X is for eXtremely Crazy

Debra has a crazy goal to garner sales for her new release.

It's here! The fifth and final installment in the Holidays at The Corral series hit cyber shelves today. New Year's Eve at The Corral is the shortest of all the books. I definitely planned it that way, and while it would seem that a short book would sell well because of its price (99 cents regular price, on sale at TWRP for 50 cents through Friday), my editor mentioned that books of that length don't really sell well. Plus, I'm not that great at marketing. I used to do blog tours for each of my books, but busy life (and a touch of laziness I'll admit) got me out of that habit.

But I wanted to come up with SOMEthing to help sell these books. So, I came up with a really crazy goal of trying to sell 1,000 copies of this book, using mostly word of mouth. The challenge (as I'm calling it) will officially kick off in January. I'm still figuring out a few details and logistics: how to use Rafflecopter as I've never done it before, finding blogs who will let me guest and post about my promotion, setting up a Facebook event, etc. School is out in two days for Christmas break. I'll be tackling those issues then.

In the mean time, here's the basic idea of what I have planned.

#sellathousand

The Challenge:

When I submitted this story, my editor told me books of this length don't sell well. My immediate thought was how fun it would be to prove her wrong. (In the best way possible!)

Almost immediately an idea began to form. As crazy as it sounds, I decided to challenge myself to sell a thousand copies of this book. Why a thousand, you ask? Simply because a hundred didn't seem like enough (LOL).
For less than the cost of a cup of coffee (and I'm not even talking about one of those fancy frou frou ones) you can help me win this personal challenge. All you have to do is buy a copy of the book. (Passing word of the challenge along to your reader friends would be appreciated, too.)

You might be thinking: What's in this for me? Well, I'll tell you...First, you get to read a great story! You also have the chance to win a some prizes. (And who doesn't love prizes?) If you buy a copy of the book, if you tell a friend (or two or three or ten....you know, like those old commercials: And she told two friends and she told two friends and so on and so on...), if you Tweet about the challenge or post about it on Facebook, or if you leave a comment here, you can earn Rafflecopter entry points. The winner of the Rafflecopter drawing will get a paperback set (autographed of course!) of the original Corral series: This Time for Always, This Can't Be Love, and This Feels Like Home (If you're outside the continental U S of A the set will be digital.) AND digital copies (in the format of your choice) of the first four books in the Holidays at The Corral series (Christmas, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, and Halloween).

So, what are you waiting for? Go grab a copy of New Year's Eve at The Corral!
TWRP: http://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/4728-new-year-s-eve-at-the-corral.html
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MEEI0NN?tag=thewildrosepr-20
B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/new-years-eve-at-the-corral-debra-st-john/1124933779?ean=2940156932573

Happy Reading and many, many thanks for participating in my challenge!

P.S. If you can't wait to find out if you've won copies of the holiday books, they are on sale for $0.99 each for the month of January 2017.

So, what do you think? Am I crazy?!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

X is for eXhaustion

Paula’s brain hurts! 

Some people think it’s easy to write a novel. They think you sit down at the computer or with your laptop or with pen and paper, and the words pour forth.

Wrong!

I can’t find an authoritative source for this statement, but here is one version of it: There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein and bleed. Substitute computer for typewriter and you have the modern version.

Maybe that is somewhat extreme, but I don’t know any writer who thinks writing is ‘easy’. Except, maybe, for one writer who claims she writes 8-10K words each evening – although I do wonder if that is physically possible (and if it is, what the quality of writing is like.)

Far more realistic, to my mind, is the comment by one writer: Writing is like giving yourself difficult homework every day of the year.

There may be times when the words DO flow, but far more often writing is a struggle – and requires your brain to work overtime. It might be a relatively simple thing, like trying to find the right word to convey the exact meaning you want. Or it can be (and often is) something more complex, like working out your characters’ inner emotions/goals/motivation. Several of my novels have had an element of intrigue – and sorting that out is rather like trying to wind slippery spaghetti around a fork, thinking you’ve succeeded and then realising half a dozen strands have slipped off the fork and onto your lap.

Thinking out all the twists and turns while you plot your story (or in my case, write the first draft) is hard work! It’s often mentally exhausting – so much so that your brain seems to ache as it goes around in circles. At times I find myself wondering why I do it. Why don’t I find something less taxing to do? The reason, of course, is the sense of achievement when the story is finally written, polished, and edited. It’s only too easy then to forget all the brainwork and exhaustion – until you start to write the next book!

X Is For eXcitement

Jennifer is excited about possibilities…

Okay, first of all, I know how to spell. But when it comes to the letter X, I have to be a little creative, so I hope you’ll indulge me. J

Thanks to some reorganizing of my life, and some good news, I’m finally feeling hopeful again about writing. The reorganizing involved dropping activities that were stressing me out and killing my soul. By doing that, I’ve gotten more time to write and have reinvigorated my creative juices. The good news was a recent contest that I finaled in. It’s given me a much-needed boost to keep going.

So what does that all mean? It means I’m writing and enjoying myself. I’m submitting and not getting discouraged or losing hope. I’m supporting my writer friends and critique partners, knowing we’re all in the same boat, even if sometimes that boat is a dinghy and other times a yacht. I have a plan for who to submit what to when. And I’m sticking with it.

So, yeah, I’m excited. 2017 is going to be great!

Holding on to the letter X

Ana muses on the letter X

Stick-on arrows compete with X for noting where to sign.
Bulls' eyes say just as well 'Aim here.'
<> has slipped into the electronic vernacular. 
But I still sign gift cards with xoxoxox.

W is for When

Debra wonders when she'll get motivated to write again.

It's been over three months since I've written anything (aside from my weekly blog posts and newsletters for school). On August 27 I wrote 515 words. My previous 'entry' on my 'how many words' list was a month prior to that. I wrote 57 words on July 27. Before that it was 120 words on July 21. I'm pretty sure, other than edits, I didn't write much of anything else over the beginning part of the summer either.

To say that I'm in a writing slump might just be the understatement of the year.

Since being published in 2008, I've had at least one release every year. In 2016 I'll have four. However, if something doesn't change (and soon) that number is going to be a big, fat ZERO for 2017.

The problem is I'm just not motivated. I just don't care. At the moment, I have no interest in writing. I have several ideas for books I want to write. Several WIP that are languishing on my thumb drives and computer. But there is no desire to do anything about them. I even had some free time the other night (and how often does THAT happen?), but instead of sitting down at the computer, I kind of wandered around the house wondering what I should do.

I'm pretty sure I've been in a writing slump before. But this one seems to be a mega, uber slump.

Last year at this time I was on a major roll and was in the processing of cranking out the four novellas which were released this year.

Maybe I burned myself out a little bit. Maybe my writing hobby was just a passing phase and I'm done with it. I really hope it's not the latter. When I'm in the mood, I really do enjoy writing and seeing my characters and stories come to life on the page.

Hopefully someday (SOON) that drive and desire will come back and I'll happily click away at my keyboard again.

In the meantime, I need to put together a publicity campaign for my NYE story which is coming out next week. (Nothing like waiting until the last minute, right?) I have the idea all ready to go,I just need to implement it, but too often I find myself falling into the 'not motivated' category for this too. Ay yi yi...what is wrong with me?!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

W is for Why I Write

Paula explains when and why she started to write.  

Some people say, “I decided to write when …” or “I became a writer when …"

When I see comments like this, I’m very aware that I never ‘decided’ to write, and I never ‘became’ a writer. I’ve always been a writer, at least from the time I learnt to write. Before that I created stories in my mind, inventing adventures for my dolls and Teddy bear. It was a natural progression to write some of those stories and when I was about eight, my class teacher wrote on my report card, “She writes very good stories.”

Maybe I was blessed with an over-active imagination, or maybe, as an only child, creating and writing stories was my way of not being ‘alone’.

I was also a voracious reader and, inspired by Enid Blyton (a prolific children’s author in the UK at the time), I wrote dozens of ‘spin-offs’ from her stories, before progressing to stories about my own characters. I still remember a lot of my first full-length 'novel' (probably about 50K words) which I wrote when I was 10 or 11, about a group of children who converted an old barn into a theatre and produced their own plays in order to convince their parents they were serious about acting. I was stagestruck even then!

Once I reached my teens, I discovered romance, and wrote (very cheesy!) romance stories for my friends to read each morning on the school bus. I also wrote detailed diaries, first about the teachers I had a crush on, and then, of course, about boys. Wish I still had those diaries – they would probably be hilarious to read now!

When and why did you start writing stories?

W Is For Work-In-Progress

Jennifer is almost finished…

I’m a few thousand words from writing “The End” on one of my manuscripts. It’s been slow going. I try to write at least 1,000 words a day, so that I have a goal and so that I stay in the habit of writing regularly. I don’t edit as I go, although I do go back after a certain number of pages and re-read and edit at that time. But I write regardless of the quality of words, just to get them on the page.

The problem is life gets in the way. I’ve been trying to de-stress my life and reorganize my priorities. In the long run, it will result in a happier me with more writing time. Currently, it results in more writing time, but also more stress—change is hard, for me as well as for others affected by my actions. So I often get to my writing time still reeling from what’s going on elsewhere.

The outside world certainly doesn’t help. Politics and people’s reactions and the media all infringe on my writing time as well. As does social media. What used to be a nice break has turned into one of stress. I can’t abandon it, as I use it for marketing and networking, but I’m trying to put limits on how and when I involve myself in it.

So the WIP is getting there. Slowly. It will require lots of editing, as my notes I leave myself as I go—fix this, add this, etc.—grow longer. It’s by no means done. But it’s a start. And just by having something complete encourages me to take the next step and improve it.

And now, back to writing!