Building a Box Set

Recently I’ve been trying something new in promotion, the multi-author box set. It started when Mark Coker came to visit my RWA group and told us about an Apple promotion that his company Smashwords was part of, where they were soliciting multiple author box sets, collections of books by several authors with a common theme to be offered for 99 cents. I’m sure anyone who is on a mailing list for Kindle, or any other kind of ebook, has seen ads for these collections. They frequently have a 3-D cover like this one, making it clear that it consists of multiple authors.

Obviously at 99 cents, particularly when split between large numbers of authors, this kind of project is not likely to result in a lot of money per person. What it is supposed to do is appeal to a large group of people, many, if not most of whom, are not familiar with your writing. In this way you should be able to pick up some number of new fans. Also there is the possibility of getting so many people to buy this bargain collection that you can actually get on one of the major best-seller lists, such as Amazon top 100, USA Today or even the New York Time Best-sellers list. Once that happens any author in the collection can legitimately add the title “New York Times Best-selling Author” to their cover. The last, of course, is the brass ring, and unless there are already a couple of NYT bestselling authors in the box set, the chances of it happening are pretty slim.  

The USA Today list is a little more likely. In fact I checked today and found at #133 a box set called “Ten Christmas Brides” by Ruth Cardello, Nina Bruhns, Donna Fasano, Rebecca York, Helen Scott Taylor, Patrice Wilton, Mona Risk, Annie Jones, Alicia Street, Mimi Barbour. I recognize more than a few of those names, but there are a few on there that I expect will now be adding that USA Today Best-seller label to their accomplishments.

This is the reasoning behind taking a novel you are already selling and packaging it for sale with other authors for a bargain price. There is a slim chance you will hit a best-seller list, but you are very likely to get more attention. And since box sets are intended to be bargains there isn’t the stigma of “giving your book away”. Does it make sense if you only have one title out to put that in the box set? Unless you are building a name and are going to release additional books in the near future, probably not. But it can make sense if you have multiple other titles in the same genre.

I’m currently in two such box sets. The first is the Apple promotion that I mentioned first. This was hastily assembled with two other authors who also had fantasy/paranormal romances. I added my futuristic romance, Promises To Keep, and we titled it “Rogues In Time” to link in that the stories take place in multiple time periods, the other two being distant past and modern day.

One of the other authors did the cover and formatted the stories together for Smashwords, I put together an author agreement to cover the length of time the box set was to be in existence, about three months, and we uploaded the book. It got into the Apple promotion, and we all tweeted out the news and mentioned it on Facebook. Sales are coming in, but our expectations at this point are pretty modest. Some of that is with three authors rather than 10 we aren’t quite as attractive as the other sets on the Apple page, and we got into the promotion somewhat later, missing the initial excitement. We’ll see where things are in January.

The second box set has been an interesting experience. First of all it is holiday themed, which is very timely. People buy Christmas and other holiday related stories at Christmas time. Always have, and very likely always will. This is a collection of 10 shorter works by members of my RWA chapter and some other local authors, primarily in the Bay area. I was taking a cover art class and used the box set as a class project so I needed a title to work with. The first title we picked was “West Coast Holidays” but we ultimately opted for Candy Cane Kisses as a more clever title. It got expanded to Candy Cane Kisses and Enchanted Embraces when we added several paranormal stories to the mix. I won’t go into a description of the discussions that were had over the title and ultimately the cover, other than it is interesting how ten different people can see the same project in so many ways. But we finally settled on the title and a cover that we could live with.

And now comes the promotion. It turns out that we have some very experienced people on the team who have run book campaigns in the past. Under their guidance a Facebook page was set up along with the designated hashtag #KissesEmbraces, which has been central in our promotion efforts. We have held a pre-order Facebook party, complete with prizes, we've created daily posts to the Facebook page for the box set, with themes like #MistletoeMonday and #FestiveFriday (the latter was my favorite because it was all recipes!). We even have a Grand Prize raffle that people can enter. Prizes are donated by the authors and we all chipped in some cash to cover the promotion costs.

This Monday, November 17^th, is the actual release of the box set, meaning the links that are at the moment pre-order will become order buttons, and everyone who already bought a copy will receive their books.  Once more, we are having a Facebook party from 4:00PM to 7:00PM (I'll be there at 6:30 until the end) to celebrate, again with prizes and a lot of fun, so be sure to check it out!

I check the Amazon rank of the set on a daily basis. At the moment is at #10,220 Paid, which isn’t bad.

Oh and here are the buy links:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PDYT76Q
Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1xdY7Ck
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1vaQ2xz

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/candy-cane-kisses-enchanted/id941247215

I’ll let you know more next month on how the box sets are doing, as well as tell you about my other Christmas books. Right now I have to put together a Facebook post for Monday’s release party and find a picture to use. Never a dull moment when promoting a box set.

Cheers,

Janet Miller

How to write a good love scene

A couple years ago, I attended a fantastic presentation by Angela Knights on how to write a good sex scene.

Here is more or less what Angela said—I hope I got it right, Angela.

 Love scenes illustrate the development of romance. They reveal the way people feel about each other.

A love scene reveals characters, enhances the conflict, and develops the romance.

Love scene and the characters:

 How does it reveal the hero? The hero must be experienced. Don’t ever write about a virgin hero! Mention his romantic and sexual history before the first sex scene.

Show how his attitude toward the heroine change in the course of your story.

Show how the heroine helps him develop his strengths and overcome his weaknesses.

The love scene should reveal how he makes love to the heroine, how he finds her different from past lovers, and how his way change toward her by the end of the story.

Before a love scene, we should also know the heroine’s romantic history: how does she feel about sex? In historical romances, a love scene is a big conflict for the heroine who is usually not experienced. Give the heroine good reasons to trust the hero enough to sleep with him.

Picking up a hero in a bar and making love with him is dangerous and borderline erotica.

Is she sexually confident?

How does making love to him change her?

Does she gain confidence in them as a couple?

Let the heroine take the lead in some scenes.

Love scenes make them both grow. A love scene is always a turning point. You develop the plot with a love scene. You also develop the conflict with a sex scene. To intensify the conflict through a love scene you can make him dominant if she doesn’t like an alpha hero. And then make her reaction to him strong and dramatic. Let one character turn the tables on the other—heroine dominates the hero.

 Logistic of a love scene: 

A hero can’t go directly to kissing before a few steps of touching that establish trust.

You have to create the environment of trust for her to accept his kiss.

Love scenes should complicate the situation: A love scene is a critical turning point. What problems does it cause? How does it change the way the characters view each other now?

To know if your love scenes make sense read them back to back by themselves and see if the romance grow and develop through these love scenes.

Love scene pacing:

 Where does the love scene fall in the romance? What kind of emotion do you want to communicate? The love scene can intensify the mood: We are at our most vulnerable when making love. This is a perfect time for drama. Taking off clothes is a big act of trust.

Or it can lighten the mood: for example it will keep a romantic suspense or a thriller from getting too dark.

Watch your timing: Characters who are supposed to be hunting the bad guys can’t waste their time making love. Don’t follow a gruesome murder with a love scene.

Love scene construction:

Don’t rush. You need at least five pages for a satisfying love scene, for emotional impact. Don’t cheat the reader

Set the scene with a sensual environment: sharp vivid emotions with five senses.

A long pre-scene is acceptable but stay clear of purple prose.

Who makes the first move? Stay within characters.

More interesting when there is more than one objective to the love scene.

Sexual roles of hero and heroine: The heroine sets the sexual pace. She decides when characters make love because she’s the one who has the most to lose.

Concentrate on sensual details. Focus on sensations that characters feel. Use lots of sensual details, smell, touch, taste. Reader doesn’t want to guess.

It’s always better to be in her point of view. Don’t shift POV in the middle of a sex scene.

Use a lot of emotion to give love scenes their power.

Use dialog during a love scene.

Pillow talk: remember blood doesn’t go to a man’s brain when it rushes elsewhere. So keep dialog lines short and sexy. Moans are not considered dialog!!! Use sense of humor but keep tenderness to the last chapter otherwise your story is over.

Keep sex language appropriate to time and characters.

Keep heat levels corresponding to your readers’ comfort. Trade paperback and ebooks allow sexier content than mass market in terms of language and erotic details.

Look at other books in the same genre to decide what you can get away with.

Happy Ever After: Readers want to know what it’s like to find HEA with a sexy hero. Capture that experience with passion and imagination.

Remember that your first paragraph sells your book and your last paragraph sells your next book.

{more details in A Guide To Write Erotic Romance by Angela Knights}

 The four books in my box set, Foreign Lovers, follow Angela Knights’s advice. They sizzle with sensual tension and offer you memorable love scene.--99 cents.

Weddings on Main Street

WEDDINGS ON MAIN STREET, our Main Street’s second book, has just been released. last week. It is now offered at 99cents for a limited time only. Incredible bargain for a box set that should have cost over $30 if you had to buy the individual books.

Perfect timing for all the June weddings! And who doesn’t love a wedding? That happy couple represents so much love and hope for the future.

All the stories were written just for the set. Each is complete and each is a full novella length. Some are sweet and some are sexy. They are all perfect for Main Street!

Available at Amazon

And here are the eleven books offered in Weddings on Main Street:

What a Cowgirl Wants by Tori Scott.
April Fool Bride by Joan Reeves.
Wedding Surprise by Mona Risk.
Small Town Glamour Girl Wedding by Stephanie Queen. USA TODAY Bestelling Author.
The Vow by Pepper Phillips.
The Reluctant Bride by Jill James.
Kiss the Bridesmaid by Susan R. Hughes.
Second Chance Wedding by Leigh Morgan.
Once Upon a Wedding by Kelly Rae.
Stuck with You by Kristy Tate.
I Thee Wed by E. Ayers.