Tag: blogger

Beta Reading VS. Editing #amwriting

Very well said. Fav. Post Quote: Beta Reading is not editing, and the reader should not make comments that are editorial in nature. Those kinds of nit-picky comments are not helpful at this early stage because the larger issues must be addressed before the fine-tuning can begin, and if you are beta reading for someone, the larger issues are what the author has asked you to look at. *Comments disabled here. Please comment and share the original post*

conniejjasperson's avatarLife in the Realm of Fantasy

Once again, the question of the difference between beta reading and editing has arisen in one the many forums I frequent on Facebook. So, I feel the need to revisit a post from 2015, Beta Reading VS. Editing. If you’ve already seen this post, nothing has changed in the world of editing and beta reading since this first appeared. But thank you for stopping by!

Indies rely heavily on what we refer to as beta readers to help shape their work and make it ready for editing. But in many online forums, authors use the term used interchangeably with editing, and the two are completely different.

And unfortunately, some indie published works are clear examples of work by authors who don’t realize the importance of working with an editor, although it is apparent that they have had assistance from beta-readers.

What is quite disappointing to me, is the many traditionally published works that seem to fall…

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My Top 5 Email List Building Mistakes

I believe we Indie Authors have to stick together people and that is why I am sharing some of my top email list building mistakes. Before I jump to the conclusion that email lists don’t work, I am going to identify some of the things I am doing or have done wrong. Before finding solutions, we must identify the problem. Sometimes it is not that something is not working, we are just doing it wrong.

Problem#1 – Randomly Asking People to Sign-Up

When I started focusing on building my list, I didn’t pay attention to who was signing up. I just wanted the numbers up. I had heard the hype about getting email list subscribers and how helpful it was to authors. By just asking people to sign-up, people subscribed who were not part of my target audience. This means that when I came out with a book, they weren’t taking action. It wasn’t because they didn’t like me or thought I was a bad person. It was probably because they didn’t read the kinds of books I wrote!

Lesson: I should have been seeking targeted readers (readers who like my genre/topic) and not everyone. Just like a target audience isn’t everyone, my email list is also not for everyone.

Problem #2 – Hard selling to my list

In other words, selling my books directly to my email list. I just thought, what’s the point of having an email list if you can’t sell your book to your readers? Isn’t that what the list is for? To help authors to sell books?

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Lesson: I should have been nurturing the list with reading material, short stories, etc, giving away copies of my current works and hoping for reviews (this helps if I’ve learned lesson one).

Problem #3 – Not Focusing on Core Fans

I was too busy trying to build my list and increase my numbers that I didn’t pay attention to the few people that were engaged and reading and responding. These are my core fans. They are the ones who will buy, leave reviews and communicate consistently.

Lesson – Not everyone will respond and interact with my list. This is the hard part and I am still trying to figure how to get people to simply communicate with me. But, there are core fans and when broken down, this is a more realistic number far as readership is concerned. It starts to matter little how many people are subscribed if the people subscribed aren’t readers interested in the kinds of books I write (again, goes back to number one) or intrigued enough to interact with me.

Problem #4 – Not collaborating with other authors in my genre

This one is kinda not my fault. Kinda. OK it is, whatever. The point is, I am finding it difficult to find Indie Authors of black historical fiction. I hate to have to add the “black” part but there is a difference between the historical fiction I write and the historical fiction novels that come up when I put Historical Fiction into Google or Amazon’s search engine. There probably shouldn’t be a difference but it is. I have to put in Black Literature or something to find books like mine. Needless to say, I am not interested in just any historical fiction but historical fiction as it pertains to the African American experience. While Romance and Urban Fiction writers are abundant, I am having a hard time finding Indie Authors to connect with of my genre. I participated in a writer support thread on Instagram for example and stopped when I realized the people following me were Romance writers. I enjoy Romance and I support Romance writers but it doesn’t really help me on the flip side.

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Lesson: Find more writers in my genre? Interact more on Goodreads maybe? I don’t really know what to do here. Where are y’all at? Lol.

Problem #5 – Not making use of Giveaways (using my book or books in my genre so that the readers who enter are my targeted readers)

I have not been taking advantage of giveaways as much as I know that I should. Giveaways work when it comes to building an email list. I know this for sure. I don’t like to keep talking about my books over and over again. I do not think it works very well. Probably because I assume people have already made up their minds as to what they choose or choose not to support and I don’t like the idea of begging people to support me (which is the image I get when I think of constantly pushing books in peoples faces).

Lesson: I should use giveaways more as a way to build my email list and promote my books. Update: I forgot to mention that when it comes to giveaways or contests in which people subscribe to your email list as a form of entry, for a contest or giveaway to be successful, the prize must be relevant to your niche. And since the goal is to get new subscribers, what you give away should attract people who are interested in what you write about. And as always, I am talking to myself here. I am trying to learn this too.

And there you have it. My top 5 mistakes. Now, don’t make them!

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Enjoy Black History? Literary Fiction? Historical Fiction as it pertains to the Black experience in America? Poetry? Young Adult / Coming of Age stories? Subscribe to my email list HERE. (get a free book when you do!…I also dabble in Sci-Fi!)

Exclusive Renaissance InstaGiveaway!

As you all know Book 2 of The Nora White Story is on its way out! (Pre-order it here). In honor of this, I am hosting a giveaway for Book 1! Visit the link below to snag your copy! Hurry. This exclusive offer won’t last long.

CLICK THE LINK and THANK YOU!!

https://claims.instafreebie.com/free/hCg2Pcj9

About.

When seventeen-year-old Nora White successfully graduates High School in 1922 Mississippi and is College-bound, everyone is overjoyed and excited. Everyone except Nora. She dreams of Harlem, Cotton Clubs, Fancy Dresses, and Langston Hughes. For years, she’s sat under Mr. Oak, the big oak tree on the plush green grass of her families five acres, and daydreamed of The Black Mecca.

The ambitious, young Nora is fascinated by the prospect of being a famous writer in The Harlem Renaissance and decides she doesn’t want to go to College. Despite her parent’s staunch protest, Nora finds herself in Jacobsville, New York, a small town forty-five minutes outside of Harlem.

Shocked by their daughter’s disappearance, Gideon and Molly White are plagued with visions of the deadly south, like the brutal lynching of Gideon’s sister years ago. As the couple embarks on a frightening and gut-wrenching search for Nora, they are each stalked by their own traumatic past. Meanwhile, Nora learns that the North is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Can Gideon and Molly overcome their disturbing past in time to find their daughter before it’s too late?

How Does Amazon.com Sales Rank Work?

Good breakdown.

chrismcmullen's avatarchrismcmullen

AMAZON.COM SALES RANK

Amazon assigns a sales rank to every product that has sold at least one time.

The lower the number, the better the product is selling.

For example, a sales rank of 2500 is better than a sales rank of 375,000.

The product that sells the best in its category has a sales rank of 1.

CATEGORY RANKS

Amazon has different ranks for different types of products.

Books are ranked independently from sports equipment and video games, for example.

For a given type of product, there are also category ranks.

For example, a few Books categories include Romance, Children’s, and Science.

A great overall rank is more impressive than a category rank.

For example, a book has to sell quite frequently to rank 500 overall in Books, but can sell much less frequently and still rank 500 in Romance.

A good rank in a broad category is more…

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Her Bended Knee

Once a mother

always is

they bend their knees

to raise our kids

they laugh for our broken

as if never have cried, for our burden they soothe

as if our souls had died

they coddle our demons on the top of their heads

—colored gray with grief

fake smiles

and gritted teeth

a generation held together

by tiny pieces of silver string

those grayish-white pieces of hair

prophesy of her bended knees

their bodies ache

due our trials and needs

our depression states

our miscarried dreams

all have a home on the top of mother’s head

our souls they touch

our bull they fed

can’t wash the stench

of our almost dead

but they straighten their backs

and lift their chin

throw on their head

our hopes and sins

and at night

when we run the streets

and sleep in sheets

they bend their knee

and cry to sleep

and then wake up

all smiles and grace

let us never see tears run down their face

instead, see your life on your mother’s head

the next time you see those

grayish-whites

just know that someone prays for you at night

no tears be seen

all frowns be gone

just bended knees

and prayer songs

New lynching Memorial Evokes Terror of Victims

MONTGOMERY, Ala. –  Visitors to the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice first glimpse them, eerily, in the distance: Brown rectangular slabs, 800 in all, inscribed with the names of more than 4,000 souls who lost their lives in lynchings between 1877 and 1950.

Each pillar is 6 feet (2 meters) tall, the height of a person, and made of steel that weathers to different shades of brown. Viewers enter at eye level with the monuments, allowing a view of victims’ names and the date and place of their slaying.

As visitors descend downward on a slanted wooden plank floor, the slabs seemingly rise above them, suspended in the air in long corridors, evoking the image of rows of hanging brown bodies.

The memorial and an accompanying museum that open this week in Montgomery are a project of the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, a legal advocacy group in Montgomery. The organization says the two sites will be the nation’s first “comprehensive memorial dedicated to racial terror lynchings of African Americans and the legacy of slavery and racial inequality in America.”

READ MORE HERE

Writespiration: Have You Done All That You Could Do?

This is my husband’s advice to everything and I love him for it. It always brings me back. Whenever I am stressing about something this is the first thing he asks me. “Have you done all that you could do?” I want to use this question as motivation for some writespiration today.

Writing books is not easy and building a business around those books is even more challenging. Sometimes I get down because things are just not going the way I want them to. Or need them to! Sometimes I get frustrated and I really want to give up. I say to myself: Is it worth it? Is there anyone who really cares? Am I wasting my time? These are questions we all have from time to time. After all, we are human with feelings and emotions and every now and again, we get down. We do not stay down, it is my hope, but it happens. (Especially when we are on the brink of something great.)

“Nothing will work unless you do.” – Maya Angelou

But then my husband’s voice goes off in my head: Have you done all that you could do?

This means to me, have I done everything in my power to move this thing forward?

If the answer is no the follow-up question is: what can you do with what you have financially, intellectually, practically? Is it money that’s limiting you? Is it a lack of knowledge that’s limiting you? Is it the practical application? Is it lack of support? Are you communicating with your audience? No problem can be solved without a thorough understanding of why it’s even a problem in the first place.

Have you done all that you could do?

If the answer is yes, the follow-up is: It’s out of your control now. Now you must pray for Yah to move on the spiritual realm. Let Yah bring the super and you bring the natural. Ask him to remove the stumbling blocks and demonic forces blocking your way. Ask him for the strength and the courage to wait for what is on its way to you. Ask Yah for patience and believe he has the power to make it happen.

Have you done all that you could do?

This question asks us to examine our goals in a logical way instead of sulking and complaining (which literally does nothing) and gives us something practical to work with. By implementing action we are usually capable of shifting the negative energy toward a more positive vibe. Do not forget that you have the power to change the way that you feel and to take a negative emotion or situation and turn it into a positive one at any time. When you ask yourself, “have I done all that I could do?” it will bring forward new ideas and force you to do something and see the good rather than the bad. You will begin to examine what you have done instead of what you have not done and what you do have instead of what you do not have.

Be sure to pick up your copy of Revolution: The Nora White Story – Book Two, available now for pre-order on Amazon. Didn’t read book one? Grab it for 99cents here from now through 5/30.