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Update on the California Dreamin’ Conference

Happy New Year!

The Twelve Days of Christmas have almost passed, but there’s still time for you to register for the California Dreamin’ Conference, at the regular rate, before prices go up on January 15, 2017.

Your California Dreamin’ Committee is working hard to make this year’s conference the best ever. We’ve lost some presenters for business and personal reasons, including OCC member Kitty Bucholtz who is now residing in a beach front home in Wellington, New Zealand (tough life, right?!).

But, we’re excited to announce we’ve added a new speaker, Robin Blakely, a top business coach, who’ll present a workshop STORYography Cards: From Big Idea to Marketing Success.

Here’s part of the blurb for her workshop:

Writers, you CAN make a solid living from your talent. But first, you have to write or re-write the storyline for the success of your talent-driven brand. Top business coach Robin Blakely, CEO of Creative Center of America and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, shows you how to bring structure–and a sense of peace–to the common chaos of your creative career.

And there are still spots available for Debra Dixon’s Book Camp on Friday, March 24, 2017.

This pre-conference add-on provides valuable tools a writer needs to pull a book together. The intensive workshop covers the three most important elements of popular fiction-goal, motivation and conflict (GMC), and how those elements work with the mythic structure of Joseph Campbellâ€™s Heroâ€™s Journey to help writers conceive and create strong plots and compelling characters.

Book Camp is available as a single purchase for those not attending the conference. Writers from any genre will benefit and are most welcome.

If you have questions, check out the conference FAQ page, or come speak to me or Jann Audiss at the January OCC meeting.

Alina K. Field

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Giving InstaFreebie a Try by Kitty Bucholtz

December 9, 2016 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing: It's a Business tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz

My new writing desk complete with inspiring view!

Hello from sunny New Zealand!

Yes, if you haven’t heard, my husband got his dream job and we moved to New Zealand last month! Woohooo!!! The earthquake thing is a little weird, but we have loved pretty much every aspect of our transition.

The people are fabulously friendly and laid back, and the weather is gorgeous. Having lived in Southern California for many of the last fifteen years, I’m excited to have weather! It actually reminds us of Michigan, where we grew up. Don’t like the weather – give it an hour. LOL!

In addition to all the changes in my personal life, I’m trying something new in my marketing as well. My friend Jennifer very kindly invited me to participate in my first InstaFreebie promotion. I know several friends who rave about their InstaFreebie results (especially Tracy Reed), but I haven’t gotten around to looking into it.

Then I got this invitation to join a group of folks who write humorous paranormal or urban fantasy. Our promotion will run starting tomorrow, December 10 through Friday the 16th. I’m posting the link here so you can see it, even though it’s a day early.

If you don’t know anything about InstaFreebie, let me tell you what I know. Readers click over to the book they’re interested in downloading, choose the format (mobi, epub, pdf), and enter their email address. Authors have the option of forcing the reader to signup for their newsletter in order to get the book or allowing that to be optional. Then the reader gets an email with the book file. Easy!

I’m told that the best way to get the most value from your InstaFreebie giveway is to make the newsletter signup mandatory. The friend who invited me got about a thousand newsletter signups from her very first InstaFreebie giveaway a few months ago!

I don’t know what will happen for me, but I’ll let you know next month. Meanwhile, check out all the free books you can get this next week! They look super fun!

Kitty Bucholtz

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon . The free short story Superhero in Disguise and the new short story Welcome to Loon Lake are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.

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The Latest on the California Dreamin’ Writers Conference

December 2, 2016 by A Slice of Orange in category Writing Conferences tagged as Orange County, Writing conference

At the last OCCRWA meeting, Jann Audiss and I updated everyone on the latest plans for the California Dreamin’ Writers Conference.

Ready for your Headshot?

Even putting aside holiday distractions (who has time to bake cookies?) committee members are working away, ironing out details for the upcoming conference. As we announced, in November, Jann and I met with VJ Dunraven of Period Images and her two top designers, and we’re happy to announce that they’ll be providing custom head shot services on Saturday of the conference. They’ll even bring along makeup and hair experts to give clients the best camera-ready look possible.

Calling all Readers

I also want to mention that reader signups have opened for California Readin’, the Barbara Vey Event for Readers. Do you know an avid romance reader? Invite her to sign up for this event here. Tickets are $5, and each attendee will receive a bag of author sponsored swag and a $5 coupon to spend at the book signing that follows the event. Also, everyone is welcome to participate in the weekly Facebook parties at the California Readin’ Facebook page for a chance to party with authors and score some giveaways.

Saturday Night Parties

Some of our special presenters will be holding special Saturday night events for the lucky winners of our opportunity drawing. Here’s the lineup:

Deb Dixon will host “Through the Looking Glass”, a frank Q&A with someone who’s been on the front lines an in the trenches over the years
Sarah MacLean and Tessa Dare will host a tea, and chat about the Regency
Laura Drake will talk about “Bikers and Cowboys after Dark”
M.A. Taylor is back with “Cop Tales”

Workshop Lineup

All of this is on top of our lineup of workshops, running from Friday night through Sunday morning. Get a peek at our workshop lineup here.

Questions?

If you have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact Jann Audiss or me, or better yet, submit your questsion to http://caldreaminwriters.com/contact-us/ and a committee member will get back to you.

There’s still time to register before the price goes up on January 15th, so why not put this conference on your holiday wish list!

Wishing all of you a wonderful December and the happiest of holidays!

Alina K. Field

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California Dreamin’

November 10, 2016 by A Slice of Orange in category Writing Conferences tagged as Orange County, Writing conferences

Have you registered yet for the 2017 California Dreamin’ Writers’ Conference?

When the conference committee held its first meeting in the summer of 2015, March of 2017 seemed a long way off. But time gets away from us, and the conference is only a little over four months from now!

From Friday’s Book Camp, presented by Debra Dixon, through our Sunday afternoon keynote speaker, Sarah MacLean, the conference offers something for writers at all stages of their careers.

Jann Audiss and I will be at the November 12th OCCRWA meeting and will be happy to answer your questions. Or, you can always submit questions via the California Dreamin’ website, https://caldreaminwriters.com/contact-us/ and a committee member will get back to you.

Hotel rooms are filling up quickly, and registration discounts for RWA and chapter members end January 15, 2017. If you’ve been thinking about registering, why not add the conference to your holiday wish list? You don’t want to miss it!

Alina K. Field

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Making Ads and Amazon Rankings Work for You

August 17, 2016 by Marianne H. Donley in category Writing: It's a Business tagged as Amazon Marketing, Amazon Rankings, Book Ads, historical romance, LOUELLA NELSON, Montana Sky Series

by Louella Nelson

I’m hoping this article on promoting free and 99’¢ books helps your sales, and I hope you’ll take advantage of the 99’¢ sale on my first historical romance.

Yesterday my book Rye’s Reprieve hit #7 on the Kindle Historical Romance Best Sellers list. Perhaps you are jaded by all the wonderful best-selling authors in our chapter who regularly hit #1 on all the major lists and don’t think #7 is all that much.

But consider: Rye’s Reprieve is my first historical and my first novel-length fiction to release in more than two decades*. Reestablishing a writing career equates to pushing a two-ton boulder up Mt. Baldy. S

o seeing your new book hit #7 is about as good as eating homemade blueberry ice cream made with blueberries you picked on the hill behind your house just that morning.

*In May 2014, my period short story Cora Lee achieved #6 in Literary Short Fiction, following behind stories by Stephen King and Lee Child. For that launch, the only promotion I did was to mention the book on Twitter & Facebook and in a newsletter to my email list of about 1200. I reissued my Harlequin titles and put out several short stories. My Amazon author page shows all fiction.

I didn’t achieve this recent modest success on Rye’s Reprieve without friends’ advice and a bit of luck. Here’s how I did it.

Decoding the rankings

On March 9 after my initial email promotion, Rye’s Reprieve went to #6 in Kindle World Romance. In contrast, this go-round, August 7-11, with the 99¢ sale and some specific promotions recommended by friends, the book has been #1 in Kindle Worlds Romance and Westerns for days. It achieved #3 in Kindle Western Romance and held there; today it went to #4. And the book has been #1 in Kindle Westerns for a few days too.

The message? Make a study of Amazon’s ranking structure. It’s complex – more complex than what you see beneath your title’s descriptive data on the book’s Amazon page. Here is the link to see all the lists available under Best Sellers Kindle Store eBooks: Link. From there, click on your genre and drill down until you find the various lists where your book exists.

Under ebook subcategories, Romance is the umbrella topic. I then checked Historical Romance as well as Western Romance. Clicking Westerns takes you to Western Romance.

Another ranking, Westerns, can be found by clicking on Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction. Strangely, under Genre Fiction, Romance is not listed!

I found Kindle Worlds rankings in the Ranking area on my book’s page.

But also think seriously about placing relatively inexpensive ads on websites whose sole mission is to promote free and 99¢ ebooks.

What worked in promotion

First, because Rye’s Reprieve is published by Amazon as one of several novels released in February 2016 in Debra Holland’s Montana Sky Kindle World, Amazon put the book on sale without warning at the beginning of August. I’m assuming they did multiple email blasts that included my book, but even those didn’t keep the book up in the rankings for long.

In addition to my own Facebook and Twitter announcements of the 99¢ sale, a member of OCC RWA and Novelists, Inc. (NINC), Lauren Royal, opened her Friday Freebies & 99-Cent Bargain Books and her weekly newsletter featuring historical novels to NINC members, so I submitted my book. She also mentioned my title on Facebook and Twitter. The promotion at www.LaurenRoyal.com hit on August 5 and was free.

Debra Holland recommended I try for an ad in eReader News Today (ENT) and I was lucky to be chosen to participate. The fee for an ad on a specific day for historical romance is only $60. You can pay by PayPal or credit card (as most of the sites I mention allow). The morning the ad appeared at www.ereadernewstoday.com, August 7, the book shot to #1 in the Kindle Worlds mentioned above and the top 5 in Western Historical and Western. Unfortunately, I did not think to check the Historical Romance category, but when I did a couple days later, the novel was ranked #22, rising to #7 in the past few days.

I credit Amazon emails, the ENT ad, and Lauren’s newsletter for Rye’s Reprieve initial rise in rank.

Meanwhile, I contacted Linda Carroll-Bradd and asked her advice about advertising. She recommended I look into www.JustKindleBooks.com and www.Ebookshabit.com. The ad at Just Kindle Books costs $20 plus Add Ons (keep the book on their homepage for extra 3 days $20; Facebook post to 26,000 followers, $10) for a total of $60. The fee includes cover image/link on Pinterest, Tumblr, and other main social media.

That promo hit August 11. The book rose to #7 in Historical Romance, # 3 in Western Romance, as well as #1 in Westerns, and #1 in KW both Romance and Western. This is a pretty good indication that Just Kindle Books is worth the money. I did not get the bump I was hoping for from a $10 ad with eBooksHabit.

After reading a Morning Juice email and attending the PAW group at OCC/RWA on Saturday, I gathered the following advertising ops for ebooks that are free or 99¢ from Kitty Bucholtz, Vicki Crum, Shelley Bleackley, and others. I had spent $120 so far. With a remaining budget of about $250, I placed ads here:

Robin Reads (August was closed when I checked but I wrote to them about the success of the initial advertising efforts, they encouraged me to submit my book, and voila! A spot in their calendar opened up: Aug. 25. If they select me, the cost will be $45.)

Choosy Bookworm accepted me and will advertise Rye’s Reprieve on Aug. 18. Yay! The Rush Premium Feature costs $70, and the cover will remain on their Featured eBooks Page for a week.

Book Sends is pricey at $90 for the spot on Aug. 18 and just about ate up my budget – I have only $25 left to spend.

However, when you’re making 35¢ per book, money can’t be your main motive for promotion. It has to be gaining new readers, racking up a few more reviews and even cross-over sales to your other books and stories, and seeing your efforts pay off in a rise in rankings that you can share with followers. Some authors also experience a bump in sales when the book returns to its normal price, which in the case of Rye’s Reprieve is $3.99.

Did I mention BookBub? If they agreed to let me advertise with them – a slim possibility – the cost would be $500, and they anticipate I’d have roughly 2500 sales. If that happened, I’d clear $375 after costs, and the ranking would no doubt shoot Rye’s Reprieve to single digits on most coveted lists, plus bring a whole bunch of new readers to my author page.

I did not yet advertise with eBookWorth, Bargain Booksy, or Fiverrâ€™s BKnight with its $5 price tag and 50,000 readers because I needed to meet Marianne Donley’s deadline for A Slice of Orange. However, I will at least check out their sites.

I probably don’t need to mention, most of the authors and professional newsletter editors want the authors they feature to put the newsletter link in their social media announcements.

I would appreciate having an email from anyone who wants to share their promotion/ranking journey, and if things really jump by the end of August, I may give a follow-up report in a future Slice.

Contact me at lounelson@cox.net or www.LouellaNelson.com. Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/louella.nelson.1 and Twitter: @LouellaNelson

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