Mastodon The Writing Desk: July 2012

31 July 2012

New eBook Launch: Personal Productivity For Busy Managers


Personal productivity is under scrutiny as never before. In every sector global recession means continued pressure to reduce costs and increase productivity. All organisations are now driven to shine a spotlight closely at the contribution from every manager. A brilliant track record is no longer any guarantee of future job security. What matters is how much value you are adding now. 

So how do we really do more with less? There are plenty of books with tips on how to manage your time - but although time management is likely to be part of the solution, it will not be enough on its own. The answer is to take control of your own productivity and lead by example, drawing on practical experience and develop innovative approaches that will really make a difference.


Keynote speaker and productivity specialist Neen James says, “In today’s hectic workplace, it’s not just time management that you have to master, it’s super-productivity that gets the results. The secrets of super-productivity are not about working more; they’re about focusing your time, effort and energy on the things that will deliver the best results for you. It doesn’t mean ‘work longer’, ‘invest more money’, ‘create more lists or put your lists in a certain order’. It means: do less of the things that have no significance and more of the things that create an impact.”




You may be a top executive in an international corporation or responsible only for yourself. There are one hundred tips here, based on the experience of many managers in every type of organisation - so the challenge is to pick just ten that seem to fit with how YOU would like to work and see what you can do to increase your personal productivity.



Preview Personal Productivity For Busy Managers 

30 July 2012

Guest Post: Matthew Wright - Convicting New Zealand’s past



It is a couple of years now since Penguin New Zealand’s former managing editor, Geoff Walker, approached me with a request. I’d just finished my history of the ‘musket wars’ for them – ‘Guns and Utu’ – which covered the Maori side of New Zealand’s past from around 1810 to 1845.
Now it was time to do the British side of the same time and place. Specifically,  the story of the convicts who leaked out of Australia from 1788. 

Of course I thought that was a good idea, too. The thing about New Zealand’s past is that we popularly think it began in 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed – and Crown government began. But of course Maori had been in the place since the 1280s (by the latest estimates), and by

1840 the British and Americans had been around for half a century or more, too.

Most of the Europeans didn’t behave too well. It was a classic example of what Niall Fergusson has called lawlessness leaking from the periphery of Empire. Isolation and the fact that they were literally outside the long arm of British law gave license, it seemed, for would-be traders and sea captains to behave badly.

In New Zealand’s case, they were joined by actual criminals – convicts and former convicts who had been transported from Britain’s over-packed prison hulks to Botany Bay and the other prison colonies in Australia. Most of them were not particularly hardened criminals; back in the 1780s it was possible to be transported for stealing a coin or two. Or filching coats from corridors on Sundays. Or stealing panes of glass from butchers’ windows (I am not joking).

But although these transported folk had not done much, the world they found was leveller – and it hardened them.  It was also possible to walk out of it. The walls of Botany Bay were not stone; they were distance. And none of the prisoners knew exactly how much distance.

The escapes began even as the First Fleet arrived from Britain – and a good chunk of them ended up in New Zealand. It wasn’t too surprising. None of the convicts knew exactly wher they were. Some thought China was just over the horizon to the west. Others hoped that by stowing away on one of the ships leaving Sydney, they might be carried off to some magical tropical island, usually Tahiti.

In fact, most of them ended up in New Zealand, including a woman named Charlotte Badger who is often considered New Zealand’s first pakeha (white) settler.

Some of them – foolishly - thought that Maori would be so over-awed by white skin as to treat them like lords. Naturally Maori were not going to tolerate any of that nonsense. They were not impressed by convict behaviour in the slightest – and the convicts had to work, or they didn’t eat. Quite a few threw themselves on the mercy of passing British ships, trying to get away.

As time went on other convicts arrived legally. By the 1820s many of the former prisoners were being freed – they had done their time and could rejoin society. Not that they had any way of getting back to Britain. But New Zealand beckoned, and as the whaling industry began expanding it attracted a good selection of former convicts to work on it.

All of this contributed to the notion that Europeans in New Zealand were a lawless bunch. When the Treaty of Waitangi established Crown government and the first large-scale settlements appeared, all in a rush around 1840, there was a good deal of back-pedalling. Upright middle-class settlers drew a line in the sand – hoping to distance themselves from the moral stain they imagined had coloured their immediate past.

New Zealand’s convict past was ruled out of history. It was never secret – and historians, later, wrote down some of the more lurid adventures. But it was conveniently hidden from easy view.


Convicts: New Zealand’s hidden criminal past is by Matthew Wright and published by Penguin

 You can get ‘Convicts – New Zealand’s Hidden Criminal Past’ here



Matthew Wright blogs at: http://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com    He is one of New Zealand’s most published historians, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College, London.

21 July 2012

Antofagasta - A Novel by Alex Barr


Although he was British my father-in-law was brought up in Peru. My wife Rosemarie had always wanted to see the house in the Lima suburb of Miraflores where he lived. Years after he died she asked her aunt to remember the address. Fackary? What kind of street name was that? But there was a Figari, and there it was, the house he was once photographed outside—now a pizzeria.
We went to Peru via Chile, which in 1990 was just emerging from the nightmare of the Pinochet era. People were beginning to speak freely again. This is the setting for my novel Antofagasta. As my favourite author Borges is South American, it seems appropriate. (We were told Chileans regard Argentinians as a bit too full of themselves.) We found Chileans charming and pleased that we visited their country. So although the villain of the novel is Chilean, it should be obvious that he is very much the exception.
I’ve always loved road movies and detective stories, and Antofagasta has elements of both. Shakespeare fans may detect signs of larceny from the works of the bard. I’ve done a lot of amateur acting. My last appearance was as a headless ghost at the opening of Fishguard Arts Society’s latest exhibition. Places and travel are important to me and have inspired a lot of the short stories I’ve written. Sadly, my travel these days is restricted, having taken to heart the words of George Monbiot on climate change, ‘If you fly, you destroy other people’s lives.’
At the moment I’m branching out—to my surprise—into illustration, which I haven’t done since I drew political cartoons for The Wichita Beacon. (Jo Ellen in the novel worked for the sister paper, the Eagle, but as she’s fictitious I never met her.) I’m collaborating with Peter Oram of Starborn Books on a very unusual series of books for children. More anon when I get my blog going . . . meanwhile thanks to Tony for hosting me on his.

Alex Barr

Preview Antofagasta - A Novel

17 July 2012

Special Guest Post: Monica La Porta, author of 'The Priest' (The Ginecean Chronicles)

Va dove ti porta il cuore...

Follow your heart...

I’m visiting my parents in Umbria. Sitting under the shade of the porch, I look at the terracotta roofs ahead and my mind wanders. I close my eyes and breathe in the gentle breeze traveling from the Mediterranean Sea. I can hear the leaves of the two majestic mulberry trees swaying like waves crashing against the pebbled shores. I think about life and the twists and turns that sometimes take you faraway from where you started. Twelve years ago, I left Italy and moved to the USA with my barely intelligible British English and no idea of what I was going to find. Twelve years later, my accent is still thick and I have published two books in a language that is not my own. Maybe it’s because a teacher once told me that learning languages wasn’t my forte, maybe it’s just because I like challenges, but every single time I finish writing my daily quota of words I smile. I’m smiling right now. The peaceful, agrestic landscape of the Umbria’s rolling hills helps, of course. But I would be smiling in the midst of torrential rains. I would be smiling anywhere. I write, therefore I’m happy.
  Three full years ago, after the rather cliché enlightenment that life can be short, I decided I was old enough to find what gave meaning to my days. I’ve been voraciously reading since I was six, my genre of choice science fiction in every form and shape. I love any read that transports me into distant universes and other dimensions. I’ve been soiling the usual amount of paper napkins and loose blank pages with my thoughts ever since. Despite the truth was right before my eyes, it still took me several years before I realized typing words on a keyboard was my call. Since I started, a fatidic morning of 2009, I’ve never let a day pass without writing.
  Back at the university, I realized only too late I liked sociology and anthropology better than the classes I had chosen; in my twenties, I remember reading a book about a forgotten marine tribe with the same enthusiasm I had devoured Martian Chronicles by R. Bradbury at the tender age of ten; for me they were equally entertaining and exotic. I live in a reality I know all too well and that I often dislike, escaping it is all I ask to my reading material. As a natural progression, I love writing what if-stories, where starting from society as we know it I twist one or more established aspect and present it back from a different angle to ponder about. Building mirror-image worlds gives me great joy.
  My Ginecean Chronicles are set in an alternate Earth, a planet called Ginecea, where society has evolved in a different way from ours. Women rule over enslaved men and heterosexual love is taboo. My current work in progress is about a world where people live inside a cave in a state of perennial darkness and are scared of light. I like to play with reality, change one or two fundamental aspects and see what happens when right is left and up is down.
  A stronger gust of playful wind closes a window with a noisy thump. I open my eyes and I’m back to now, in Umbria. The sun is lower on the horizon, disappearing behind the roofs. My life too was thrown upside down twelve years ago, but I’ve travelled far from the person I was and I’m glad I challenged myself time and again. I’ve found a strength I didn’t think I had and with that a sense of accomplishment that makes me go to bed every night happy. It’s never too late to find your true call. Sometimes, you must wait for years and cross oceans to find it, but, if you look hard you’ll discover it was always there, in your heart.
  Thank you, Tony, for having me on your blog.


  If you’d like to know more about me, please visit my blog where I normally talk about my beagle, painting, sculpting, and sometimes even writing: http://monicalaporta.com/
  If you’d like to take a look at my books’ covers and read an excerpt from them, please visit their Amazon pages:
Finally, this is the link to The Ginecean Chronicles’ Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#%21/ginecea

15 July 2012

Book Launch: Terra Nova - Antarctic Voyager


Foreword by Dafila Scott, granddaughter of Captain Robert Falcon Scott: 


A hundred years after my grandfather Captain Scott’s last expedition to the Antarctic, it is now possible to assess not only the tragedy of the deaths of the polar party but also the scientific legacy of the expedition, which was considerable. In this book, Tony Riches gives an account of the expedition and its scientific legacy but focuses first on the interesting history of the Terra Nova, the expedition ship, which proved suitable if leaky for its purpose in the Southern Ocean. He also draws attention to letters written by one of the crew members, Captain Scott’s brother-in-law, Wilfred Bruce, which give a first hand account of life on the Terra Nova and include vivid descriptions of different periods during the expedition. These help one to imagine what it was like to be there.

Dafila Scott July 2012




  Preview Terra Nova now on Amazon UK or Amazon US

8 July 2012

Guest Post by Sadie Forsythe - The Problem With Genres


Genre or Popular Fiction is fiction that fits nicely into a predefined literary genre. I imagine we all recognize Action Adventure, Crime, Detective, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Western, and Inspirational, etcetera. Fitting a short piece firmly into its genre is a fairly undaunting task. A full-length novel, however, can pose problems. There are simply so many pages in which the plot could veer off course. 

The introduction of ereaders and virtual bookshelves is changing the way we choose, and possibly even think about, books. It has enabled booksellers to cross-pollinate genres, placing the same book in multiple genres simultaneously and introducing readers to authors and peripheral genre books they may not have sought access to traditionally. This appears to be something readers appreciate, or at least don’t mind.

The modern publishing industry, however, is feeling the financial crunch just like the rest of us and is becoming increasingly dependent on books fitting snuggly into their genre to ensure salability. But the more tightly a book fits in a genre the higher the likelihood it follows a comfortably familiar plot development and conclusion. It seems to me that the more often books are forced (by virtue of only be picked up by publishers if they do) to fit this flow, the closer the classification of Genre Fiction is to slipping over into Formula Fiction, with its recycled predictable plots.

There is, admittedly, only a thin grey line between the two to begin with and Formula Fiction isn’t without its own moderate appeal. With much of the setup and expectations already established by virtue of the genre conventions there isn’t a need to explain them again and a story can be leapt right into—great for an airport read. Or the daring author might even use that same predictability to subvert expectations and play with the reader’s preconceptions.

One way or the other though, long established genre classifications are changing and new ones seem to pop up regularly. So while the field is becoming more cluttered with choice, the question one has to ask themselves is how different are these new genre? I might, for example, argue that much of (not all obviously) Paranormal Romance is simply formulaic fiction with a paranormal plot. The same has always been true of Romantic Comedies.

I consider this dangerous. It creates an illusion of variety in the market that isn’t real. Readers are offered a plethora of almost identical books under different headings and told they’ve never had more choice. This latter statement isn’t all together untrue, but that choice isn’t coming out of the big six as far as I can see. It’s coming from the small presses, indies, and self-published authors who couldn’t find a home in the slim generic genre options available to them.

As the traditional publishing industry increasingly becomes the purview of safe, predictable fiction many authors seeking a more adventurous audience are pursuing other publication paths, indie or self-published. These publishing types are growing almost exponentially and, again, readers don’t seem to mind on the whole. Whether this is a permanent change or a mere trend until the traditional publishing industry finds a way to stabilize profitability in the new market is still to be seen.

In the mean time for those who like to know what they’re getting it’s a great time to be a reader, for the rest of us it is becoming more challenging to find original genre fiction. It’s there. I’m not claiming there isn’t any. It’s just becoming harder to find. If asked for my own, usually optimistic opinion, I think the situation will pass and eventually publishers will find a way to support themselves and provide both quality and variety again. But for the moment they can only afford to take so many risks and it makes for rather stale offerings.

...But for the moment they can only afford to take so many risks and it makes for rather stale offerings. What do you think? Is anyone less optimistic than me or see it from a different perspective?



Sadie Forsythe hails from the South Eastern United States, lives in North Western England, and is a fan of all things Japanese. She holds degrees in Anthropology/Comparative Religion, International Criminology, and Social Change. She loves local coffee shops, geek culture, everything bookish, & tea (steaming with milk & sweet iced). She is married with two daughters and an imaginary dog. 

Follow Sadie @SadieSForsythe on Twitter
 or visit Sadie's blog at: 

Southern Writers Magazine Welcomes New Readers with FREE July Anniversary Issue


Six times a year Southern Writers Magazine helps you get up close and personal with leading Southern authors, poets, screenwriters, lyricists and other bestselling wordsmiths, all sharing their secrets of success.

The anniversary issue is free online during the entire month of July


Click HERE for your copy

4 July 2012

Guest Post by Katie Jennings: How to not make my mistakes and have a GREAT book launch!


Alright, so I’ve done this four times now, right?  Dryad Quartet, four books…yep, four books published, and all unique book launches.  While that doesn’t make me an expert BY ANY MEANS, it does at least mean that I’ve tried a lot of different strategies, both ones that have worked and ones that haven’t.  Here’s my advice (for what it’s worth to ya!) on what I’ve had work for me.  Proceed with caution, people.  My antics are embarassing and pathetic, but I’m sharing them with you because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made!

When I jumped into the world of self publishing, I was like a lost little duckling wandering around aimlessly, desperately trying to figure out my place and what I was meant to do with my time.  I mean, marketing is supposed to be a constant, never-ending task, right?  But what happens when you don’t have the slightest idea of where to start and what to do?

Well, that’s probably why my first book launch failed miserably.  Okay, let me clarify a bit here.  The book itself has not failed (exactly the opposite, really, as Breath of Air made it to the bestsellers lists in both Fantasy AND Contemporary Fantasy on Amazon) but that’s only because I, over time, have corrected all of the mistakes I made in the beginning.  Here’s what I did when I launched book one:

NOTHING.  Yes, you read that right.  I did nothing.  Nope, I just threw my book up on Amazon after creating a beautiful cover and interesting blurb and all the fun stuff.  Then I sat back and said, “Okay readers, come find my book!”  Boy, if only I’d known then what I know now…but, alas, I didn’t.  So this is what I did after my book was published (and I realized the big, crucial marketing mistake I’d made!):

Step one:  Facebook fan page

Well, my husband actually made it for me as a surprise a couple of days after the book was on Amazon, and I didn’t even know if I was going to keep it.  No one’s going to want to “like” my fanpage, they don’t know who I am or what I do yet.  I don’t need it.  OH HOW SILLY I WAS.

See, for those who don’t know, there is this nifty website called World Literary Cafe.  If you haven’t joined yet, then promptly smack yourself on the forehead and go to that website and join for God’s sake!!  They are an invaluable community for self published authors.  See, they have this  awesome thing called the Facebook Like Program where you submit your information and thus join a long list of other authors.  Then you proceed to “like” all of the pages above you on that list.  And then, BAM! the “likes” start rolling in and people start spreading the word about you on Facebook.  It’s genius!

So see, my early fears about no one bothering to like my Facebook fan page were very, very misguided.  And see my mistake here (as I stated before) was that I didn’t set up my Facebook fanpage BEFORE I launched my book.  Wow, what a concept, right?  See, if I had had my Facebook page set up for me as an aspiring author with a book to be released in the near future, I could have started spreading the word, drumming up excitement for my book, etc.  Instead, I had a book out already, so there was nothing fun to announce to my new followers.

Needless to say, while my savvyness on Facebook has finally improved to a reasonably practical level, I still lament that I was so clueless about what to do in the beginning!

BTW, while we’re on the topic of Facebook…let me offer a GEM of advice that I suggest fellow authors take immediately…you know how they are pushing us to buy Facebook ads now?  Okay, well I had some promotional credits from GoDaddy for Facebook in the amount of $50.  I used them to make a cute little ad for my fanpage.  FOR THE FIVE DAYS THAT THE AD RAN MY “LIKES” TRIPLED!!  Yes, you read that right.  I went from just over 100 “likes” to over 380 “likes” in a matter of days!!  So, if you think these ads are not worth it, think again!  I will be putting another $50 in very soon because more “likes” means just that many more people see my posts and may buy my books.  Win!!

Step two:  Author Blog

I’d read somewhere that authors were supposed to keep blogs in order to connect with readers and stuff.  And while I don’t know if any of my readers have discovered my blog and read it on a daily basis (lol) I still have found it a very good asset for connecting with the writing community.  That’s why so many of my posts are related to the practice of writing and not to promoting my own work.  The readers perusing Amazon are probably not going to stumble upon my blog.  But fellow authors who are seeking advice or an interesting read are going to see my blog.  And connecting with people and helping them is like the golden rule…treat others the way you want to be treated, you get what you give, good karma, etc.  I can’t tell you how many friends I’ve made in just the last few months from networking within the author community.  And so many of them are amazing people who have not only been a joy to meet, but they’ve helped me grow and prosper as an author.  So see, a blog is such an important tool, not just for promoting your work (which you should of course still do!) but for cementing yourself in the Indie community by helping others!

Step three:  Twitter

Again, something I should have done BEFORE launching my book (poorly planned, Katie, geez. What kind of Virgo are you??).  But as soon as I did set up a Twitter account, it was fairly easy to get followers.  Again, I used WLC and their awesome Twitter Follow Program to connect with other authors.  And by following other authors, I was invited by Twitter to follow self described book lovers, book reviewers, publishers, cover art designers, book clubs, aspiring authors, etc.  This is the exact community you want reading your tweets, and they will be the most helpful in retweeting for you.

I like to use the hastag #authorRT whenever I create a tweet, as many great authors also use this and will seek you out and retweet for you.  It’s a great system and it really works!  Just make sure you retweet for them too as a courtesy.  Again with the “get what you give” thing…

Step four:  Utilize Amazon’s KDP Free Days

I didn’t use my first free day promo until nearly three weeks after I published Breath of Air.  I guess that’s okay, but I sure wish I’d done it earlier!  See, my first promo I went in completely blind.  I just scheduled it, and then let it happen without doing much about it.  I may have posted on FB, but I think that was it as far as my marketing went for it.  So, low and behold, I had like 1,500 downloads.  MEASLEY!  I mean, at the time I was bouncing off the friggin walls with excitement, thinking that was just incredible.  Little did I know…

See, here were my mistakes:  as said before, I had a poor social network set up for my book, few followers, no author friends, I could barely create a functional tweet to save my life, etc.  Secondly, I didn’t announce my free day to any of the websites (Pixel of Ink, Digital Book Today, E-Reader News Today, Frugal Reader, etc!).  So, in essence, no one knew my book was free, and since it was so low ranking anyways because very few people had bought it seeing as I had done NO marketing to speak of before launching my book, my free promotion went largely unnoticed.

NOT SO THE SECOND TIME AROUND!  Oh no, I’d learned, you see.  I did another free promo about two weeks later (so soon, I know, but I had realized my mistakes and was determined to try again!) and by then I had become more established online in all the ways I should have been from the start, AND I had sent out my info on the free day to all the good websites.  Lucky for me, I was picked up by all of them (including the gold mine that is Pixel of Ink!) and I sat back that day and watched 13,000 copies of Breath of Air go walking out the door.  Yep, TEN TIMES as many downloads.  Thank you, marketing!  Lesson learned, right? lol

Alright, so those are the steps I took AFTER book one was launched.  Do you see which BIG one is missing?  Let’s just say I was in denial for many weeks, either out of laziness or spite or something, I don’t know.  But I was determined to NOT set up an author website.

I know, right now you’re going “REALLY?!”  I don’t blame you.  It was pure ignorance on my part thinking that my blog was enough of a draw for readers.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!!  Anyways, I think sometime after I published book two it occurred to me that I was being foolish and that I had to get off my ass and make a damn website.  And not one of those freeserver ones, no.  I had to cough up some dough and pay for a legit domain name so people would start taking me seriously.  GoDaddy has great prices and an easy to use platform, so I would suggest using them.  BUT PLEASE, PEOPLE, MAKE A WEBSITE BEFORE YOU PUBLISH YOUR BOOK!

Don’t make the same mistake I made.  It all goes back to branding and marketing.  You need to have an established persona, per se, online before you even put your product out for sale.  You want your book launch to be as successful as it can be, and the only way to do that is by having all of these items done BEFOREHAND.

Okay, so I had all of the abovementioned things, and went ahead and published book two.  I did some Facebook posts, some tweets, did a blog post about it, etc.  Andddddddd……not very exciting.  Sure, I sold quite a few given that people who had snapped up book one for free during my awesome free day were now excited to discover book two was available, but I didn’t do anything special really to announce the release.  I didn’t drum up any hype, no excitement, no thrill.  I just published the book after a few posts and that was that.  UGH – still stupid, Katie.  Geez, didn’t you learn the first time?

Well, I was determined to learn my lesson when it came time to publish book three.  And this time, I was going to do something REALLY different.

I was going to do a Release Day Blog Party and Blog Tour.  Sounds fun, right?  Fortunately for me, an awesome blogger who had discovered Breath of Air and loved it offered her services to me for this release party.  I had no idea how it was going to go down, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.  BTW, if you’re interested, you can find her here: Shadow Blog Tours.

So she set up a great blog post announcing the release, showing book covers and blurbs and trailers for the books and an author bio with my picture and an excerpt from book one, all the fun stuff.  She also did a raffle (I was offering a set of signed print copies of the books).  To my surprise, in the 6 days of the raffle, over 350 people entered! Very cool.

Here’s the kicker.  While planning for the release party and doing all the appropriate website/blog/FB/Twitter/Goodreads announcements and events (the way it should have been done from the get-go!) my husband suddenly had the bright idea that I should release book four at the same time as book three.  See, I had had all four books written since late last year, so there was really no reason to wait.  It just seemed unprecedented to release two books in the same series at once (to me anyway, I’m sure it’s been done but I had never seen it).  But I went ahead with it and so the Release Day party included both books.

The blogger was able to get seven or eight other great blogs to participate in the blog tour/release party, and so my information went out to all of those different blogs.  It was tweeted by all of them and drew quite a bit of attention!

Needless to say, my sales numbers for the final two books in my series (compared to what I saw with the first two books) was just incredible.  I mean, we’re talking a dramatic, hefty increase.  And it’s all thanks to the RIGHT kind of marketing.

But I still didn’t do EVERYTHING I could have done.  You see, I’m still learning, too.  We are all still learning, even seasoned pros.  And it’s because the world of self publishing is (as I always say) an ever-changing landscape.  New ways to market are always popping up and are tried and tested in the field for all to see.

Here are some things that I wish I had done before, but that I definitely intend to do when I release my next book in August:

1.  In the month leading up to the release, post just the cover image of the book out there along with the release date.  Come up with some cool tagline to go along with it to catch people’s attention.  Continue posting this cover image on different FB pages in a cycle all the way up until release day, the heaviest promoting being done of course in the week prior.

2.  Do a “BUY ON THIS DAY!” type promo where you create a raffle to win a Kindle or an Amazon giftcard, and to enter people have to buy your new release on release day and send you their receipt in an email.  I saw this on another blogger’s site and I really think it could work!  If you can get enough people to do it, your book’s rank will jump dramatically and give it the exposure it needs to get going!

3.  Create a Twitter hashtag specifically for your new release.  In the month prior to the release, use this hashtag and request that others do too when referring to your new book.

4.  Send out Advanced Review Copies of your book to your author friends in exchange for a written review for you to include in your book (cover, inside, Amazon page, etc).

5.  Every week, release something new about the book.  For example:  first week, book cover.  Second week, some good quotes from the book.  Third week, a Review from one of those ARCs you should have sent out.  Fourth week, a snippet of the book for people to read and get excited about.

That’s all I can think of for now, but trust me, there are countless other options out there, and I suggest trying them all.  What have you got to lose?  This is a game that is always changing on us, and the best we can do is work our hardest to stay on top of it all.

So good luck, fellow authors.  I wish you the best!

Katie Jennings is  a mid-twenty-something year old girl with an imagination for days and a supportive husband who thinks she’s a colossal nerd. She writes because she loves it, and because breathing life into characters is the greatest escape she’s ever found. Most of her time is spent puttering around online, editing her latest book, or feeding people food to her cat. She lives just north of Los Angeles, and enjoys reading fantasy and romance novels, watching Once Upon a Time, playing around on Photoshop, and finding new music to fall in love with. She believes in, above all else, happy endings!

Katie's Website:  www.katieajennings.com

Find Katie on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/dryadquartet

Follow Katie on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/dryadquartet   

Read Katie's Blog:  www.katieajennings.wordpress.com

* * *  Tell us about your book launch experiences? * * *