Author Website – Do you have one?

Good Monday morning! As always I hope you had a great weekend. Have you noticed how short they seem sometimes? Well, on to Monday and the countdown to my book signing. Yikes I only have a few days…

Today I want to talk to you about websites. Do you have one? Have you thought about it, but didn’t know where to start? For a long time I thought about it and put it off. Well, now that I have one I’m glad I made the jump. It’s been a great way to meet need readers and spread the word about my books and releases. I can honestly say it was well worth the money to get it up and going.

If you’re unsure about the whole thing I give you some pointers to help make the decision.

1. Websites give you the ability to advertise to a wide variety of people. If someone searches a particular topic, then you could pop up.

2. Your fans will have somewhere to go to keep up with you and to know what’s new with your writing.

3. You can attached your blog to the website and add a new element.

4. Newsletters are easy when you ask people to subscribe to your newsletter through the website.

5. It’s makes you look more professional as a writer and you can sell your books directly from the site…

If you’re still unsure, just shoot me your questions. I’ve recently added Website design to my list of services at Horseshoe Publishing. Put your name out there and watch what happens.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Emotional Roller Coaster…I don’t like roller coasters!

Good Friday morning to all of you. I hope you’ve had a great week. I’ve been a little unplugged mentally this week. Let’s just say my emotional state has gone up the hill, then dropped to rock bottom and then back up again. My brain hurts! I’ve gone from one extreme to the other so fast that I feel like maybe I have whiplash.

My week started with the revisions for Ridge. Yes it releases February 14th so the clock is ticking. Thank goodness the first draft went well and now it’s in the editors hands so, fingers crossed it’ll be ready for print next week.

On the hills of all of the reading, red markers and such, I lost a dear friend to cancer. That hit me in the gut and left me breathless. It’s hard when you see someone often and then you go to not seeing them. At least I know he’s in a better place and cancer free now. Heaven gained a true cowboy on Monday… He asked me one day if any of my cowboy characters were inspired by him. I smiled and said ‘you know it’. Will miss him…

As I trudged through the IRS released tax preparers to start tax filing. If you don’t know it, I’m an Accountant so my busy season officially started on Tuesday. I get excited when tax season starts and wait for the adrenaline to kick in, but I have to say, the older I get the less adrenaline that pumps through my brain.

The highest point of my week and the most exciting thing is that the date has been set for my book signing. What better day for a romance author to have a book signing than Valentine’s Day. It will be February 14th from 3 -5 in Zebulon, Georgia at A Novel Experience Bookstore on the square, I will debuting ‘Ridge’ on that day which is really exciting. So if you’re in this area on Valentine’s Day come by and see me, I’d love to meet you. Stay tuned for more details to come next week!

So as you can tell I’ve been otherwise occupied this week, but hope to be back to normal on Monday. Well, whatever normal is…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Promote or not to promote…that’s the question!

Good morning! I do hope all of you are staying warm. As for me I’m sitting beside the fire wrapped in a blanket. It’s only 12 degrees here in my part of Georgia which is not funny for this southern girl. It’s a beautiful day outside from the bright sunshine, but then you step outside and it hits you like a ice wall. Not even going there!

On to my post for the day… How do you promote your book? Or do you even do any promoting? For me I do promote when I can. Some authors say that they can’t afford to do a lot of promoting, but I have some good news. You can do some really good promotions for free. Yes I said FREE!

Here are some of my favorite free promotional places:

1: You are looking at the first place. Your blog is an excellent place to promote your book. But be careful, don’t overdo it. Sprinkle in promotional posts here and there, but make sure to keep it light. I’ve seen some really good results from it. You can set up a blog for free and make sure to assign a page for your books within your blog setup.

2: Twitter is an excellent place to promote, but as I’ve said above don’t overdo it. I tried an experiment with Twitter and it went really well. A couple of days I didn’t post anything about my books and my sales were normal, but then for a couple of days I sprinkled in some tweets directly from my book pages on Amazon, Smashwords and some of my other book pages. It helped my sales. I actually sold extra books on those days and the trend went that way for days afterwords and then back down to normal. If you spread out your book tweets to several hours apart and use hash tags such as #amwriting #amreading and #ebooks you’ll see some great results.

3: Facebook is another great place. As with any other promotions don’t overdo it. Make sure you have a separate page for your books because your friends my not enjoy seeing your posts repeatedly. I have a couple of different pages for my books and series. That way it keeps them sparse. Make it interesting…

4: Do a press release. I use PRlog.com and it’s really easy to set up. When I have a new release I set up a powerful press release with tags, then you can share it almost anywhere straight from the release page.

5: Your website. You may be saying ‘but you have to pay for a website’. Well actually there are several free places to set up websites, but keep in mind these free websites can be limited. They are still a great place to tag your books.

These are only 5 of the many free sites where you can promote your book. I hope these help out. My publishing service Horseshoe Publishing can help you for minimal costs to set up any of the above options. But if you’re computer savvy then you should be able to do these fairly well.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

It’s that time of year…Are you ready?

This is a step away from my normal writing post, or is it? Well, this is a twofold post. As you may have figured this out, we only have three days left in 2014. Of course if you’ve been off work for the holidays you might not realize what day it is. Anyhow, this is a reminder post of sorts. I want to remind you of some tax deductions that might need to made in the next three days.

If you’re a published author then you’ll need to claim those wonderful royalties you hopefully received during the year. That means that you have income to claim and need deductions to help ward off a nasty tax bill. Since I’m an accountant as well as published author I’m here to help. So here’s a couple of last minute tax helps to get you on the right track…

1: Go through and add up your royalties to make certain of your income. Why is this important? Well, even a couple hundred extra dollars can put you in another tax bracket and that means extra taxes. SO make sure you know what you’re looking at.

2: After you’ve figured out your income level, then go through all those receipts to make sure you grab every expense. Even those notebooks you make notes in are writing expenses. Make sure you start 2015 off right by putting these in a folder marked ‘Writing Expenses’ and then next December you’re writing not searching.

3: Maybe you did really well on royalties this year, I’m hoping you did, but that means taxes. So, if you need a big item to help with taxes this is the time to splurge. It’s actually a good time to do this with all the end of year sales. You could purchase a new writing program, laptop, printer, dragon speak type of program, or any type of electronic/program that you use for writing.

4: Don’t forget last minute advertising. This could be a good time to get your name out to all of those new e-reader owners and get a tax deduction in the process.

5: Stock up on notebooks, pencils, pens, paper and any writing supplies that may be needed in 2015. It’s a mini shopping spree in the making.

I’ve mentioned only five things to help, but you get the picture. It’s important to your wallet to be tax savvy and get the best bang for your tax buck. So many authors don’t think about the little things, but you now have three days to think about it.

If you have questions, just message me and I’ll help.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Gone With The Wind – 75 years old today!

Good Monday morning to all! It’s a beautiful chilly morning here in Georgia. Of course I feel like I’m coming down with my son’s cold. Oh well, tis the Season to have a cold! But I do have exciting news, Gone With The Wind is 75 years old today. If you’ve followed me very long you know this is my favorite movie.

I have posters, snow globes, figurines, newspaper articles, puzzles, pictures, music boxes, etc. of anything GWTW. Shall I go on? I have the book, the 2nd installment not by Margaret Mitchell, but still good and even the book The Road To Tara. And last but not least I have the official 50th anniversary VHS of the movie with extras. I did splurge last year and purchase the DVD. Would you say I like anything GWTW? Well yeah.

I you’re not familiar with the movie then all I can say is “REALLY?” It’s a well written book that was made into a stellar movie. With so many talented actors and actresses it was immediately a smash. Even though it was written about Georgia, it was filmed in California. But when the movie premiered happened it brought all the stars here to Atlanta which was great for publicity.

Of course I have many beloved movies and books, I still go back to this one on rainy days or cold ones for that fact… I just adore Clark Gable. He’s such a charismatic actor and with his looks he played the devilish Rhett Butler with spunk. Then you have Vivian Leigh as Scarlett. Hard to believe she wasn’t a southern lady. But who can forget Hattie McDaniel as Mammy for which she won an Academy Award. I just loved her and her spunky attitude as she told Scarlett exactly how she felt. I just love when she leans out the window to yell at Scarlett, makes me laugh every time. Scarlett needed Mammy’s stern hand and love.

If you haven’t seen it or read the book, Christmas time is a great time to sit down and catch up.

As always, Good Writing and May God Bless You…

Saturday morning writing…

Good morning all! It’s really cold here in Georgia. I’m sitting by the fire with my second cup of coffee and checking my posts. I love this time when I’ve got a little time to write posts, post on sites and work on my writing.

Today I’m working on Ridge, which is the first installment of the 5 Oaks Ranch series. I can’t help but smile as I write each part. As you know me well, I’ve got the outline completed and know basically where the story is headed. Some days I’m so excited that I go ahead of myself. No actually I do. If a certain part is calling out to me, I’ll create a separate word document and get it down. When I actually get to that part, just copy and paste. It helps keep the overcrowding of my brain from completely taking over.

Ridge is a special character to me. He’s got this rough edge that just makes him pure cowboy. The time he spent in Iraq during his two tours of duty have given him a edge that will cut the most unwilling intruder into his world. His only soft spot is his little sister Maggie. The smile she gives him makes some of the stone around his heart chisel away. But the fun part starts the minute he meets Mallory, the new ranch vet. Their sparring will keep you wondering where it’s headed. The fun part is how Ridge avoids things that are unavoidable. Can she break the ice that’s totally Ridge?

For the next couple of weeks I’ll be working on his story. If everything goes well you’ll be able to meet Ridge before New Year’s but let’s just see how it goes.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Thursday Morning Shout Out…

Good Thursday morning everyone. I know I’ve been a little lax in my posts, but I’ve been on a deadline with Her Wish For Christmas. It had to be downloaded by midnight Monday and I met that deadline with six hours left over. That book took a lot out of me because of the emotionally charged content. When I typed the last words and finished the edits I was tickled pink with the results. My editor finished the final read and when she was done, the smile that spread across her face was priceless.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks around here. Of course with my other job as an Accountant, I had end of month, end of quarter and end of tax year. Also had Fall Festival and Trunk or Treat at Church. SO I’ve been a busy little bee lately, but if you’ve read many of my posts you know this is how I like it. The busier the better I always say.

Now that the Christmas book is in Amazon’s hands, I can focus on Ridge. It’s the first book in the new series that’s about a family owned ranch and it’s five children. Each one of them has their own special issues and personalities. Since I’m a cowboy romance writer at heart, this one is exciting. What can I say, I love cowboys and getting to write about them is fun. All I’m planning to say is I can’t wait for you to meet Ridge, the oldest brother. He’s my favorite sibling so far, but once I get into the other’s I’m sure I’ll fall in love with them too. Keep watching for updates on The Five Oaks Ranch series.

The article that I wrote for Southern Writer’s Magazine is out in their Nov/Dec issue. I’m really happy with the results and can’t wait to see the results. If you don’t already subscribe to this magazine, then I suggest you run, don’t walk over to their website and subscribe. It’s a must have for writers. Here’s a little snippet of the article.

Hope all is well with everyone and here’s a little shout out for my publishing service which is having a Christmas sale. We’re offering 10% off all services offered through our company. Find out more at our new website: horseshoe-publishing.com.

As always great writing and May God Bless You…

Upcoming releases and other talk…

Good Tuesday morning everyone. I hope your week is great so far. The weather here in Georgia has gone up slightly, but looking forward to a cooler trend this weekend. I love Halloween and you definitely need it to be cool for the costumes. We have Trunk or Treat at our Church and it’s always a blast. We serve hot dogs and hot chocolate along with all the candy the kids can fit in their bags. I can hardly wait.

As for upcoming releases, my author friend V. Steele has a new release this Friday. V is from right here in Georgia and she loves a good romance. Her My Prodigy Trilogy is coming to a close this Friday with the release of Nadia’s Revenge. Since she uses my publishing service, Horseshoe Publishing, to create her covers and do edits, I was able to read it before the release. Since I do enjoy vampire romances, I enjoyed this one. But let me warn you, the this book has some violent elements, but in the end it’s really good.

V effectively ends the series. I look forward to some of the new things she has coming out. We have many things in common, the main thing being we both love a good romance. Since she’s a Georgia girl too, well it just makes it all the better. The book is on Pre order at Amazon until Friday and then it will be up for sale. So check it out!

For the second release, I’m pleased to announce that the article I was asked to write for Southern Writer’s Magazine will be out soon. I approved the final draft yesterday and am really excited about it. If you don’t already subscribe to Southern Writer’s Magazine, then I suggest you check them out. They offer so much for authors and work closely with you. Also they support authors at every turn. I’m proud to be a subscriber of their magazine.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Self Publishing – A good thing…

I’m back in the grid again. I’ve been working on our Church’s Fall Festival, which was yesterday, so that’s why I’ve been out of the grid for the last couple of days. It went really well, other that the attack of the cotton candy machine. The wind decide to get a little brisk about the time we started the machine up. We all worked hard to get it caught up and bagged, but unfortunately I was covered in cotton candy. Pictures of this mishap are posted on my Facebook page by many friends that thought it was really hilarious…

Ok, on to today’s thoughts. As most of you know I self publish all of my books. It’s a decision I made for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for one of my books to be picked up by one of the big guys, but if not, that’s alright too. I’ve had a couple of publishers call me to inquire about what I have coming up, but once we talked about the percentage of royalties and what they’d do for me if I put my book with them, well I politely turned them down.

I’m a person that researches things a lot, well sometimes too much. I’ve looked into the good points and bad points of going both ways and when I look at the numbers, self publishing wins every time. I have control of what, where, when and all the things that happen with my work. I also make more in royalties than if I went with a publisher.

The tools available now for authors allow you to make awesome covers and publish really great looking books. There are so many outlets for self publishers to post their books for sale and advertising. It’s amazing the rise in just the last two years of the acceptance.

You might be saying, but wouldn’t you sell more with the big publishers. Maybe…but when I talked with one of them, they told me that I’d have to do a lot of advertising and social media myself, which I already do anyway. They didn’t offer very much in the way of marketing, well no more than I do now, so why do anything different.

This is a choice I made for myself. Now a big publisher might be the best fit for you, so understand that I’ve just not had a really good deal thrown at me. The couple I did get just didn’t push the right buttons. Self publishing is more widely accepted now than it was years ago. I’ve actually seen big, NY Times Bestsellers come from self published authors. Many big authors are going back to self publishing. That tells me something.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

What if…

How many times have you asked yourself or someone else the famous question, What if…? Since I’m a writer and a dreamer I’m constantly saying What if… It’s part of my make up. The dreamer in me always has another way to do things and the writer in me says what if this character does this or goes there.

What if… I turn a book into a big publisher and they accept it, signing this big contract and a nice advance.

What if… My newest book goes viral.

What if… The book on domestic violence that I’m working on makes a difference in someone’s life. (That’s the goal)

What if… What if… What if… We’re full of lots of them, even if we don’t think we are. Think about it. How many times do you say this one simple phrase in a day, whether out loud or in your mind? You might be surprised. It only means you’re a dreamer. Think about it.

As always, great writing and May God Bless You…