Writing When You Have A Full Time Job

Good Morning Lovelies,

Things have been hectic as usual this new year, but in a good way. I've somehow managed to stick to my writing schedule despite working full time and running around like a headless chicken since January. My next book, Persuasion Skills, is out to my editor, I've already started working on my next release, Frosted Bites, and the hubby and I are in the middle of buying a new home. Yes it's been crazy! With a full time job, a husband and a guilt wielding mother that has been no easy feat! 

So how the heck have I not gone off the deep end (much) and still managed to maintain the writing schedule I set at the beginning of the year?  Sadly the answer is actually relatively simply stated but hella hard to implement. All it took to maintain this schedule was....

            1.) 90% dedication (saving room for sleep, food and sex) and...

            2.) 100% REALISM.

Yes you read that correctly. This year when I set out to list my goals and schedule to obtain them I decided to actually try being realistic with myself and how much I could actually get done with the state my life is in. With a full time job that requires far more than 40 hours a week, I didn't lie and convince myself that I could write 1,000 to 5,000 words a day. Instead I told myself that I would start every week with a list of mini-goals related to my current work in progress (ex. finish one chapter, research a character, read a new book etc.). If at the end of the week, there were items still lingering on my list, I would look at my calendar and see what activities would have to be cut to incorporate the additional items. Yes I sacrificed, yes I missed a party or two, but guess what? It kept me motivated. Knowing that I might miss out on a Louis CK concert, didn't magically clear my hectic schedule, but it did help me use my writing time more effectively.

Part of my being realistic campaign also included (gulp) only working on one project at a time. Yeah I know! That was actually the hardest rule to adhere to. With limited time available I had to be honest with myself and understand that streamlining (ie. uncluttering my mind) would be the best recourse. So out went the working on multiple books at once (*sigh*). But even within the rule I forced some realism. I knew that I would be tempted to work on something else I also refused to shove good story ideas aside, so I gave myself a ting concession-I was allowed to note the idea and even jot down mini outlines. That's it. The good news? My works in progress list has grown to epic proportions AND I know that they will actually get done. Sweet! 

As an aside, notice that I've included reading a new book each week. Why you ask when my schedule is so tight? I do this for various reasons:

1.) I love to read and if I don't reward myself with a good book, then what would be my incentive for writing one?

2.) As a writer you have to perfect your craft. You are not perfect. It's good to see how other writers do things. When I read a well written book this is my progression...ooh and ahh over things like voice, emotion and just sheer awesomeness-->be green with jealousy-->become inspired-->become determined to be better myself. These are all good things.

                         

3.) It's good to check out who is publishing what (self-pub and trade). Is the editing done well? How about the cover art? If it's a trade pub, is the book selling well and being marketed effectively? These are all things a writer should look at especially if you're interested in going the trade publication route. If you plan on submit your book to a publishing company you want to know which ones would be the best fit for your book. Obviously, you can tell I plan on going this route this year :). 

Okay that's my spiel for today. I hope you're all doing well. I'll be posting lines from Frosted Bites soon so stayed tuned!   

Talk to you soon,

Laurel  

An Apology For a Major Noob Mistake

Source

Hello All, 

Brace yourselves lovelies, it's major apology time featuring yours truly as the not so virgin sacrifice. As many of you all ready know I did something not really well thought out this weekend and of course it bit me on the butt! You can read about the reasoning for my insanity here. Simply put, I pulled Negotiating Skills from all online publishers and enrolled it in Amazon KDP select and immediately listed it as a free read for three days...Yes I did that with no planing...yes I know that was crazy and a very typical NOOB mistake. However, sadly that is not where the apology needs to be given.

Downloads of the book were doing relatively well (over 10,000 downloads in 3 days) when late Sunday morning an AWESOME reader was nice enough to message me that there seemed to be some formatting issues with the book. !!!!! Yeah I KNOW!!!!!! First a big thanks and shout out to Terra Nuit for letting me know about the problem. I immediately corrected the issue and resubmitted a corrected version of the book to amazon. Sadly Amazon takes 12-49 hours to list a new version, so the corrected copy of the book but it didn't hit the market until late Sunday afternoon after over 6000 readers had already downloaded the book. And THAT lovelies is where the apology comes in. 

To all of you fabulous readers who were willing to give my book a chance this weekend, I offer you a huge thanks and the sincerest of apologies. I always say that I'm a reader first and writer second. I understand what's it's like to have an afternoon or a few stolen moments of read time disrupted by formatting and editing mistakes. Regardless of whether a book is purchased or downloaded for free, as a reader you are investing your time into that author's story and that has value. No writer would ever disagree with that.

I've contacted amazon regarding the errors and they stated that they will notify readers who purchased/downloaded the book and these readers will be able to sync/update to the newest version. So hopefully this issue will be cleared up soon. 

Again, I apologize for the error...I'll be in the corner tied to a rock now *sigh*. 

Talk to you soon, 
Laurel

 

Hmmm... I Did Something A Little Naughty...

Hello Lovelies, 

I did something a little naughty tonight...No not that naughty :) On a complete and totally procrastination inspired whim, I removed Negotiating Skills from  BnB, Kobo and All Romance! What? o_O! Yeah I know! Since the sales for the book are winding down and I'm already in the midst of several other works in progress I figured it was time to see what the hoopla is all about for Amazon's kdp select. 

Yes I know for some it is the devil and for other's it is a godsend. Frankly I'm not really expecting much. I really just want to make sure as many readers get a chance to read it as possible while I works on getting my next few books out and published.

So I'll be offering my baby up for free starting today through Sunday! Yes I know I should probably do some promo of this right?  So I will. Would it had made more sense if I did it in advance? Most definitely, but since I'm really just trying to procrastinate my night away I'm going to do it any way. 

*Sigh* Yes I know I'm being belligerent but I've been re-writing the same final chapter for weeks now and I'm in serious need of a mini mental break. The twenty minutes of joy I got from searching out the James Van Der Beek gif for this post was priceless along with the knowledge that for the next 90 days I only have to worry about checking one publishing site :) So spread the word. Negotiating Skills is a free read via the Amazon Kindle market through to Sunday! Wish me luck smex monsters!

Talk to you soon,
Laurel

Romance Novel Book Covers Mystery Solved!

Good Evening Lovelies,

Let me preface this post by stating self-publishing your own book is HARD. I have major respect for all writers who have taken this route. When you're a first time author whose chosen this path you take on more than the role of writer, you become your agent, your publicist, your editor and your cover designer all rolled into one frazzled, scared  and determined package. When I first made the decision to self publish I spent hours reading blogs, articles and books about how best to go about it. There were three main rules that seemed to be consistant through out all of my sources:

1.) Write a story that you think is awesome (kind of obvious, I know).

2.) Publish your book to as many sources possible. 

3.) Make your book physically stand out.

Today I want to focus on rule number three. In a perfect world you would hope that your work stands by itself. That the story you worked so hard to get out to the masses is so good that the moment you publish people flock to the net and download copies of it in multiple formats and languages just so that they can tell their grandchildren they got a copy the first day your amazing story was released.... Hmm anyway, the most amazing story in the world will never get read if no one sees it to buy! We unfortunately, are human (most of us anyway), and as humans we are drawn to shining objects and other attractive sites. That is where book cover art comes in. Cover art is the beer bikini models of the book industry. They provide the enticement for readers to stop their scrolling and pause to take a second look, and after writing that amazing world impacting book you don't want a wallflower in a one piece you want a Victoria Secret model striking a "come get me" pose!

This is actually the main reason why I chose to go with a professional cover artist for my first book (the ever lovely Ravven). I wanted my cover to represent not only my book but stand out among the crowd of other books in its genre as well. Admittedly I could have perused the millions of stock photos available on the web and worked up a basic cover myself for free (or close to free), but why spend all that time when you can pay someone who is a professional and actually knows what their doing? Not to mention you're getting a customized cover that is wholly unique. This leads me to an interesting phenomenon I've noticed amongst e-book covers.

      

For a while I've wondered why so many self-published and professionally published e-books have very similar book covers and by similar I mean EXACTLY the same. Seriously, it's particularly noticeable within multicultural and interracial titles. The same cover models are being used in the same poses across multiple books by different authors. At first I honestly thought that it was one designer peddling the same image off on multiple unsuspecting authors. However, after a while I noticed that  the same covers were showing up at popular websites who shall remain nameless (trust me you'll know them when you see them), and thought maybe it's just these sites. Maybe their design departments are so swamped with work from so many awesome authors that they're recycling covers to increase productivity and bring more reading material to the hungry masses (yeah every now and then my Pollyanna comes out to play). However, today I learned the truth behind these doppelganger covers! It was my DUH! moment of the week. The culprit is www.RomanceNovelCovers.com! 

I found the website randomly through a Google link maze while searching for something else entirely (you know how it is). Anyway, when I entered the site, there was almost every cover I've seen ciculating the romance lists lately. Now let me be perfectly blunt, I don't see anything wrong with using stock photos. As  a self-published writer you need to utilize all of the resources at your disposal. However, I do think that if you're going to use stock images, go the extra mile and actually layer elements on the images to make them unique. There are a two really great applications (GIMP and Paint.Net) that can be used for this and they are completely free. 

I know some people will read this post and accuse me of being a snooty newbie, but seriously e-book self-publishers have to compete against all of the agented authors and their established publishing companies that can provide them with dedicated design and promotion teams. Self-publishers have to work doubly hard to compete against that type of professional competition. I'm still very new to this industry so I may change my mind about this later, but I seriously doubt it. What are your thoughts?

Talk to you soon,
Laurel