Guest Post: RICHARD HOUSTON, Bestselling Author of the Books to Die For series

Today, it's my pleasure to have Richard Houston as my guest, talking about his career as an Indie author...

How to Become an Overnight Success in Only 30 Years

I know, that title is somewhat a cliché, but it did get your attention or you wouldn’t be reading this, so if you’re still with me, I’ll tell you how I got my fifteen minutes of fame.

As one of the million independent authors on Amazon, I always dreamed of the day I’d see my book on the NY Times best seller list, instead of being number 500,000 on Amazon’s list. I wish I could say that day finally happened, but I did come close and made it to the USA Today’s best seller list. However great that might sound to a struggling author, trying to write that Great American Novel, I have a confession. I didn’t get there by penning the greatest mystery ever. Not even the second best mystery. No, I’ll never be another Poe, or even a Patterson, but I may give P.T. Barnum a run for his title. 

What I’m trying to say is my success comes down to one simple word. Marketing. Of course, I like to think writing a good story helped, but face it folks, people can’t buy your great manuscript if they never heard of it. “Okay,” you ask, “what did you do, Richard, to get your book in front of so many people?” Well, stay with me and I’ll tell you.

First you have to have a product to sell, and it helps if you have a quality product. In books, this means a decent story, well written, with few, if any, grammatical errors. As an independent author I learned these rules the hard way. My first books have the reviews to show it. So, hire a good editor (I used Elise Abram), and then get a bunch of eyes to beta read your book. Once you’re happy with the product, find a good cover designer. I can’t stress this point enough, so I’ll say it again. Hire a good cover designer. I used a gal whose been on the USA Times best seller list several times. Her name is Victorine Lieske.

Okay, now that you have a killer cover, one that will stand out among the other six million books on Amazon, what’s next? Why you have to sell it of course. Did I mention marketing?

There was a time marketing a book meant sitting at a table in a bookstore, library, or book fair and talking to the occasional passerby. With luck, you might sell a couple copies. Or, if you were better known, a few dozen copies. Pilgrim, that won’t cut the ice today. If you want to hit those best seller lists, you need to sell thousands of copies. Which is what I did using paid internet ads. Sure, there are authors who get those great numbers without a lot of advertising. They spend years gathering email lists, Tweeting, blogging, and sending out newsletters. Eventually they get enough followers that they don’t have to advertise very often, if at all. And of course, there are at least a hundred other ways to get those coveted readers to your side, but they all take time – years in some cases – and if you’re like me, you don’t have that kind of time. My solution, and my only solution, is to spend the money on those ads.

Well, that’s it in a clamshell. Or is it? Oh yeah, I forgot to say where to advertise. In case you’ve been trapped in a giant clamshell there really is only one place to get a huge return. That of course is BookBub. However, Bookbub isn’t an easy nut to crack, err, I mean clam (we can’t have mixed metaphors, can we?). So I’ve added a couple links to some really cool places courtesy of Dave Chesson, James Calbraith, and Rachelle Ayala.

Dave Chesson’s list: https://kindlepreneur.com/list-sites-promote-free-amazon-books/

James Calbraith, and Rachelle Ayala. : https://jamescalbraith.com/2013/01/09/80-sites-to-advertise-your-book/

Author Bio: 

Richard Houston is the author of five books in the Books to Die For series, and has been an Amazon best selling author more times than he can count. Mainly because he lost a finger during his years as a carpenter. You can visit him and his wonder dog, Fred, at http://houstonrichard.wixsite.com/books

email: houston.richard@yahoo.com

Richard's success was recently written up :

https://sedaliademocrat.com/news/17263/warsaw-author-richard-houston-hits-best-seller-lists

Guest Post: CHERYL HOLLON on Writing a Book

Today, it is my pleasure to have Cheryl Hollon as my guest answering the question...

What part of the book do you find most challenging – the beginning, the middle, or the end?

The trickiest part in writing a book has changed over the course of my debut year as a published author. When I started writing the Webb’s Glass Shop series, the ending was an absolute nightmare. I struggled with it like an Olympian wrestler. There were all those loose ends that needed resolution. All the red herrings had to be resolved. Finally there was the orchestration of the reveal. I felt like one of those lace makers juggling tiny threads on too many bobbins.

Now my nemesis is the middle. The middle muddle to be exact. I enjoy the opening scenes where the students arrive for the featured glass workshop closely followed by the finding of a body. As the investigation progresses, more suspects are added, more questions are raised and more motives are revealed. Then – this is where I really get bogged down – an investigation needs to continue to have successes and failures until the resolution. From the middle muddle, this seems a long, long, long way to get to the beginning of the end.

I finally devised a method for getting through the middle muddle with less angst and more interest. I divide the middle into three sections with an arc for each. That little trick gives me the feeling of tackling only a short section instead of a huge block that represents more than two thirds of the book.

This plan helps me approach the middle with more confidence and its definitely more fun for me to write. It is not a surprise that if it’s fun for me to write, it’s usually fun for the reader as well. And who doesn’t want to have fun.

About Shards of Murder:
When a glass-making competition turns deadly, glass shop owner Savannah Webb must search for a window into a criminal's mind…
As the new proprietor of Webb's Glass Shop, Savannah has been appointed to fill her late father's shoes as a judge for the Spinnaker Arts Festival, held in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. With her innovative glass works, the clear winner is Megan Loyola, a student of Savannah's former mentor.

But when Megan doesn't show up to accept her $25,000 award, rumors start flying. And when Savannah discovers the woman's dead body on festival grounds, the police immediately suspect her of murder. To keep from appearing before a judge herself, Savannah sorts through the broken pieces of glass scattered around the victim for clues as to who took this killer competition too far. . .

Meet the Author:
Cheryl Hollon writes full time after she left an engineering career designing and building military flight simulators in amazing countries such as England, Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and India. Fulfilling the dream of a lifetime, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating glass art. In the small glass studio behind the house, Cheryl and her husband George design, create, and produce fused glass, stained glass and painted glass artworks.

You can visit Cheryl and her books at

http://www.cherylhollon.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheryl-Hollon-Writer/357992230995844

http://www.twitter.com/cherylhollon

Buy links:

Pane & Suffering  AMAZON

Shards of Murder Barnes&Noble AMAZON

PJ Nunn Publicist, BreakThrough Promotions p:972-825-1171 | e:pj@breakthroughpromotions.net | w:http://breakthroughpromotions.net | a: Waxahachie TX

Blog Tour: GUEST POST by Amy M. Reade (GHOSTS OF PEPPERNELL MANOR)

Today, it's my pleasure to have Amy M. Reade, author of the The Ghosts of Peppernell Manor as my guest to talk about becoming a writer.

Five Things I Wish I had Known Before Becoming an Author

by Amy M. Reade

When I started my first novel, Secrets of Hallstead House, I had no plans to submit it to a publisher. But the more I wrote and the further I got into the story, I began to think that I probably should submit it to someone because it was too much work to do for nothing.

I had no idea what I was getting into. The very first person who rejected the book said it was good, but I had no online presence. So I signed up for a Facebook account, my previous declarations that I would never join Facebook notwithstanding (never say never).

Once the book was accepted for publication, I learned very quickly that my dreams of sitting back and waiting for those royalty checks to roll in were just that—dreams. And thus, firmly planted in reality, here are the five things I wish I had known before becoming an author:

1. Unless you’re J.K. Rowling or John Grisham or some other author who’s sold a million billion books, you have to do most of the legwork to market yourself. If you have a publisher, the publicity department should help you out, but they have so many authors to promote that they can’t devote tons of time and resources to your book. So you have to get out there and promote it yourself. This takes an incredible amount of time and energy. It helps if you’re an extrovert. After I got a personal page on Facebook, I then created an author page, then I started a blog, then I designed my own website, then I ventured into the Twitterverse. I’ve had a steep learning curve, but guess what? I love it.

2. I had no idea how many genres of books there were until I had to pick one for my first novel. Did you know there are at least thirty-six subgenres of romance? Did you know there are at least twenty suspense subgenres and a minimum of twenty-two mystery/crime subgenres? It’s very hard to pick just one or two subgenres for a book, but it’s necessary because that’s how books are sold online, especially through Amazon which, for better or worse, is how most books are sold online.

3. You’ve probably heard the old adage “you have to spend money to make money.” That is almost my mantra now. I’ve had to shell out money for author swag, books to give away, transportation and hotel fare for writers’ conferences, and several blog tours. It’s a very expensive journey. From what I’ve read, most authors spend their first few books in the red because they have to spend so much to promote themselves. It’s not until the third book that the great majority of authors start to break even.

4. Authors read all the time! This one should have been quite obvious, and it was, but I never realized the extent to which other authors read. I love to read and I read during every spare minute, but I’m a rookie compared to other authors I’ve met. I’m constantly amazed at the amount of reading that other writers can accomplish in a day.

5. The writers I’ve been lucky enough to meet, whether in person or online, are the most generous, helpful, kind, supportive, gracious, and interesting group of people I’ve ever met. It may be a rat race to get readers and followers and fans, but it’s not a competition. There’s room for everyone’s books on the bookshelves and most authors seem to acknowledge this. They yearn to connect with other writers and share stories—both good and bad—as well as tips and encouragement.

Why do I wish I had known #5 before I became a writer? Because if I had known it, I would have become a writer sooner. And despite the hard work and the disappointments that come with every job, including that of a writer, I can no longer imagine doing anything else.

I invite you to have a look at my most recent romantic suspense novel, The Ghosts of Peppernell Manor. As you may have guessed from the title, the novel is set at Peppernell Manor, an antebellum plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, that has seen better days. But when its owner hires restoration specialist Carleigh Warner to oversee its return to grandeur, disagreements over the property’s future threaten to tear the Peppernell family apart. Carleigh is swept unwittingly into a whorl of secrets that she must face to protect her future and her daughter’s life.

I also invite you to visit me online, where I love connecting with readers. You can find me at the following places: Website: http://www.amymreade.com (my website has a page listing my appearances)

Blog: http://amreade.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/amreadeauthor

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/readeandwrite



About This Author

Amy M. Reade is also the author of Secrets of Hallstead House, a book set in the Thousand Islands of northern New York, where Amy grew up. After graduating from Cornell University, she went on to law school at Indiana University in Bloomington. She practiced law in New York City before moving to southern New Jersey, where, in addition to writing, she is a wife, a full-time mom and a volunteer in school, church and community groups. She lives just a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean with her husband and three children as well as a dog and two cats. She loves cooking and all things Hawaii and is currently at work on her next novel. 

Thank you Amy for joining us today!  Now let's take a look at...

GHOSTS OF PEPPERNELL MANOR

Synopsis:

“Do you know what stories Sarah could tell you about the things that happened in these little cabins? They’d curl that pretty red hair of yours.”

Outside of Charleston, South Carolina, beyond hanging curtains of Spanish moss, at the end of a shaded tunnel of overarching oaks, stands the antebellum mansion of Peppernell Manor in all its faded grandeur. At the request of her friend Evie Peppernell, recently divorced Carleigh Warner and her young daughter Lucy have come to the plantation house to refurbish the interior. But the tall white columns and black shutters hide a dark history of slavery, violence, and greed. The ghost of a former slave is said to haunt the home, and Carleigh is told she disapproves of her restoration efforts. And beneath the polite hospitality of the Peppernell family lie simmering resentments and poisonous secrets that culminate in murder—and place Carleigh and her child in grave danger…