Blog

Sixteen years ago, I wrote and published my first book. It was a children's book called Just Batty. I was so proud to hold that book in my hands. The illustrations were dreadful, and it had some spelling and grammar errors, but I was selling it.

I was also learning my craft. I found a new illustrator, Jackie Gill, who is terrific and would continue to be my illustrator for several more books. I republished minus the errors. But things had begun to change. Technology was changing, and children...

It's a common complaint I hear from authors all the time. "my book is not selling but it's a great book."

I have to ask what are you doing to help sell your book? Are you just sitting there and hoping someone will stumble upon your listing on Amazon and find your book interesting enough to purchase? That is not how it works. I've said this a million times.

After you publish the hard work begins. I don't care if you are traditionally published or and Independent author you still have to put in...

Most every day I get an email or message on my Facebook page that begins with "how are you doing today?" or "I saw you book today" and the person wants to know what my inspiration was or for me to tell them about me book. I bit into it at first. I was over joyed that someone was interested enough and wanted to know more about me and my books. Along the way I learned that it was all a scam to get me to buy into what ever they were selling.

I'm a poor struggling author with hardly a penny to my...

I was at an event yesterday where I didn't expect to sell much of anything. It was at a senior living center in Osprey Florida. these places are notorious in the authors circles for not buying books. The organizer had a select few vendors, jewelry, gifts, cards, and books set up in the lobby. I did surprisingly well. I'll do this event again if asked.

I've also been doing a lot of social media marketing and it's paying off. I spend about an hour or more on my Facebook authors page, LinkedIn,...

I'm trying something new this month. Zeely.com is an interesting marketing platform that I'm playing with. It's for any type of product or service that you can think of and that a person wants to promote.

As an author I'm creating static ads using their templates and AI goes to work and makes up the ad. I used my Florida Wildlife Heroes Series first. Zeely helped me make a campaign to promote all four books in the series. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it did. Before I sold maybe one...

I'm always looking for ways to get my books out there to readers. I had my eBooks with Draft2Digital. They recently offered Digital Voice audiobooks for free. Yeah!! I love Free. I had to do it. I already had some of my books with Findaway voices and paid a narrator/producer.

Then Findaway merged with spotifi and now they are INaudio. My poor brain. I had just created several books created with digital voices through D2D. Some of them have made it to IN audio but some have not. I'm...

Did you know that Audio books are being created using AI now? I've created several audio books using AI through Draft2Digital. That's where I publish my eBooks. D2D uses the Apple platform to distribute audio books. I've been very happy with them so far.

Today I found out that Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon) also uses AI to create audio books with their Audible platform.

For years authors wanting an audio book had to pay a narrator/producer or try an do it on their own, which I would not...

New authors some times try to make things more difficult than they have to be. Things are constantly changing. Companies are taking over other companies. You have to keep up or get lost.

Recently I spoke with an author that had been out of the loop for a while and trying to publish a book and eBook to multiple platforms that was not necessary.

In my opinion you only need one platform for a print book, either Kindle Direct Publishing ( part of Amazon) or Ingram Spark. Amazon is a retailer with...

I never used a Smashwords coupon before until this past Easter Weekend. I didn't think anyone was actually using them. Boy was I wrong. I made a coupon for The Alligator Dance and each of the books in the Green Lady Inn Mystery Series. I was shocked by the downloads they received.

I posted about the coupon on my Facebook author page, Instagram, and the Smashwords page. I'll try another eBook next month and keep the rotation going.

Most of also are connected to Smashwords. I'll be sure to make a...

I wrote a little sarcastic post on my personal Facebook page the other day when I was feeling used and abused. It was after i came home from the eye doctor and he pronounce that i might have the beginnings of glaucoma, wonderful.

Today I went to a luncheon sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women-Sarasota Branch of which I am a member. I was surprised at how many of those members came up to me and commented on that post and asked how I was doing.

Usually I only vent to my...

It's a challenge either way. It's hard finding the time to write when your head is spinning with the normal running of a household. I'm a one man band. I do 99 percent of the shopping, all of the cooking and most of the washing up. My husband works a midnight shift so he sleeps most of the day and unfortunately is pretty useless during the day. There are not enough hours in my day.

I also home school my grandson which I love to do. He's in the 9th grade and doing extremely well. We do butt...

I went to an event at the Venice Gardens Community Center on Shamrock Blvd. yesterday Feb 1. Foot traffic was very light and even not many vendors were there. It's pretty early in this half of the season.

I did pretty well because of repeat customers coming in looking for the next book. Readers like to get to know the author and will stop and chat. It make me so happy when I hear personally how much they liked a book and want to purchase another one.

One comment I hear over and over is the...

One way to get sales of old titles moving again is to revise the covers. I revised the covers of my Green Lady Inn mystery series. It's a five book series set in Salem Massachusetts. I had my designer do this and it took several tries before we got it right. I'm very pleased with the results.

https://amzn.to/3W89z2C

I also updated the cover to Honey Tree Farm. for this one I used Canva. I'd never used this platform before so it took a couple tries before I got it right.

https://amzn.to/34O6Z73

...

Happy Thanksgiving

It was the end of November, and the evening held the warmth of the last days of Indian Summer, with only a slight nip of fall in the air. The smell of burning leaves graced the night air. I sat in the shadows of my front porch, rocking and listening to the night sounds. My old gray sweater wrapped tight around me to keep out the chill. These old bones didn’t take to the cold anymore.
The rocker beside me was empty. I wanted someone to share this incredible evening. Fall was...

I received an email asked for marketing advice from an author the other day. He was doing all the right things on social media, and he has a couple good books.

He has done paid advertising on Amazon and other platforms with lukewarm results. Personally, I do not do paid advertising. I always end up losing money. This author used to go out to events and book clubs talks but has not been out in a while.

I tell all my authors you have to get your butts out the door and make yourself visible to...

I was at five Points Park in Sarasota for the French Market yesterday Saturday Nov. 2. It's usually a pretty good day for me and a couple other authors that attend the event each year. This year one author did not sell a single book, another sold three, I sold six and the author I shared with did ok but not great. There were more vendors and two food trucks this year. The organizers had really done a fantastic job. Slow sales were definitely not their fault. Although I must say there were not...

It’s funny how a simple trip to Walmart can stir up memories and a bit of nostalgia. Today, while walking through the aisles, I couldn’t help but notice something that felt off. Here in Florida, we’re still recovering from back-to-back hurricanes, and it’s not even Halloween yet. But there I was, standing in one of four aisles already packed with Christmas decorations. It made me stop and wonder: When did we let a holiday that's supposed to be about family, tradition, and deeper meanings get...

The bookstore that has carried my books for a couple years has decided that they will no longer take consignments from authors for books. they will only take books that they can order directly from Ingram. AUGH!!!. Being a new author my earlier titles were through KDP.

I have spent the morning trying to figure out how to transfer my best selling older titles from KDP to Ingram Spark. It can be done. You have to take your books title out of expanded distribution and fill out a form to request...

Sorry I'm a bit late with this or a bit early which ever. The hurricane here at my house was rather a none event. Our lights flickered and we lost the TV for ten minutes. The only damage was a few shingles and screens from the pool cage. I do feel for all those that lost everything to storm water damage or were hit hard by the hurricane. At one point the news said that there were about one million people without power.

There is a tale that the Calusa Indians used to come to the...

I read an interesting article on the Jane Friedman site today. It popped up on my phone and I can't get it back. It was from one of her authors about her experiences with traditional publishing. Her first book was picked up and published by Touchstone and imprint of Simon and Schuster. They paid her a substantial advance, did lots of promotions for her, book stores, libraries and the lot. Her book became a best seller and hit the NY times best seller list. It was published in several...