Category: Columns

TITLE TWELVE

I made it to December…YEAH!!! I have to be honest, there were a few times I didn’t think I was going to make it to the end of this challenge. I’ll do a summary next month because there’s a slim chance I might do a short story before the end of the month.

At the end of last month’s post, I had no clue what Title Twelve would be. Thank God for friends and accountability groups. I really wanted to do a box set, but I was only looking at it from one angle. However, when I was on my marketing call with Elena Dillion, she gave me an idea for a box set. Or as I call it “Title Eleven” or “November’s Release”. I can’t really call it Title Eleven because I think that honor went to a different title.

Anyway, thanks to that call, I was able to do something I wasn’t planning to do until next year. One of the reasons I was on a writing binge this year, was I wanted to offer box sets in the future. A good idea but I was only looking at it with series and not compatible stories.

In talking with Elena, she showed I could make a box set with two of my novelettes and a short story from the Summer. All three had a first love encounter in common. Thus the title FIRST ENCOUNTERS OF LOVE. [See Images]

This surprise title, also gave me a chance to experiment with 3-D Cover design…a new favorite of mine.

What about December’s Title or Title Twelve? Title Twelve is A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN.

Due to a major computer issue…mine died a few days before A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN was to be released.

I need to take a moment here. Forgive me if I sound a little preachy. God really is amazing. He knew what I was about to encounter…no pun intended. So when Elena suggested the box set, which took all of a few hours, if that, to put together, it was divine intervention. There’s no way I could have gotten A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN out by the end of the month, because on the day I should have been reviewing edits, I was buying a new computer. More like picking up my early Christmas present from my parents.

I got the box set up by using mother’s laptop, my iPad and iPhone. Yes, you really can do amazing things with Apple products. I concentrated on getting the box set up, but not without a few problems. Because of the computer challenge, I didn’t get an newsletter and blog post out until late. And I never got a Facebook ad out. Hey, I was grateful I got the box set up before the end of the month and was able to put up a November release or title.

So, now I’m prepping Title Twelve or December’s Title, which will release ironically on 12.12. I thought that was befitting. If it had occurred to me sooner, I would have released all the books like that. You know, 1.1.16, 2.2.16, 3.3.16, etc… Too late for what I could have done.

Now for a big SIGH!

I’d say I’m going to take a break, but that would be a lie. I have already started on the books on next years’ production schedule. Will it be twelve? I don’t know. This I know for sure, I’m not going to intentionally schedule a Title A Month. Smile.

There I managed to make it brief. YEAH!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

COUNTING DOWN TO NUMBER 12

She sighed deeply as she wrote the title of her blog post.

I thought it would be fun to start off with a little writer humor. It’s been a long writing year for me, so I’ll try and keep it short.

This is the eleven month of my 12 TITLES IN 12 MONTHS challenge. If you’ve been following me, you know I started the year with this idea that I would write and publish a title a month for a year. Mainly to see if I could do it. Which I could. I say could because technically, I completed the challenge last month.

However, I feel a little dishonest in claiming a booklet I wrote for my other business as part of the challenge. Yes, I wrote it, and true I didn’t say all the titles had to be fiction, but for me, I want to stay true to the genre.

So here’s this months update.

I barely got last month’s title out, which had me a lot nervous. When I received my comments from my beta readers, I noticed some things I wanted to tweak and did another round of edits and sent the file to my editor. However, my computer decided it was full or a little tired. For whatever reason, every time I went in to accept or reject on of the edits, it would take approximately 6 seconds. I know this because I timed it. I contacted Apple, and the prognosis was, “You need more ram.” What the crap! I was about a week from my deadline. But before my call to Apple, I tried a little self-medicating and did a software update, which took up a lot of time that I didn’t have.

I was very nervous, and as a result, I failed to launch the title as I wanted. I did get the file loaded before the end of the month, put up a Facebook ad, sent out an email to my mailing list and a couple of blog posts. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to do any other ads, but I heard Joanna Penn say, “It’s s marathon, not a sprint and don’t worry about a huge launch.” I like that because that will give me more time to acquire some reviews and hopefully book some ads in time for the holiday buying season.

Book Number 11 in its original form, was the second book I’d written. However, the finished book barely resembles the original book. I kept the original copy and have to admit, that book was in no way ready to be share with anyone. I’m surprised the beta readers didn’t laugh at me. After a lot of revisions, a new cover, and a second round of beta reading, I had a book I liked. More importantly, I had a book I felt comfortable sharing.

Funny thing, when I changed book one, the characters and story lines became a little more sophisticated. Therefore, the original cover didn’t work, neither did the second book. Nor the third which I’m not going to look at until sometime next year. Chalk all of this up as a costly lesson learned as a new indie author.

Thank God for the email loop. Elena Dillion put up a post about a subscription special at DepositPhotos.com. I jumped on it, and I found the image for WHAT MY FRIENDS NEED TO KNOW. I found the image for WHAT MY FRIENDS DON’T KNOW at Masterfile. Ironically, it was also available at DepositPhotos.com, but I’d purchased that image several months prior to getting my Deposit Photos subscription.

Note the cover changes. What a difference a few revisions and growth can make.

Final Covers

And what about that booklet for my lingerie business? Here’s the cover. I find interesting that the two smallest books I wrote this year were also two of the most challenging. I completed my lingerie book at the beginning of the year but had to do a major re-write at the urging of some business associates. I value their input because it made me write a better book.

And the book that technically claims the 12th Title Prize is my November release is A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN. This book started as a novella featuring characters that were mentioned in WHAT MY FRIENDS NEED TO KNOW. While I was at RWA National, I learned about “guest stars,” characters from a book you spin off into their own story. When I heard that, it stuck with me. I went back to my room buzzing about who I could “spin off.” I decided to spin Avery and Jeremiah into their own novella…I thought.

I was going for a short novella, approximately 20,000 words, but the story kept going and ended up being 45,000+ words. The story also gave me an idea for a series. I really like where this series is going. But like The Alex Chronicles covers, I did a slight cover modification. I like the sepia tone, but the other morning, the cover started to not feel right. I spent the day, literally, looking for and making up a new cover. Only to come back to the original cover with a little tweaking. I like it a lot better.

Original Cover                     Final Cover

That only leaves one title, the official #12. I’ll let you in on a secret. I don’t know what it is, but I will before the end of December.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Tracy

Tracy Reed

www.readtracyreed.com
Fiction for Women Who Love God, Couture and Cute Guys