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Remember that free read we were promising...

7/30/2013

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...once upon a time? Well, imagine how surprised we were to discover that the giveaway dates had already come and gone before we'd expected.
 
Yeah. When it comes to marketing our novels, we suck on a level that's levels beyond the usual suckage.
 
We're not bad people. See? We like puppies. We especially like pug puppies.

 
What happened was this: When a writer signs up with KDP Select, they're allowed five days to "promote" their product (= give it away for free) to Amazon's audience. The free approach may or may not be a swell idea -- since a fellow writer told us he'd never had a negative review until he put his novel up for grabs...and, then, oh, Lordy, did things change -- but, since the audience for Something Wicked had dwindled, we thought we'd give it a try, anyway.
 
We selected two days in July to promote the story and three days in August. We thought we'd do a minimum of promotion for the first round (this blog and we hit a couple of sites that list free novels) and use Ebook Booster for the August run. We don't know if Ebook Booster is any good, and the $40 out-of-pocket charge is roughly all of the royalties we've collected from Wicked in the last twelve months, but it was worth a try.
 
Because, if we somehow forgot to tell anyone that SW was a freebie, the Ebook Booster people would have our back. Which, of course, is exactly what happened when we failed to remember the two days we'd selected in July. Rather, we remembered the days incorrectly. We thought the promo was going to run 07/27-07/28...and we were wrong. It ran, unnoticed, on 07/23-07/24.
 
We discovered this when a new Something Wicked review popped up on Amazon. The reader was kind enough to write that the book was more entertaining than he'd expected. This comment led one of us to ask, "Well, why would you buy a novel if you didn't think it would be any good?" and the other one of us to say, "Uh-oh."
 
Yep. The freebie had hit the market and we'd failed to share it with our own tiny world, the good people who visit MarsNeedsWriters.
 
Trying to find a positive spin on things, we came up with this: We garnered a new review! Yay! Also, we can now gauge the effectiveness of paying for the efforts of Ebook Booster.
 
If you'd like, you can play along. Without any kind of decent marketing, SW garnered 656 downloads. Sadly, not an impressive number. The next series of free dates will be 08/21-08/23 and Ebook Booster has shared this info with its network of sites. So far, twelve of those sites have emailed us, telling us that they've received the request and they may (or may not) be promoting our work at that time. We've got our fingers crossed.
 
After the next promotion runs, we'll share the download number with you.
 
Quote o' the day:  "If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that." -- Ursula K. Le Guin


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Renee and Harrell, sittin' in a tree...

6/18/2013

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...K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
 
Yep, we're about to go and do the anniversary thing again -- it seems like it happens every year around this time -- so we're going to focus just a teeny bit less on writing this week. After all, there are presents to be exchanged, and smooches to be shared, and married fun to be had.
 
Married fun is a lot like single fun except it's with someone who recognizes your flaws and is happy to take you home, anyway.
 
Before we get to any of that, we thought we'd share the latest cover for our YA novel, Something Wicked. Renee pulled the previous cover because she thought it appeared a little too horror-genre; truly, the story is much more of a YA mystery-thriller. Although there are horror elements. Oh, and more than a touch of  romance.
 
No wonder Amazon can't categorize the thing.
 
To create this new cover, Renee went to her favorite stock photo site, played with the photos and textures there, and pulled the look together. If you've ever read the book (and, no, you haven't, we've seen the sales figures), you'll know this very scene occurs toward the end of the story. Just before...well, if you'd read the thing, you'd know. Then we added some new dialogue, some new scenes, bumped the novel up by about twenty pages, and we loaded the story onto KDP Select. It is currently an Amazon exclusive.
 
We made this move because we're hoping the "Free to Amazon Prime members!" sales pitch will cause some somebodies somewhere to download the novel. If people "borrow" enough downloads, or we sell enough copies, we'll be encouraged to write the sequel (Something Evil) and can live happily ever after. 
 
There's another plus to KDP Select: In exchange for exclusivity, Amazon allows us to give the book away as an e-download. For $0.00. It's only for a limited number of days, granted, but free is free. If the rest of the world is grabbing a copy for gratis, there's no reason why you, dear friends, should have to pay for our pages. Once we have the first free date locked in (it will be sometime near the end of July), we'll share full scoop.
 
For now, it's back to K-I-S-S-I-N-G....

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    Come on in! This

    is the electronic home of Renée Harrell. Did you bring any wine?

    Picture

                       Renée         &       Harrell


    It's about time you got here.

    We aren't kidding about the wine.
     
    This is where we talk about writing...
    ...our writing, mostly. We also discuss kiva.org, Hunting Monsters Press, the magic bakery, self-publishing, pseudonyms, life itself -- a bunch of things.
     
    Thanks for stopping by. It wouldn't be the same without you.

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