Website and Photo Reveal

I hope everyone had a great holiday, be it the 150 Canadian birthday or the American July 4th.

My website is finished. I think it’s a little over the top for me, but they did a good job. Now I have to figure out how to use it. I’m so not techie.

And my new photo is up, as you can see.                                                                                                                        I’m not a person who likes being photographed and I have dragged my feet on both getting the new website, and getting a new photograph taken, for many years. The older you get the less you want your picture taken. The photographer did a great job with touch-up. And I’ve had the same webmaster for many years and loved working with him. I’ve already posted about this last week.  

Now I’m dragging my feet about letting people know the website is live and my photo is posted. You can check the website at www.beverleybateman.com

I’d love to hear any comments on the website – positive and negative, ease of navigation, whatever.  I can always get them to make changes.

 

 

It's a Big Holiday Weekend

This weekend, sort of, we have two big holidays.
Saturday was Canada Day. And it was our 150th Birthday. So Happy Birthday Canada.
We celebrated across the country, big cities and small and most involved fireworks. And speeches from our political leaders. I think we're a little more subdued than our US neighbors. Canadian, eh?

Tuesday is the American July 4th Day. It also involves fireworks, and lots of speeches, but also big bands and lots more spectacular events. Happy July 4th!

Where ever you are - Have a wonderful day holiday.

 

Special Guest Author

Our special international guest author today is AnneMarie Brear. Australian born AnneMarie  Brear writes historical novels and modern romances. Her passions, apart from writing, are reading, researching, dragging her poor husband around historical sites, buying books and gardening. She is currently living in England.

Here a blurb from her latest book, Where Rainbows End.

“I’m not a man, but that won’t stop me. Just you wait and see.”

It’s 1850 and the Noble family have arrived in Australia to start a new life after scandal drove them from their native England. Headstrong Pippa Noble is determined to reclaim their honour by making her father’s plans for a successful stud farm a reality.

Pippa is immediately spellbound by the untamed outback landscape, although she learns the hard way about the unforgiving nature of the bush – sometimes with devastating consequences. When circumstance leads to Pippa tending the new farm alone, it is the steadfast friendship of neighbouring country estate owner Gil Ashford-Smith that helps her through.

Then an unexpected visitor from England arrives, putting Pippa’s dreams in jeopardy. But she refuses to let go. She will hold onto her family’s land and make her mark, even if it means losing everything else …

Excerpt from Where Rainbows End:

Pippa rode until she coughed and her eyes smarted. The roar of the fire drowned all other sound. Smokey baulked at every movement as his terror mounted.

Pippa called for her father again and again. She waited for a few minutes, willing him to burst through the dense smoke. When it became so thick she couldn’t breathe, she wheeled Smokey back the way they’d come. With every yard they took, her sense of unease grew. Then she saw it. A torn scrap of material caught on a branch. Wrenching it free, she studied it. It was the same brown colour as her father’s tweed jacket.

Scrambling off Smokey, Pippa screamed for her father to answer her. She ran into the scrub, stumbling in haste, pulling Smokey by the reins behind her. The horse, frightened, pulled back, throwing up his head and trying to pull the reins free from her grasp. ‘No, no! Smokey. Calm down!’ But the horse half reared, snatching the reins from her hands and once free bolted away.

Distraught at losing the horse, she turned in a circle, looking through the white gloom. ‘Father! Can you hear me? Where are you?’

She darted to the right, peering around large boulders and tree trunks before running to the left where the ground steeply sloped away. She skidded down a few yards, searching the landscape for any sign of him. Her foot dislodged a rock and she tripped, landing on her knees.

‘Father!’ For a moment she knelt on the ground, exhausted. Despair waited to claim her, but she refused to give up. With a frustrated sigh, she stood and wearily wiped a hand over her eyes. Where was he?

A flock of white cockatoos screeched above the trees. The sound of what seemed like thunder came again. Abruptly, a kangaroo bounded down the slope, nearly crashing into her before it jumped to the right and away. Then another came thumping over the top and down beside her, and then another. It hadn’t been thunder at all, but hundreds of kangaroos fleeing. An opossum scuttled by, followed by a large fat wombat and smaller kangaroos and wallabies. Lizards of varying sizes and the odd snake slithered past and Pippa stared in fear as a huge goanna charged its way over a boulder and skimmed past her skirts.

Pippa stared at the exodus of animals and birds all headed east. From the west she heard the splintering of wood, followed by a loud whooshing sound. The fine hair on the back of her neck rose.

The fire was close.

Rushing back to the track, she caught her skirts on a bush and paused to unhook them. The snap and crackle grew louder. Straightening, she tore her skirts free and reached the top only to stop and stare at the small circle of orange flames licking the dry grass a few feet from her. Ash and embers floated in the air like snow; where they landed, they started spot fires.

She looked for Smokey, only he had gone. Fear closed her throat.

Lifting her skirts high, she ran down the track, heading for the entrance down into the valley. Thick smoke blanketed the countryside and crept into her lungs, slowing her down and making her cough. The roar of the fire urged her to keep going. A stiff, hot wind thrashed at the treetops, swirling the ash and embers about her head. The air seemed sucked dry and, apart from the crackle of flames, the bush was eerily quiet.

Pippa ran, the sound of her laboured breathing noisy in her ears. Her eyes smarted and streamed, while her lungs felt as though every breath would be her last. She tried to ignore the encroaching danger and concentrate on getting into the valley. She had to outrun it.

Buy links:

All Amazon Kindle sites; myBook.to/WhereRainbowsEnd
Kobo UK: https://goo.gl/24Tir1

If you'd like to find out more about AnneMarie or contact her, you can find her at:

http://www.annemariebrear.com
http://annemariebrear.blogspot.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/annemariebrear
Twitter @annemariebrear

Marketing and her New Book with Anne Carrole

This week we’re going to find out a little about author Anne Carrole. Anne  will be talking about marketing. She’ll also tell us a little about herself and her writing, and answer some fun questions.

Anne Carrole has been writing stories since she was in elementary school but back then the hero was more likely to ride a bike not a horse and share a stick of gum rather than a kiss. Raised on a farm with horses, dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits and whatever other animals she could convince her parents to shelter, she’s married to her own sweet-talking hero and is the proud mother of a college-aged daughter. They all share their home with a sleek black cat with way too much attitude. When not writing or reading, you can find Anne puttering in the garden, playing tennis (poorly), watching football, or sharing a laugh with friends.
Beverley: How important is marketing for an author?
Anne: No matter how wonderful your novel is, if no one knows about it they can’t buy it so marketing is very important.  There are many well-written books that go undiscovered due to the crowded field of published books.
Beverley: What free marketing is available for authors?
Anne: An author newsletter has to top the list. Most services that help you distribute your newsletter, like Mailchimp and Mailerlite don’t start charging for their services until you get around two thousand subscribers. But I am not of the school that thinks getting thousands of subscribers to your newsletter is an effective marketing tool if they come from on-line solicitations for free books or free anything. Some authors swear they have found that getting subscribers this way sells books but when I look at their book’s ranking on Amazon and see that their book’s ranking is in the hundreds of thousands, I am skeptical.  I would rather have a few hundred subscribers who subscribed to my newsletter because they loved The Hearts of Wyoming Series, than thousands who subscribed because of some giveaway and then never open my newsletter.
There are many groups on Facebook that allow book promotion, many authors do group launch/event parties on Facebook, and organizing a Tweet Day with other authors where you retweet each other’s posts about your books can help with visibility though, personally, I have never seen huge bumps in sales from these.

Lining up blogging opportunities can help to increase visibility, particularly if those blogs attract readers interested in your genre, is another free marketing option.

Beverley: What marketing is available for a fee for authors?
Anne: There is a whole industry of people willing to offer their marketing services to you for a fee from people offering Public Relations services, to building your newsletter subscribers, to putting you on a blog tour, to getting reviewers. I have used none of them. I have yet to see proof that they sell books. They may get you subscribers, and blog dates, and a small number of reviewers but I have yet to see these translate into sales.

What does work, IMHO, is putting your book on sale (.99) for a limited time (or free if you must) along with snagging a Bookbub ad, which run in the hundreds of dollars. This strategy is particularly effective if you have other books that can benefit from someone discovering your work, particularly if it is a series. Short of a Bookbub ad, which is the holy grail of advertising because of the number of newsletter subscribers they have that actually are interested in reading books, you can coordinate the discount on your book with advertisements in other reader newsletters such as E-reader News Today (ENT), Robin Reads, and The Fussy Librarian, to name a few that I have found effective.  These advertisements rarely cost more that $50-$100 and are easier to get than a Bookbub ad, but they are also not quite as effective. While some authors have experienced downloads in the thousands from a Bookbub featured deal, you can probably expect 50 to 100 downloads from these other venues. However, that can be enough to push your book up in the rankings so your book gets in the top twenty of your genre list on Amazon, generating more sales from that visibility.

Beverley: How much should an author spend on advertising and how does an author make that decision?
Anne: I calculate how many books I must sell to get a return on investment for my promotion and, based on past experience or the experience of others, determine if it is feasible. However, sometimes, such in promoting a free book, you are looking to increase your visibility in a crowded field and in that case, you have to look at it as a long-term investment to build your brand, in which case the return on investment will not be immediate. I track my sales (my publisher allows me to see sales in real time) during promotions so I have an idea if a promotion is working.  This helps me decide how much I should spend the next time I promote.  For instance in March my publisher placed one of my books on sale for $0.99. I spent $525 promoting it and earned more than seven times that in royalties. For me that was a good return on investment, particularly since I could track bumps in sales based on where it was advertised.
Beverley: How have you marketed your books? Have you used someone to do your marketing for you? Why? Why not?
Anne: No. I looked into several services but the fees were in the thousands with no guarantee of a return on investment. As an author still trying to establish myself, I do not have the leeway to take that financial risk. I did read an account of a debut author who used a marketing service and paid large sums for advertising including an ad during the movie Fifty Shades of Grey and it paid off big for her. If you have the means to make that type of investment, go for it!
Beverley: How have you marketed your books?
Anne: I use Facebook Ads, ads in various reader newsletters such as ENT and Robin Reads.  However, the most effective promotions to-date have been the promotions my publisher, Kindle Press, an imprint of Amazon, has obtained for my books whether it is a 99 cent month-long discount, enrollment in Amazon Prime Reading, or targeted emails to likely Kindle readers.  My marketing efforts have largely been in support of these promotions.
Beverley: What did you find worked best?
Anne: Things I find effective:
Facebook Ads that boost a post. I have close to 3K followers on my Facebook page who are all fans of Western Romance, which is my genre, so those ad boosts tend to be effective for me. I generally set my budget for between $5 and $10 daily, target my audience, set my end date, and let Facebook do the rest. 
Reader Newsletter ads. As mentioned above, Book Bub ads, which can cost over $600, have, by all accounts, a great return on investment, but I have never been fortunate enough to land one. Other places where I have tracked favorable payback are E-readers News Today, Robin Reads, Choosy Bookworm, and Reading Deals.
Least effective for me have been giveaways (you get mostly people who are interested in the freebie, not in buying your books) and Facebook event parties (seems it has become oversaturated and takes a lot of time relative to the number of attendees—unless you are in one with a big name author.
Beverley: How long have you been writing?
Anne: My first published novella was with the Wild Rose Press in 2011.
Beverley: What genre do you write in and why?
Anne: I write both contemporary and historical romance set in the West. For some reason, maybe because I grew up on a farm, my muse comes wearing a Stetson. I also love the history of the Wild West as it was such a unique time period. The lore of the cowboy is heroic and iconic and the fact cowboys have always had a little outlaw in them keeps things interesting. My latest series, The Hearts of Wyoming, has three books published and I am working on the fourth and counting, with no shortage of stories to tell.
Beverley: Who influenced you the most in deciding to become a writer?
Anne: Since I was in elementary school, I have been writing stories so the desire has always been there (I was an English Major in college, lol). Many people influenced me along the way from professors to the authors I read like Austen and Trollope. But I fell in love with romance , literally, when I started to read the novels of Linda Lael Miller and Rachel Gibson.
Beverley: What obstacles did you have to overcome to begin creating your work?
Anne: Finding the time to devote to learning and honing the craft of writing was the biggest obstacle.  As a mother running my own consulting company and looking after an aging parent, there was never any time. After my mother passed away, the need to do something I’ve always wanted to do became too strong to ignore, and, by that time, my daughter had grown up!
Beverley: What gets your creative juices flowing?
Anne: Reading about the history of the West, watching a rodeo, taking a trip, hearing someone’s true life experiences—in short, life! My most recent novel, The Rancher’s Heart, is based on an adverse possession lawsuit that allows the heroine to take land from the hero without payment. My own family was once victim of an adverse possession lawsuit related to our family farm and this sparked the idea for The Rancher’s Heart.
Beverley: What will stop your creative muse the quickest?
Anne: My own inner editor. I have to push through and keep writing rather than listen to the little voice of doubt. Norah Robert has said she can fix a bad sentence but she can’t fix a blank page, or something to that effect. I try to keep that in mind when I’m writing.
Beverley: What do you have for breakfast?
Anne: I’m an eggs and bacon kind of gal.
Beverley: What do you wear when you are writing?
Anne: Few things are more comfy to me than a pair of well-worn jeans and a soft cotton top.
Beverley: Where do you do most of your writing?
Anne: At my desk in my office. For some reason, I don’t write as well at a lap-top or on a tablet. I think it is too many years of sitting at a desk. It just feels right to me.
Beverley: Do you have a favorite cartoon character? Why?
Anne: The Minions crack me up.
Beverley: Who would you love most to meet 'in person' and why?
Anne: The families featured in the show The Last American Cowboy (no longer on the air). They gave you a window into the realities (not the romance) of ranch life.
Beverley: If you had an unexpected free day what would you do with it?
Anne: Besides writing? I would probably head to the beach if the weather was nice. I live close to the coast and find sitting on the beach and listening to the surf a wonderful place to work out plots
Beverley: What are you working on now?
Anne: I am working on the fourth book in my Hearts of Wyoming series, The Loner’s Heart, which is Trace’s story.  Trace nearly took over the second book in the series, The Maverick Meets His Match, which was his brother’s story. He’s the strong, silent type masking a vulnerable heart. When he finds out, unexpectedly, that he has a five-year old daughter who needs him, this man who always pushed people away, suddenly has to ask for help.  The outgoing, forward woman who comes to his “rescue” is like no one he’s ever encountered before…and therein lies a story.

Blurb for The Rancher’s Heart:

A feud reminiscent of the Hatfields and McCoys, a love story worthy of Romeo and Juliet

Despite growing up on the Pleasant Valley Ranch, single mom Cat McKenna doesn’t know a thing about cattle. But even with her preference for high heels instead of cowboy boots, she’s determined to save the family ranch she inherited for her son. She just needs to hire the right foreman. Neighboring rancher and town heartbreaker, Cody Taylor, might be perfect for the job, even though their families have been feuding over land and water for generations.
Living in the shadow of the wealthier McKenna ranch has not been easy for the Taylors. But buried under a mountain of debt after his late father’s illness, the only way out for Cody may be to accept Cat McKenna’s job offer.
Can Cody keep his pride and ranch intact while helping the one family in all of Wyoming that’s the sworn enemy of the Taylors...and the one woman in Wyoming who is capable of stealing not only his land, but his rancher’s heart?

Buy Link:

https://www.amazon.com/Ranchers-Heart-Hearts-Wyoming-ebook/dp/B01MYTS6SB

You can find Anne at:
Website: http://www.annecarrole.com
Blog: http://annecarrole.blogspot.com
RSS FEED  http://annecarrole.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnneCarrole
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annecarrole                         https://www.facebook.com/lovewesternromances
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Carrole/e/B008DI46LA

Don’t forget to check back next week for another author interview. Next week we'll be discussing Settings. 

My Ongoing Saga

When I posted last week I was excited about the new website and new photo. My enthusiasm has dimmed a little.

I have just seen the photos, but not picked one yet. It’s been almost two weeks. and the photos look good but I can’t believe the waiting period. My last photo was taken by Studio 16 at a conference, many years ago.  I got four poses. Back then it was on a disk. I still have it. And I got the disk right away after the photos were taken. So I wasn’t expecting this long wait. My website is ready to go and we’re all waiting for a photo. I am hoping I'll have a photo by tomorrow and then my website can go live. 

Other than that I just finished doing a BIAW. I organize one every three months for about 35 – 40 people.  We get a lot of writing done.  I’m working on Death Southern Style, but I have another book I called The Foundation.

It’s a finished rough draft. The Foundation is a group of three women who recruit and train other women to rescue women in trouble or danger.  The beginning scene is a rescue of a woman from a prison in Afghanistan. The rest of the plot involves one of the trained women and her daughter who is involved with a serial killer. The team needs to save her.

I didn’t finish it because I was told Afghanistan was no longer relevant, and it sounded too much like Fern Michaels Sisterhood series. I really like this story, but I’m wondering if it sounds outdated.  Should I leave it tucked away?  Do any of you have any thoughts? I’d appreciate it.

Thursday we'll be talking about marketing with another guest author.

Character Development



How do you go about developing your characters for a story? How much time do you spend or does it just happen in the writing process? What inspires it?

This is one of the basics of writing, developing characters your reader will fall in love with.  If they don’t care about the characters they won’t keep reading. I spend a lot of time developing my characters. The plot comes easy, but I need to have characters that advance the plot.

I use a questionnaire to get to know something about my hero/heroine. I want to know what their goal is. There has to be conflict between the h/h, both internal and external. And their development and growth needs to be shown as they face the obstacles of reaching their goal.  I try to do as much as possible before I start to write, including trying to develop a different voice for each character

That said, as I write I get to know my characters. I learn how they will react to situations and how they grow from the obstacles blocking their goal. By the time I write the end, I am familiar with my characters. They are family.
Then I go back and write the beginning, because now i know the characters and how they will react.

Looking forward to seeing what the others have to say about developing characters.
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-YV
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Marie Laval http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/?m=1

Patricia Preston Talks Marketing

This week we’re going to find out a little about author Patricia Preston. Patricia will be talking about marketing. She’ll also tell us a little about herself and her writing, and answer some fun questions.

Award-winning author Patricia Preston writes mainstream humorous romance, historical romance and comedy. She is represented by the Seymour Agency. Her newest titles are part of a standalone series, Love Heals All, for Kensington Books/Lyrical Press imprint. She has several other e-book titles available including a historical romance, TO SAVE A LADY, set in the French Quarter during the Battle of New Orleans. She also has a comic short story anthology, DIXIE DARLINGS, available in print. Besides writing she loves music, photography, graphic design, and visiting her favorite historical locales including the French Quarter and the Natchez Trace.

Beverley: How important is marketing for an author?

Patricia:  Unfortunately, I think it is important for an author to do some marketing.  More and more that is becoming the norm even if you have a publisher. Unless you’ve got a 6 figure advance and a publisher is trying to earn their money back, most of the promo is left up to the author or so it seems to me.  
And if you’re an indie author, it is all up to you. Of course, the best promo of all is a good book that readers love so write the best book you can.
Beverley:  What free marketing is available for authors?
Patricia:  There’s free social media sites like Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook. I don’t know how effective any of it is. And you can send out free newsletters as well until you reach a certain number of subscribers and find bloggers to host you on their blogs for free.
Beverley:  What marketing is available for a fee for authors?  
Patricia:  There’s a lot available if you willing to spend the money.  Especially paid ads in newsletters going out to readers, ads on reader websites, Twitter services and so on. Plus you can boost posts for Facebook page and that’s about the only way your page gets seen by anyone.
I don’t if anyone else has this problem with Facebook page ads or not, but when I have boosted posts, they are only shown to a small fraction of the number that is promised. For example, FB will have “reach 3500-9300” for $20. So I do the $20 ad and my post reaches an average of 600 people.  I have changed all kinds of factors about the target audience and number of days. Still the same thing. Like FB shows that are 53 million people with “contemporary romance” as an interest in my target audience, but only about 500-700 reached. With $10, I have average around 300-400. Plus they’ll send me notices to increase the money to increase the reach to 9000. I’ve done that and it might increase a 100. Maybe there is something I’m doing wrong, but it has been my experience that they are misleading their customers.
Overall, I don’t know how effective any promo is because there is so much of it now. It’s like the social media sites are just bombarded with ads.
Beverley:  How much should an author spend on advertising and how does an author make that decision?
Patricia:  I know writers who spend a fortune on promotion and swag and from what they say, it hasn’t helped their sales. I’m thinking overload as far as readers are concerned.
Also authors are bombarded with all this propaganda from “companies” trying to sell their services, promising all this success on social media. Like they have big secrets to selling more books, blah, blah, blah. I don’t figure there is any silver bullet.  
I would say set a small budget and try one thing at a time to see if it generates any sales before you invest a lot of money into it. Plus you have to consider whether you want to be spending more on promo than you make on the book.
Beverley:  Have you used someone to do your marketing for you? Why or why not? 
Patricia: No because I didn’t feel the expense was justified. Of course, it would free up time to write but in the end, you’d need to judge the results and if the marketing worked in producing sales.
Beverley: How have you marketed your books?
Patricia:  I’ve done a little of everything.
Beverley:  What did you find worked best?
Patricia:  Probably a paid ad in a newsletter.
Beverley:  How long have you been writing? 
Patricia:  Too long…
Beverley:  What genre do you write in and why?
Patricia: Mostly romance and sometime comedy when I’m depressed.
Beverley:  Who influenced you the most in deciding to become a writer?
Patricia: My seventh grade English teacher.
Beverley:  What obstacles did you have to overcome to begin creating your work?
Patricia:  I had to get rid of a husband.
Beverley:  What gets your creative juices flowing?
Patricia:  Music.
Beverley:  What will stop your creative muse the quickest?
Patricia:  Having to go to the day job.
Beverley:  What do you have for breakfast?
Patricia:  Eggs and biscuits.
Beverley:  What do you wear when you are writing?
Patricia:  A big smile!
Beverley:  Where do you do most of your writing?
Patricia: In my writing cave.
Beverley:  Do you have a favorite cartoon character? Why?
Patricia:  Betty Boop. She’s racy.
Beverley:  Who would you love most to meet 'in person' and why?
Patricia: Melissa McCarty. She’s funny.
Beverley:  If you had an unexpected free day what would you do with it?
Patricia:  Go for a drive on the Natchez Trace.
Beverley:  What are you working on now?
Patricia:  Book four of the Love Heals All series. It’s Kayla’s story.

Blurb for Not Through Loving You

In the Southern town of Lafayette Falls, a new life brings together a woman with everything to lose and a doctor with everything to prove.
When a sickly infant is surrendered at the Lafayette Falls Medical Center, and orphaned soon after, pediatrician Aaron Kendall arranges to adopt him. After a painful divorce, the busy baby doc is about to realize his own dream of becoming a father when the baby’s beautiful estranged aunt turns up. She doesn't exactly approve of the Kendall bachelor pad complete with Aaron's cranky dad and wacky brother, forcing Aaron to form a risky alliance with her.
Country singer-songwriter Lia Montgomery barely knew her half-sister, but she's determined her tiny nephew goes to a good home. If only she fit the bill herself, but her stressful life on the road is no place for a baby. Yet despite her misgivings, as she gets to know Aaron, she realizes the smart and sexy doctor is everything a child could want in a dad and more unsettling, everything she's ever hoped for in a man. After all she's put him through, is it too late to form a family and maybe put a song in the good doctor's heart?

Sneak Peek: Read Chapter 1

Buy Links:
Amazon  http://amzn.to/2p0U63y
Barnes and Noble   http://ow.ly/vuIs30brDgY
Kobo    https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/not-through-loving-you
You can find Patricia at:
Website: www.patricia-preston.com
Amazon  and BookBub
Facebook   Twitter    Goodreads Newsletter

Don’t forget to check back next week for another author interview and more discussion of book covers.