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Publisher’s Desk: Read All About It!
BY JESSICA SHEN
Introducing the Xchyler Publishing Newsletter!
We have some exciting news today—Xchyler Publishing will be releasing our first newsletter this Friday, January 30th! Thank you to all the lovely people who came by our booth at Teslsacon to sign up for our email list. Here’s a look at some of the things that you can expect to see on our newsletter:
- Exclusive interviews with our talented authors
- Information about upcoming conventions Xchyler will be attending
Notification of upcoming anthology contests and open submissions- Sneak peeks of upcoming releases and release parties
- Featured blog posts
- Upcoming sales and promotions
- Super-secret only-for-you coupon codes!
. . . and much more!
Since this will be our first newsletter, please let us know what you think! What would you like to see? This is an evolving process for us and we are open to suggestions, so don’t be afraid to let us know what you like and don’t like, and you may see your requests in our next release! You can contact us on Facebook and Twitter @XchylerPublish, or email us at HSPMarketing@XchylerPublishing.com.
Senior Editor Jessica Shen works tirelessly at the X. In addition to pitching in with our marketing efforts, she has a full docket of fantasy, speculative fiction, urban fantasy, and Steampunk projects to keep her busy. Her most recent venture, ON THE ISLE OF SOUND AND WONDER by Alyson Grauer, was released in November to outstanding reviews. Her next project, REVOLT by Ben Ireland, Book 2 of the Kingdom City franchisewill be released summer 2015.
Hot New Release: The Toll of Another Bell
BY JODI L. MILNER, TC PHILLIPS, TIMOTHY VINCENT, ELISE STEPHENS, THAXSON PATTERSON II, SCOTT E. TARBET, F.M. LONGO, GINGER MANN, J.R. POTTER, & DANIELLE SHIPLEY
EDITED BY MCKENNA GARDNER
Join us as we celebrate the release of THE TOLL OF ANOTHER BELL. Win lots of fun prizes with our book release blog hop all over the interweb!
Sunday, 01.25.2015
Candy O’Donnell
Julkbear Reads
The Naughty Librarians Playground
Living Writing Teaching
Creativity from Chaos
Monday, 01.26.2015
Kitty Muse and Me
Semi Short Chic
Every On Word
Scott E. Tarbet, Author
Tuesday, 01.27.2015
The Book Beacon
Mel’s Shelves
Notes from Ginger
The J. Aurel Guay Archive
Wednesday, 01.28.2015
A. E. Albert, A Writer’s Blog
My Book Angel
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
My Literary Quest
Thursday, 01.29.2015
SnoopyDoo’s Book Reviews
Highlighted Author
The Author Visits
Friday, 01.30.2015
Author Sanday Love
A Book a Day Keeps Boredom Away
Ben Ireland Books
Saturday, 01.31.2015
January Gray
Laura’s Interests
Perpetual Chaos of a Wandering Mind
BLOG HOP GIVEAWAY
YOUTUBE GIVEAWAY
Sound-off Saturday: Word of the Day
AUTHORING AS A NOUN
BY CANDACE J. THOMAS
Someone argued to me that there are no authors and that every author is a plagiarist, grabbing from history or different experiences. She said, “To AUTHOR as a verb is to create something new and there is nothing new in literature.” By her own definition I could see her point. I think that everything that someone writes is in a way a reflection of the writer’s experiences and what they draw from to create something unique.
My rebuttal to her, as an author, was I don’t really care.
It’s not about authoring as a verb, but as a noun.
Author- a writer of a book, a creator of a world, one who constructs a document… the essence of being an AUTHOR.
To me there are factors that should be accounted for:
THE THERAPY. If you didn’t know that many writers use writing as therapy, than you are not a writer. We write because it keeps us sane. Somewhere in my brain is an overactive gland that produces thousands of creative thoughts and images all the time. This is a way to let the creative juice drain out. A build-up of creative energy without an outlet would make anyone go crazy. Writing gives my brain something to do, keeping it healthy and thinking. Life is hard, and without allowing my fingers to fly on the keyboard, I would be a psychotic mess.
THE EXPERIENCE. Try writing a novel, if anything, just for the experience of doing it. It surprised me when I first started of how many ideas came that I wasn’t expecting, like peeling a ripe orange and finding candy inside. The characters came to life. It was like these characters were peering over my shoulder waiting for their names to appear on the paper, feeling just as excited as I was to find out what was about to happen to them. People complain that it’s hard, but of course it is. It has to be or it wouldn’t be rewarding. We know it’s hard, but it’s also fun as hell.
THE READER. The reader is the most important component to the author. A single individual, who lives and breathes in and out every day, goes to works, eats three square meals, sleeps forty winks… doesn’t get a chance to adventure, to explore, to escape. That’s a writer’s job—to give someone a chance to experience life through words. The reader is why we write, so they can escape for a few brief hours to a different time or dimension in their own subconscious. And if they take away some of our experiences with them. . . Great! That helps enrich their lives vicariously through ours.
Just as a baby has a rich pedigree given in the genetics it has to make up a body, a story has the similar creation. It’s full of experiences, events, history, and personal development that is so ingrained in a writer’s soul that no one could extract the origin, just like your brown eyes.
It’s not the story but how we tell it, how we live up to the noun, the definition of being an Author.
Candace Thomasensures her mental health through prolific writing from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she lives with her husbandl, two daughters, and a tailess cat.
Released in April, Vivatera, Book 1 of the self-titled series, earned Candace the League of Utah Writers Diamond Award for Best Novel of 2013. Her follow-up offering, Conjectrix, is slated for release in April 2014. Candace’s short story, “The Hawkweed”, will appear in The X’s 2014 winter fantasy anthology, Moments in Millennia.
Editor’s Notes: Put Up Your Dukes
BY MCKENNA GARDNER
Writing Conflict
The best conflict in literature stems from genuine human desire and motivation. When you have two primary characters, presumably the hero and the villain, or the hero and the heroine, with opposing outlooks on life, an inevitable clash occurs. Without each character fully believing in their own viewpoint, regardless of how insane it may indeed be, the disharmony could be resolved with a nice chat over tea—thus ending your story prematurely.
Therefore, it is imperative that you portray characters as set in their ways, even if that means a character is determined not to settle into routine. Unless a hero, heroine, or villain has a solid foundation to start from, their character arc could wind up flimsy and unbelievable to a reader. Conflict must be strong between a romantic pair, otherwise you have them committing to each other on page six . . . unless the conflict begins after that.
Consider the ludicrous bad guy you’ve seen in movies or read in books where he’s a perfect good guy until something sets him off and it’s like he just flips a switch. I declare that is not reality. Either he had a darker side to begin with (which must be shown through small clues), or by engaging in a few rebellious whims at first, he perhaps falls prey to the appeal of escape from whatever trauma he experienced. The more realistic the desires and motivations, the more easily the reader will empathize with a character, even the bad ones. They don’t even have to be human to be relatable.
Have you ever read about an alien or demon that did not have human attributes? It isn’t possible. A human imagined them. And therein lies the challenge—how do you be original with your conflict? How do you make it strong and interesting and unique?
Not to fear, there are limitless ways in which characters can become at odds with one another. The more depth you give them, the more avenues you can explore. What does your hero want? What does he lack? What does he have already that disrupts the peace in his life? Question this with each character and make sure they don’t all want the same thing. Even a like-minded group of magically gifted children, who all wanted a certain someone who shall not be named dead, had unique talents and desires.
Find a way to convince the reader of the value to both sides of an argument so they, themselves, are just as torn. That is good conflict. That will keep your reader in the pages of your awesome story so they can discover just how you master the resolution in the end.
In addition to the crazy workload Managing Editor McKenna Gardner performs at the X. she is also an accomplished author. Under the pseudonym of M. Irish Gardner, she has published two short stories in our anthologies: “Invested Charm” in Mechanized Masterpieces 2: An American Anthology to be released on February 28, 2015; and “Reformation” in A Dash of Madness: A Thriller Anthology (2013).
McKenna’s most recent editorial works include The Toll of Another Bell: A Fantasy Anthology with its official releaseJanuary 31, 2015; Blondes, Books & Bourbon: A White Dragon Black Anthology by R.M. Ridley, with a release date of March 13, 2015; and Joanne Kershaw’s third installment of the Vanguard Legacy franchise, Foretold, slated for release in April 2015. She is also supervising editor of Hohenstein by Didi Lawson, May 2015.
Inside Marketing: Social Media
BY VEENA KASHYAP
Happy New Year!
I hope you had a fabulous holiday season.
Now that you’ve had some downtime, let’s get back to business, shall we?
Last fall, I kicked off a series of posts focusing on the building of an author platform. As you may recall, my definition of an author platform is rather straightforward; an author platform is about how you connect with your readers that is, the mechanics of creating buzz for your work and growing your readership.
The key components of a solid author platform include:
- Sound writing and valuable content (books, blog posts, newsletters)
- Social media
- Website
- Frequent publication
- Membership and participation in networks
- Event appearances, interviews and speaking engagements
- Connections to other authors
In Post Two of this series, I spotlighted the first component of the author platform, “Sound Writing and Valuable Content.”
The next component we’ll discuss in the author platform is social media. What’s social media? Let’s start there. Social Media can be defined as any website and/or applications that enables users to create and share content socially.
So which social media platforms are author-friendly? Great question!
Let’s start with my list of must-use social media platforms:
- Goodreads
Goodreads (www.goodreads.com)
With thirty million members, nine hundred million books cataloged and thirty-four million books reviewed, Goodreads, an Amazon company, is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.
If you are an author, the beauty of Goodreads lies in their Author Program. Completely free, The Author Program is designed to help authors reach their target audience: passionate readers. This is the perfect place for new and established authors to promote their books.
Goodreads offers authors the ability to create an author profile. Once an author profile is created, an author can:
- Add a picture and bio
- Share favorite books and recent reads with your fans!
- Write a blog
- Publicize events
- Share book excerpts and other writing
- Post videos
- Add the Goodreads Author widget to your personal website or blog to show off reviews of your books
Authors can promote their books by:
- Signing up to advertise books to the Goodreads Community—30 million readers!
- List book giveaways to generate pre-launch buzz
- Participate in discussions on your profile, in groups and in forums
Facebook (www.facebook.com)
Facebook is a social networking website that makes it easy for you to connect and share.
Creating an author page on Facebook should be a part of every author’s social media strategy. An author page (not your personal profile) allows authors to post engaging content (read NOT A SALES PITCH) that draws your readers in. Topics should certainly vary, be unique and highlight not just your work but also share work of other authors, tagging them.
According to www.thebookdesigner.com, post twice a day each weekday and once on Saturday and Sunday. In addition, keep your posts short, between 100 and 250 characters, and vary your banner image (I love www.picmonkey.com). Embrace incentives and loyalty programs. Send a free eBook to your most loyal fans on occasion and offer incentives when running contests or surveying your fans for information.
If you decide to purchase Facebook advertising, don’t fall for the old “Boost Post” option. Why? Boosted posts are intended to increase engagement on your Facebook page by improving penetration of your fans’ news feeds. Even worse, you can’t decide where your ad will be placed. As reported by TechCrunch, 78% of Facebook users access this network via a mobile device so it would make sense to have your ad appear on mobile news feeds. If you fall for the effortless Boost Post method, however, you will be stuck with your ad appearing strictly on desktop news feeds, reaching only 22% of Facebook’s users.
With an ad that you design, you can also establish age limits, and designate languages and countries you want to target. Before creating an ad however, be clear about the results you want to achieve. It’s better to use ads when you have a clear business objective, such as increasing books sales or encouraging fans to sign up for a webinar or newsletter.
Another cool Facebook feature is The Author Marketing App. The app provides users an overview of your published work. It installs as a tab on your Author Page and allows you to add details about your books and upcoming events. If your books are listed on Amazon, listing the books is as easy as entering the ISBN.
The point with Facebook is really to connect and share. Simple. Just remember who your target audience and focus on drawing them in with creative content.
(Credit: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2014/05/facebook-ads-should-indie-authors-buy-them/)
Twitter (www.twitter.com)
Say something interesting in 140 characters or less. You’d think it were easy but writers are generally verbose by nature. So Twitters makes it a challenge to put out something mind-bending in just a few words. But that’s the beauty of Twitter.
But follow this rule. I live by this rule. Spend 20 percent of the time talking about yourself, and 80 percent talking about others. Not only is it a good practice to promote the blog posts, books, and resources of others in your niche or genre, but it’s also a way for you to make your Twitter feed a must-read for your followers by ensuring they’ll always find something valuable there.
Talk about anything and everything but don’t make everything about you or worse, a sales pitch about your books.
The 80/20 rule applies to ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS! Enough said.
Pinterest (www.pinterest.com)
Pinterest is an online bulletin board with a social media interface. Themed boards can be created and shared allowing other users to re-pin your images. This is why Pinterest has so much potential to be used as a potent tool for authors to promote their books. Authors can also link pictures on Pinterest to their websites to boost traffic.
Boards can be created for book covers, characters, book locations, events, etc. Authors can share their written stories through the use of beautiful imagery.
Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest can be integrated with other social media platforms to increase exposure for you as an author and for your books.
My advice would be to start slow with your social media strategy. It’s nearly impossible to be in all places at once so focus one or two social media platforms that you find easy to navigate.
There are a vast number of tools on the market to help with scheduling your social media content. I use Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) to post to Twitter and Facebook on every couple of hours. The trick here is to create unique content and to post at reasonable intervals (every 3-4 hours). Again, use the 80/20 rule and make your audience keep coming back for more!
Check out the following links for more information on social media platforms. As an author, you owe it to yourself to put your best foot forward, so what are you waiting for?
MORE GREAT INFORMATION:
http://theauthoronline.com/Power-of-Facebook.html
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2014/05/facebook-ads-should-indie-authors-buy-them/
http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/10/how-to-use-pinterest-to-promote-your-book/
https://media.twitter.com/best-practice/twitter-for-authors
Veena’s love affair with reading began in the fifth grade when she read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Somewhere around that time, she started writing stories that transported her to worlds created by her vivid imagination and knew one day, she wanted nothing more than to write for a living.
Veena continues to read, the owner of way too many e-readers and is notorious for having shelves imploding with books and has resorted to lining her bedroom floor with even more. Currently, she is working on a YA paranormal romance series in between her day job as a geek managing tech projects while running an author publicity site and helping out Xchyler as a book reviewer and blogger specialist