Y is for Year in Review

Debra reflects on her writing year.

In many ways, 2016 has been a successful writing year for me.

*I released four (out of the five) novellas in my Holidays at The Corral series. And although none flew off the shelves, it was nice having a release every few months or so.

*In the spring, I participated in the BadRedHead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge which had me create a Twitter account (Which I need to be better at using.) and to rethink how I use my Facebook page (I still need to work on that.) among other things.

*Valentine's Day at The Corral took third place in the IDA short contemporary category.

*This Feels Like Home was part of Amazon's July romance sale, which increased sales on that title greatly. (Still not enough by any stretch of the imagine to consider it to be 'making a living' with my writing, but it was nice to see bigger numbers in sales, at least for that title.)

*A Christmas to Remember was offered for free this past weekend as part of The Wild Rose Press's tenth anniversary celebration. (Always good for publicity.)








*And just this week I launched my crazy #sellathousand challenge for New Year's Eve at The Corral.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


*As always, I've enjoyed blogging here at HWH to share tidbits, insights, posts, encouragement, and excitement with my fellow bloggers. I am most grateful to have you all in my life.

When I look at that list, I feel pretty good. :)

However, the latter part of the year, as I've mentioned before, has been a bit frustrating in the 'getting something written' area of life, but I have high hopes that will turn around soon. It's been really nice this week delving back into 'writing life' as I've worked on getting my challenge ready. And while it hasn't (yet) nudged me enough to sit down and work on a WIP, like I said, in this season of hope and miracles, anything is possible!

As we head into the last week of the year (WHERE did the time go?!) I look forward to ushering out the old and welcoming the new with a bright new outlook.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

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

N is for Nick

Nick Jameson is the hero in Debra's New Year's Eve story.

I feel like I know Nick pretty well. In addition to starring in his own story, he has cameos in just about every other story of the main Corral series and the holiday spin offs. Sometimes by name. Sometimes by just 'the bartender'.

In writing his story, though, one comment my editor made was about not knowing him very well. I think that's an overall dilemma in a short story. Nick's clocks in at just over 8,000 words. With a narrative that short, there isn't a whole lot of time to really dig deep into a character's psyche. It's more of a 'what you see is what you get' kind of situation.

In fact, most of what we know about Nick comes from the heroine's POV. Here we're in her head on the opening page:

Nick would make someone a good husband. Not her of course. It wasn’t like that between them. Although she couldn’t deny the hint of attraction that simmered right beneath the surface, hooking up with Nick, as good as it probably would be, wasn’t worth risking their friendship over. Lovers came and went. Truly good friends were much rarer and harder to find.
Besides, she knew Nick. He wasn’t interested in settling down. He wasn’t a player in the strictest sense of the word, but happily ever after with one woman wasn’t on his radar anywhere in the near future.

I did have some fun throwing in some phrasing that went along with Nick's career of bartender, and hopefully put us deeper into his POV when we do get into his head.

His mouth went dry and his head buzzed like he’d had too many shots of Jager.

The idea burned through him like a sip of perfectly aged Tennessee whiskey. Smooth with a warmth that spread until it consumed him.

It was like someone poured one-hundred proof tequila on his already shriveled soul. And shoved the worm down his throat for good measure.

...with an intensity that built like a shot of liquid cocaine burning into his belly.

New Year's Eve at The Corral makes its debut on December 14.

In the meantime, Halloween at The Corral had its worldwide release yesterday!

Get your copy at:

The Wild Rose Press: (It's on sale there for $1.00!)
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Y is for New YEAR'S Eve Revisions

Debra is working on edits and revisions.

Well, I'm supposed to be working on edits and revisions. Over a month ago I received my first edit for New Year's Eve at The Corral back from my editor. It was accompanied by this note:

I enjoyed this but didn't get the satisfaction I get from your others. In such a short space you weren't able to fully develop the characters. Ideas: More physical contact while decorating in that opening. Maybe everyone sits to eat before the crowd starts arriving--even if it's lunch instead of dinner. Not sure what to suggest. Did you have a beta? Was he/she happy with it as-is?

I did not use a beta reader...I rarely do which is probably something I need to reevaluate and perhaps do more of in the future. It is shorter than my other stories - on purpose - but maybe it's a bit too short. And while it's good to know she really liked my past work, obviously this particular one needs a bit more...something. So I told her I would see what I could do. I also told her I was busy with other things and wanted to do it right and that it would take more than a weekend or a week to figure something out. She said that was fine.

To be honest, I haven't done much with it aside from taking a passing moment or two and asking myself how I'm going to add some oomph and character development to this story. Between the end of the school year and some other projects I've been working on, writing has taken a back seat. (In fact I totally forgot about the release date for Fourth of July at The Corral until it was literally a day away.) This isn't unusual, I feel that my writing career goes in phases of spurts and stops from time to time. And to be honest, I'm okay with that. I always seems to have ideas in my head for stories, but I don't always have the drive to get them down in written format. When I do have the drive, I go full steam ahead.

Yesterday, however, I got a 'checking in' e-mail from my editor asking how it was going. It had been over a month since I'd been in contact with her, so she probably was wondering if I'd dropped off the face of the earth. I told her it was coming slowly (if a standstill can be considered 'slow') but now that summer vacation had officially started I had time to dedicate to the project.

So...today I'm doing a read-through. It's been a while since I've read the story, so hopefully coming at it with fresh eyes will help me to see opportunities to strengthen the story, more fully develop the characters, and really make it pop. I feel like I know my characters pretty well, since they've been appearing in the other books in the series for a few years now, but obviously a reader picking up this story for a read-alone is going to need a bit more to go on.

And so there's Goal Number One for summer writing.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com