Writers: A Free and Easy Way to Advertise Your Books

I'm taking a bit of a break from writing for the weekend, and instead focusing on new and improved ways to promote my books, and I stumbled across a great way to show off my work!

If you've never heard of KBoards, you're missing out.  This is a great avenue for all - readers and writers - to learn what there is to know about writing, publishing, self-publishing, ereaders, and where to find great books.  I've been a member for quite some time now and have learned so much from there.

Well, today, I came across the 'Book Profile Page' feature.  This is completely FREE and any author who is a member of KBoards can do it.

All you have to do is type in this URL:
http://www.kboards.com/book/?asin=XXXXXXXXXX

then replace the 'XXXXX' portion with your book's ASIN number, which can be found in the numerical portion of your book's URL on Amazon or any website where it is listed.

Add in all the information that it asks for, including Y or N for whatever feature you want or don't want, cut and paste your author bio and picture URL from Amazon (or wherever you like), type in your email address and choose a password (you can choose a different password for each book if you wish), and BAM!

Check out what it looks like here.  You can see all three of my books in the 'A Calamity Place Romance' series listed!  When you click on each one, it shows a dedicated page for all the book's info!

KBoards members that are looking for books can navigate through the site by genre, author, etc., to find your book.

Cool, eh?  Have fun!

Scoliosis and Embracing Challenge

We all have some kind of challenge, whether it be physical or emotional, or something else, and it's important to not let it define us.  God has given us an obstacle, and it's up to us to face it, deal with it, and perhaps even overcome it.

But what if it can't be overcome?

Some things are with us for life, no matter what.  For some, that's a hard pill to swallow.  But as long as it isn't something life-threatening, we must remember that; that there are many people out there with terminal illnesses, and we are not one of them.

Embrace that.  

For myself, I learned something pretty upsetting after being involved in a car accident when I was twenty-one years old.  It was bad enough to realize that the car that I loved and only had for three months was totaled forever, but when I went to physiotherapy for whiplash, and found out I had Scoliosis, my life changed forever.

It was scary, frustrating, and there were so many unanswered questions, but, looking back at the last twenty years since my diagnosis, I can honestly say that having Scoliosis, in many ways, has been a blessing.

What?

Yes, I said that it's mostly been a blessing.

Why?

Because, overall, it's forced me to take better care of myself, it's made me push the envelope in a lot of ways, and it has made me look at life and people so much differently.  It's also made me a better and stronger person, and has made others look up to me, which in turn, makes me feel better about myself.

How?

I'll get into much more later, but for now, I'll tell you that having Scoliosis inspired me to write my second book.

View on Amazon

And it's also inspired me to write the follow-up to it, five years later.  Please stay tuned, even if you don't have Scoliosis, I'm going to talk about life and it's challenges, whether or not it relates to a physical deformity.

Wishing you all well and God bless,

Sandy Appleyard

What puts the ‘Calamity’ in Calamity Place Romance?

Last year, when I started thinking about writing my next book, I decided to try something completely different.  Something lighter, easier to read, and a novel that had an element of mystery, yet wasn’t all-encompassing mysterious.  There are enough drama-filled romances out there, in my opinion, so I decided to use the term ‘calamity’ instead.  It involves less-intense situations, namely, where people get out alive!

"A real-life saga that pulls at your heartstrings."

Calamities in these romances occur basically amongst the floors in the building known as ‘Calamity Place’.  The storylines take place in Toronto, Ontario, my hometown, and they involve twentysomething characters, with their own set of personal issues.  But they are all interwoven somehow, and if they’re not, they sure end up that way! 

When writing these novels, I purposely made it so that the characters were all introduced based on their presence either in another part of the story, or in another volume, making it easier for the reader to remember, without having to use a lot of back story.

The beauty of this type of serial romance is that there is never really an ending.  Each story has its own cliffhanger, and the reader never really knows where the conclusion will be….I still don’t! 

It starts with Kendra, a shy recluse, who has many friends itching to pull her out of her shell.  While reluctant most of the time, she finds herself giving in to Cassandra or Missy’s pleading, and paints on a happy face to quell any misgivings her friends may have about her.  But why is she such a hermit?  Kendra is beautiful, smart, and isn’t shy around men.  Her friends know what it is, but Kendra hasn’t admitted it to herself…yet.

The second novel in the series focuses mainly on Cassandra and Luke.  They met at a bar once, had a brief relationship, and then suddenly Luke ships himself out of the province for a much-coveted position as a police officer.  In book two, however, Luke comes back…and oh, what a roller coaster ride they have!

The third novel, still a work in progress at the time of this posting, tells about a couple introduced in book one, Linda and Ray.  Also in the mix and adding to the calamity, is Mark, Luke’s best friend and fellow police officer colleague.  But it’s not a love triangle or anything that you would expect.  The relationship that the three have is very unique and while I haven’t reached the end of the manuscript yet, I can say that the conclusion will be heart-breaking, but at the same time very fulfilling, depending on which male character turns out to be your favourite!

Book One is just 99 cents!

Books one and two are currently available on Kindle, and free for Amazon Prime members.  Book one is just 99 cents!  Look for book three coming in Spring/Summer 2017!

Subscribe to my newsletter so I can let you know when book three is available!  Click here to subscribe.

  

See Book One

See Book Two

The Return of the Word

Eleven years ago I took a break from corporate life to raise my children.  Approximately ten years ago I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do: write a book.  The practice became addictive, and then I learned how to publish, promote and blog.  To be perfectly honest, I loved every bit of it and I still do.  I fell in love with the written word, and it has become a lifelong love.

Nearly twelve years later, I have written and self-published countless books in both fiction and non-fiction.  The whole process is still very enjoyable to me.  Words, story ideas, and scenes come to me always.

However, while pouring my heart and soul into writing, publishing, promoting, etc., I learned a very painful lesson: Be careful not to make the written word your be-all-and-end-all. 

You see, writing, while some can make it their living, the odds are very stong against most of us.  As a writer, you have to be rational and realistic, and have a career already in place.  If your books do become successful enough that you can quit your day job, great, but more than likely that isn’t going to happen, and you have to remember that always.  Writing should be a love, and something you enjoy doing when all your other things are taken care of. And as a love, you need to make time to do it every day, for yourself.

Last year, I returned to work after a ten year hiatus.  The tables turned; I took a break from promoting and blogging, but I never stopped writing.  Writing is a part of who I am now and it will always will be that way.  Now that I’ve adjusted to working full-time, I can also slowly return to promoting and blogging.  So far I’ve touched on Facebook, Twitter, and I’ve continued posting some of my books on Wattpad.

If you love writing, just be careful and make sure that isn’t all that you love.  With all of the obsession over writing, I’d forgotten how much I also loved to work; to interact with live people, rather than just cyberspace and e-people, if you will.  Also, writing doesn’t pay…at least, it doesn’t pay well, and having a paycheck; contributing to your family, is a very rewarding experience. 

Check out my books on Amazon, Kobo, and Wattpad.  The first book in my LA Cops Series is always free on Amazon, and the first book in my ‘To Hide in Holly Springs’, and ‘Calamity Place Romance’ series are just 99 cents on Amazon.

What's in a Book Title?

If you scroll through Amazon, you'll pick up many different titles.  And by different, I mean some that are intriguing, others that are pretty basic eg. one word titles, and some that a reader will pull up to learn more about the book, because the title is so unusual.

Myself, I like to create book titles that have that sort of affect; unusual.  Even though authors like Sandra Brown, who often select titles that are a little vague (probably on purpose-another clever tactic), and get away with selling zillions of books, I like to make my book titles more interesting.

For example, my first book I called 'The Message in Dad's Bottle'.  It sounds a little like 'Message in a Bottle', that famous book that later became a blockbuster movie, but it's not quite that.  I chose that title to leave readers wondering "what message is in the bottle?  and why is it 'dad's' bottle?"

 I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress' was probably the most difficult title to come up with.  The title probably took me longer to create than the actual book did.  The title itself is rather ironic because the cover is an image of me wearing a semi-backless dress.  Hence the inspirational point of view I create in the book; the fact is that I did exactly what I said I wouldn't do, because I fought through one of the obstacles the Lord gave me to fight.

Fiction titles are a little trickier sometimes, depending on the content.  For 'Blessed and Betrayed' I wanted to depict the main character's disposition: she was, in fact, both blessed and betrayed all her life, without knowledge of either.

My personal favourite is 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'.  Many readers have asked me why I chose that title, and they've also commented on the cool fact that I managed to put the title into a section of dialogue inside the book.  If any of you are children of the 1980's and were William Hurt fans, you'll remember a blockbuster movie called 'Children of a Lesser God'.  That name always stuck with me, as did the content; it was such a compelling story of a man who falls in love with a hearing-impaired woman.  While brainstorming ideas, I wanted to make the name of this book very memorable and interesting, so I morphed a title from a way-back movie and created 'The Wife of a Lesser Man'.

Okay, I whimped out a little on 'Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl'.  The original title was 'The Night He Threw Out Saigon', which in the end, I thought it sounded too exotic, and I wanted the name of the book to be a clear reflection of the strength of Jessica, the main character, and how the two men in her life fight to get her back home safely.  Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl just fit.

The original title to 'No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday' was 'Just When

I Needed to Laugh'.  Which, in the end, didn't cut it for me.  No Thanks just seemed more poignant and the phrase itself tells you what the book is about.  Plus, I tested it out with some Facebook friends and they said just the title itself was funny, so there you go.

Last, but certainly not least, 'The Wheels of Change'.  This book had a title before I wrote the first paragraph.  The reason being: I wanted it to be about a man in a wheelchair.  And it is that and so much more, but I wanted to focus on how the main character changes so much after being put in a wheelchair, and how differently he sees life from it.  It's a simple title, I know, but it says it all.






What about you?  What sort of titles do it for you?  Which ones have stuck in your mind over time?

Here is the link to my Amazon page if you would like to view all my books from one page (I've provided links to the individual books above-just click on each highlighted title to be linked to Amazon). 

Please leave a comment if you have something to say.  I would love to hear from you :)

A Free Twitter Tool I Wish I Knew About Long Ago

Perusing potential new Twitter friends, I discovered a remarkable tool I did not know about called ‘Pinned Tweets’.

The way it works is you can ‘pin’ any tweet you want to the top of your tweet list.  Meaning that you can select a tweet that someone else tweeted about you (or one you tweeted yourself); perhaps book accolades, reviews, free day plugs, etc., and pin it to your profile.

What is the advantage?  Well, one is it highlights this tweet so that anyone hopping on your profile will see that tweet first.  Two, if your Twitter friends are looking for a tweet to retweet you, they don’t have to look far to find the one you’ve chosen to stand out above all the rest.

How do you use it?

Find any tweet and look at the footer strip where there are three small dots on the far right hand side.  If you hover over the dots with your mouse it says ‘more’.  Click on that and select from the drop-down menu ‘pin tweet’.  This will pin the tweet to the top of your profile and you can see it by clicking on your tweets.  It will be the first one and it will actually say at the top ‘pinned tweet’.

This is a great tool and I’ve found it to be very useful already.  I hope many of you start using this as it makes life so much easier for people like me, who want to reciprocate a mention/rettweet with a tweet.  It’s a real time-saver so we don’t have to scroll down, perhaps through days worth of tweets, to find a book plug or original tweet (or something that isn’t a retweet).

Check it out!  See my profile to view the ‘pinned tweet’ and give it a try!

Do you know any more little goodies like this?  Feel free to add it in the comments!

Sandy is the author of fiction and memoirs.  Her latest release is a funny, kid-style memoir called No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday.  

Coming October 20!  Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl, Book Two in her police procedural series, is a gripping romantic suspense about a man's love of two things: his girlfriend and the stock market.  Learn more.

Subscribe and get Book One for FREE today!  Click here for details.

To learn more about Sandy, please visit her website www.sandyappleyard.com

5 Things to do When You're Stuck in a Following-Follower Rut

Twitter is quite the mystery to most.  It’s telling by how many books are published about  the workings of the site. 

One day you have retweets, mentions and followers coming out of the woodwork, then the next you’re scrimping to find people to thank for all those mentioned. 

It’s inevitable to go through a lull every now and again, but if you find your numbers have hit a wall and are stuck there, this post will help get you past it.

First, use a service like www.justunfollow.com weekly, removing all inactive users.  About once a month I recommend going through and removing those who are not following you back. 

Note:  Be sure to give a good week or more of lag time when you begin following people spontaneously, otherwise you’ll be unfollowing people you haven’t given a fair chance to follow you back.

The only way to climb the Twitter totem pole (unless you’re a celebrity or have incredibly good luck) is to follow people spontaneously.  So here are a few tips to get you there:

1.  Find an author or person who does something similar to you.  Find out who they’re following and follow them as well.

Note: don’t just go and follow their followers, be sure to follow who they’re following, use their taste in following.  If the person is loyal and trusted, you’d be wise to use their lead.

2.  Be sure to respond when they thank you for following or when they simply send you a shout out.  It’s important to make connections, so you don’t appear to be just a serial follower.

3.  Do not respond to direct messages.  Many Tweople have their account set up with auto-tweets that are triggered by new followers.  If you spend time responding to these, you’ll waste a lot of valuable time doing what they ask (liking their Facebook pages, etc.) and chances are they won’t reciprocate.  I recommend responding to requests only when they tweet you; this way you have a better chance that they will reciprocate.

4.  Another quick and easy way to follow people is to scroll through a loyal follower’s recently followed list.  This can be found by simply rolling through all their recent tweets and following those they’ve made connections with.  You can also do this by following those that they’ve included in their recent thank you tweets.  

5.  Last, and frankly the easiest, is to simply follow back those who follow you. 

Note:  make sure you only follow those who do similar to what you do (writers, bloggers, etc.) otherwise you’ll be following everyone and their mother’s uncle, so to speak. 

Tip:  A sure way to get others to follow you is to put a blurb in your profile like mine “I follow those who, like me; eat, sleep and breathe books”.  This way you give people a general idea of what you do and what you’ll do for them.

But most important is to offer quality content in your tweets.  This means to not only mention and retweet good stuff, but to provide your own excellent original posts and re-posts.  This, above all, will encourage followers.

Want a new follower?  Simply follow me by clicking this link.  I follow back all writers, authors and just about anyone who has something interesting to say!

Sandy is the author of fiction and memoirs.  Her latest release is a funny, kid-style memoir called No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday.  

Coming October 20!  Don't Mess with Daddy's Girl, Book Two in her police procedural series, is a gripping romantic suspense about a man's love of two things: his girlfriend and the stock market.  Learn more.

Subscribe and get Book One for FREE today!  Click here for details.

To learn more about Sandy, please click here to go to her website.