in the search bar, at the top, I'm going to type identical twins romance, and pick a book that interests me from the search results.  In the case of A Collateral Attraction, it's the third result out of 970.  But honestly, who looks for identical twins romance?   I need to come up with a better term, but it will be one of the seven keywords that Amazon KDP will allow my book to have.

What you've just done right there, whether it's on Google or on Amazon, is type a set of keywords.  Search words would be another way to look at it.  And if the right search words (which can be a group of words, not just one word, separated by commas in the keyword entry box in your KDP dashboard) can get my book noticed, then I need to tweak it now and then.

Fix up my book blurb

This is important.  And this is where I have not been doing well at all.  When you click on my book, this is the first thing you see:

Unfortunately, I did my screen shot too late.  I had a crappy blurb to begin with and what you're seeing, the quote from RT Reviews is the newest version of my blurb that I just uploaded less than 20 minutes before writing this post.

What I really wanted you to see is that, with Amazon truncating the book description to the first five lines, you've only got a teeny-tiny bit of digital real estate to catch the reader's attention after their eyes leave the cover.  That's why I finally decided to use the quote from RT Reviews, something I should have done from the very beginning.

This was the first blurb I had before the change you see above:

Some days, it can be tough being an identical twin — especially when your other half is in deep trouble. 
Billie Delphine has always been content standing on the sidelines while her identical twin sister, Blythe, gets all the attention, including a glamorous lifestyle with billionaire, Ethan Kheiron, who will do anything to wrestle back control of the family fortune from his younger brother, Heath.
But when Blythe disappears with Ethan while Billie is visiting her in New York, the last thing Billie wants is to be mistaken for her sister — or be falsely accused of a crime that Billie knows Blythe did not commit. So when Heath suggests they work together to find them, Billie agrees.
But a life of luxury, personal shopping sprees, and private jets cannot hide the years of unresolved differences between sisters, nor the decades of lies that have left the Kheiron family divided. And even as Billie slowly falls for Heath, she knows that until they all settle their differences, they're just pawns in someone else's game of power — where some of them are more expendable than others.

Honestly, it was way too much chatter that didn't tell me anything interesting, especially the first line in bold.  Is this the reason why people just thought, meh, let me move on to something else.

This was the final blurb I just uploaded today:

"A mistaken identity story that straddles the line between romance and chick lit." - RT Book Reviews 
There's nothing more annoying than being mistaken for your more glamorous twin sister everywhere you go - especially when you're also being accused of a crime you know she didn't commit. And for small-town girl, Billie Delphine, learning that her socialite twin sister, Blythe, is in trouble is all she needs to step out of her shell, even if it means working alongside the one man her sister despises for taking over her boyfriend's company, his younger brother, Heath Kheiron.
But the world of personal shopping sprees and private island retreats cannot hide the years of unresolved differences between sisters, or the decades of lies that have left the Kheiron family divided. And as Billie slowly falls for the Kheiron family's black sheep, she realizes that there's also another player in the game, and until they can all settle their differences, they're all expendable - some of them more than others.

I think this one, outside of the overlong sentences, is much better than the first one.  I'll still tweak it, but the first line will remain the same throughout - that quote from RT Book Reviews.

What do you think?  Which one is better?

Create a book landing page

For authors who don't have their own website yet, one way you can direct attention to your book is to have a landing page dedicated to that book.  If you're like me and you created your book using Pressbooks (normal price: $99 for epub, mobi, and pdf versions - the pdf is for print, like if you're going to have a paperback or hardcover book printed though they also have specials where you get 30 - 50% off), then Pressbooks has a landing page just for that book in question, including sample chapters that you designate to be freely viewed online, and a BUY page with links to online bookstores like Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, or Barnes and Noble.

This is what the page looks like on Pressbooks.

While the Pressbooks landing page is for those who wrote and formatted their books using Pressbooks, there's also Booklaunch as an alternative, and I talk about that here.  I think it's great for those who don't have an author website yet, or would like to set up a dedicated page for their book with buy links, an author section, testimonials, and also a way to integrate your mail list service for your newsletter.

And one more thing! With Amazon's embed feature, you can embed your book right on your website, like this:

From here, there's not much I can do but wait and see if those changes do help gain the book more organic visibility.  In the meantime, I can figure out ways to advertise the book.  I have a few more days of KDP Select free days to use though I'm not sure if I'm going to use them or not.  But if I do, I'll let you guys know so you can download it for free.  

Guess my next post will have to deal with promotions, right?

In the meantime, since I've talked my book till you're blue in the face, here's the link to buy A Collateral Attraction from Amazon.  And if you'd like to be updated about my latest books, giveaways and author events, please sign up for my newsletter.

It's Cover Reveal Day for "A Collateral Attraction (Fire & Ice Series 1)"

When hippie Billie Delphine joins her sophisticated twin sister, Blythe, in New York for a vacation, the last thing she expects is for Blythe to disappear with embattled heir, Ethan Kheiron, or be involved in an embezzlement scandal. So when Ethan's brother, Heath, suggests they work together to find Blythe before the scandal is exposed, Billie agrees, even if it means entering a whole new world of personal shopping sprees and private planes, where millions of dollars hide decades of lies.  

But a life of luxury, no matter how temporary, is no match for the years of unresolved differences between sisters. And even as Billie fights the attraction she feels for Heath, she knows that they're all just pieces on someone else's game of power, where some of them are more expendable than others.

Cover designed by @Dani_CoverArt

The Morning After

It's the morning after I finished Collateral, my entry in SYTYCW15 competition and the delirium has finally subsided.  Reality has set in, and as I sit here in front of my laptop with its busted keyboard from too much writing and waiting for the coffee to kick in, I have only one thought in mind.

I'll never do that again.

Next time, instead of writing from scratch, and deliriously editing like crazy during the final days just to get to a decent word count, without even finishing the epilogue or last chapter of the novel, before hitting Complete while still wondering if the ending was right, I'm submitting a finished and edited work.  Not one that just got the NaNoWriMo first month treatment - nothing against NaNoWriMo as I've done it three years in a row but, well, you know what I mean.  I'm usually very attached to my characters but with this one, it feels like Heath and Billie were introduced to me and before I could warm up to them, they were quickly pushed out the door and out into the competition world to be judged.

So next time I hear of a writing competition, I need to go in prepared and just submit something that's already been polished.

Still, I really can't complain. I churned out a 90K+ novel in 88 days, pared down to 85K and after a bit of time away from it, I can return to it and start editing and adding in the bits and pieces that got left out from the rush.  The contest results don't even matter at all, because at the end of the day, I learned two things:

1. I learned how to do a blurb the right way.
2. I learned how to write according to a plot I had written down versus just pants-ing the story all the way. And for a self-admitted pants-er (converted from years of being an overdone plotter), that's a huge thing.  

So, I'm taking it easy the next couple of days, though there's still a lot of writing to do, as well as writing-related stuff.  I'm editing Loving Riley, my sequel to Loving Ashe, which I published in August, and while I finalize some things with the paperback version for Createspace, I'm working on a major change for Loving Ashe which I can't wait to share with you all soon.  

Done and Dusted (Preliminary Thoughts On #sytycw15)

So as of 12:16 pm PST I marked my latest novel, Collateral, as Complete.  That's 88 days of writing and 91.6K words (pared down to 85K words during the weekend) for my entry for Harlequin's annual So You Think You Can Write competition.

It's my first time submitting an entry to Harlequin and my first time writing according to a deadline that's not NaNoWriMo, which I've done for the last three years.  So far, I've come up with a few observations about writing competitions, that probably apply to writing in general.  Given I'm bleary-eyed and hungry and lack sleep, this is my list so far:

1. Keep calm and just write.  The first day I started writing, I honestly had no idea what I was going to write about other than I had a cool cover from Melody Simmons and I had a title.  That was it.  And since I'm usually a pants-er, I just started writing and letting the characters tell their story - within specific guidelines, of course, like location (New York), time period (present), and genre (I started with chicklit and romance and mystery).  Broad, I know, but I had to start somewhere and just pare it down as I went.
2. Find your cheering squad and listen to what they have to say. Don't take everything personally. Given that the platform I'm writing and posting my work is Wattpad, I was hoping that readers from my previous works would warm up to small-town girl Billie and cold businessman Heath, and offer me feedback beyond awesome! cool! or Bae! and luckily I found them.
   Some of them responded to the characters of the identical twins, Billie and Blythe, discussing among themselves and with me about first-hand experiences of being an identical twin, while others let it be known that a certain bathroom scene with Billie by herself wasn't something they expected to see.  As much as sometimes I can't help but feel defensive about my babies, I had to remind myself that this is why I welcome the feedback.  Do I have to tone down the bathroom scene or remove it altogether?  Why is it there in the first place?  Is it something integral to my main character?
   No matter what the end result is, whether the bathroom scene stays or goes, it gave me questions that would eventually strengthen that scene and the character in it. So, don't take comments too personally.
3. Don't get discouraged. Don't give up. I hate to say this but I gave up on the contest halfway through. Even though it was getting a lot of traction with my readers, when I started reading other entries, my story was nothing like any of the entries.  There was no romance going on (although there was a whole lot of romantic and sexual tension) and while some of the entries had sex in the second, third and fourth chapters, mine didn't come till I hit 50K words and Chapter 23.  So I promptly sent out a tweet saying I was bowing out, I didn't know how to write Harlequin stuff and good luck to everyone else.  It was pathetic and I'm still cringing.
   But remember that cheerleading squad in #2? Well, they picked me up and dusted me all up with positive fairy dust and with the surprise of Collateral being picked by RT Book Reviews as one of the top 4 romances to read on Wattpad for July, I was back in the race - though this time, I had to keep it quiet.  So yes, don't get discouraged.
4. Don't compare yourself to others. Why? See #3.  It's easy to forget that we all are different. Even if people say that there are only 7 or 8 plot lines to go by, we all have our own unique voice to relay those plot lines with.  We write with a filter that makes us uniquely us, colored by the way we see the world be it from the way we were raised, our learned beliefs and customs, as part of a culture, or even a race.  We also have our own unique vision of the world we want to see on the page, whether it be dystopian, historical, contemporary, romantic, or horror. So given that, don't compare yourself to others - or your stories to other stories for that matter. Even characters can suffer from identity crises of their own, too.
5. It's a marathon, not a sprint.  So now that I've written the epilogue of Collateral and hit Complete on my manuscript, does that mean I'm done?  Nope, far from it.  There's editing that's yet to be done from here on, and also depending on the outcome of the contest, more editing that has to be done till it's as good as can be.  And even when I'm done done, like really done, there's still more stories to be told. I am, after all, a writer.  And writers keep writing.

That's my list so far on an overly caffeinated but empty stomach.  Maybe I'll think of more stuff as I calm down from the caffeine jitters, but to everyone who entered SYTYCW15, congratulations on finishing that novel and the best of luck to us all!  

Date Night - A Short Story Collection

For me, writing short stories is a way to tease out the muses, new characters who come out of the cracks of my psyche. It’s a way to get to know them, to figure out the things they want to say. It’s an exploration of sorts - of new people, ideas, situations and their consequences, even sex (without having to write a full-length novella with sex in every chapter - though there’s nothing wrong with that). It’s a product of sitting too long in airports and standing in line at the coffee shop as a couple argues in the corner in silence, their eyes doing all the talking. Or even the lack of exchanges between peopleIt’s many things, and at the same time not so many.

After all, they say that all stories have been told, with the only differences in the telling. I don’t even know if these stories connect. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But if they have one thing in common, it’s falling in love, being in love, or starting over after falling out of love.

Date Night is my latest collection of short stories (five in this collection) which is now available from Amazon. These are stories between people who are just getting to know each other, or couples who’ve known each other too long, yet there’s something still there - love, passion, trust.

Loving Ashe

A booty call. A stuck elevator. A chance to move on. 

Three years after her ex-boyfriend dumped her for his Hollywood dream, barista Riley Eames' life has been on hold, plagued by questions only he can answer. So when he asks for a late-night meeting, Riley agrees, only to find herself stuck in the hotel elevator with dashing British actor, Ashe Hunter, who's in town to promote his latest movie.

 But even as sparks fly between them, it's going to take more than a celebrity romance to get Riley's life moving again, not when the answers she's been seeking finally come - and with disastrous results.

Amazon