Call Off the Search

Call Off The Search

(A Novel of Spiritual Fantasy, Bi-sexual Romance) (The Comyenti Series Book 1)

$1.90 Amazon

Synopsis: The planet Bhan. For millennia, humanity has persecuted the beautiful and mysterious human-looking comyentis with a deep set envy and hatred; driving them from their lands; murdering and enslaving them wherever they find them. Why? Comyentis have powers that humans can only dream of. They can merge their minds with animals and use their abilities for the greater good. However they had one weakness that led to their downfall. 

Now, Sula, one of the last of her great and noble line, has been fleeing for her life, living in hiding for too long. With not just her own life but her whole species’ cupped precariously within her hands Sula is running out of time... 
As loneliness and alienation slowly engulfs her, a young attractive human steps forth and reaches out to her... 

Should Sula, who is after all half human, trust him? Can she afford not to? Will she be able to overcome her aversion to humans to save her species from extinction? 

Read "Call Off The Search", book 1 and cling to Sula as she fights for everything she holds dear: her husband, her female lover, her child, her hopes and her freedom. 

$1.90 Amazon

Meet Natasja

Mrs Hellenthal is residing in the UK, with her partner, two small children, two small dogs and a cat who all follow her around the house at the same time.
She is an eco-warrior, animal lover, vegan and her hobbies include outdoor activities such as hiking, wild camping, swimming and snowboarding. She grows her own vegetables and loves to get her hands dirty in the garden. If there is any time left she loves to write speculative fiction that entertains people but at the same time makes them think. Her work has been described as 'thought-provoking'.

'The Queen's Curse' was her debut novel and has received some great reviews.
It's a heroic Spiritual Fantasy novel in the old tradition, yet with original and surprising elements. It attracts attention from a wide range of people, both straight and gay as it deals with many issue's such as: justice/injustice, power, lesbian romance, freedom,adventure, magic, immortality, intrigue, soul searching, love, life, loss, near death experience and sword and sorcery.
In this book the author explores more than the ancient battle between good and evil so common in Fantasy literature. What is evil and how does someone become bad? Available for Kindle and in Paperback.

In her writing she deals with big psychological and ethical themes and struggles of life such as death, love and loss and tries to build strong characters as realistic as possible, for even though the genre is Fantasy she wants people to feel connected with her heroes and villains as they would with their real life people.

Mrs Hellenthal is influenced by writers such as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Tanith Lee, Kahlil Gibran and Hermann Hesse.

She is currently working on Book 2 in the Epic Fantasy series, The Comyenti Saga,'Children Of The Sun' which will be released Summer 2014!

Book 1 in the series, 'Call Off The Search' was published on the 26th of December 2013 and is available both for Kindle and in Paperback.

'Chained Freedom', a stand alone fairy-tale for adults but part of the Comyenti Series, was released in February 2014.

Please like and share her facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Natasja-Hellenthal

Feel free to leave an honest review and rating if you enjoy her books.

For the latest news and updates follow her blog on http://natasjahellenthal.wordpress.com or Twitter on @natasjahellenth

I hope you all get a chance to check out the book!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

A Look at Blog Tour Companies

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Not a lot of lead-in today, because this post will be a long one. Warning you now so you don't get your knickers in a twist over it. Of course, I imagine a good number of people will be rankled by what I have to say below. Hopefully, my words will make you stop, think, and spend your money wisely or reconsider the way your tour company works to truly provide the promotion your authors need. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

First of all, let me say I won't be quoting prices from any particular blog tour company. We'll use my fictional one called A-1 Super Great Fantastical Wonderbar Blog Tours (A1S). I did a search and they don't exist as of the date this post is going live.

Now, A1S offers a tour that's all inclusive for $300. This money gets you:

• 1 Month of Promotion
• 30 Tour Stops
• 10 Reviews
• 1 Facebook Party

Your other 20 stops will be guest posts or author interviews. Great! Sounds good to have 30 blogs feature your book over the course of a month, right?

Let's look at the numbers.

A1S has 15k followers on Twitter. 250 people subscribe to their blog. 12k people like them on Facebook. Seems like a pretty good deal, huh?

But... Come on, you knew that was coming.

How many of those followers are readers of your genre? Better yet, how many of those followers are readers at all? Even more intriguing, how many of those followers are readers hungry for exactly what you're offering?

My guess is, most of them are authors who have previously used the service OR are tour hosts with the company and not your target market: readers of books. My second guess is, you'll either get 1 or no posts on their blog. Most often, Tweets are marked #BookTour. I don't know about you, but I glaze over those when scanning my feed.

Before I jump ahead, I'm gonna break down what you've paid for above and show you why there's a flaw in the system.

• 1 Month of Promotion - This includes all the items listed above on various blogs. I've learned (from speaking with other authors) that you oftentimes appear on the same blog more than once. And you get, what, one tweet a day? Oh, my bad, you get two.
• 30 Tour Stops - 10 of these stops will be reviews so no work there. But now you have to come up with either a guest post, an interview, or an excerpt from your book for the other 20 days. All of these are things you have to provide. So what? Well, if it takes a day away from your writing and there's no return (I'll get to that in a moment) you just wasted a whole day. Besides that, there's no guarantee these blogs target your genre of book or that the blogs have been alive more than a year (do you know the statistics for blog life?).
• 10 Reviews - Reviews are an Indie author's life blood. I get it. But if that review doesn't get posted to Amazon, what good is it doing you? A review that sits on a blog, stagnating, rotting in the archives, doesn't do anyone any favors. Oh, and those reviews can be any star rating. While I admire honesty, the tour companies don't guarantee they'll match your book with bloggers who prefer your genre. This could be an EPIC fail.
• 1 Facebook Party - Really? What are they gonna give away? Free copies of the book you sent? Swag (you have to mail)? Paperbacks (again, that falls to you)? And people show up because they're hungry to win something and go away, never giving two sh*ts about you or your book. It's likely the partygoers are the blog tour hosts.

What's the flaw? These posts aren't targeted. You could have a book about witchcraft that ends up on a Christian blog. Do you really think their readers are going to rush out and buy your book? Is it conceivable to think the blog owner would write a glowing review? No. No. NO!

Another problem with touring blogs is: You can't guarantee your book will land on a blog with a good following of readers. If the blog hosting your book only has 13 followers... Well, you can see where I'm going with that. And is it crazy to suggest maybe those "followers" are previous authors who appeared on that blog? I think not.

Don't even get me started about those tour hosts who don't post when they're supposed to. Dear me...

But, Jo, it's about the exposure!

Really?

Let me clear that up for you with some numbers. We all love numbers because they don't lie.

• 30 stops where each blog has maybe 100 people that actually read their content (and that's really a generous number). Okay, that's 3,000 right there. You're right. It is. 3,000 random, non-targeted people who may or may not be readers. Most likely, you'll be lucky to reach 10 readers of your specific genre who actually read the content on one of the 30 blogs your book appears on. Oh yeah, I forgot you're on some of those same blogs more than once. Nevermind. See my point?
• 10 reviews that could all be one or two stars and slam your book into the nether. This is gonna hurt you more than it helps. In this case, you PRAY those reviews don't hit Amazon. Yikes. If the tour host does post the review on Amazon, you've provided a copy of the book. There's no "Amazon Verified Purchase" on the review, and the reviewer has to state that you gave them the book. *shifty* So your 4.42 star average on 35 reviews (20/5*, 10/4*, 5/3*) could plummet to 3.8 stars with just a couple of bad reviews and you have no control over it. As a matter of fact, if your tour company isn't targeting people who enjoy your genre, the likelihood of that happening increases ten-fold.
• 1 Facebook party that gets you 10 additional likes on your author page by the hosts of the tour company and a lot of stuff to mail out afterward (does the money ever stop leaving your pocket?). Totally worth it. Not. Even if you get 1k new likes, with the way Facebook has changed things up, you'll be lucky to reach 5 of those people.

After day one, your exposure post sits on that blog, buried day after day by new content created. Unless someone searches specifically for your book, they probably won't stumble upon it.

And don't tell me you aren't out there through the whole tour, marketing your rear end off to drive traffic to those blogs. Oh man, are we crazy or what?

After all that, I'm now going to hit you with something you may not want to think about. But I need you to think about it. How many sales did that tour get you? How did you go about tracking those sales? A good rule of thumb here is to use a specific, shortened link with a marker attached. Use bit.ly for this if you have to so you see with your own eyes I'm not blowing smoke up your bum. Chances are, you'll get maybe 20 clicks.

Oh, wait! Most tour companies won't let you send in your own links. Why? Because they add their affiliate code to them and they probably don't want you tracking those clicks anyway. If you still feel you must tour, avoid companies that won't let you use your own links. They're in it for THEM, not for you.

I have a couple of friends who recently paid for blog tours and I'm going to share a little of their experience with you.
Friend A has a very popular YA book with great reviews on Amazon. This friend did a month long tour much like the one above (sans FB party). While the book was on tour, it was on sale for $0.99 (regularly $2.99). A number of great reviews were written, with maybe half of them making it to Amazon. A couple of the tour hosts never posted about the book (most tour companies say they aren't responsible for this if it happens... Like HELL they aren't).

Guess how many sales this author got over the course of the tour?

NONE. That's right, not a single one. And that book hit Amazon's top 100 overall during its free period. It has a very high rating and not a single one or two star review on over 20 reviews. Plus, it's in a popular genre. Go figure.

Friend B has another popular YA book that's been hailed as unique, fascinating, and well written. This one also did a blog tour recently. At least 10 or so reviews went up on blogs during the tour. Very very few made it to Amazon.

Want to take a guess at how many sales there were? This book is also well reviewed with a very high average.

Now that I've completely disheartened you, it's time to tell you where your money might be better spent.

I have no personal experience to back this up with, but I know many people who've used it and they swear by it. Plus, the company isn't afraid to show you their statistics. Best of all? They target people interested in your genre. There's also no additional work needed from you beyond producing a great book! Holy crap!

Book Bub.

I'll say it again:

BOOK BUB.

Take a look at the prices here. Now scroll down to the Teen and Young Adult genre (which both of the books above are in). Look at the average sold numbers.

Why does it work? Because they're in the business of connecting readers to the books they want. Their target market isn't authors.

Now that you know, what the heck are you waiting for? Again, numbers speak for themselves.

Blog tour companies would be wise to follow that business model. Build a list of blogs that target specific readers, have been around a long time, and who are trustworthy. Guarantee you'll put the author's book into the hands of people who enjoy their genre, and, for the love of all that's good, have some sales numbers to back up your business.

Rethink what you're doing.

I'm not compensated by anyone for my thoughts and opinions on my blog. I'm just tired of seeing Indie authors waste their money. We don't have a lot to spare to begin with. Will I be gracing Book Bub with my business very soon? You bet your butt I will.

Guess what else? You have a pretty good author clique going, right? Why not organize your own tour if you want/need exposure? It'll take about the same amount of time and it's free.

I know that was long. I'm sorry. But I hope you were paying attention. I do speak my mind.

What have your experiences been? Did this post help? Leave me a comment and let's talk about it.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Smashwords Author Interviews

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! You all know I talk about your search rankings and Google returns a lot here on the blog. Well, today I'm talking about author interviews. Not only because Monday launches my great new series of interviews for authors attending UtopYAcon 2014, but also because I got an interesting e-mail last night from Smashwords. They're starting to allow an author to go complete an interview on the Smashwords website. Anyway, strap in and let's discuss.

Click this link to be taken to the interview page:
Smashwords Author Interviews

You'll notice you can answer up to ten questions (either pre-written or write your own) and give 5k character responses (~ 600 words) for each. I wonder if Smashwords considered that we're authors and 5k characters is a drop in the bucket for us? Did they consider that if we use 600 words for each answer, the resulting interview would be 6k words long?

I'm not too keen on asking myself interview questions, but I may try it out. I don't want to come off as cheesy, and that's one of the things keeping me from pressing the start button on the bottom of the page. The other is time. Those authors with agents or publishers kinda have a leg up on Indies here because those authors have someone to ask the questions for them. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Here are some of the prefabricated questions:

• What are you working on next?
• Who are your favorite authors?
• What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
• When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
• How do you discover the ebooks you read?
• Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
• What is your writing process?
• How has Smashwords contributed to your success?

After all, without Indie authors, Smashwords would never have taken off the way it did.

While they're great for getting my book in the hands of certain retailers (iBooks, for one), I haven't made as much there as I have on Amazon. It's starting to feel like a waste of my time (their meatgrinder requires special formatting). With all the new things Amazon keeps coming out with to support their digital and print media (have you heard of Kindle Matchbook?), I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

You all know I'm one for boosting your exposure any way you can. But I'm also very outspoken about wasting time. This one is leaving me scratching my head. After all, I already have a bio page on Smashwords.

It's never been about the profit for me, don't get me wrong. I'm talking about getting my books into the hands of readers that could possibly enjoy my stories. My royalties are a gauge of how well that's working.

As an aside, Smashwords also just released their Series Manager tool. I took the two seconds to put The Abigale Chronicles in, but if it had taken any longer than that, I'm not sure I would've bothered. Amazon has exclusive rights to the Mystic series so, unless I decide to drop them from Select in the future, I don't see it helping much.

Whatever you decide, there are the links for ya!

Don't forget to come on back Monday to meet M.R. Polish, the first author up for an interview in my UtopYAcon 2014 Unofficial Author Interview series! You'll also have a chance to grab a copy of one of her books. Check out the graphics!

If you're planning to help us out with promotion, feel free to grab the buttons above. These are the ones that must be used because they contain the correct verbiage.

What are your thoughts on all the changes Smashwords is making?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Happy New Year and Promotion Success Tips

Happy 2013, good people of the blogosphere! Oh my... seems doomsday wasn't doomsday after all. That's very good news because I'm starting off the new year with a post about promotions and how to run an effective freebie. Get out your pens and notebooks because here we go!

We all know we want to run an effective freebie promotion. But the question is how to get our freebie in the hands of as many readers as humanly possible? I'm going to share what I've done and how it's helped my own sales and visibility. This is in no way a hard and fast rule post. If you feel like you can add to it, by all means, post a comment below and share!

Without further ado, here's the checklist!
6 weeks ahead:

1. Plan your freebie date. Be sure to include at least one weekday in your schedule.
2. Create an excel spreadsheet for people or companies that do freebie listings with the following columns: Twitter name, website URL, Submission guidelines, benefit (what they'll do for you), and time to submit.
3. Start building your freebie submission database.
4. Plan a promo leading up to your freebie for your blog.
5. Reach out to your network and schedule guest posts and/or giveaway promotions via rafflecopter or your choice of sites that will go live on various days of your freebie.
6. Send out some copies of your book for reviews that might go live around the time of your freebie. Be respectful of the reviewers you send your book to and ask politely if they would mind posting around those dates.
7. Set up some author interviews to go live around your freebie dates. Be sure and tell the interviewer about your freebie because it's added value for their readers.

4 weeks ahead:

1. Start submitting your freebie to the relevant sites if you haven't already.
2. Double check with your reviewers, network, and buddies to be sure all is on track.
3. Keep a folder with your freebie submissions in your e-mail so you can be sure to check back with those folks during your giveaway so you can promote their services as well.

2 weeks ahead:

1. Submit to the freebie sites that require a shorter notice.
2. Set up your rafflecopter if you're doing one.
3. Plan and pre-write posts for your promotion on your blog.

1 week ahead:

1. Schedule a Goodreads and Facebook event for your promotional posts.
2. Start your promotions.
3. Double check your network to be sure all is in order.
4. Consider a new rafflecopter to start day of that encourages folks to share the details of your freebie.

Day of:

1. Get the word out about your promotion. Schedule tweets, Facebook posts, and LinkedIN posts to let folks know you're live.
2. If you did a rafflecopter, it should end on this date and the winners announced. If you're doing a new one just for the freebie with relevant tasks, launch it on this day.
3. Make sure you promote those blogs and services that are promoting your freebie.
4. Tweet your freebie @ those that require it.
5. Make a list of the above and check it every day during your promotion

The number one most important thing to remember during your freebie: DON'T BE HUMBLE!! Tout your work with your review ratings, number of copies downloaded, and blurbs from your reviews! Let people know what a great product they're getting for FREE!

Speaking of free, have you entered the Goodreads giveaway at a chance to win a copy of Mystic~Shelia, the third book in the six book series! LINK IS HERE! Or, you can enter via the widget on the top right of the blog. Good luck to you all! Four books are up for grabs! Giveaway is good in the US, UK, and Canada!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo