Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...

Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Making A Review Work For You

My Tuesday Talk Guest Kerryn Reid talks about
Learning To Waltz - and how to make the best of those reviews!

First of all, I want to thank Helen for inviting me here to crow a little bit.
I am overjoyed to win the Regency category of the Chatelaine Awards for Women’s Fiction and Romance!
It took a very long year to get the final results, but it was worth it.

This is just one of Chanticleer Book Reviews’ impressive line-up of annual contests. The prize package includes a nice blue ribbon, gold foil stickers, digital stickers to use online, and some other goodies.

But best of all is one of Chanticleer’s coveted book reviews! Normally, those reviews cost money. My marketing budget is too small for that!
(Alas, that review is not out yet. With around 125 category winners in ten different genres, it takes a little while to write them all. See the full line-up.)

Writers write for different reasons. There are some, I’m told, who write purely for their own pleasure, with no ambition to be published, much less successful. That’s an attitude I envy; they’ll never have to stress about SEO, social media or their “internet footprint.”

The rest of us are more greedy. We want something to show for the tears we’ve shed over our literary children. Some of us set our sights on the validation that comes from acceptance by a major publisher. Some want to sell a million copies, or make a million dollars. Some yearn to reach the New York Times best-seller list or see their beloved story on the silver screen.

I assume there are others like me, whose biggest motivator is critical acclaim. There’s not much that makes me happier than a good review. Whether it comes from Chanticleer Book Reviews or an Amazon reader, it thrills me.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve submitted my first novel, Learning to Waltz, to eight or ten free review sites. Of those, almost all came through, and the reviews they posted were very complimentary indeed. The Historical Novel Society called it “stirring and intelligent… [an] extremely promising debut.” The Romance Reviews said it was “stunning.” And to top those off, the reviewer at Readers’ Favorite called the book both “perfect” and “flawless.” She’s wrong, of course, but I’m not complaining! How awesome to think that someone found it worthy of such praise! (Awesome in the old-fashioned sense of scary, too. Because Book #2 is misbehaving. Badly.)

I flew from Florida to Washington State to attend Chanticleer’s annual conference, where they distribute those pretty blue ribbons. (No, they did not pay my way, though the category winners received a discount on the conference fee.) Another awesome-in-both-senses experience, centered not on writing but on marketing and promoting books. We talked about reviews, of course, as one factor that can help drive sales.

Many of the authors in attendance lamented the existence of “trolls” who get their jollies by bad-mouthing authors and books they often haven’t even read, posting atrocious reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. Just because they can, I guess.

I’ve been lucky there, too. The trolls must not bother with books below a certain threshold of sales. Because I’m sorry to say, great reviews don’t necessarily translate into great sales numbers. I hear 100 is a magic number on Amazon, and I’m nowhere near that. So it’s a good thing I care more about quality than quantity, right?

Well, yes. I really do. Most of the time.

Nevertheless…

So how can an author put a great review to work?

Copy the entire review to a Word.doc and create a snippet (excerpt) to use in promotions. Choose all the best parts!
If it is an editorial review, post the snippet in the Editorial Reviews section on your book’s Amazon page. (Do this through your book page at Amazon Author Central.) According to Kiffer Brown of Chanticleer, posting editorial reviews here raises your “Amazon love” quotient and SEO. In addition, booksellers and librarians use these reviews to make buying decisions. Some readers do too. (What is an editorial review? Chanticleer tells you. And for a more detailed look at how to make them work, see this.)
Post the snippet on your home page with a link to the full review, either on the original site or elsewhere on your website.
Do the same with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and whatever other social media sites you use. Also your writers’ loops.
Send the full review to your email list. Let them share your excitement!
Some reviewers post to Goodreads automatically. If they don’t, you can post one in the My Review section. Just list the review site at the top so readers know it’s not your review of your own book!
Quote a few words from your latest review in your email signature, along with a link to the full review on your website (or the original review site): “I can’t wait to read it again. A real gem!” Online Book Club
Create a Word.doc containing all those great snippets for easy access when you want one. Condense it to a half page, then pretty it up with clipart and insert one in each copy of your book at book signings. Maybe enlarge and frame it for your signing table.
You can list your book free on Storyfinds.com, along with up to five rotating review snippets. They run some fun, reasonably-priced promotions, too. And on ReadersFavorite.com you can paste in as many reviews as you want.
If it’s really an important review – The New York Times, say – read it from the rooftops! In costume! Then send out a press release.
Last, and definitely not least, thank the reviewer! Even if it’s a so-so review, the reader took the time to write it. A simple “thank you for your comments” is only polite. This won’t sell books, but it might build goodwill. (One exception: Ignore the trolls.)

If you’re lucky, these tips will bring you some sales. They won’t make a you a best-seller (unless it’s the NYT) – and if they do, I want to hear about it! In fact, I’d love to hear whatever you have to say. Comment on Helen’s blog or use the contact links below. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter, Seasons of the Past. Click here to read a sample issue.

website: www.kerrynreid.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kerrynreid.fiction
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kerryn_reid
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kerrynareid

Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Creating Characters Your Readers Will Love

My Guest today for Tuesday Talk:

Pam Lecky...

It’s all very well to have a great story but it’s your characters who are going to tell it for you. Besides an overdose of historical detail (which can come across as patronising), a common irritant for me as a reader are characters that are so wishy-washy that you want to slap them … very hard. I have a dread of mousey heroines or nice heroes. One of my favourite authors is Georgette Heyer. But I find that the Heyer novels I read over and over are the ones with at least one strong protagonist, and more often than not, two, and they are usually at loggerheads for most of the novel.

Admittedly, when I started writing I didn’t really care much about an audience as I was writing purely for myself, never dreaming that I would someday be confident enough to publish. But once that idea came closer to reality, I did put a lot of thought into character development. It was important for me to come up with detailed back stories, even though after the first draft, most of that material was jettisoned. I think it is important for the reader to get glimpses of these rather than your book getting swamped with them. I like to use tiny snippets of flashback or reminiscing about the past to achieve this.

So then I had to think about what makes a character engaging, which meant analysing what I found interesting in the characters I like in my favourite books. It seemed to me that the characters with personality flaws or quirks were by far the most interesting – the more a character had, the more I could relate to them. Flaws add flesh and bone and make you think – that could be me saying or doing that. Above all, your characters have to be real, and for this genre, they have to be authentic for their time. For the author this means a lot of research and reading a lot of works from that time period. I find listening to music of the period, studying art and old photographs (luckily for me my favourite period is 19^th century), helps me to get inside the heads of all of my characters; once you achieve that, it becomes a lot easier to tell their story.

So let me introduce my two protagonists.

Firstly, say hello to Louisa Campbell. She’s no ordinary Victorian miss. In fact, she is the product of a life far removed from what her heritage would suggest. Born to the last heir of an Irish ascendancy family, she never experienced the rights and privileges of her peers. Her father inherited a bankrupt property, gambled the pittance that was left and on his death, left his two daughters struggling to survive, moving from lodging to lodging in the less elegant quarters of 1880s Dublin. Genteel poverty is a knife-edge world and Louisa has to deal with all kinds of individuals most ‘ladies’ of the time would have shrunk from in horror. After encounters with grasping landlords, haggling with pawn-brokers and having to protect herself and her sister, she has become a resilient and self-reliant young woman. Taking care of her sister who is ill, has taught her patience and how to curb her impetuosity (but never fear, it is always bubbling away just beneath the surface). Every penny they have has to be eked out to cover rent, food and doctor’s bills, so she has a firm grasp of the basic economics of living. By the time Louisa inherits her previously unknown uncle’s estate, she is already a strong, independently-minded woman and probably more worldly-wise that most woman of twenty-three at the time.

Now, say how-do-you-do to Nicholas Maxwell, Esq. Leader of local society, Justice of the Peace and businessman, he is self-assured and fairly sure he can handle anything life throws at him. However, beneath the confident manner he is hot-tempered, holds grudges and doesn’t suffer fools. Louisa’s late uncle was a thorn in his side and he can almost be forgiven for rejoicing in that man passing through the pearly gates. He is delighted to have an opportunity to buy back the Campbell property which had once formed part of his estate but which his father had lost in a game of poker. He discovers that Campbell’s heir is a penniless Irishwoman and is sure that she will sell up. Nicholas cannot believe it when his approaches to Louisa are rebutted and she moves into Bowes Farm and leaves him in no doubt that she is a worthy advisory. A state of war is declared. Fireworks can only ensue … and they do.

The premise for The Bowes Inheritance was a wrangle over land and a strong woman fighting to keep it. But I have always been fascinated by the strange relationship between the Irish Ascendancy and their British counterparts. The Ascendancy were regarded as the ‘quality’ by the native Irish (though not necessarily loved!) and yet they were seen as second-rate by the gentry in England. I thought this would make an interesting background for my story. So I threw my heroine into a society predisposed to be suspicious of her. Then I added the Fenian bombing campaign that was raging at the time and set it in the beautiful Cumbrian countryside. The result was a battle-royal between two strong-willed and volatile protagonists. Hey presto, my book was born!

Happy reading!

Pam