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The Third Time Around
Hello, friends! As I indicated in the last blog post, I did indeed learn many valuable lessons while publishing my latest book, Believing It. So many valuable lessons, in fact, that I wanted to write about them before I forgot what they were (I’m dottery and middle-aged, you know). You may consider this post to be kind of a memo to my future self. And let us hope it’s not boring for the rest of you. Because if it is, I should probably have just written a, well, memo.

Every time I go through the writing / publishing process, I learn more about what I’m doing. For Hold Me, my first book, I learned a LOT about finishing a book, having it edited, having it published by a traditional publisher (even though it was published as an ebook, which was a little unusual back in 2011). I learned about the reality of publishing–what a publisher will do for you, what they won’t, and how to start building an author platform.

For my second book, Handling It, I learned a lot about starting out as an indie author. Yes, I learned about finishing another book when nobody really cared about it (the second book is almost always more difficult than the first, I think), but most of the unfamiliar territory I ran into was related to getting that book to market. In other words, finding an editor, coming up with a cover and sales blurb, formatting, getting set up on all of the various sites, starting the actual business, setting up a print book, and so on.

This time, the third time around, I learned a lot about the publication process itself and how important it is to plan and prepare. In other words, the lessons were about treating writing as a business and, hopefully starting to view myself as a professional.

That’s because the issues I had in this case weren’t necessarily anything to do with the manuscript. The actual book hasn’t changed from the time I finished edits and considered it complete. All of the problems I ran into with this project were related to my approach to the publishing process.

For example, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that, if I use formatting software, I have to CHECK to make sure the formatting has worked correctly BEFORE publishing the book. I can’t just assume that it is okay, I can’t be lazy—I have to go through the file and check FIRST. Trust me–I won’t forget that one again!

But there are other things, little tidbits of advice I want to pass on to my future self to help when I go through this process again. Such as–
- Don’t believe Amazon when they say you can upload an ePub file. If you want your book to display properly on Amazon devices, you have to load the Amazon formatted file.
- All of the platforms display differently, so don’t assume you know how the book is going to display on someplace like iBooks based on the Amazon platform.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff. All eReaders are different, and people can personalize them in ways you can’t anticipate. Set up the book properly, load it in the correct format, and trust that it will display properly when the customer views it.
- Don’t go all crazy trying to upload your file again and again and again to tweak little things here or there.
- Don’t rush! Make sure you’re comfortable BEFORE pushing the “publish” button.
- Don’t depend on the previewers available on the different sites for quality control. They are helpful when uploading to make sure everything transferred correctly, but they also don’t give a 100% accurate view of the book. Quality control should be done on your own system. Be confident your book is formatted, then confirm the site feels the same way.
- If you have to upload your book more than once, make sure the publishing process is complete before you try to upload it again. Read the fine print – Amazon says your book is live, but there’s a note that it takes 24 hours for changes to take effect. Publishing again before the publication process is complete in the first place only confuses the site.
- Make sure you’re comfortable with the cover before you go live. If you don’t like the cover, change it, but ideally not when you’re in the middle of the publishing process.
- Have a publishing schedule that builds in time for the actual act of publishing. It will get easier, but it’s not magic pixie dust. It will always take time.
Among other things. Did I mention, “Don’t Rush?” I think I’m going to have a sign made for that one.

So, all in all, a good learning experience and a final product I’m proud of. But that leaves us with the million dollar question…

Will I listen to my own advice?

Only time will tell!
May 1, 2016
Panic, Planning, and Publishing

Previously on Betsy’s blog…

Betsy has just published her third book, Believing It, and the publishing experience was more than a little stressful. Part of that has to do with the fact she decided to put the book out right when she was scrambling to finish her taxes.

But it was also stressful because Betsy can be something of an idiot.

Harry, the white Gerbil who has the unenviable task of Guiding Betsy on her Quest to become a successful indie author has a few thoughts on the matter. He’s in Betsy’s brain now, looking for her.

Let’s see what happens…

*Harry walks down the corridor in Betsy’s brain* *Enters his office* *Stops*

Betsy?

*Betsy is sprawled face down on the sofa in the office* *Grunts unintelligibly*

*Harry shuts office door* *Trots to sofa* *Considers Betsy* *Jumps up and perches on her butt*

You do realize you’re insane, right?

*Betsy grunts*

And I mean other than just blogging about the voices in your head. We’re talking full blown mania here.

Am not.

Really? Exactly how much time have you spent obsessing about publishing in the last two weeks?

I was just concerned about the shopping experience.

Oh, bull. I live in here, remember? I was so drenched in stress hormones I had to shower twice to wash them off.

*Betsy rolls over* *Harry nimbly jumps off before he is crushed under her*

Of course I was stressed! Okay, maybe I was a little quick pushing the “publish” button. Maybe I didn’t think things through exactly. I was just intent on making my date. Getting the thing up and running the way I’d promised.

First of all, you were the only one really intent on making that date. You hadn’t actually promised a date to the world at large.

I always feel like I’m running to catch up, and that when I actually have a product to put out there, I want to get it done and out because I’m afraid I won’t ever actually put it out if I don’t push it through and do it.

You rushed.

Yeah.

And you pushed the “publish” button.

*Betsy sighs* Yeah. And then I saw that the Amazon file was opening in the table of contents-even though it shouldn’t have been doing that. So I fixed that, or thought I did.

So you published Believing It again.

And then I found formatting errors in all of the vendors’ files, where some paragraph indents were missing.

So you published Believing It again.

And then I wanted to put in links to Believing It in the back of Handling It when I had the links available.

So you published Handling It again.

And then I figured out how to make the covers for both books nicer. That was fine, but I wanted to put the updated cover in the actual books, so people would have it when they opened.

So you published both books again.

And then I announced Believing It was published, only to realize, right after I did, that I’d missed some other missing paragraph indents, and it was still opening in the table of contents or other random places on Amazon, even though I thought I’d fixed it.

So you published Believing It again

And then I realized that the reason the Amazon file was opening in random places was because I’d uploaded an ePub file—which you’re supposed to be able to do—instead of an amazon format file.

So you published Believing It again.

*Betsy sighs* Yeah.

*Harry jumps up to the top of his gerbil habitat* *Grabs little bottle of orange juice* *Takes a long swig* Sweet Christmas! No wonder you got confused.

*Betsy sighs* Yeah.

*Harry rests little arms on the edge of the habitat* So, maybe you should have looked into all of this before you pushed publish in the first place?

*Betsy sighs* Yeah.

*Harry considers her for a moment* Okay. Let’s regroup.

Okay.

First of all, the book is finished, up, live, published. And now that your insanity seems to have settled down, it actually looks relatively nice. That’s all good.

*Betsy straightens* You’re right. That IS good.

*Harry holds up a paw* But because you didn’t plan, because you rushed, because you panicked, and because you were an insane idiot publishing over and over again instead of getting it all right before you pushed “publish” in the first place, people might have bought the book when the shopping experience was not ideal.

*Betsy droops* I know. *Looks at Harry* But the book itself never changed. It was always just formatting. I wasn’t editing the actual book.

Still. *Harry looks stern* You don’t have so many readers that you can afford to make people angry or confused because the book they purchased opens the first time to some random place instead of chapter one like it was supposed to. Or that when they’re reading, some paragraph formatting is missing in a few places. It makes you look very unprofessional.

*Betsy droops further* I know.

So you need to plan. You need to find the problems first, fix them, and THEN go live.

*Betsy kicks toe of running shoe against coffee table* I know.

You can’t panic, and rush your product to the market before you’ve thought everything through.

*Betsy throws up hands* I know, all right? I know! But the book is fine now on all of the platforms. I’ve tested it. It looks fine. It opens to chapter one on Amazon. The places where the paragraphs weren’t indented is fixed.

You never have a second chance to make a first impression.

*Betsy droops even more* I know

Okay. Let’s hope you mean it. *Harry crosses little paws over his chest* Anything else you’ve learned from this experience?

*Betsy straightens* Oh, tons!

Then we know what to talk about next time.

To be continued…

April 24, 2016
“Believing It” is LIVE!

My friends, I am pleased and proud to tell you that Believing It, the latest book in my “Welcome to Hardy Falls” series is LIVE! LIVE, I TELL YOU! Maybe I’m not alive at this point, but the book is birthed and out in the world! And it is now available as an e-book wherever fine e-books are sold. This is book 0.5 in the series, so it is the prelude to Handling It (book 1).

Without any further ado, here’s the information!

Sometimes you just need a second chance to get it right.

June Esperanza has managed to make a pretty darned good life for herself in the little Pennsylvania town of Hardy Falls. True, she’d never intended to stick around this long, but it all worked out for the best, didn’t it? After all, she has a job she enjoys, friends she loves, and a place in the community. So it shouldn’t matter to her in the slightest that Calvin Hardy has decided to move back home fifteen years after he dumped her on her butt and hit the road. She could care less what he does.

Calvin knew he’d made the biggest mistake of his life almost as soon as he drove away from June, but he also figured she’d never forgive him. How could she when he’d hurt her so badly? He never expected that, years later, he’d find himself divorced from a loveless marriage and coming back to Hardy Falls to help deal with a family crisis. He never thought that once he saw June again, he’d want her more than ever. Now he’s determined to convince her to give him another chance. If they can get beyond his mistakes of the past, maybe they can finally have a future–together.

June’s not sure it’s a good idea to believe anything Calvin says, let alone learn to trust him again. Does she even want to try? One thing’s certain–there’s no way she’ll let him hurt her this time around.

Welcome to Hardy Falls, a little town nestled in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where love has a way of sneaking in and catching you by surprise–even when you thought you had locked all the doors.

Click HERE if you want to read the first chapter.

Believing It is available in the following stores (it’s in others, too, but I didn’t want to list them all) –

Amazon US | iBOOKS | NOOK | KOBO | ARe

Amazon.uk | Amazon.au | Amazon.ca | Amazon.de

The paperback version’s coming soon, if anyone cares.

*Whew*

I thought this whole publishing thing was going to kill me. And just who decided it would be a good idea to do all of this work the same week I was trying to finish my taxes?

But the most important thing is–it’s out! Hooray!

In case you’re confused, I know I said in another post that I was going to do a pre-order, but it turns out I don’t have a clue about what I’m doing, and setting up a pre-order takes planning and confidence. That wasn’t in the cards this time around. But maybe for the next one…

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with how everything turned out. And I think the finished cover looks pretty. If you take a glance at the sidebar, you’ll see I updated the Handling It cover, too. Of course, I just put through a test purchase with Amazon, and it looks like they have the old cover in the actual e-book file, even though I changed it and the preview showed correctly. *sigh* It just goes to show you – it’s always something. (I know it’s not that big of a deal, but I wanted everything to be perfect. And it’s not. Like life.)

The next newsletter will come out tomorrow! Now I’m going to go to bed.

Fly free, “Believing It.” Fly free.

April 17, 2016
Categories and Key Words

As I come to the end of the editing process for my new book, Believing It, I’m pointing the rudder of my wee little ship towards the rocky shore of publishing. That means getting the manuscript formatted and up for preorder on all of the various book sales sites.

And it means I’m thinking about sales categories.

And since this is what I’m thinking about, this is what the blog post is about. Take that.

You wouldn’t think coming up with sales categories would be complicated, would you? But au contrair, mon ami. Categories, genres, and keywords can drive you a little crazy.

Yet, they are important and useful tools, because they are ways to let your readers know exactly what kind of book you’ve written and where to find it. So I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and deal.

Okay. First let’s look at the big picture. It’s important to know what genre your book belongs in. If you think your novel is science fiction and it’s actually fantasy, it can end up in the wrong place. That just annoys your readers and makes it harder to find.

Romance is the main genre I write in. It’s pretty easy to identify Believing It as a romance – the romantic story and relationship between the two main characters is the primary thrust of the book. In addition, and just as importantly, at the end of the story the relationship between the characters is whole and moving into the future.

Romance—check.

But because the romance genre is so big, there are tons of sub-genres, like contemporary, historical, erotic, western, etc. If the genre you write in has a lot of sub-genres, it’s just as important to nail the right one of those as it is to get the correct main genre.

For example, back in 2008 or 2009 (I forget which), I entered my first book, Hold Me, in the Romance Writer’s Association Golden Heart contest. That’s the contest for unpublished authors, and gets you some exposure to the publishing industry.

When I entered the book, I said it was a contemporary romance because it took place in the current day. However, Hold Me is a romantic suspense book because the protagonists are in danger most of the time. I didn’t understand the difference, so I put it in the wrong sub-genre.

Did that make a difference? Maybe not. But it probably annoyed people who had signed up to review contemporary romance and got handed a romantic suspense book instead.

Believing It is a contemporary romance. It is set in the current time, and the protagonists are dealing with issues in their normal lives. Although it has erotic content, that’s not the thrust (heh) of the story, so it’s not an erotic romance. They’re not in danger all the time, so it’s not romantic suspense. They’re not solving a crime, so it’s not a mystery romance.

Contemporary romance—check.

Now we get to the part that can make you crazy. The contemporary romance sub-genre is ALSO really big, covering lots and lots of titles with lots and lots of flavors. If I want the readers to understand what my book is about, I have to try to refine the category even more.

Amazon offers lots of niche category options, and lets you choose a number of them for your book so you can show up in more than one place. I want to choose the ones that are as small as possible—it’s a heck of a lot easier to be noticed in a small sub-sub-category where you’re only competing against a handful of other titles. On the other hand, I probably still want to appear in the main contemporary romance category as well (I just won’t get much traction there).

In addition, Amazon lets you set up a number of key words or phrases to help with search results. These key words can also trigger categories. It would be wise for me to take advantage of as many of them as I can.

I think that Believing It is a romantic comedy, and that’s a smaller sub-sub genre, so I’ll use that one as well as contemporary romance. For key words and phrases, I have “second chance romance”, “small town romance”, “working woman”, Pennsylvania, and some others.

Unfortunately iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo do not let me refine the categories as much as Amazon does. I’ll have to be satisfied with “contemporary romance” on those sites. They also don’t allow as many key words and phrases as Amazon, but I’ll use what I can.

And now I’d better get back to the editing, because none of this is going to matter if the book isn’t finished. I’ll just spend all of my free time writing notes about sub-sub-genres and key words

Publishing, my dears, is complicated.

March 27, 2016
Just Chillin’

As you may, or may not, know, Betsy is on a Quest to become a successful independent author / entrepreneur. Her Guide on this Quest is a white gerbil named Harry, who lives in her brain and annoys her on a regular basis.

Betsy has been known to yammer about goals and objectives here on the blog, but today she does not seem to be in her office. Her desk sits empty, the lights in her brain are dark. Where is she? What in the world is going on?

Let’s find out…

*Betsy lounges by the ocean that rumbles through her mind* *watches the dolphins and whales playing out in the waves* *digs bare toes in the sand*

Hey, doll. *Harry walks up to her* Whatcha doing?

*Betsy lets out a deep breath* Just chilling, bro.

Oh. *Harry sits down on the sand next to her* Aren’t you supposed to be working? I thought you had a ton of stuff you wanted to do.

Tons. *Betsy smiles at the sunset* Too much to do and not enough time to do it all.

Uh huh. *Harry considers her* Then why aren’t you a little more, well, frantic?

*Betsy shrugs* I’ve decided I’m not going to let writing and publishing stress me out anymore.

Really? *Harry frowns* You’ve been stressing about that for years.

I know, I know. *Betsy lays down on the sand* I think it’s because of the people.

People?

*Betsy waves her hand* There are all these people out there saying “do this”, or “don’t do that”, giving their opinions about what they think is right and correct. And when you listen to them, you can forget what it is YOU actually want to do. Or, worse, you wake up and realize your whole life has drifted away because you’ve been busy chasing after what you think you SHOULD do. I’m not going to do that anymore. The thing you love should enhance your life, not steal it, right?

*Harry lays back on the sand* You have to craft your Quest your own way.

Yes! *Betsy sits straight and points a finger at Harry* I’m going to live my life my way. And part of that is taking a few minutes to just enjoy. Not always be stressing because I should be doing something else to be successful.

Because if you can’t enjoy your life, what’s the point?

Yes!

*Harry yawns* So you wasted all of your time reading blogs and books and whatnot trying to figure out the whole independent writer gig.

No I didn’t. Don’t be a jerk. *Betsy frowns at him*

What? *Harry blinks up at her* You said it yourself. Listening to all those people made you cray-cray.

No. *Betsy’s frown deepens* I had to know what I was getting into. I had to research the crap out of the thing. Immerse myself completely. That’s what you have to do if you love something. You have to read everything about it, talk to people, understand the ins and outs, sit at the feet of the darned thing. Maybe for years.

*Harry sits up* Years?

*Betsy shrugs* I don’t think there’s a shortcut. I think you have to study everything, learn as much as you can. But then, at some point, the stress of trying to live up to what you think you “should” be doing gets to you. That’s when you have to let it all go and go your own way.

So, it’s like when you learn to paint. First, you mimic other painters, and then eventually do your own thing. Right?

Right. *Betsy shrugs* It’s the timing that’s kind of sticky. You need to learn. You need to mimic. But then you need to do what you think is right for you.

*Harry nods* Because your path is different.

Mimic too long and you’ll never be you. Don’t develop your understanding and you’ll never be you. And that goes for the whole deal — writing, publishing, marketing, everything. The whole “being an author” thing. *Betsy frowns* Actually, for the whole “being an anything” thing.

*Harry scratches side, then leans back on paws* So, the point of this blog post is to say you’ve decided you’re okay with doing this writing gig your own way, no matter how other people do it?

*Betsy lays back on the sand and looks up at the sky* Pretty much.

*Harry lays down next to her* And you’re not worried about screwing up?

*Betsy shrugs* Kind of. But at least it will be my screw up.

*Harry rolls head to look at her* But we’re not stressed?

Nope.

We’re chillin’?

*Betsy grins at him* You got it, little dude.

*Harry rolls his eyes* Never call me that again.

To be continued…

March 20, 2016
Tiny Steps

Hello, my friends! I thought I would talk a little bit about productivity today. My productivity, to be precise (although I hope you can relate).

Productivity has been kind of a movable feast here at the Palatial Horvath Estate until recently. I managed to plot out my next book and, after some stops and starts, started writing it. I have 21,000 words or so of the first draft completed, but that progress has generally been made in a very herky-jerky fashion–days of silence broken by brief productive sessions.

This cannot continue. The key to any creative endeavor, I think, is consistency. Every time I stop, I have to get back in the flow of things in order to restart.

Then there are the other goals–not the least of which is getting Believing It, edited, spruced up, and published. Plus, I want to blog regularly, write newsletters regularly, world build regularly, think about what I want to write next regularly, and all that jazz. These, too, require time and demand attention. If everything jerks along, nothing seems to get accomplished because a lot of valuable time has been wasted.

Productivity is my main writing goal for this year, because I want (and need) to have several products out there to form the basis for my business. I’m not getting any younger here. That means focused production.

Not herky-jerky.

Although a ton of stuff has been going on in my personal and day-job life (as always), it finally occurred to me that the main reason focused production has not been happening in my life has been simply because I don’t sit down to write. And I realized that’s because it all seems so overwhelming. I clutch. I panic and run away like a little bunny rabbit. When I say, “I’m going to get two or three books written and published this year,” my heart starts racing. I hear a voice in my head screaming “No! No! You can’t! It’s too much!” or “You don’t have the time!” or “You already wasted most of the day. Worry about it tomorrow!”

Then–you guessed it–the same thing happens the next day. And the next. Eventually sheer guilt forces me to sit down and work, but consistency is shot.

I knew that, if productivity is the main goal this year, I would have to break through this persistent resistance, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. That was when I ran across the book Mini Habits by Stephen Guise, and it gave me the key to this stubborn lock.

I realized I had to establish goals so small my brain didn’t really notice them until I’d started the task. Not a big, overwhelming goal of working two hours every day or writing 3,000 words a day. Those have been my goals and I’ve been failing miserably. No, the daily goal has to be something I can achieve before the panicked part of my brain knows what’s happening. The point is to be consistent, to build movement, and to establish a pattern of success. Just doing something small every day is more important to me at this point than to do something big every once in a while.

So, not two hours and 3000 words a day–five minutes and fifty words instead. Things that are so small they slip under my brain’s defenses. Tiny steps.

I started out about five weeks ago with six small tasks I wanted to develop into habits. That was too many–I kept forgetting two of them, or realizing at the end of the day that I hadn’t done any of the six and just giving up.

After some trial and error, I settled on four tasks , and so far it seems to be working. I am very pleased by the red checks on my calendar.

By the way, just because the step you’re taking is small, it doesn’t mean you have to stop at the daily goal you’ve set for yourself. You can do more–a lot more if you want to. The tiny step is just the gateway to get you going. But if you have a day (like I often do) where you can only do the minimum, you’ll still have succeeded and earned the check on the calendar.

The point is, you did it. And those wins build up as the weeks roll on. You are in motion. You have succeeded.

So, what are the tiny steps I’m taking (if you care)?

As I said back at the beginning of this post, my word for 2016 and 2017 is writing productivity. My overall business goal for the next two years is product creation and getting said product out to the public. So three of the four tiny steps I’m taking are focused in that direction.

Here are my tiny tasks –

Write 50 words of new fiction per day

Write 50 words of other work per day (that’s like blog posts or newsletters)

Work on publishing tasks 5 minutes every day (these are all of the business tasks that are not writing)

Walk 1 minute every day (intentionally – the walk to the car after work doesn’t count).

So, you can see that these really are teeny tiny steps. Anybody can write 50 words a day – in fact if you send an email or even a text message, you’ve probably written more than 50 words. I wanted these goals to be so stupid small that I wouldn’t be afraid to start.

But the point is–I do start. That’s the most important thing. Because if I don’t start, I can have all the dreams and goals in the world, but I’ll never get anywhere at all.

Onward!

March 13, 2016