Worderella Gets Synchronized
Dear Reader,
No, I am not talking about synchronized swimming. Rather, I am talking about the attempt to synchronize my on-line goings-on. You see, I can be reached at a number of places on-line, including…
That is a lot of places on which to keep tally. I'm certain I've forgotten a couple, too.
How do I keep up with all these profiles?
Luckily, applications like Google's Feedburner allows me to automatically tweet when I post a blog topic or add links to my Delicious account. It also provides you, dear Reader, multiple options to subscribe. You can choose the RSS reader of your choice, or you can receive an e-mail digest of this blog, Worderella Writes.
Facebook allows me to import my blog posts as notes, so those of you keeping up with me there have the opportunity to stay involved. Facebook also automatically forwards all of my tweets from Twitter to be a Facebook status update.
I am trying a new WordPress plugin that should allow Facebook comments on my notes to be ported back to the blog and vice versa, so everyone can be a part of the conversation.
Goodreads allows me to import my blog posts as well.
I embed my Scribd documents on my website. When I read something on Scribd, I can "readcast it," which is like broadcasting, to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. Likewise, when I upload a new document, I can broadcast it to Twitter and Facebook.
I keep up with the Twitter and Facebook statuses of friends through a Firefox plugin called Yoono.
Moral of the story? Start poking around your on-line profiles. See which ones will link automatically to the other so you don't lose your hair trying to keep up with all of the trends. It makes life so much easier.
What are your methods of dealing with on-line profile management and marketing? I'm always looking for new tricks.
All the best,
Belinda
Worderella Releases a Book Trailer
Dear Reader,
I've made a book trailer for Catching the Rose, and let me tell you, it's exhausting. But oh so fun, if you know what you're doing. I downloaded CamStudio to screen capture what I was doing, but for some reason, it didn't take properly.
Which really annoys me, because I was looking forward to watching a time lapse of the three hours it took me to do the actual work, after hours of looking for the perfect images/music.
Anyway, I'm going to try to do it again. I'm going to replicate the process, and capture my actions on screen so you can see what goes into a book trailer. Or, at least a book trailer of my making.
In the meantime, enjoy my trailer, and let me know what you think about it. There are some sixty of you following this blog, and I'm getting a bit lonely!
A Micropress, a Vlog Campaign, a Contest
It's been a busy week in Worderella World. I haven't done much writing because I've been busy setting up my micropress, which I finally named Bright Bird Press. I like it; it feels good. I set up the website the other night with WordPress and threw up a fairly nice theme to hold me over until I have time to design one or find something better.
Vlog Campaign
I'm also starting a mini-vlog campaign series a la The Vlog Brothers, Meggin Cabot, and Zoe Winters. It's something I've wanted to do for years, but with grad school taking up so much time, I didn't have the resources. Now I have the resources, and I feel like a total copycat because Zoe released her videos a week ago. She made the great point that we'll have different topics and styles, so I shouldn't feel like a copycat, but I do anyway.
This weekend I'm going to make my first one-minute video, so look forward to that. It should be pretty fun. I'm having one of my friends help me out with the script and stuff because when I try to be funny, I'm so very not funny, and when I say whatever pops into my head, I'm hilarious, apparently.
An experiment
I tried out a free press release website to announce the re-branding/second edition of my first book, Catching the Rose. If you'd like to win a free copy, comment on this entry about who you are and why you're following my blog in particular.
I will pick two winners to receive a coupon code to receive Catching the Rose for free. Everyone else who comments will receive a coupon code to receive the book for a dollar, if you so choose. So make sure you submit a valid email address!
So this weekend will be dedicated to working on the video, as well as writing the next couple of chapters to make up for the lack of writing this week. I'm pretty excited. Things are definitely ramping up.
Worderella Becomes Her Own Hero (i.e. Cover Designer)
So I've been meaning to release my first book, Catching the Rose, as in eBook format, but wasn't sure where to begin. As always, I turned to my friend Zoe Winters to see what she's done, because let's face it, she has her hand in every pot when it comes to self-publishing.
Smashwords, it seemed, was my answer. Smashwords is an
ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers and readers. We offer multi-format, DRM-free ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.
The really cool thing about this is I can upload a Word document and they do all the formatting for me. My book is now, as far as I can tell, available to read in the following formats:
- HTML
- Javascript
- Kindle
- EPub
- RTF
- Sony Reader
- Palm readers
- Plain text
How crazy is that?? I'm pretty excited, I'd like to see what sort of sales I get this way. But again, just because it's out there doesn't mean it will sell. I should market the new format, right? Well, I have been meaning to update the branding of the book, and since this version is owned completely by me I felt funny using the cover provided by Aventine Press, the subsidy that originally printed my work.
Turns out stock art is an amazing thing, if you find exactly what you want. I searched through istockphoto.com, gettyimages.com, and fotolia.com, and decided that Fotolia was giving me the results I wanted. The image below is the one I chose for Catching the Rose.
There is a masquerade ball during the book, so the masks are absolutely perfect. I wanted to step away from the ultra-pink of the original book, so the blue background really pulled me in. Veronica, the main character, has blond hair, and Brad, the interest, has brown hair. I looked for an entire week at stock photography and my jaw dropped when I found photos by Andrey Kiselev. Just perfect!
But of course, an image isn't enough to make a book cover. I played around during my break at work today with Pixlr, a great online alternative to Photoshop just to see what I could do with the image (see below). After an hour, I had something I was in love with, and I couldn't wait to get home so I could buy the image and make the cover for real in Photoshop.
You see, I'd like to do a reprint of Catching the Rose, give it an updated look. So I need a decent-sized file that will print well, as well as make a cover design that will scale to a thumbnail nicely. Smashwords requires that you upload an image that is at least 600 pixels in height. I'm not sure why, perhaps to fit all the different eReader formats. So the final version is below.
What do you think? I'd love to get some feedback. To thank you ahead of time, I'd like to give you a discount if you're interested in supporting me in my first self-publishing venture. To receive a discount on Catching the Rose (Smashwords edition), type SWS25 into the promotional field at checkout.
Worderella Needs a Hero (aka Book Cover Designer)
Really, the two are interchangeable at this point. I need both a hero and a book cover designer. You see, I'm self-publishing my book and I'm doing as much of it myself as I can. Why? Well, because I just graduated from grad school and I have loans to take care of, thank you. I'm also a creative; I take pride in doing things and have an aptitude to learn new talents fairly quickly.
Book cover layout, however, continues to elude me, much to my frustration. The problem is that I want an industry-standard-style book, something along the lines of Silent in the Sanctuary, or The Slightest Provocation, or The Deception of the Emerald Ring. Those covers have stock imagery that I can't afford. I suppose I could commission an artist to draw my character in a similar style, but how many artists these days like to be so... classical?
My process
I've been collecting my favorite covers as I see them on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com for the last, oh, I don't know, three years. I have them separated by category: Fiction, Romance, and Teen, since those are my three main inspirational sources. I know the trends like the back of my hand, but the problem is my book, Haunting Miss Trentwood, doesn't really fit in a "trend," per se. How many of you know about a historical romance with paranormal inklings? I can think of one, Amanda Quick's Arcane Society series. The one I read was Second Sight. But I've looked at those covers, and I don't like them because they don't get the mood I'm going for.
Anyway, I went to JoAnn Fabrics to buy a fat quarter and some scrapbook paper to, in essence, build my cover from scratch.
I had sketched out the general idea that I wanted, and since I'm crafty with the scissors, I went at it for three hours, running upstairs and down to the copy machine and back to my desk, grabbing my mothers calligraphy pens when I realized I didn't have brown, and then taking photos of the final result.
Sadness abounds. I didn't measure properly and my photos came out being the improper size for a trade paperback, which is 5.5" by 8.5".
So I went digital. I'd had fun working with real materials, but with that failed, I decided to replicate it digitally.
But then that felt a bit sterile, so I went to istockexchange.com and grabbed some comp photos that I liked and began to play around with layouts.
An improvement, I think, but still not what I want. Why is it so difficult to make a book cover for a book titled Haunting Miss Trentwood? I think because the book touches multiple genres lightly at once. It's historical fiction because it's the late Victorian era, specifically, the year of Victoria's Golden Jubilee. It's a romance, albeit sweet. It's a mystery because blackmail is involved. It's a paranormal because a ghost is involved. With all these injected into one story, I've opted to keep the plot itself rather simple, allowing the characters to grow and mature, allowing the reader to enjoy the journey rather than roll their eyes at me for trying to cover too much in one story.
You're not done writing, why care about the cover?
I'd like to have a cover so I can begin my marketing campaign. Marketing will be the toughest part of this self-publishing journey for me because I'm not a very good schmoozer. I love Twitter and will be utilizing that hardcore. I dislike Facebook, but it's the lesser of two evils (not having online presence).
Additionally, having a visual of the book inspires me to keep going. I have every intention of completing this book and making it successful, i.e. break even at least. It's so frustrating because I am a passable artist in my own right... but I'm also a perfectionist, and my artistic skill simply isn't at the level I prefer for my novel.
Help me, oh mighty Internetz, you're my only hope
If you're self-publishing, know someone who is or has, etc, how did you/they find a book cover designer? How did you/they find a reputable artist? What am I doing wrong? Why has my usually stellar Google-fu failed me?
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