Debra's muse (finally) makes an appearance.
It seems like it's been forever, but lately my muse has been nudging me. The timing couldn't be more perfect, as in about two weeks I will be footloose and fancy free on summer vacation. Summer is the time when I get most of my writing done, simply by nature of the fact I have time to do it.
The surprising thing about this appearance of my muse is that it's not nudging me in the direction I thought I'd be taking this summer. I have a mss partially completed and it was my intended goal to finish it and get it submitted by the end of the summer. But apparently my muse has other ideas, because a different story keeps popping into my head. Scenes play out for me as I'm doing menial tasks: making dinner, doing the dishes, even as I was cleaning up after our community garage sale last weekend.
So, as my muse tends to be a bit fickle, as in I often have to coax her into peeking her head out, I'm going to just roll with it. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to finish two books this summer.
I really shouldn't get ahead of myself like that, right? But I'll keep you posted!
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
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Thursday, May 22, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Locations and Ideas
In 9 days’ time, I will be setting off for my month in the USA and Canada (but don’t ask me if I’m packed and ready because the short
answer is no!)
When I’ve told people my schedule for the month, which includes New Jersey, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Ontario (near Niagara), and Rhode Island, several have said to me, “You should get plenty of ideas for new stories.”
Well, that remains to be seen. I don’t recall ever consciously ‘looking’ for ideas. Usually they sneak up on me when I least expect them, but I have used places I’ve visited as locations in my novels: London, the English Lake District, Scotland, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, the River Nile (including Luxor and Aswan), and Ireland.
One novel was set in a seaside resort on England’s south coast, which was an amalgam of several different seaside resorts (albeit none of them in the part of the south coast where I located ‘my’ resort!)
The only time I’ve used a location I’ve never visited was Iceland (in ‘Changing the Future’). Half of me now wants to visit Iceland to see if I got it right; the other half of me doesn’t in case I got it wildly wrong!
So – will my forthcoming trip trigger any new ideas for me? Who knows? After all, I never expected to get any ideas when I visited a small Irish village in County Mayo on a day when it never stopped raining – but then I spotted Maureen O’Hara’s signature in the visitors' book of ‘The Quiet Man’ cottage museum in the village (bottom line of this page), and a seed was sown…
Will any similar seeds be sown when I visit one of the Vegas casinos, or gaze in awe at the Grand Canyon, or watch the power of the water as it thunders over Niagara, or see the mansions of the Vanderbilts and Astors at Newport, RI? Or will some seemingly trivial event – something I see, or something I hear – provide the seed that will eventually germinate?
I’ll let you know!
When I’ve told people my schedule for the month, which includes New Jersey, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Ontario (near Niagara), and Rhode Island, several have said to me, “You should get plenty of ideas for new stories.”
Well, that remains to be seen. I don’t recall ever consciously ‘looking’ for ideas. Usually they sneak up on me when I least expect them, but I have used places I’ve visited as locations in my novels: London, the English Lake District, Scotland, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, the River Nile (including Luxor and Aswan), and Ireland.
One novel was set in a seaside resort on England’s south coast, which was an amalgam of several different seaside resorts (albeit none of them in the part of the south coast where I located ‘my’ resort!)
The only time I’ve used a location I’ve never visited was Iceland (in ‘Changing the Future’). Half of me now wants to visit Iceland to see if I got it right; the other half of me doesn’t in case I got it wildly wrong!
So – will my forthcoming trip trigger any new ideas for me? Who knows? After all, I never expected to get any ideas when I visited a small Irish village in County Mayo on a day when it never stopped raining – but then I spotted Maureen O’Hara’s signature in the visitors' book of ‘The Quiet Man’ cottage museum in the village (bottom line of this page), and a seed was sown…
Will any similar seeds be sown when I visit one of the Vegas casinos, or gaze in awe at the Grand Canyon, or watch the power of the water as it thunders over Niagara, or see the mansions of the Vanderbilts and Astors at Newport, RI? Or will some seemingly trivial event – something I see, or something I hear – provide the seed that will eventually germinate?
I’ll let you know!
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
It's Official
Jennifer shares good news.
I have news! I just signed a contract with my Rebel
publisher for the second book in my Jewish contemporary romance series. I don’t
have a release date yet, nor to I have a series title. However, I do have a
book title (for the moment)—Miriam’s Surrender.
The book follows Miriam
and Josh. This story centers around Passover and is the story of two people who
need to discover the freedom of letting go in order to let love into their
lives. Josh is an architect hired to redesign the alumni club of a posh,
private school in New York. Miriam is the Assistant Director of Outreach,
working with the alumni, and is Josh’s day-to-day contact for the redesign.
They first met in The Seduction of Esther. Josh had thought he was in
love with Miriam’s sister, and Miriam detests him because he hurt her sister.
Now they have to work together. As they get to know each other, the animosity
disappears, but Josh is hiding something from Miriam and when she discovers
what it is, it has the possibility of destroying their relationship. Only when
they are both able to let the other in and release some of the control they
exert over everything, will they be able to see if their love can survive.
I’m excited to
bring this story to publication and I can’t wait to share the process with all
of you!
Sunday, May 18, 2014
A facebook tip from Rebecca Lynn
Ana reposts a facebook tip from Rebecca Lynn, who gives amazing workshops in social media for authors.
I'm teaching my Social Media class over at YARWA right now and we had a conversation today about Edge Rank that I wanted to share with my chapter just as a free tip of the day for how to know if you're winning at EdgeRank or not. Ever since Facebook has changed their algorithms, everyone is worried that Facebook is trying to keep professional pages away from their fans. This is very much not true. Conversely, what they're trying to do is make sure that the people who engage with your page always (ALWAYS) see your posts. This does require that, if you have a professional page, you try to win at EdgeRank. This means you have to engage your fans.
After the algorithm switch, most big professional pages' Edge Ranks were averaging under 10%. This was an organic engagement percentage, based on the number of people who see and engage with the posts from the page. The chances are pretty good that your page is going to be over 10%, just because most of us probably have not paid for likes (which is why Facebook changed their algorithm.. they wanted to make sure that people who were paying for likes weren't able to use those inflated numbers to get marketing pull--basically, what happens when a big company tries to get marketing dollars based on their Facebook page, they used to be able to say, "we have 100,000 likes" and marketers would treat that like the TV numbers, "we have a reach of 1 million, meaning 1 million pairs of eyeballs would see it on their TV"... the problem was that many of these pages were paying for Facebook likes from click farms, which meant that they weren't actually getting 100K
eyeballs, so Facebook decided to change their algorithm so that you can now measure how many people actually see and engage with your page; this means that those people who were trying to get advertising dollars from having 100K Facebook likes now have to admit to those marketers that they're really only getting 2,000 eyeballs; so Facebook has set up their algorithm to measure how many people engage, and if you are consistently over 10%, you're going to keep going up in the "EdgeRank", which means that your organic reach will automatically go up as long as you continue to engage your fans). They want to reward people who are not paying for likes. Anything over 10% gets you automatically in the plus column. Anything over 20% is good. Anything over 50% is excellent. Obviously, we want to shoot for the highest percentage we can.
How do you know what your engagement percentage is?
Go to your Facebook professional page. There should be about a half-page that shows up automatically, as your Page Manager? If there isn't, then try going to the arrow on the right side and clicking directly in to your Pro page instead of going through your personal profile. At the top of the page, there's a bunch of buttons. Click on "See Insights". This will show you what your engagement percentage is. Well, it won't show you exactly, because we don't have access to Edge Rank. But you can calculate it yourself. Take the number under "Engagement" (on the right--this is the average number of engaged people for all your posts over the last week), divide it by your total number of likes. (I know... I promised there would be no math. I lied.) That's your engagement percentage. As long as you are over 10%, you are WINNING at EdgeRank. You are taking advantage of the engagement potential of the new Edge Rank. Make sure you are always over 10% (some people
will say over 5%) and you are going to keep winning at Edge Rank.
My engagement percentage for last week was... 56%. That's up from the week before, which was 52%. It may not always go up every week, but the more you can keep it up and keep it going up, the better. I don't think I've been below 40% since EdgeRank changed. Granted, I've never run "like" ads and I don't try to get likes from anywhere except the back matter of my books, because I only want people on there who really want to be there. But that doesn't have to be your strategy. As long as you don't drop below 10% for consistent weeks and weeks, you are going to keep getting more and more of your fans engaged. Facebook wants this to work for you. They want everyone who wants to see your stuff to see your stuff. But you definitely have to do the work to get them engaged.
Not sure how to do that? Ask a question. I asked a question about a fight scene yesterday. I got almost all of my fans engaged in the conversation in some way (89%). Either they read it (reach), they liked it (clicked), or they talked to me about it (commented). Only the last two count toward your engagement. So make sure that, every once in awhile, you put out a post with something like a question or something (that they can still count on) and then below that, remind your fans that if they want to keep seeing your stuff, it helps if they like, comment, and share. Not often. Maybe once a month. But it's worth saying, just as a general insight for your fans to know about any one of the professional pages they've liked.
A higher general percentage means that when I put out a post that's going to get less commenting (like "my book released today!" with a buy-link), I'm going to get upwards of 50% of my fans seeing it automatically. Plus, and this is the part that's really money, my fans are used to being regularly engaged in my brand. In the day of the Thank-You economy (in which we are fully in the throes today), fans want to talk to their brands. I think I posted about this the other day, but they've actually quantified the value of engaged fans, and we now know that an engaged fan is worth 10% more money over time (think of how much money an individual fan will spend with you over their lifetime, and add 10% to that) because engaged fans are 7 times more likely to recommend your work to their friends than an unengaged fan who likes your product (your books) equally as much.
Again, just things that are running through my mind because of the class. Public service announcement of the day. :)
----------------------------------------------------------
Rebecca Lynn, President - Celtic Hearts Romance Writers
http://rlsyme.com and http://theoutcasthighlander.com
After the algorithm switch, most big professional pages' Edge Ranks were averaging under 10%. This was an organic engagement percentage, based on the number of people who see and engage with the posts from the page. The chances are pretty good that your page is going to be over 10%, just because most of us probably have not paid for likes (which is why Facebook changed their algorithm.. they wanted to make sure that people who were paying for likes weren't able to use those inflated numbers to get marketing pull--basically, what happens when a big company tries to get marketing dollars based on their Facebook page, they used to be able to say, "we have 100,000 likes" and marketers would treat that like the TV numbers, "we have a reach of 1 million, meaning 1 million pairs of eyeballs would see it on their TV"... the problem was that many of these pages were paying for Facebook likes from click farms, which meant that they weren't actually getting 100K
eyeballs, so Facebook decided to change their algorithm so that you can now measure how many people actually see and engage with your page; this means that those people who were trying to get advertising dollars from having 100K Facebook likes now have to admit to those marketers that they're really only getting 2,000 eyeballs; so Facebook has set up their algorithm to measure how many people engage, and if you are consistently over 10%, you're going to keep going up in the "EdgeRank", which means that your organic reach will automatically go up as long as you continue to engage your fans). They want to reward people who are not paying for likes. Anything over 10% gets you automatically in the plus column. Anything over 20% is good. Anything over 50% is excellent. Obviously, we want to shoot for the highest percentage we can.
How do you know what your engagement percentage is?
Go to your Facebook professional page. There should be about a half-page that shows up automatically, as your Page Manager? If there isn't, then try going to the arrow on the right side and clicking directly in to your Pro page instead of going through your personal profile. At the top of the page, there's a bunch of buttons. Click on "See Insights". This will show you what your engagement percentage is. Well, it won't show you exactly, because we don't have access to Edge Rank. But you can calculate it yourself. Take the number under "Engagement" (on the right--this is the average number of engaged people for all your posts over the last week), divide it by your total number of likes. (I know... I promised there would be no math. I lied.) That's your engagement percentage. As long as you are over 10%, you are WINNING at EdgeRank. You are taking advantage of the engagement potential of the new Edge Rank. Make sure you are always over 10% (some people
will say over 5%) and you are going to keep winning at Edge Rank.
My engagement percentage for last week was... 56%. That's up from the week before, which was 52%. It may not always go up every week, but the more you can keep it up and keep it going up, the better. I don't think I've been below 40% since EdgeRank changed. Granted, I've never run "like" ads and I don't try to get likes from anywhere except the back matter of my books, because I only want people on there who really want to be there. But that doesn't have to be your strategy. As long as you don't drop below 10% for consistent weeks and weeks, you are going to keep getting more and more of your fans engaged. Facebook wants this to work for you. They want everyone who wants to see your stuff to see your stuff. But you definitely have to do the work to get them engaged.
Not sure how to do that? Ask a question. I asked a question about a fight scene yesterday. I got almost all of my fans engaged in the conversation in some way (89%). Either they read it (reach), they liked it (clicked), or they talked to me about it (commented). Only the last two count toward your engagement. So make sure that, every once in awhile, you put out a post with something like a question or something (that they can still count on) and then below that, remind your fans that if they want to keep seeing your stuff, it helps if they like, comment, and share. Not often. Maybe once a month. But it's worth saying, just as a general insight for your fans to know about any one of the professional pages they've liked.
A higher general percentage means that when I put out a post that's going to get less commenting (like "my book released today!" with a buy-link), I'm going to get upwards of 50% of my fans seeing it automatically. Plus, and this is the part that's really money, my fans are used to being regularly engaged in my brand. In the day of the Thank-You economy (in which we are fully in the throes today), fans want to talk to their brands. I think I posted about this the other day, but they've actually quantified the value of engaged fans, and we now know that an engaged fan is worth 10% more money over time (think of how much money an individual fan will spend with you over their lifetime, and add 10% to that) because engaged fans are 7 times more likely to recommend your work to their friends than an unengaged fan who likes your product (your books) equally as much.
Again, just things that are running through my mind because of the class. Public service announcement of the day. :)
----------------------------------------------------------
Rebecca Lynn, President - Celtic Hearts Romance Writers
http://rlsyme.com and http://theoutcasthighlander.com
Friday, May 16, 2014
Margaret Mayo's 80th novel
Welcome to today's Friday Friend, Margaret Mayo, whose 80th romance novel has just been published.
I
began writing in the mid 1970’s when an idea for a short story sprang into my
head. And once I started writing I couldn’t stop. I’d always read romances, as
had my mother before me, so it was on the cards that when I began to write it
would be about love and all the trials and tribulations that go hand in hand
with finding that one man who makes your heart beat faster. The one man you
want to spend the rest of your life with.
I found my own personal hero when I was in my early twenties and we’re still together now. There’s lots of laughter in our life which I think is essential in a relationship. We have two children and two grandchildren, so together with my writing my life is complete.
My newly released book, RACHEL’S RETRIBUTION, is my eightieth romance – I never thought when I started that I would reach such a milestone.
Rachel Valentine had never expected to
meet Liam Mallory again. She had used to work for him but had been guilty of
colluding with another work colleague to swindle him out of thousands of
pounds. Now, several years later, he is back in her life demanding his pound of
flesh. He whisks her away to an isolated cottage in the English Lake District
but unfortunately for Liam things do not all go his way.
The Lake District is one of my favourite parts of England and we try to holiday there at least once a year, so when I was writing this book I had no trouble visualising the setting, or putting myself in my heroine’s shoes.
We wish you every success with your new novel, Margaret, and long may you continue to write! Thank you for being our Friday Friend today.
You can find out more about Margaret here:
Website www.margaret-mayo.com
Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/author/margaretmayo
I found my own personal hero when I was in my early twenties and we’re still together now. There’s lots of laughter in our life which I think is essential in a relationship. We have two children and two grandchildren, so together with my writing my life is complete.
My newly released book, RACHEL’S RETRIBUTION, is my eightieth romance – I never thought when I started that I would reach such a milestone.
The Lake District is one of my favourite parts of England and we try to holiday there at least once a year, so when I was writing this book I had no trouble visualising the setting, or putting myself in my heroine’s shoes.
We wish you every success with your new novel, Margaret, and long may you continue to write! Thank you for being our Friday Friend today.
You can find out more about Margaret here:
Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/author/margaretmayo
Thursday, May 15, 2014
A Release Date!
Debra has a release date for FAMILY SECRETS!
Several people have asked me lately when my newest book is coming out. I kept replying I was waiting on galleys and really thought I would have had them by now. So on Sunday I checked in with my editor to see where we were at. She checked her notes and the files at TWRP and said galleys had gone out to me in March and I'd returned them. I had a tentative release date of August 1.
I guess in the craziness of pre-spring break, I'd totally forgotten I'd done galleys. I thought for sure we were only at the pre-galley stage.
Then on Monday I got an e-mail from the editor-in-chief with my world-wide release date. My editor and I both laughed. If I had just been patient for one more day, I would have had the answer to my question!
The date is official: on August 1, 2014 Family Secrets will hit the shelves in print and e-book. This book has a long history and has gone through many versions and revisions and covers, so it will be really fun to soon see the final product.
Original tag line/Tweet: A young play-by-the-rules widow falls for her commitment shy ex brother-in-law.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
Several people have asked me lately when my newest book is coming out. I kept replying I was waiting on galleys and really thought I would have had them by now. So on Sunday I checked in with my editor to see where we were at. She checked her notes and the files at TWRP and said galleys had gone out to me in March and I'd returned them. I had a tentative release date of August 1.
I guess in the craziness of pre-spring break, I'd totally forgotten I'd done galleys. I thought for sure we were only at the pre-galley stage.
Then on Monday I got an e-mail from the editor-in-chief with my world-wide release date. My editor and I both laughed. If I had just been patient for one more day, I would have had the answer to my question!
The date is official: on August 1, 2014 Family Secrets will hit the shelves in print and e-book. This book has a long history and has gone through many versions and revisions and covers, so it will be really fun to soon see the final product.
Original tag line/Tweet: A young play-by-the-rules widow falls for her commitment shy ex brother-in-law.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Can anyone write a novel?
Paula thinks about a
question she was asked recently.
On Monday morning, I gave a talk to a local book club. It was a similar talk to several I have done in the past, as I talked about my writing ‘career’, including the differences between writing in the 1960s and writing today, and I ended up giving some examples of where my ideas come from.
At the end of previous talks, I’ve had various questions, ranging from ‘How much research do you have to do?’ to ‘How much do you earn?' (to which I usually reply, ‘Probably not even as much as J.K. Rowling would earn for one page of her Harry Potter novels!’)
This time I had a different question. Someone said, “They say there is a novel in everyone. Do you think anyone can write one?’
I had to think on my feet! In the end I said something like, “First, you have to want to write and then you have to make the time to do it, rather than just write when you happen to have some spare time or feel like writing. It can take a lot of time and hard work – not just the actual writing, but also the research you need to do, even for a contemporary novel. You might also have to learn about plotting, using dialogue, and developing your characters, and I also think you need to have a good grasp of grammar, punctuation and spelling.”
That’s a summary of my ‘off the cuff’ answer, which I’m aware (a) might have over-emphasised the time and hard work elements but (b)at the same time, only covered part of what is involved in writing a novel!
While we were having a cup of tea and cake afterwards, someone else said to me, “I couldn’t write a novel. I don’t have the imagination to create a story."
On my way home, I thought about this and realised this person was probably right. Perhaps the first essential is imagination, closely followed by the need/desire to write.
What do you think? Can anyone write a novel? And how would you have answered that question?
On Monday morning, I gave a talk to a local book club. It was a similar talk to several I have done in the past, as I talked about my writing ‘career’, including the differences between writing in the 1960s and writing today, and I ended up giving some examples of where my ideas come from.
At the end of previous talks, I’ve had various questions, ranging from ‘How much research do you have to do?’ to ‘How much do you earn?' (to which I usually reply, ‘Probably not even as much as J.K. Rowling would earn for one page of her Harry Potter novels!’)
This time I had a different question. Someone said, “They say there is a novel in everyone. Do you think anyone can write one?’
I had to think on my feet! In the end I said something like, “First, you have to want to write and then you have to make the time to do it, rather than just write when you happen to have some spare time or feel like writing. It can take a lot of time and hard work – not just the actual writing, but also the research you need to do, even for a contemporary novel. You might also have to learn about plotting, using dialogue, and developing your characters, and I also think you need to have a good grasp of grammar, punctuation and spelling.”
That’s a summary of my ‘off the cuff’ answer, which I’m aware (a) might have over-emphasised the time and hard work elements but (b)at the same time, only covered part of what is involved in writing a novel!
While we were having a cup of tea and cake afterwards, someone else said to me, “I couldn’t write a novel. I don’t have the imagination to create a story."
On my way home, I thought about this and realised this person was probably right. Perhaps the first essential is imagination, closely followed by the need/desire to write.
What do you think? Can anyone write a novel? And how would you have answered that question?
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