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RedTonic posted:same I have the plot/blurb/character sketch in one little text file. It's mostly just so I can refer to if needed. I remember in the first novella I finished I forgot the hero's eye color, for instance, and I had to search around to find it, which was annoying. I feel it may be useful to just have that stuff in there on scrivener.
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Nov 5, 2015 03:40
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Nov 5, 2015 03:43
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draw me like one of your french baguettes, sexy firewoodsman
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Nov 5, 2015 10:58
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EX-Bf is going to be an arsonist named FLYNT
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Nov 5, 2015 13:55
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angel opportunity posted:EX-Bf is going to be an arsonist named FLYNT Hero firefighter should be named Harden Steel.
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Nov 5, 2015 14:21
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That's actually pretty awesome...he's a bear shifter though so I'm trying to work that into his name
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Nov 5, 2015 14:32
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How about Teddy Steel? I guess only you can come up with a good name for a bear that prevents fires. The Fuzzy Hulk fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 15:44
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Hunky firefighter Harden Steele is used to fighting fires, until he finds fimself igniting one in the homely heart of (insert fat name here) e: probably allowable because this could also be used for romance, but I can remove it if requested.
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Nov 5, 2015 15:49
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Looks like you guys are trying to recreate The Bad Book in this thread, don't do that.
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Nov 5, 2015 15:52
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Hunky firefighter Harden Steele is used to fighting fires, until he finds fimself igniting one in the homely heart of (insert fat name here) Are there any names too terrible for romance novels? I was noodling over some but my experience before this is Sims names and World of Warcraft.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:02
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Shirec posted:Are there any names too terrible for romance novels? I was noodling over some but my experience before this is Sims names and World of Warcraft. Yes. Of course. But romance readers aren't idiots (some are) and tend to get the absurd/funny nature of a lot of these names.
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Nov 5, 2015 20:01
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brotherly posted:Yes. Of course. But romance readers aren't idiots (some are) and tend to get the absurd/funny nature of a lot of these names. Ok good. I wasn't going to go full Space Mutiny but it's a comfort to know winks and nods are acceptable. For some reason I was roadblocking over it. I hope once I get this first one out, the following will be easier. Everyone here is hella impressive!
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Nov 5, 2015 20:46
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Shirec posted:Ok good. I wasn't going to go full Space Mutiny but it's a comfort to know winks and nods are acceptable. For some reason I was roadblocking over it. I hope once I get this first one out, the following will be easier. Everyone here is hella impressive! The more winks the better, I think. Romance readers like humor with their drama/steam. I mean, don't get overly meta, but there are plenty of romance where the heroine mentions loving trashy romance novels, etc, at least in the NA stuff I read. Also, there's a book called Prince Albert out in the top 10 of the whole Kindle store right now. It's about a Prince named Albert with a Prince Albert piercing. Yep.
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Nov 5, 2015 22:37
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How essential are Facebook ads for romance?
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Nov 8, 2015 19:30
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angel opportunity posted:How essential are Facebook ads for romance? Want to qualify that statement? Because, obviously, they're not.
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Nov 8, 2015 20:01
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Depends. If you target them very carefully, i've heard people say they're pretty good. If you just slap them up there (which I doubt you'd do), all your views get sucked up by fake profiles in indonesia.
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Nov 8, 2015 20:07
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angel opportunity posted:How essential are Facebook ads for romance? Mark Dawson's been running his course but based on my experience, the ROI for these ads in general is so much lower than things like MyRomanceReads or BBookbub that I doubt the average self publisher can make them work. They don't allow erotica and frequently categorize romance as erotica (pprobably because amazon doesn't police their categories at all). Its definitely not meant for super low cost products like ours. I don't know of anyone who gets less than one cent per impression and if Bookbub charged that much, every ad would cost several times aas much as it currently does.
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Nov 8, 2015 20:12
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I'm seeing so many people on the off-sites talk about them like they are nearly mandatory. I'm trying to plan my promo strategy for my first romance book and it's painful. If my ARCs end up coming in like I hope they do, and IF they are generally good reviews, I'll then be able to buy a lot of the ads that require x number of reviews. One thing that has me scratching my head is stuff like bargainbooksy requiring an Amazon link for the book, but their first opening right now for Romance is on Nov 22nd. I'm launching my book on November 12th, then doing free promo from 13th-17th, it will go paid on the 18th. Ideally I get enough reviews in soon after launch so I can start booking those paid ads, but by the point my book is live on Amazon, bargainbooksy is probably going to be booked through near the end of November. It feels really crappy to be dropping an $80 ad so far after the actual launch of the book, but I'll still probably do it anyway.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:04
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I hand Zuckerberg a buck and Bezos hands me two.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:20
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angel opportunity posted:I'm seeing so many people on the off-sites talk about them like they are nearly mandatory. I've come up against all of this, too, especially the bit with bargainbooksy booked way in advance yet requiring an Amazon link. Tough to get promo in the very first week if I need to plan 3-4 weeks ahead, yet still somehow have the book page up? I haven't really figured out a good workaround for this, or at least a better list of places willing to take submissions in advance. And as for Facebook ads, I don't use them. I see people saying they're getting huge ROI and some people not so much. Some people say it's great for getting list signups, and some say it's good for only expensive collections, and some that say it's fine for whatever. Basically, it seems like you can do pretty much whatever you want so long as you're willing to put the time and energy into perfecting it. Personally, I haven't been willing, but if my returns ever start to really drop then maybe I'll be singing a different tune.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:36
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I'm mostly just planning to do what I can this release. There's a lot riding on the quality of my ARC reviews. I got about 15 people on my own list, then Sundae's service is saying roughly 25-40 people or so will likely leave reviews. That's a lot of reviews...just hoping they end up being good! If those reviews don't come through, I'm locked out of a lot of advertising methods. If the reviews come through and are bad, I will need to take a hard look at them and decide if I want to invest actual money into advertisement on this thing, or just find out what people didn't like and fix it for the next book (which I'm already like 20% through writing). It feels kind of like...if the reviews are good enough and I can get at least one or two of these paid ad places booked, that I'll at least not lose money.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:41
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angel opportunity posted:It feels kind of like...if the reviews are good enough and I can get at least one or two of these paid ad places booked, that I'll at least not lose money. I think it would be literally impossible to lose money on a PNR novel. Like, I would be impressed if you managed it.
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Nov 8, 2015 21:57
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:I think it would be literally impossible to lose money on a PNR novel. Like, I would be impressed if you managed it. Yeah, agreed, unless you invest a ton of money. You might not make gangbusters, but it'll at least be a good foundation. Quick question: which month has been historically the best for Kindle sales? December? January? I know Kindlemas is a thing. Trying to plan ahead a bit at the moment.
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Nov 9, 2015 16:32
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Write more books, try to get a bookbub, commission a great cover, write decent marketing copy, and develop your mailing list. Don't worry about the rest of it. Most promo stuff that you read elsewhere will have minimal impact on your sales. If you enjoy social media maybe have a twitter and facebook.
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Nov 9, 2015 16:33
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The most important thing you can do to sell more books is WRITE MORE Work on your covers and blurbs, get your newsletter up and running, then WRITE MORE.
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Nov 9, 2015 19:34
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I should add that to the second post under the Q&A of "how does I makes more writing moneys?" heading. Give it a great big, yooj, luxurious font like the OP headers. Yes, I am totally aware of what a hypocrite this makes me.
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Nov 9, 2015 20:07
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I am bad at writing more and that makes me a bad writer and a bad person. Help me with ways I can trick myself into writing a minimum wordcount each day.
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Nov 9, 2015 21:56
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I'm surprised more people aren't NaNoWriMo'ing it up. Is that not really a thing anymore? I'm doing it for the first time and 1666 words a day everyday may be child's play to some but it's loving harrdd for me.
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Nov 9, 2015 22:30
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Every month is a nanowrimo! I'm at 18k so far this month. Here's an idea that makes things easier: do one chapter a day, those generally come out to around the daily wordcount. Once you're done writing a chapter, outline the chapter for the next day in broad strokes (think 6-10 sentences with each beat). It helps your brain think about what's coming next and gives you a clear path to start writing the next day.
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Nov 9, 2015 23:15
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Sundae posted:I should add that to the second post under the Q&A of "how does I makes more writing moneys?" heading. Give it a great big, yooj, luxurious font like the OP headers. We talkin' blurbs or what?
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Nov 9, 2015 23:33
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ravenkult posted:We talkin' blurbs or what? I assume he was talking about WRITE MORE
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Nov 9, 2015 23:39
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EngineerSean posted:I assume he was talking about WRITE MORE im dumb
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Nov 9, 2015 23:42
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I am bad at writing more and that makes me a bad writer and a bad person. Some of us are rabid for the pomodoro technique, named for some dude's tomato-shaped timer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique It helps to break down a task into manageable chunks -- whether that's a sub-task necessary for the whole, or just designating a set time or amount of time in which you're only going to focus on writing your words.
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Nov 10, 2015 00:41
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RedTonic posted:Some of us are rabid for the pomodoro technique, named for some dude's tomato-shaped timer. I was doing this for a while, back when I wasn't good at motivating! It definitely works.
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Nov 10, 2015 00:56
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brotherly posted:I was doing this for a while, back when I wasn't good at motivating! It definitely works. Same here. I found it quite useful to get the words started. Once I committed to that 25 minutes then I found it all went smoothly. But man, sometimes the words were like pulling teeth.
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Nov 10, 2015 02:21
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moana posted:Every month is a nanowrimo! I'm at 18k so far this month. Here's an idea that makes things easier: do one chapter a day, those generally come out to around the daily wordcount. Once you're done writing a chapter, outline the chapter for the next day in broad strokes (think 6-10 sentences with each beat). It helps your brain think about what's coming next and gives you a clear path to start writing the next day. This works for me. I sketched an outline of the story I wanted to tell, broke it into chapters and set myself a minimum 2500 word chapter each day and its going gangbusters. Its amazing comparing writing now to the working on my first proper novel last year. That was a serious espionage thriller based on my experiences with the UN. I wanted it to be IMPORTANT and laboured over every word because it had a message etc etc. It was like pulling teeth to get a thousand words out a day. Every trad pub I showed it to said 'great writing, no market interest.' Hurrah. Now I'm writing a commercial story about a sexy rogue commando (spoilers: possibly a werewolf) who comes to a small town and has sexy shenanigans with a sexy waitress running from her dark sexy past. I started just trying to make something marketable but darn it if I'm not having a ball writing it. I'm not worrying about the "art", I'm just focused on telling a fun story well. As a result, I'm not paralyzing myself worrying about themes or whatever and, more importantly, I'm actually writing. By focusing on on short, punchy chapters, hitting story beats that I mapped out in my outline. And, because the characters usually don't end up doing what I told them to do in the outline, every couple of days I revamp the outline based on how the story is going. I would say because I'm producing and I'm enjoying it, my writing is actually better than when I was consciously trying to write well.
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Nov 10, 2015 08:51
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Yooper posted:Same here. I found it quite useful to get the words started. Once I committed to that 25 minutes then I found it all went smoothly. But man, sometimes the words were like pulling teeth. It's just one of the things I've come to accept. Some days you just sit in front of an empty screen for a few hours, and that is still work. The other technique I've found useful is to tell that inner critic to shut the gently caress up. Like, anytime that tiny voice in the back of your head pips up telling you you used an adverb too many or the same word twice in the same paragraph or yet another comma? Ignore it and keep going, or just tell yourself you'll fix that in editing. Then you come back after you're done with the entire book and you delete the adverb, change the word and ignore the comma because you actually like it better that way. And if you wrote an entire paragraph that is unmitigated poo poo, well, you've got it out of your system and can move on, and when the time to edit comes you can just delete it all.
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Nov 10, 2015 10:06
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ArchangeI posted:It's just one of the things I've come to accept. Some days you just sit in front of an empty screen for a few hours, and that is still work. This my worst problem. I'm paying this lady to ghostwrite for me right now; she's cheap and she bangs out 5k words a day for me consistently. What she sends me is pretty rough and needs editing, but the framework is all there - I can tell she just sits down and furiously types. When I try and do it, I just can't. It has to be perfect, or it eats away at me. The plus side is that I end up with ridiculously clean first drafts, but the minus side is that they take me far too long.
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Nov 10, 2015 11:59
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Unfortunately, the current romance self pub model basically means you need to release quickly and consistently (unless you get a bestseller or two, then you can probably sit back and count your gold for a bit). It really does reward the people that can just bang out a shitload of copy, spruce it up in editing, and shove it out there. If you can write a relatively good story and hit all the genre high points, all the better. Personally, in an ideal world, I'd get to the point where I'd only need to release every other month. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon, or at least at my current level of popularity. Then again, I'd much rather write dirty/fun stories every day than do most other things for work.
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Nov 10, 2015 14:27
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My mom wants to read my novella, and I really don't want her to...
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Nov 10, 2015 14:38
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