An Author Life

In a former life, I was a chemist. For years my writing consisted in detailing standard operating procedures or outlining contracts in a concise, straight to the point approach. When I started writing romance, I had to learn how to plot a story and present it from a specific point of view. Workshops, mentors, critique partners, contests taught me to hone the difficult art of writing and find my voice.
Nothing beats a specific daily to-do list prepared the night before to keep you motivated. Crossing out items on my list gives me a sense of achievement.

As soon as I jump out of bed I check my emails for anything important. My morning is then dedicated to various activities, errands, and chores. Walking, exercising, grocery shopping, etc… By noon, I am back at my computer browsing Internet, reading blogs and leaving comments, and advertising my books on Twitter and Facebook. It’s my promotion time. The afternoon and evening are for writing, revising, editing.

I love visiting new places but traveling was never a complete vacation for me, more like a research for interesting stories. Armed with my camera and a notebook, I traveled to more than fifty countries, snapped a gazillion of pictures and scribbled my impressions.

My inspiration sprouts from real life and people around me—they supply a rich canvas of plots and conflicts—and also from my traveling to fascinating places.

I live day by day and write what I feel passionate about; contemporary romances, romantic suspense novels, medical romances set in the various states where I lived, or the country I visited, France, Russia, Greece, even a paranormal romance based on Egyptian mythology.

Most of my heroines have high educational background and solid scientific careers, as I had. They also face difficult obstacles in their lives. But the similarities end there and the romance is specific to each heroine.

My biggest challenge is promoting my books. No one ever warned me that I would have to learn such an amount of technology to be able to sell my stories. I am lucky to have a computer guru at home who taught me to create website, blogs, trailers, book covers, newsletters,…

I always plot everything I do or write, and continuously create new to-do lists. Although I believe I can influence my future or help shape it through my work and actions, I don’t think I can plot it in the true sense of the word. One can always dream and hope that dreams will come true.

Writing is my shelter. Hiding in my own world, I create people I love. With imagination and patience, I force them to overcome their inner conflicts, fight obstacles and make love triumph.

Most writers are continuously plagued with self–doubt and need non-stop cheering to boost their morale and stimulate their muse. The reviews and praise I receive from reviewers and fans reassure me that I have written beautiful romance stories they love.

The life of a writer is a lonely battle waged against oneself, but we are lucky to bond with other authors through writers’ loops. My writer colleagues share and understand my struggles, lend support when needed and cheer my successes and joys. The daily exchange of emails resulted in solid cyberspace friendships and allowed me to publish multi-authors boxed sets of novels with other writers.

The most recent boxed set co-authored with the Main Street Authors is Wedding on Main Street and my contribution is Wedding Surprise that is not published on its own yet.

A SUSPENSE STREET TEAM...WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Some of you know we’re building a Suspense Street Team, focused on cross-promotion.  The premise: since we’re all a little shy about touting our own work, we’ll be cheerleaders for other suspense authors whose novels we enjoy. 

Though we’ve got about forty men and women signed up, others are still welcome.  We’re calling the genre ‘suspense,’ but we’ll include thrillers and mystery writers, as well. 

I know what we are doing isn’t a new concept, so I’d like to know about your experience with cross-promotion.  Are you involved in a group with this focus?  Have you heard about or can you predict pitfalls?  We’ll nix self-promotion in general, but of course, we’ll want to share free dates, releases and contests-so that we can to support these milestones.

Surely we’ll encourage the Street Team to read each other's books and write reviews for those novels they enjoy.  We’ll also Tweet, FB and jump on Pinterest as soon as we find smart ways to do so.  Bottom line is, we won’t begin operating as a group until we’re pleased with our structure.

Generally, I think we have a good concept here, but we’d love your help in ensuring its efficacy.  Any and all ideas are welcome!  And if you want to join us, let me know at rolynnwriter @earthlink.net

SUSPENSE SPIKED WITH ROMANCE 

LAST RESORT * FADEOUT * SWOON

FADEOUT won a RONE award!  LIE CATCHERS coming soon!

Web: http://www.rolynnanderson.com

You'd think I would have this figured out after 6 years

I have a lot of books out (28 or so), and I have struggled with how to direct people to information about each book.

For a while I had a page on my web site that talked about each one with links. Well, that got too long very quickly. Then I set up a page with just New Book info, but the old books are still out there, available to purchase, so I felt I was neglecting them.

I finally came up with what I think is a workable solution: individual book pages. Here's an example. I have these linked via the Shopping page on my web site. Now when I have a new book out, all I have to do is link to that one particular page.

I should have thought of this years ago! I guess I didn't think about the problems managing dozens of books.

Silly me....

Blog Tour or Bust!

     Most published authors have done some kind of blog tour, myself included. It usually takes a lot of work, contacting various bloggers and fellow authors to see if they have room to host you, and then writing your posts and hoping that someone shows up to read them. It's something of a crap shoot, honestly.
     I'm not saying I've discovered the magic answer. But, I am trying something different. I decided this time around to have someone handle the tour for me. In other words, I contracted with someone to arrange for me to hit a certain number of spots, which also include several reviews. The key for me was the reviews. If I can pick up several reviews from this tour, then I will consider it money well spent. Even if it doesn't pan out, it's been a learning experience and that's positive as well.
     For this tour, I hooked up with Innovative Online Book Tours. They've been fantastic so far, very responsive and very proactive. It's been a pleasure working with Vickie and Shauni,
     Although I have a really busy schedule (see below), it turned out to be a mix of interview, blog posts, and just excerpts and blurbs. In other words, I did not have to write a gazillion guest blog posts or give away tons of books at every stop.
     I'm hopeful that this blog tour will lead to more sales. It's what every author hopes for. I won't know for a few months if this investment was worth it, but I'm crossing my fingers that it is. Just looking at the list of promo places makes me giddy with the possibilities. ( :
    And today, I just saw my first review and it's a total thumbs up!!! From bodicerippers the reviewer had this to say:

Shadow Visions is the second book in the Shadow Warriors series by Gabriella Hewitt. It is a wonderful original story that is refreshing to read. Ixa is spunky and funny, while Manuel is sexy and stern. A nice easy read that wraps up the story flawlessly. If you are looking for a book that has a story unlike any you have read but still gives you the happily ever after that we all want and love, this is the book for you.

     If you want to check out the blog tour for my second Shadow Warrior novella SHADOW VISIONS, you can join me at any of these blog stops:

Click here for the links:

May 6th I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read!
May 7th A Soul Unsung
May 8th Killer Fiction
May 10th Ramblings of an Amateur Writer
May 11th Simply Ali
May 16th Bodice Rippers, Femme Fatales and Fantasy
May 18th Tea and Book Guest Blog
May 21st I Just Wanna Site Here and Read
May 25th Books Reviewed by Bunny
May 25th Sapphyria’s Steamy Book Reviews
May 29th Wonderland Reviews
May 29th Reviews by Molly
May 31st Adventures of a Frugal Mom
May 31st Good Choice Reading

JUNE
June 5th Journey with Words
June 5th Understanding Shae’s Story
June 7th Ramblings from this Chick
June 7th Reviews by Molly Guest Blog
June 11th Storm Goddess Book Reviews
June 11th Wickedly Bookish
June 13th Miraculous
June 13th Fictional Candy
June 13th Adventures of a Frugal Mom
June 16th A Soul Unsung
June 16th Indie Writers Review
June 16th Wickedly Bookish

After all those years in Asia, I don't have to do promotion anymore. We just release a Jackie Chan movie and - Boom! - people go. ~ Jackie Chan

I do promotion when it is necessary, but I always want to get back to the music.~Enya

Oh how I wish I could be like Jackie Chan or Enya. To be able to release a book and – Boom! – people reading…it would be lovely. Sadly, that is rarely the case for most authors. You have to build your audience. You have to encourage them to read your words by promoting yourself. There are many ways to do this.

One thing published authors must take into consideration is promotional materials. I'm not talking about promo where you talk about your latest book. I mean the tangible stuff sometimes referred to as SWAG. That's a slang term for free promotional items. SWAG, aka Stuff We All Get, can be anything from bookmarks to t-shirts.

I've used pens, coffee cups, bookmarks and postcards in the past. Honestly, however, paper promo is not really SWAG per se because it is paper. Consider things like beach towels, lunch bags, jump drives, water bottles, stress balls and jar openers instead. You want something the reader will keep using so that they keep seeing your name. This is part of that old marketing adage sometimes called the Rule of Seven.

“The customer needs to see an advertisement seven times before it is effective.”

That generally means seven times but in as many different mediums as you can afford. So a book video, a bookmark, a good review—all of those are marketing in terms of being seen. If you can get something physical in the reader's hands, then you've upped the ante considerably!

Pens are one of the most common swag items. I personally like pens that work. I still have pens I got at RWA conferences three years ago.

One enterprising author put her name and book cover on water bottles. While this is a great idea, it's temporary. Raise your hand if you did NOT throw away the water bottle once it was empty.

That's what I thought. But sometimes, that's okay. I still remember that author's name (Kresley Cole for those who are curious - LOL) and even that the book cover had a ship on it so it must have worked, right?

One difficulty is finding the right source for your promotional items. I want the most bang for my buck just like everyone else. So I find 500 jar openers at one site for .50 each. What about this other site where I can get 650 jar openers for .35? Get your calculators out, darlings. This is where that high school math comes in handy. 500 jar openers at $.50 each is a grand total of $250.00 whereas 650 for $.35 is $227.00. Houston, we have a winner!

But do we, really?

Let's say the second site has an art set up charge of $90 plus shipping and handling BUT the first one is only $40 and if you order by Friday you get free shipping. Well that just bounced the 650 up to $317.00 which brought them up to $.48 a piece. So they are still cheaper than the first site per item but it may be a win for your pocketbook to stick to the $250.00. Or you can team up with another author and cut your cost even more!

For the Romantic Times Booklovers Conference in 2009, I joined forces with Ashlyn Chase to purchase 1000 coffee mugs.

By splitting all the production and shipping costs we were able to get a nicer swag item. It was popular for sure!

Other authors have also combined their money to come up with bigger items for that conference. C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp offered the cutest lunch bags that were handed out at the 2009 RT Awards that were just stuffed with books. I use mine on a daily basis - good advertising for them, right?

Some good sites to look for promotional items are:

1. http://www.4imprint.com/
2. http://www.motivators.com/
3. http://www.gopromos.com/

You can also ask your fellow authors who they use. Pay attention if they tell you that the customer service was not good. Bad customer service is never worth the money you save.

For my publisher's convention, RomantiCon 2010 this October in Ohio, I will be offering mini bottles of Tabasco with my name, website and tagline.



Here is the actual size.



My plan is to put these out with my business cards and some postcards featuring my latest book, Needing Harte, with the tagline "Add a little Spice to your Life." This story is my first novella-length M/M set in a BDSM world and will release on October 6. You can find that here.

Needing Harte

Harte Donovan has a problem. A murder leads him to wanting a sexy stripper bound and naked in front of him. He can’t let his secret desires ruin his career as a detective. When he’s given a mysterious business card, Harte discovers a side of himself he intends to fully embrace.

Ramey Nichols strips for a living and he’s not willing to pretend to be something he’s not. When this sexy submissive meets the closeted cop and unwitting Dom, something has got to give. That something might just be Ramey. Ramey knows what he wants, and more than that, finds himself Needing Harte.

This is part of a brand-new series called 1-800-DOM-help

So what kind of swag do you like to get? Do you still have anything from conventions past? If you have a great promo place, please share it with us.