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COUNTING DOWN TO NUMBER 12

November 5, 2016 by in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as , ,

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.


Original Covers


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

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THE STORY OF TITLE NINE

October 6, 2016 by in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as , ,

Unless you’ve been under a rock, chained to your computer or simply didn’t care to read my past posts, let me fill you in. I’ve been doing a writing challenge, “12 TITLES IN 12 MONTHS.”

When I set out at the first of the year, let me back up. I came up with this idea late last year. So when I started 2016, I had a production schedule. Some of the months had book titles and covers, and the others had suggested formats. At first, I thought I’d do a mix of novellas and full-length. Then I made some adjustments and settled on a mix of novelettes, novellas and full-length. So far, I’ve yet to do a short story although, I thought last month’s book was going to be a short story.

So here’s what happened…

I had a book scheduled for September. It was originally supposed to release in August; I wrote about how it got pushed back to September. This is so funny, because it makes it seem like I haven’t written the book…but I have. The problem or glitch came up when I received it back from my beta readers. They liked it. Cool. However, I noticed there were a few things I needed to fix. Especially after having attended RWA. I spotted a few tense and tone things that needed to be cleaned up.

I didn’t expect it would take me as long as it did to clean it up. When I finally finished my edit, it left me with very little time for my editor to do her job and me still make my release day. All the books in the challenge are release at the end of the month. No particular reason, other than it gives me more time to polish and do some marketing. In this case, if I’d tried to get the book out, there was a good chance I’d miss my release day, and my challenge would go from 12 Titles to 11. I couldn’t have that.

I looked at my production schedule and saw I had two possible titles for November. One was lacking about 1500 to 2000 words and a good polish. The other, needed about 5000 words, a very good polish and a title. The title I had no longer matched the story. Why should you care about those books, when neither of them is Title No. 9?  Because in my original plan, I asked my editor if she could edit a short story and get it back to me within my time frame. She said yes. I was ecstatic because I knew I had these two options. WRONG…WRONG…WRONG. I reviewed both titles and realized there was no way to get either one ready and to her. Seems I spoke out of turn. Things weren’t looking good for Title NO.9.

Every day in my prayer time, I thank God for words. A few days earlier, I asked God for a title for the book with 5900+ words. On Thursday, September 15th, I woke and started my prayer time and this title popped into my mind. I shrugged it off, and it immediately reappeared. I got up, kept repeating the title as I made my way to my computer. Once the computer was on and my teeth were brushed, I started writing.

I couldn’t believe how fast the words came. By the end of the day, I had over 4000 words. I proofed those and the following morning, I made the corrections and was over 5000 words. I was hoping for short story length. Then the words kept coming, and I was at 7100+ words. The thought of a novelette was right there. I did another proof and soft edit. I had promised this short story which was now a little longer to my editor on Saturday evening. I sat in from of my computer only taking potty and food breaks. By Friday evening I was looking good. I was well over 9000 words. Now all I needed was an ending.

I got up Saturday with my 9000+ words proofed and ready to finish. I emailed my editor I was almost done and that she would have a completed project by Saturday evening. It was around eleven-thirty when I went to bed with a completed novelette. PRAISE GOD! But I was still not out of the woods. I emailed my editor and said, “I finished late. Here’s a rough draft. I didn’t want to break my word. Give me one more day to proofed copy.” She understood, and we were good.

The draft was my new best friend. I took it with me on Sunday and read in the car on the way to church, then while I was at a charity function working on the check-in desk, and anytime I had a few free moments. When I got home, I went into my library, the toilet with a pink pen and my draft. An hour later, I came out and implemented all the corrections. I emailed my editor and said, “I got home late. Here’s the book.”

I hadn’t heard from her to make sure she got the file, so I texted her on Monday. She sent me a message, “Got it. Give me a few days.” I breathed a sigh of relief. But I didn’t have a cover. When I write, I usually get cover ideas and will ofter have the cover before the story is finished. Not this time. I had the story first and was looking for a cover. I knew I didn’t want to burn one of my free image downloads on such a short project. Then I was reminded, I had a lot of images for a marketing campaign for my lingerie business. I pulled up a couple and went to work.

Later Monday evening, I got a text from my editor, “I got on a roll, here’s your book. Nice story.” I was shocked. PRAISE GOD! My deadline was looking doable. If I only had a cover. I mocked up two options. One I liked and the other was okay. I needed a second opinion. I ran both by my mother and took her suggestion.

So in a matter of one hundred and forty-four hours or 5 days, I wrote, proofed, had edited, and designed a cover for my latest book…number 9 in my challenge and my twelfth book over all. The final word count was over 10,000. And the title is: THE NIGHT I FELL IN LOVE.

I made my release day for the end of the month and here’s the bonus, on release day, it hit #42 in one of my categories on Amazon and remained in the top 100 in that category for four days. Because of the unorthodox way this book came about, I wasn’t able to do any pre-orders, but that’s okay. PRAISE GOD! YEAH!

Here’s the cover and blurb…

THE NIGHT I FELL IN LOVE

I WANT A DIVORCE…would you give into your spouse’s request for a divorce, or would you fight for your marriage?

Cicely has given her husband Tariq, thirty days to recall the story of the day he fell in love with her. If he can’t, she’s filing for divorce.

Tracy
Tracy Reed

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

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12 TITLES IN 12 MONTHS CHALLENGE UPDATE

September 5, 2016 by in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as , ,

I’m very grateful to John Bucholtz for filling in for me last month. I hope you enjoyed reading his post.

It’s been a little while since I last updated you on my project. I’m a little tired, so I’ll try and make this a short post. 
In July, I attended my first RWA National Conference and had an amazingly, insightful learning experience. Not only did I learn quite a bit, that I’ve started to implement. I also met some really nice people, like the two Tracys. At one of the breakfasts, I walked in and sat at the first table I saw and was greeted by a table of fun ladies. Two of which were named “Tracy.” That was a great ice breaker. We spent the rest of breakfast with some rather racy conversation.
No one really prepared me for the conference. It reminded me of one of my trade shows. For the record, when I attend trade shows for my business, I’m going non-stop for approximately eight to nine hours at the venue. Then I go back to my hotel to review another couple of hours over dinner and then sleep. That’s the routine when there isn’t an evening event. When I attend shows, I pack snacks and water and wear comfortable shoes. 
I’ve been to writers conferences before, but not like RWA National. My feet got tired. I got hungry…thank God for protein bars, fruit, and veggies drinks. 
I learned so much that I’m still processing. Of the endless list of things I learned, I really enjoyed the workshops on marketing and the business of writing. Here’s a short list of the things I learned at conference and have put into practice: 

  • Soliciting readers for my street team
  • A formal newsletter
  • My first newsletter giveaway
  • Increasing my mailing list. [I’m extremely proud of this one. At the writing of this post, my mailing list is now at 2300 plus.]
  • Added the KOBO Promotion button to my dashboard and participating in my first KOBO promo event
  • Started a writers support and encouragement group with a couple of friends
  • I’m doing Facebook Ads for new releases instead of blog tours
  • Going wide…as of this post, I have only one book in KDP Select. The others are available everywhere. 

So far, the changes have made a difference. I’m starting to see sales in all the outlets, and I’m having fun trying new marketing tactics.

_____________________________

It’s hard to believe it’s September and I just released my eighth title in this challenge last week, MISS MATCH.


First, let me back up to July. I had a different book scheduled for July, however, prepping for the RWA conference and decompressing afterward, made me rethink my July release. I was feeling a little rushed and felt a repeat of my January release rush and pressure on the horizon. 
While I was at the conference, I made a decision. I had seen Beth Yarnall’s Romance Sampler and thought it was a great idea. I emailed her and asked if she was fine with me copying her. She said yes, and I went to work on my “Sampler” for release in July. 
TEASE, my perma-free romance sampler. It was easy to put together. When I returned from the conference, I went to work creating my little sampler. This marketing tool and title seven took a few days to assemble. The majority of that time was spent researching covers. Originally, I selected a woman but learned at conference that covers with shirtless, muscular men were a big attention grabber. I found a new image and went to work creating a little perma-free book. 
TEASE, is filled with excerpts from most of my books, plus sneak peeks into future releases. It’s doing well and has been in the top 100 of one of my categories for a few weeks. 

To some people, this may seem like I got lazy or cheated in my challenge, but remember, it’s 12 TITLES. 

So my September Release is a novella. It started out as a stand alone, but when I got to the end, I realized the story wasn’t done, so I wrote a cliffhanger. So far, it’s been received well. I’m excited about the follow up which will be out next year.

MISS MATCH
Summary:
Charlotte “Charlie” Griggs is a skilled matchmaker. Her client list reads like the pages of the most prestigious business publications. However, when it comes to her own love life, she needs help. 

Her new client Noah Lancaster has presented her with a unique situation, finding a wife for his younger brother Joshua. Joshua’s been nursing a broken heart since the sudden death of his wife a few years ago and has become a work-a-holic. Now he’s finally ready to give love another try and agrees to Noah’s idea of using a professional matchmaker. However, Joshua may not be the only one to get matched.
What happens when the matchmaker inadvertently gets matched while matching someone else?

Now I’m work prepping September’s Release. Unless something happens, that title is book two in The Alex Chronicles series, WHAT MY FRIENDS NEED TO KNOW.

This continues the story of Alex Miller and her best girlfriends. I think readers will be surprised at some of the things that happen in this story.
I signed up for Book In a Year and forgot, I had completely re-written this book. When I finished the re-write, I eliminated thirty thousand words. That’s not an exaggeration. This book is completely different from what the first beta readers read. This re-write made me eligible for BIAY.

That brings us to the fourth quarter which is a little up in the air. All three books are near completion. October’s release is about three thousand words away from the end. November’s release is a toss up between two titles. Both are approximately fifty percent completed. And December’s release is missing about forty thousand words from an HEA.
That’s my brief post. Enjoy Labor day and happy writing.

Tracy Reed
www.readtracyreed.com

Fiction for Women Who Love God, Couture and Cute Guys

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Coming Out of the Writing Closet

August 5, 2016 by in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as , , , ,

Hi OCC Family. I am still recuperating from my first RWA Conference last month. The conference reminded me of one of the trade shows I attend. It’s also like going to a place you’ve always wanted to go. You’re exhausted, but want to see and do everything because it’s your first time and you paid for it.

This month, I wanted to introduce you to a new writer, John Bucholtz. If the name sounds familiar, it should be, because it’s Kitty Bucholtz’s husband. John is new to writing, and I think you’ll enjoy hearing from him.

Enjoy the post and I’ll update you next month on my 12 Titles project.

Tracy

Heeerrrreee’s John…

Coming Out of the Writing Closet 


A couple weeks ago, I chose to come out of the writing closet.

No, Mom, I haven’t lost my mind. 
No, my marriage to my wife is okay. 
I have decided to come out and tell everyone – I’m a writer. I have spent years hiding the fact that I write fiction from most of my friends and family. For some odd reason, I associated some sort of stigma to it. I always pictured stoop-shouldered figures bent over their computers writing for hours on end, finally emerging into the sunlight to scuttle off and toil away at their day jobs. People would look after them, shaking their heads and whispering to each other, “Oh, he says he’s a writer, but he still has a day job. He must not be serious.” 
But I discovered I was completely wrong. 
Writing is a passion. Writing is an art like painting or drawing that you want to share with the world. Writing isn’t just about trying to get published and make lots of money. (Well, okay, I would be lying to say I wouldn’t mind something like that.) It’s about sharing an adventure with someone else. It’s taking someone and showing them a world that you find interesting, amusing, and yes, maybe even scary. You write because there are these voices in your head that whisper to you to tell a story. (Please be careful what kind of voices they are – some require therapy.) 
But I guess writing is a type of therapy for many of us. We do it to quiet the voices in our heads. We do it to finally put words to the pictures and images we see that we think the world might find interesting, to situations that we find humorous, or to an adventure we want friends to undertake with us. 
I went to the Romance Writers of America (RWA) National Conference in San Diego in July with my wife. It was my first ever writing conference, the first time I thought about trying to be taken seriously as a writer. This conference was good for me on so many levels. Not only did I meet seasoned veterans of the writing world, but I had the opportunity to meet a handful of literary agents and a smattering of book publishers. 
I ran into a surprising number of wide-eyed and slightly frightened first-time attendees like me. It was comforting to see their mutual excitement and nervousness at being at a national conference attended by their peers. The classes not only catered to the romance crowd, but many of the classes could be applied to the writing of any genre. (For instance, I write books for junior high boys.) And the energy and plain helpful attitude of the more experienced attendees and staff quickly made me a little less nervous and more excited in attending the first of what I hope will be many writing conferences and seminars in the future. 
My wife told me something after my first day there that I quickly found true: “I think you’re going to find that these are your people.” I was surrounded by other people who heard the little voices in their heads, who created strange worlds and the many characters who inhabited them and the adventures they went on. My wife was one hundred percent correct. 
So I’m here to say to the world: Hello, my name is John Bucholtz, and I am a writer.

John Bucholtz 

Middle-grade author, husband, artist, funny guy but easily distracte…

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Building A Mailing List

July 5, 2016 by in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as , , , , ,

Happy Summer to everyone. I hope you had an amazing Fourth of July.

Before I get into my post, I want to give a brief update on my 12 TITLE IN 12 MONTHS Project. Last week I soft launched my June title, THE FLING.
Here’s the summary:
Selena Crawford and Reuben Porche [por-shay] are lonely work-a-holics in need of a vacation. When both are forced into taking a vacation, they get a little more than the luxury Anguilla resort offered on the website.

This is a story that came about while I was trying to figure out what to write. When I started my project, I had a few of the titles written…the two Alex books, Love Notes, and The Good Girl Part Deux. There are two books I am probably going to use for the fourth quarter that were previously written. Otherwise, the rest of the titles are new. I’m excited. Praise God, because I am on track to completing my project. Once the project is complete, I’ll do a project summary post

Onto my post. There’s another project I’ve been working on this year…increasing my mailing list.

Like quite a few new authors, I didn’t have a mailing list when I started. Let me backtrack. I have another business with a mailing list. However, I didn’t want to use that for my writing career. It was important to me to keep both entities separate. That decision meant I had to build my mailing list from scratch.

When it comes to building a mailing list, I’m sure I’m not alone in how I got my first subscribers…my family and friends. I’m very grateful for those early subscribers, however, I needed and wanted more subscribers. I set a goal of getting my list to 1000 subscribers by the end of this year. [As of this post, I’m at 780…YAY!]

One very important fact I keep in mind is that I have only been writing a few years and only published 18 months. It’s very easy to get caught up in the numbers. I’ve heard writers spouting out the size of their mailing lists and finding myself a little embarrassed at my small list. But I can’t let those numbers intimidate me because I’m still growing my base. Another reason for my 12 Titles project.

I came up with that project because I wanted to add to my inventory. I also thought the additional inventory would insight people to subscribe to my mailing list. If I had known earlier that I wanted to self-publish and how important a mailing list is, I would have concentrated on building my mailing list in conjunction with writing my first book. No use in crying over non-subscribers.

Now that I realize I need subscribers, I’m on a mission to hit my goal by the end of the year, if not sooner. So what’s my plan? Or what have I done so far to get subscribers?

FREE BOOKS. That’s not a typo. We’ve all heard this before. You need to give something away to lure readers in and turn them into subscribers. I have to admit; I didn’t think this would work until I tried it. I’ve heard several writers say they have a title that’s Perma Free. The thought of giving away something I worked hard to create, didn’t appeal to me. Especially when I only had one published book. I looked at it as cutting off a possible revenue stream. But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

I may have mentioned this before. When I began editing THE ALEX CHRONICLES: WHAT MY FRIENDS DON’T KNOW, I deleted the first six chapters. I felt it was too much tell, not enough show. However, I thought there was some good stuff there. I was talking to Kitty Bucholtz about wanting to get something else out there before my next book, and she asked me if I had any discarded chapters I could turn into a novella. I instantly remembered those deleted chapters.

I tweaked them, got a cover and voila! I had a Perma-free book. I was ready to try this Freebie thing. I fondly refer to my freebie as “The Prequel”. I have to be honest, I wasn’t too sure how this was going to work, but I was willing to give it a shot. I sent the freebie to my mailing list as well as posted it on my blog, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter. I also made it available wide…on Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and Draft2Digital.

As of writing this post, I have given away over 5000 copies of my prequel since it came out in October 2015. When I made peace with the idea of giving this title away, I never thought I’d give that many copies away. To be honest, I really haven’t given the book much thought. The reason for the laissez-faire attitude is because it’s a loss leader so to speak. I did discover that in some countries, it’s not possible to get the book for free on Amazon, so I’ve had a couple of paid downloads.

I’d like to say that all five thousand downloads became subscribers, but that’s not so.

SUBSCRIBER CAMPAIGNS. Since I put the Prequel out in October 2015, I’ve added 739 subscribers. Of course, you have to take the good with the bad. Since I began cultivating this list, I’ve had 52 unsubscribe. I tell myself not to freak out when someone unsubscribes, and then I ask God to replace those with people who really want to read my stories.

So far this year, I’ve participated in a few Subscriber Campaigns that have paid off very well. The Romance Readers Spring Fling and a couple of Instafreebie giveaways. These events are responsible for almost 700 subscribers. Again, I wasn’t a huge fan of the freebie, but it’s paid off. I should have kept better records as to how these free downloads affected my other books, but I didn’t. I do know there was sales activity around the same time as the free downloads. I recommend the freebie as a great way to add subscribers. So much so, that I am working on another freebie for later in the year. I have to admit; I got the idea from Beth Yarnell. It’s a sampler. I’m excited to see how this will affect my subscriber list.

FACEBOOK ADS. This is an area I am really excited about. Kitty told me about Mark Dawson’s Facebook Ads course. If you haven’t downloaded his free videos, do so immediately. And if you can take his course, jump on it. I used the three videos to set up my first Facebook Ad. I’ll preface this by saying, it ran it the same time I participated in an Instafreebie campaign.

I ran the ad for five days, at $5.00 per day. It was clicked on by 709 people and 46 subscribed to my mailing list. YAY! Not bad for a first timer. This got me to thinking. I’ve done blog tours in the past, and I have nothing but love for the blog tour companies. However, I never got any subscribers and saw very little sales action. I resolved myself that the blog tour was just to get my name out there. But after I watched Mark Dawson’s videos and did a five-day test run, I think I’ll channel the blog tour money into Facebook ads.

I spent approximately $150 on each blog tour, and that included two raffle gifts. One to a blogger host and the other to a reader following the tour. The tours lasted about four weeks each, not including weekends, and it doesn’t reach nearly as many people as the Facebook ad. When I set up my Facebook ad, it had a pool of over 300,000. I hope I read the report correctly. Either way, that’s a better response than I got from the blog tour. And that was just over a five day period. Imagine what it would have been had I did it for a month. [I’ve only done blog tours with my full-size novels.]

This month I’ll be trying the Facebook Ad again, but a little differently. I’ll let you know what I did and what the results are.

So what have I learned about building a mailing list? It’s not as difficult as I thought. I’m so excited about the things I’ve learned and the results so far in building my writer mailing list, that I’m going to try it with my lingerie business. I’ve created a little how-to guide as a freebie. I hear you now saying, “What do I need to know about lingerie that would fill a book?” You’d be surprised at what you don’t know. I know I was. Anyway, I’m very curious to see the results of my experiment.

Have a great Summer.

Tracy
Tracy Reed

www.readtracyreed.com

Fiction for Women Who Love God, Couture and Cute Guys


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