Already Loved: Encouragement for This Writing Life

Another rejection. My agent gently relayed that though my dream publisher had said “yes” to a proposal all the way up the chain of command to the last committee, they finally decided to nix it.

As I hung up the phone, tears spilled down my cheeks. Two years of canceled book contracts, low sales figures, and repeated “thanks but no thanks” emails had left me discouraged, frustrated, and confused. Writing—and the marketing tasks necessary to be a professional writer—now seemed like drudgery, not play. No matter how many marketing rules I tried to follow, my efforts failed.

I felt like a failure, too.

I still believed God wasn’t through using me. But I couldn’t help but wonder, Will I ever get another book contract? And what happens if I don’t? Is God trying to tell me something?

Later that day, I sat at my desk, playing a computer game with my three year-old son. As Jackson sat in my lap, I kissed his ear and inhaled his little-boy scent; a combination of milk, grime, and chocolate. Nearby sat a copy of my first book, which I had referred to earlier in the day for a radio interview. Jackson looked at the illustration of a frazzled mom on the cover and asked, “Is that you?”

“No, sweetie,” I said, “but I wrote that book. See, mommy’s name is on the cover. It says, ‘by Dena Dyer.’ “

“Oh!” Jackson said, grinning up at me. “I love Dena Dyer!”

Stunned, I blinked back tears. “I love you, too,” I murmured.

After a few minutes more at the computer, I found a quiet corner and prayerfully pondered Jackson’s simple expression of love. He didn’t care if I published books or not. He simply loved me for me. He loved me the way God does.

In all my disappointments, I had thought more about selling books than surrendering my heart. It was painful to admit that somewhere in the midst of trying to serve Jesus, I’d become goal-driven instead of God-driven. I seemed to care more about what the publishing powers-that-be thought than what my Heavenly Father thought.

Satan is crafty. He takes our God-given talents and twists them into temptations. Gradually, my calling had become an idol. Who I was became less important than what I did.

“Lord, I’m sorry,” I prayed, crying for the third time that day. “My heart is so full of sin. I know you couldn’t care less how many books I sell. You just want ME.”

In the weeks and months to come, as I asked God to help me believe the truth of His unconditional acceptance, I began working freely and joyfully again instead of writing just to be published. God continued to close some doors, and another book proposal was rejected, but He gave me other opportunities–ones I hadn’t even known to pursue.

The truth is, though, I will probably always have a tendency to think I must perform to be loved. So I’ve ask God to whack me upside the head (as we say here in Texas) before I get too far off track.

If experience is any teacher, He’ll be faithful to do just that.

(This article first appeared at The High Calling. Used by permission)

February 22, 2013February 14, 2013

Pitch Your Book Like it’s a Movie (The One Sentence Synopsis)

I recently attended a screenplay writing seminar with Publishers and Writers of San Diego. It was taught by writing coach Marni Freedman and focused on taking an existing book and developing it into a screenplay. Screenplays are extremely concise – they average around one hundred pages. Being concise means really having to know the infrastructure and outline of a story. There are several aspects of screenwriting that are helpful in book writing, and one of those aspects is the creation of a logline.

A logline is a one sentence synopsis of your story. It is like the cover of a book. A good one makes you want to open it immediately to see what is inside. Before you can create a logline, you will need to understand where your book is going. When you try and select a movie on cable, you see loglines all the time. They are very brief descriptions of the show’s content.

For example, let’s look at a logline for The Godfather by Mario Puzo: A 1940’s New York mafia family struggles to protect their empire from rival families as the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son. Although The Godfather is an epic, the plot can still be boiled down into a one-sentence pitch. Audiences have short attention spans and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Effective loglines are compelling: they draw people in and make them want to know more.

Ready to create your own logline? It can be comprised more easily if you are able to supply the following story formula that Marni will be publishing in an upcoming book – 7 Steps to a First Draft:

Story idea: Who – Unique Problem – Goal – Ending (Marni Freedman 2010)

Who do you want to write about? Why are they interesting? Why should we care about them and want to follow them?
What unique problem does this person face?
What is this person’s goal? How will the person solve it? Who or what will try to stop them?
How does their journey end?

Writing coach Marni Freedman (www.thewriterinyou.com) encouraged our group to create loglines, as they are not just for the authors to be able to quickly explain the heart of their story, but also serve as a pitch that can be used when interacting with agents, entering contests, meeting with producers, or anyone with whom you want to engage. If you would like to practice this exercise, think about one of your favorite stories (which can be the form of a book or movie) and create a one sentence synopsis of the plot and action.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Four children travel to the magical land of Narnia where they must battle an evil queen with the direction of the Lion, Aslan.

Citizen Kane: Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

Toy Story: A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman figure supplants him as top toy in a boy’s room.

The creation of a logline takes time and effort. It’s hard to boil down your story to a one sentence synopsis. It may take you several attempts, so don’t beat yourself up if you find it a harder process than you originally anticipated. You will know that you have stumbled on your perfect logline because it is fun to pitch and rolls off your tongue. Try it out on your friends and watch their reactions. If their eyes light up and they say, “yeah!” then you know you are on the right track. Just start giving it a shot, and you may find that you understand your story with surprising clarity.

Can you see how creating a logline might add value to your writing?

February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

Build a Social Media Platform: Your Facebook Page

As the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook is an essential plank in most authors’ platforms. However, its effectiveness depends on how it is used. Many writers try to use their profiles for business pages, a function they were never designed to support. Even if it were not against Facebook’s policies, using a profile for promotion is not effective anyway. There’s truth to the idea that friends aren’t geared to purchase from friends.

Converting a Profile to a Page

Fortunately, it is possible to convert a profile to a business page with a simple tool Facebook provides. Having recently migrated my Facebook profile to a business page, I offer a detailed perspective on this process in Convert Your Facebook Profile to a Page (A Step-By-Step Guide). Would I go back to a profile if I could? No. I’ve received more engagement and am taken more seriously. As a bonus, I no longer have to deal with unwanted game or event invitations.

Signing up for Facebook and Creating a Page

Signing up for Facebook is a straightforward matter. If you need help with this, go here: http://www.facebook.com/help/188157731232424/. Instructions for building a page are here: https://www.facebook.com/business/build. The category that Author or Writer is found under is Artist, Band or Public Figure, however if you do more than write on a professional level, you may want to choose a different category, like Public Figure (under the same category). If you create your page around your author name rather than one of your book titles, you won’t have start all over again building an audience for each new release. Also, leaving out an accompanying description (like author) keeps your options open should you want to add another professional activity (such as speaking) at a future date.

Your Facebook Page

Banner: To promote your brand, its best to post a cover image that resembles your website banner.

Profile Picture: Use a quality image for your profile picture, preferably a headshot.

Tabs: Wildfire, Tabsite and Iwipa are applications that let you install customized tabs to give you among other things a landing page, event manager, contest tab, blog feed, and even fan-gated content you post for subscribers only. To learn more visit http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-10-facebook-apps-for-building-custom-pages-tabs/. Mail Chimp integrations allows users to post a sign-up box for your email list right in a Facebook tab.

Content you post on your page should draw readers who will sign up for your email list. Post updates about your writing progress, appearances, author news, contests, giveaways, and book news. Depending on your brand, you may also want to post snippets from your research, recipes, book reviews, or videos. Whatever you decide, make sure it lines up with your brand and inspires some sort of action (such as entering a contest, signing up for your newsletter, liking a post, or visiting your website). Make the time you spend posting to Facebook count toward your goals.

Post Scheduler: It’s possible and desirable to schedule posts to publish at a time you specify. This can be a great time-saver. Just click the clock icon below the update window.

EdgeRank: That mysterious algorithm by which Facebook determines how many of your followers see a post is based largely on engagement. One good way to boost your engagment and boost an update’s edgerank is to post pictures or videos.

Wall: A page’s wall functions just like a profile wall. Like some other pages while posting as your page and those posts will show up in your wall feed, which you can find by clicking the Home tab in the upper right menu.

Engagement: Commenting on other pages is an important way to gain followers for your own. A good strategy is to find other authors with similar readerships and comment on their posts. Provided you don’t self-promote and say something sufficiently interesting, some of their followers may become interested in you and follow you back to your page. Doing this actually helps the other author gain edgerank and engagement and its possible to share audiences to mutual advantage.

Another way to keep up the engagement on your page is to post consistently. Also, your followers will notice your absence and respond accordingly, so try to show up for at least a few minutes every day. You can set your notifications to alert you by email when someone comments on your page.

Analytics: In your page’s admin panel you’ll see a tab with a graph showing both your reach and audience engagement levels. Click See All to view the full analytics for your page. Pay attention to which posts have more virality and adjust your offerings accordingly, or else use the engage tips above to find people interested in what you offer. Adjusting your page’s reach to the ideal audience for you is a trial-by-error process.

Promoting from Your Page

While it is possible to promote from your page, you should do so cautiously. Spamming doesn’t work and will only cause you to lose followers. Be subtle and lure rather than pursue readers.

I received a bit of free advertising money from Facebook, so I decided to try out a couple of ads. My results indicate that the same easy-does-it guidelines apply to ads, too. The campaign I ran as an inline ad with a post of my book video did far better than the promoted posts ad with a cover of my book and a promotional blurb.

My observation is that people are on Facebook to socialize and have fun, not to be pitched to. Consider using this site as a primary outpost if you work well in that kind of environment and can promote in a subtle manner.

Please click to tweet this post.

February 13, 2013February 6, 2013

What Does Your Reader Look Like?

What does your ideal reader look like?

When I first read this question in a marketing article, I wasn’t sure how to answer or even why it was important. Recently, though, I had a promotional opportunity that made it very clear to me why this question is a key to marketing success.

After three years of trying to get on the guest list, I was interviewed on the Larry Meiller Show on Wisconsin Public Radio in late January. I knew that Larry was interested in nature, among other things, and so I thought it would be a good spot to reach potential readers of my birding-based mystery series.

Judging from the hits on my website that day, which recorded an all-time high of visitors, I was right.

What I hadn’t appreciated, though, was the fact that my target audience listens to a lot of radio. Duh – birders drive in cars to find birds, which means they listen to radio.

And that’s when I understood why I needed to think of what my ideal reader looks like…and what he does in his spare time…and what she values…and what he listens to…and what she reads…and, well, you get the idea. I needed a very detailed description of my ideal reader so I would know just where and when and how to reach as many of them as possible.

Sure, we all have a general idea of who our readers are – literate, male or female, teens or adults, seniors or little kids – and we probably have some ideas about what they like to do. After all, if I write self-improvement books, I would assume my readers are interested in that topic; if I write medical thrillers, I would think that my readers are interested in medical science to some degree. But would I automatically know that those seeking self-improvement are more likely to watch ( or record) an afternoon talk show on television than listen to a morning news show on radio? Or vice-versa? And how many readers interested in thrillers use Facebook to find book recommendations, rather than read the Sunday newspaper book section?

All these habits and traits and proclivities are key to understanding your audience so that you can make the most of your time, effort, and promotional dollars; the challenge is finding reliable sources for building your ideal reader’s profile, which may take a lot of trial and error on the part of an author who takes on the responsibility of designing and implementing effective marketing.

My best suggestion? Get to know your readers. Ask them what they like to do (when they’re not reading), what media they favor, where they shop, the names of their favorite (other) authors. The time you invest in putting together a profile of your ideal reader is not wasted, but will result in increased sales and more effective writing as you zero in on who’s reading your work.

Do you know what your ideal reader looks like?

February 6, 2013February 1, 2013

Are You Pinterest Savvy? 1 Million Followers in a Year

Pinterest is one of the fastest and biggest growing social media sites. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, it uses pictures to connect with other people. It’s a virtual pin board that allows you to share things with your followers and “repin” photos from others onto your own boards. If people like what you’re pinning, they can choose to follow your boards.

What does this mean for authors?

Pinterest has over 4 million daily users and is now the 3rd biggest social media site. You might be wondering how to harness the power of Pinterest. I just finished reading Pinterest Savvy: How I Got 1 Million+ Followers (Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest) * by Melissa Taylor.

As an author, I know the power of Pinterest. I’ve been using Pinterest for about six months and other than Google, it drives more traffic to my website than any other social media site, including Facebook. But I wanted to up my game and Melissa’s book gave me some great tips and new ideas.

1. Be as specific as possible with your board names and descriptions. One of my boards was titled Best Recipes. I feature my own traditional from scratch recipes on my blog and these are some of my biggest traffic pins. However, after reading Melissa’s book I changed it to Best from Scratch Recipes and altered the description to include key words of traditional, from scratch, home-baked, etc. You can check out my boards at http://www.pinterest.com/melissaknorris

2. All pins are not created equal. When creating “pins” to be pinned from your website, there are some things you need to know. One, longer photos, rather than wide, show better on Pinterest. You need clear and easy to read type. Melissa gives great examples of what makes a good pin vs. an okay one. This makes a difference! I re-did some of my photos, repinned them, and they were reppined far more than the original version. Here’s an example of a good pin.

3. Protect yourself. Know copyright laws. Read the terms of use on Pinterest. Don’t repin any pin without following it back to its original source. Does the website give permission to “pin”? Is there a pin-it button next to the photo? If not, don’t repin. I recommend emailing the blogger to ask permission. Most will say yes, it only takes a few minutes, and protects you from a lawsuit. It also promotes good will. I emailed a blogger to ask if I could use her photo in a post on my blog and “pin” it. She happily agreed, visited my blog, and shared it with her own readers.

4. Create pin worthy content of your own. Take your own pictures and create your own pins. (I use the free version of picmonkey.com) You don’t have to worry about copyright issues and you’ll become known for bringing new fresh content. You want to be known for creating content on your blog and on Pinterest, not just rehashing what everyone else is already doing.

For a free chapter download visit Melissa Taylor’s website. She also has free worksheets to help you maximize each chapter. Pinterest Savvy takes you through the first step of signing up for Pinterest to helping those who want to increase their following and are already familiar with the site. Having just finished Melissa’s book and implementing a few of her tips, I’ve increased my following by 50 followers in a little over a week. I plan using more of her tips shortly.

Another cool tidbit: Melissa’s book doesn’t officially launch until tomorrow, but she gave me permission to give Watercooler peeps a sneak peek. How cool is that?

*I used my affiliate link for Melissa’s book on Amazon. It doesn’t cost you anything more and I only recommend things I truly stand behind. To read my full affiliate disclosure go to the footer of my website.

Are you on Pinterest? What do you find the most daunting? How do you use your boards to promote your books and website?

January 25, 2013June 24, 2013

4 Pillars to Build an Effective Social Media Platform

A social media platform needs a support system, a set of pillars that stabilizes and suspends the infrastructure. Attempting to build a platform before its supports are in place isn’t practical or sustainable. Take things logically and in order, and you’ll do yourself a tremendous favor.

4 Support Pillars

The first pillar in platform building is that infamous c-word, commitment. Tap into your passion to find the strength of mind and sheer grit to see you through. Decide now to ignore self-doubt and believe in yourself. Determine that no matter what, you’ll invest your time and talent so you can thrive and survive in the competitive world of publishing.

The second pillar in platform building, self-discipline, is just as difficult and necessary as the first. No one is going to force you to spend time on building a social media platform. If you cut corners, you only cheat yourself. In this series you’ll learn ways to work with social media more efficiently, but learning anything new always starts with an investment of time. The good news is that you can tailor your social media platform to fit within your time constraints. But remaining constant is important, and that takes self-discipline.

The third pillar in platform building is developing and adhering to a plan. Thinking through the sites you will use, how often to update them, and who you will interact with helps you make better use of that non-renewable and precious commodity, time. A good rule of thumb is to devote only 20% of your time to promotion. Platform building should be a large part of your promotional effort. As an example, 20% of a 40-hour work week is the equivalent of an eight-hour day. If you have less hours than that for writing, do the math to find how much time to devote to promotion, and then determine what proportion of that will be spent on platform-building. That will look different for a novelist divided between book promotion and platform management than it will for a writer just starting to learn craft. Once you’ve sorted out how much time to allot, determine how long to work on your social media platform and then follow through.

The fourth pillar in platform building is identifying your support network. As John Dunne famously pointed out, no man is an island, sufficient unto himself. Each of us needs the encouragement of others. If you have the support of your family, you are indeed blessed. But even if it takes your family a while to understand your efforts, other writers already do. Seek them out online or locally and support them as they support you. Church is a great place to find prayer warriors who will encourage and pray for you as a writer.

Unless its pillars are strong, a structure can come crashing down. Make sure these four vital pillars are ready and able to serve the platform you plan to build. We’ve laid the foundation of this series by looking at the spiritual, emotional, and mundane aspects of platform building. With next month’s post we’ll begin analyzing social media sites from a writer’s perspective.

10 Strategies to Keep You Afloat in the Treacherous Social Media Waters

What is Branding Anyway? 7 Reasons Why Seo Companies Care

January 17, 2013January 14, 2013

3 Top Tips to Gain Facebook Fans on Your Author Page

3 Top Tips to Gain Facebook Fans on your Author Page

As a modern day writer, I aspire to hone my craft and make the words sing on the page as much as the greats did, people like Hemingway, Dickens, and the Brontë Sisters.

Okay, that’s a bit of a haughty statement.

Let me just say I work hard at writing better.

But in 2013, writers have the added stress of social media. We write, yes. But we also build, and gather, and hunt. We structure writing platforms. We gather tribes of readers. We hunt for excellent literary agents, and publishing houses that will not only get our work in print, but shine a light on it for the world to see.

It can be exhausting, this business of modern day writing. So I am throwing out three of my best tips about Facebook. My author fan page has proved to be a great tool to interact with potential readers.

Here are three of my top tips to gain Facebook fans on your author page.

1) Make sure your personal page connects to your fan page on the header to allow for cross promotion. Especially now that Facebook wants fan pages to utilize paid promotion, it is vital that your personal page easily and prominently connects friends with your fan page.

If you aren’t sure how to do this, here’s a step by step tutorial from Amy Lynn Andrews from Blogging With Amy.

Likewise, on your fan page, ensure that your author website appears in the “about” section at the top.

2) Provide pictures with text through sites like PicMonkey. When I promote a blog post on my fan page with an uploaded photo, I get more likes and shares. Make sure your website is noted in the corner of the picture. Here are a couple examples:

Check out this post if you’d like a simple tutorial to walk you through PicMonkey. You can use the site for free, or pay a small monthly fee for more options.

3) Know Facebook protocol. For example, it is against the rules to advertise on your cover photo (like a website address). So if you have a header with your website, change it, before Facebook shuts down your page. Also, it is considered bad manners on Facebook to post a blog or an article more than once on your page, whereas on Twitter, you can post three to five times a day. Want to find out more? Read this post from Author Media.

Do you have Facebook tips you’d like to share with us? How do you think Earnest Hemingway would do with social media? Yeah, me too. Happy Facebooking!

January 9, 2013January 4, 2013

Generating Buzz Through Book Reviews

Optimizing buzz from book reviews can be an key part of your book’s overall marketing campaign, so it’s important to make time for it, even if you’re like me and writing isn’t your primary day-job.

Allow me to share a few tips that helped me get SIXTY-THREE book reviews and interviews for my new book, Radical Well-being, while suffering only a short-term, reversible case of utter exhaustion. Yay!!

(1) Establish your platform and develop relationships on the Internet long before you ask people to review your book.

When you pitch to book reviewers, it helps if you already have an established presence on the Internet and elsewhere. That’s why you need as many of these as possible (I included links so you can see what mine look like): an author website, Facebook fan/author & book pages, an Amazon.com author page, at least ten positive reviews on your book’s Amazon.com page, a Pinterest page, a Linked-In profile, a video book trailer on Youtube (see my latest book trailer, for example), a Twitter account, a blog (I actually created an interactive forum for discussion about my diet book–with a blog embedded in it), an Internet talk radio show, a newsletter or e-zine, magazine articles, and as many TV and radio appearances as possible. Don’t necessarily shoot for perfection on your Internet pages before you publish them. Just get your pages up and running. You can improve them gradually, over time, if need be.

(2) Pitch to every reviewer you can, and do it early.

I started collecting names and contact information for book reviewers, columnists, newsletter producers, and bloggers in my specific niche about six to nine months before the official launch date for Radical Well-being. As soon as the reviewers responded with interest, I asked if they would accept an electronic version of the book when it became available. If the answer was “No,” I put them on a separate list to receive a bound galley copy (a rough version of the book).

(3) Ask your publisher for an electronic version of your book to send to reviewers early. Also, get the cover art to include with the book file.

Almost half of the sixty-three people who agreed to review my book were willing to accept an electronic copy. The copy was watermarked by the publisher to deter widespread bootlegging. Attach the book’s cover art, a short author bio, and a book synopsis to the book file when you email it to reviewers, and send sample interview questions if the blogger wants to run an interview about you, as well. Bloggers love it when you suggest questions they might want to ask you.

(4) Try to coordinate reviewers to publish on the day of your book’s actual launch date.

Start well in advance. Otherwise, you won’t allow your reviewers enough time to read your book and write their reviews before your launch date! I had to scramble in this regard, as my publisher unexpectedly moved up my book’s release date by two months! Yikes! To help my publicist get the galley copies out in time, I actually printed out cover letters and mailing labels and snail mailed them to her. That way, all she had to do was put the galleys in the envelopes, insert my signed cover letter, affix the mailing label, and send them off. It wasn’t necessary for me to do that, but it freed her up to get me more media hits than I could get on my own, so it was worth the effort on my part.

(5) Solicit radio interviews well in advance of your book’s launch date, if possible.

You don’t have to be a major author to get radio spots. Try for Internet radio! Some hosts with smaller audiences may be eager to have you on. The nice thing about radio is you can PRE-record shows, thus freeing yourself up for other buzz-building activities on your launch date. Plus, you don’t have to get all dressed up or travel far from home like you do with TV. As a side note…. when you pitch to radio producers, keep in mind they get hundreds of pitches a day. Odds are high they won’t make it past your email’s subject line if it’s boring, so write one that’s enticing! My subject line read, “Christian IvyLeague MedDoc/radio guest/author w/ unlimited FREE Kindle diet book downloads for ALL ur listeners, Jan8-12.” Yes, you read that right. I offered my first book, The Eden Diet, entirely FREE, in exchange for a chance to talk about my second book, Radical Well-being. (By the way, you can have my diet book for FREE, too, if you want it. It’s FREE on Kindle through January 12, 2013. Just follow the link above, which I shamelessly worked into this point. Do you see what I did there? Use every opportunity!)

(6) Make marketing opportunities for your book anywhere possible.

The launch date for my new book, Radical Well-being—A Biblical Guide to Overcoming Pain, Illness, and Addictions, was YESTERDAY!!!! Thus, I wrote this blog entry ahead of time and strategically set it aside for publication today. As you can see, preparing promotional material in advance is critical if you want to achieve optimal buzz around the time of your book’s launch.

(7) Send reminders to your reviewers and radio hosts.

Don’t expect everyone who promised you a review or an interview to necessarily remember your release date. In fact, just assume they already forgot. Send them a “thanks again for agreeing to publish my review on [insert launch date]. May I provide any further information to facilitate your writing the review?” Many reviewers responded with a “I’m so glad you reminded me…” or “Would you mind reminding me again in two weeks? I have a lot going on right now.”

(8) Thank your reviewers with back-links to their reviews.

It’s only courteous! And it’s good for relationship-building. Keep in mind that you might write another book someday and might therefore solicit reviews again from these bloggers! As for me, I intend to publish “thank you’s” and back-links in the February 2013 edition of Dr. Rita’s Christian Health Newsletter, which goes out to over 3400 subscribers. I also posted thank you’s to my reviewers on Facebook and elsewhere.

As you can see, it isn’t easy to create buzz for your new books, but starting early, working hard, and establishing good cyber-relationships certainly helps. A little bit of OCD doesn’t hurt, either.

Do YOU have info to add, here? If so, I’m all ears! What additional advice do YOU have regarding how to solicit and coordinate book reviews and interviews to optimize book buzz? Any and all comments are appreciated!

Blessings from Dr. Rita!

December 28, 2012December 28, 2012

Are Reader Questions Helpful?

After my first avid reading friend told me she had made a vow not to read fiction until the end of the year and hoped by then her desire to read fiction would be gone for good, my thought was, I would never try to convince my friend she should read fiction if she has a conviction against it. I know my life would be very dull without fiction.

Because I could see a reason to relieve any guilt other Christians might have about reading fiction, I became interested in the discussion questions in the back of some of my Christian friends’ novels. They always seemed to reveal the author’s motives in writing that particular story. The questions bring out the growth in the characters as they lived through the events of the story, and as they became better people.

In asking around about lessons on writing reader questions … what type of questions to ask, I learned some of my author friends are required to write the questions but admit they never read them and don’t know why they are asked to provide them.

I never found those lessons. So, I’m not sure how I did it, but I came up with 9 questions for the back of my book.

Last week a writing friend stopped in. I had one proof copy of my book left. A few years back she was writing fiction and it was awesome. Her words take on a lyrical quality. In fact she wrote the most awesome story I have ever read about the murderer Barabbas who was spared crucifixion at the time our Lord was sacrificed for our sins. So I know at one time she understood the place of Christian fiction in our lives.

She took the book knowing it was fiction, but thinking she could read it—for me. And she did give me some points and suggestions for three different changes, which I appreciated. But she couldn’t get past chapter eight because to her it read like a romance. And she had decided a few years ago that reading romance stories were not good for her mind. In fact she has not read fiction at all for several years. So of course she never made it to the discussion questions. I did not know my friend had quit reading fiction when I asked her to read it. And I did not try to convince her to finish it.

Earlier, my sister read a PDF copy of this story, and her words to me were: “Thank you for letting me read your book. At first I thought, ‘Oh dear, this is a Harlequin Romance’—but as the story progressed I realized it wasn’t. I cried when [unnamed character] died. I was on the edge of my seat while Birdie was running through the tunnel. I could picture it all. You have several subplots that make it interesting, but more important, you have several messages about Christian living.”

I’m still trying to come up with a basic template for discovering how to write the best discussion questions for any given book. Do you have any suggestions?

December 19, 2012December 19, 2012

The Results Are In-Did Free Help Sales?

Most of you have heard the arguments for and against offering your book for free to increase sales. I did something a little different by offering a free bonus gift for people who purchased my book, Pioneering Today, for a limited time.

I ran the promotion for two weeks. Because I started the promotion on the launch day of my book, it’s hard to know what my sales would have been without it. I did have several people take me up on the offer. I also had sales where people didn’t request the bonus material.

It made me wonder if they didn’t want the material or they purchased without seeing the offer. (Amazon allows you to see the sales of both Kindle and Paperback to help track.)

I did have the most amount of requests for bonus material on the last day of the promotion. This confirms my belief that you need a time limit on any promotion and shorter may be better. In fact, I had two readers send me the proof of purchase an hour before midnight on the last day.

I’ll definitely offer bonus materials again. I do think for ease of delivery and time-saving, that I’ll make sure all materials are electronic only. Trips to the post office, cost of delivery, cost of the cards, and mainly the time to address material helped me make this decision.

By far the single most driving force of sales has been not the bonus material or free things offered, but the readers. After reading the book, I’ve had numerous people purchase copies (some up to ten) as gifts.

The take away from all this: the best promotional tool you have is your book. Make sure it’s the best it can be. It will speak for itself.

What promotion has prompted you to buy a book? Authors, what marketing or bonus gifts have worked the best for you?