Market your e-book!

Recently, Amazon announced a program called KDP Select, which seemed like a promising idea. They asked for a 90-day renewable exclusive on distribution, and in exchange people can borrow my enrolled titles through Amazon Prime. Each borrow earns a proportional slice of a nice-sized pot that changes monthly. Also, writers are allowed to offer each enrolled title for free for up to five days. That sounds like a good marketing tool.

Some of my friends have legitimate concerns about this. Amazon has become so dominant, and writers are leery of being part of a behemoth that wants to take over the book world. I had similar feelings about Walmart until after settling into a new town, Walmart consistently offered the best deals on food and sundries for average people. So dealing with them is in my interest, and it's the same now with Amazon. They may deserve whatever labels we want to tag them with, but dealing with them is in my interest.

Combine that with Twitter, a free and easy social networking site, and you have a marketing combination that works better than anything else I've tried so far. My first promotion resulted in over 20,000 free downloads of When Pigs Fly, followed by a significant amount of paid sales. Without getting into numbers, I can say the results are great.

If you're an author looking for a way to market your ebooks, do yourself a favor and try this. If you don't want to deal with Amazon, perhaps you can try Smashwords. I have no experience with them, but friends have only good things to say. Either way you'll need to do your own proselytizing, and for that Twitter seems like a darned good tool.

Am I old yet?

My guest this week is author Morgan Mandel, who explores the dark side of eternal youth. Take it away, Morgan...

Am I old yet?  I’m not sure.  If so, when did it happen? Was it when I turned twenty-one and plucked out my first gray hair? Or when I got married three years later? People tied the knot much younger in those days.

I remember watching Bonanza on TV, and discovering Adam Cartwright (Pernell Roberts) was thirty-one. That seemed horribly ancient, until it happened to me.

All of a sudden I turned middle-aged, then before I knew it, I found an AARP application in the mail. I was kind of proud of my card, yet sad at the same time, realizing I’d already existed for half a century.  

When my parents passed away, it hit me that I was officially a member of the older generation, as they and others had been before me.

Now, when I stare at myself in the mirror, it’s strange to realize this is the same person who once climbed monkey bars and played hopscotch, went to sock hops, wore mini-skirts and bikinis, learned to disco dance and checked my mood ring to see if it had changed color.

Am I old yet? Inside, I still feel like the same person, but I don’t look the same. Would I like to be young again? Most of the time, I’m content with being who I am right now. Other times, I wonder what life would be like if I could delve into the Fountain of Youth and re-emerge young.

Writing is a blessing. Not only can I enter into the make-believe world of my characters, but I can also share that experience. Forever Young:  Blessing or Curse, is a result of my musings about being young again. It was written not only for Baby Boomers like me, who’d like to imagine reliving their youth, but also for those who don’t need to ask if they’re old yet.

About Forever Young

Fresh beginnings turn tragic when Dorrie Donato’s husband, Larry, is killed in a hit-and-run accident a few months after starting a new job at the Life is for Living Institute. Discouraged and desperate after suffering countless setbacks, Dorrie accepts an offer by Larry’s boss, the famous Angel Man, to  be the first to test an experimental pill designed to spin its user back to a desired age and hold there, yet still retain all previous memories.  The pill seems too good to be true. Maybe it is.

About Morgan Mandel

Before writing books, Morgan Mandel freelanced for the Daily Herald newspaper. She’s a past president of Chicago-North RWA, the former Library Liaison for Midwest MWA, and is a member of Sisters in Crime and EPIC. She enjoys writing thrillers, mysteries and romances, and has fun combining the genres.

Her latest paranormal romantic thriller Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, Book One of the Always Young Series, is available on Kindle, Nook, Itunes, Kobo, and Smashwords, plus other electronic venues.  Morgan’s previous novels, also available electronically, include the romantic suspense, Killer Career, the mystery, Two Wrongs, and the romantic comedy, Girl of My Dreams. Morgan is now working on Book Two of the Always Young Series, called Blessing or Curse: A Forever Young Anthology, where readers will learn what happens to others who take the Forever Young pill.  Another book will follow, bringing back the original heroine, to close out the series.

You can find Morgan Mandel at her blog: http://morganmandel.blogspot.com, website: http://www.morganmandel.com, on Facebook: http://facebook.com/morgan.mandel, on Twitter: http://twitter.com/morganmandel, as well as other social media networks and egroups.

Ten Tips to Make Your Manuscript Shine

We self-publishers fight a lonely battle, finding readers for our wit and wisdom. We write alone, and now we sell alone and search for ways to market our work. How do we entice readers to open their wallets?

Those questions are often premature. Before asking how you're going to cope with all those book orders, you need to make sure you have a quality product. So here are ten tips to make your book, fiction or non-fiction, the best it can be.

#1 Use a spell-checker, but only as a first line of defense. Then you look for misspellings the spell-checker won't catch, such as then/than, to/too/two, tail/tale, or its/it's.

#2 Read your manuscript critically, as though you weren't the author. Some things to check include complete chapters, well-organized paragraphs, complete sentences, and accurate punctuation.

#3 Be consistent. If you capitalize a word once in the text, chances are you always want to capitalize it. Decide whether you want one space or two at the end of a sentence, and stick with it. Never change your font or type size without good reason. If your work consists of more than one file, be sure that every file is formatted identically.

#4 Get honest, competent critiques. Leave your mother and spouse alone; your family has better things to do than fawn over your work. Avoid critiques from anyone who has an emotional stake in making you happy, because that isn't what you need. The Internet Writing Workshop (http://internetwritingworkshop.org) is an excellent source of constructive, informed criticism.

#5 Use your judgment. Even good critiquers may give you conflicting advice. Remember that it's your project, so the final decision is always yours.

#6 Refer to a style manual such as the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the most widely accepted guide for standard writing.

#7 Make a style sheet. A novel or other large manuscript can involve lots of small stylistic decisions by the author. Keep a pad of paper with a running list things you don't want to have to keep looking up. For example, a cartoon I liked showed a bank robber writing a note and asking the teller, "Is holdup one word or two?" Think of words you often misspell or don't know how to capitalize, and write them correctly on the list.

#8 Follow your publisher's guidelines religiously even if they don't insist.

#9 Repeat tip #2.

#10 Review the publisher's proof carefully. When you receive the publisher's proof isn't the time to look for typos; you should have done that already. At this stage, the publisher may even charge you if you fix many of your own mistakes at this stage. Instead, look for their errors. Are illustrations in their proper places? Are pages and chapters numbered properly? Look at every page's overall appearance. Is each one properly aligned? Is any text missing?

If you follow these simple (but not always easy) tips, I can't guarantee best-sellerdom for your book, but I can promise you this: Your book will be far superior to the vast majority of self-published books. You will have a quality product.

This article first appeared in Ezine Articles in 2007.

Review of Forever Young

Dorrie is a beautiful middle-aged woman who watches her husband Larry die in a tragic accident. Larry had worked for the Life is for Living Institute, which then offers Dorrie a job that includes being spokeswoman for their brand-new Forever Young pill. She can choose to revert to any age and stay there virtually forever without the worry of death by disease, so with some trepidation she becomes a gorgeous 24-year-old again. That's a blessing, right? Wouldn't we all love to revert to the prime of our lives?

But as the subtitle "Blessing or Curse" suggests, it gets complicated. Wouldn't you know that Larry died knowing a secret, and that not everyone wishes Dorrie well? What follows is a fast-paced romantic escapism with generally good dialog and interesting characters. Nitpickers will note that the Forever Young pill has been released to the public without FDA testing or approval. Dorrie is a well-crafted, likable heroine whom romance fans will surely root for.

Forever Young is a fun read even for a guy like me who's never read a romance before. It is available on Kindle and Smashwords.

Review of Welcome Home, Sir

Welcome Home, Sir takes the reader into three realms that may well be unfamiliar territory: the biochemistry lab, Israel's Golan Heights, and the world of hypochondria. The main character, Doctor Ethan Meyer, has served in Israel's military, and key experiences show up in frequent brief flashbacks. Now he runs an American university lab and deals with the inevitable politics that turn vicious and may destroy a career almost before it begins. Privately, he worries that every twitch, every variation in his pulse is the first sign of a terminal disease. He knows he's a hypochondriac and sees a doctor to help him struggle against it.

All of this makes for a good premise. The idea is that Meyer's hypochondria stems from his military experience, but that doesn't come through clearly enough in the novel. The chapters are too short and need development. As far as it goes, the novel is well-written and enjoyable, but it literally falls short. I recommend the novel for its insights into new territory, but it really needs to be at least twice as long.

Review of The Stasi File

The Stasi File impresses on several levels: author Peter Bernhardt knows Germany, he knows opera, and he knows how to write a solid thriller.

The time is the early 1990s, and Communism is crumbling. The Berlin Wall has fallen. East Germany is a failed state with an uncertain future. Will it even remain independent, or will West Germany absorb it? Some fear a resurgent, powerful Germany, while others see reunification as crucial to the future health and stability of Europe.

The Stasi, the newly defunct East German secret police, hate and fear the prospect of reunification. Attorney Rolf Keller is sent from America to Berlin to obtain a secret Stasi file that may be critical to the West. Meanwhile, the opera singer Sylvia Mazzoni has a past that embroils her in a dangerous game of espionage, whether she likes it or not. She sings a key role in Bizet's Carmen. What is in store for her? A bright career, arrest, or death? Keller and Mazzoni have to work together, but can they trust each other? And what is the real threat?

The Stasi File reads smoothly as Bernhardt builds the tension from multiple viewpoints and brings the story to an exciting and satisfying conclusion. This is the work of a pro that deserves a wide audience.

Review of The Power of Validation

How can parents raise a child who has the confidence to avoid peer pressure, deal with bullies, avoid self-harm, and get a proper grip on emotions? That is the goal of The Power of Validation, a practical, commonsense book on child-rearing that many readers may wish their own parents had known about.

What is validation? It's "the recognition and acceptance that your child has feelings and thoughts that are true and real to him regardless of logic or whether it makes sense to anyone else," the authors write. No, it doesn't mean giving in to their demands or necessarily agreeing with their feelings. It might well mean "Yes, I understand that this is what you want to do, but we're doing something else right now."

This book shows that validation promotes a healthy, well-deserved self esteem that is based on children fulfilling their potential. Parents learn how to deal not only with children's worry, anger, fear, and jealousy, but with happiness, joy, and having fun. "The idea is to allow independence, interests, and imperfection while recognizing and accepting your child's weaknesses and strengths," the authors write.

The book has occasional exercises that help readers try out the principles themselves, and they are all easy to understand.

If only I could, I would travel back in time with two copies of The Power of Validation. One would go to my parents when they had their first child, and the other would be for when I became a parent.