Tag Archives: alternate history

Phew

08 Wednesday Sep 2021

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In the last two days I’ve received a five star rating and a five star review on A Most Malicious Murder. Let me tell you why that is a massive, MASSIVE relief.

I know I’m a good writer. That’s not arrogance — that’s me being published since 1995, repeatedly selling stories and novels to publishers (I’m indie now as a financial decision, not because I couldn’t get stuff published the traditional way), and getting reviews from complete strangers saying that they love my stuff. Okay, so I’m competent with words.

But AMMM was my first novel under my own name. Moreover, it was in a genre I had never written in before (alternate history mystery). Mystery has its own set of rules and tropes which I had to learn pretty damn quickly while I was editing, and alternate history requires a buttload of research in order to get it right. So with AMMM I was in real weenie-shrinking territory, to paraphrase Bill Murray — I had to hit all the mystery points and I had to get the history right even as I twisted it out of true. And while I thought I’d done a good job with it and my editor assured me that it was a good story and people would enjoy it, I couldn’t be sure until it was out there doing its job with readers.

Now it’s out there, and I’m getting good feedback, which means I can finally release this breath that I’d been holding since August 31st (you would not believe the color my face turned — I went straight past Rampage Raspberry into “Um, poke her and see if she’s still alive” Umber). Which bodes well for future books (right now I’m torn between the time travel novel with Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell, the novel where an evil Ancient Egyptian queen wreaks havoc on Dallas, or the space opera retelling of Sense and Sensibility).

In the meantime, however, I think I’m going to relax with a refreshing adult beverage. Because I earned it.

Soon, my Precious. Soon…

30 Monday Aug 2021

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For indie authors, writing and editing the book isn’t the last step. We then have to get a professional cover, get it formatted, and upload it to various sites (Amazon, D2D, Smashwords, et al). All that has now been done.

Now comes the marketing and promotion (yes, they’re different) phase. Marketing means figuring out what market you’re trying to target with your book. In the case of MMM, I’m targeting older SF readers who also like historical fiction and romping mystery yarns, as well as Poe and Carroll fans who may like a mystery starring the authors. You also have to figure out the best way of reaching them (SEO, Amazon ads versus FB ads, book tours, ARCs, release day parties, swag, et al). Promotion is taking all of that information and putting it into action.

I am currently in the marketing phase for MMM. I have Amazon ads ready to go (it’s useless to put them up at the moment because Amazon won’t put up the Look Inside feature that gets readers hooked until your book is actually released). I’m currently taking a class on FB ads so I’ll probably get those up in a week or two. I have ARCs up at BookSirens and BookSprout so that reviewers can read the book and leave reviews, hopefully good ones. I’ve been doing pre-promo on Twitter and FB with ad graphics, and I have eighteen pre-orders.

Tomorrow, the book will be released on Amazon, and B&N/iTunes/Kobo/SM/Google Play soon after. I know some people prefer to stay entirely with Amazon, but I make decent sales on other platforms so I like to use them. My Amazon ads will go live, and I’ll retune my ad graphics for “now available” and start using those on social media. I’m also going to hit various Poe and Carroll websites and see if they’re interested in reading the book and posting a link to it somewhere. Finally, I’m going to start a newsletter so that people can be kept up to date on other releases from me (I have an UF series in mind, plus a space opera).

I must admit, all of this has been made much easier by the fact that I’ve been publishing romance as Nicola M. Cameron since 2015. But there are differences, as well — a lot of SF review sites simply will not look at indie books, and too many places still want physical ARCs. So i have to adjust for that, plus the fact that I can’t use 95% of my usual reviewer list who are romance-only. Still, the bulk of the groundwork has been done, so now I just have to dig in and get to promotin’.

And it’s off

27 Friday Aug 2021

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As of 5:00 PM today the final MS for A Most Malicious Murder was uploaded to Amazon, so the seventeen people who were kind enough to pre-order it will get it delivered to their Kindles at 12:01 AM on August 31st.

I may have squeed just a little bit, I dunno.

And boy, do thanks go out to my editor Theresa Havens and the beta divinities J. Kathleen Cheney and Peter White for going over the manuscript because man, I missed a number of things. Like, oh, the whole “Eureka!” moment that a mystery is supposed to have? You know, the moment where House stops in mid-sentence, looks into the distance, and you know he figured out what’s wrong with the patient? Yeah, that. Also kinda skipped the whole part that explains why Poe didn’t die in 1849.

Luckily I had those bits in my Cut Parts file and was able to slip them back in at appropriate points. But dang, Mel. You know better.

Of course, my job isn’t finished. Oh, the writing/editing part is done, yeah. But now I have to compile the .epub and .mobi versions for Smashwords, the .epub version for Google Play, and the print version. And I have to ride herd on promotion and marketing, which means sending the book to reviewers/Bookstagrammers/BookTokers/influencers for review, crafting Amazon ads, checking out promo deals, and figuring out unexpected places that would be interested in an alt-history mystery starring Poe and Carroll. And I have to create more promo graphics. And make a book trailer. Um.

On the upside, I have complete control over every part of the publishing process, and if I do it right I’ll make way more than I would if I’d submitted it to a traditional publisher. So I’ve got that going for me. It’s just a lot of work.

I also really, really, REALLY need to clean this house because my sister’s coming for a visit at the end of September and … yeah. Kinda let things slide. But it’ll be good to get everything washed, dusted, and properly clean for a change. The J Crew will be pissed that I’m removing their hair from everything, but oh well.

Foo. It’s Done.

07 Saturday Aug 2021

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As you may know, Bob, twelve years after its inception I finally finished A Most Malicious Murder and put it up for pre-order on Amazon (it comes out there on August 31st, will be available on all other ebook platforms the day after, and will also have a print version).

Of course, now I have to launch into all the pre-release activities that will hopefully get the book noticed and reviewed. I’m in the middle of putting together a media pack, I’ll have ARCs ready by the end of next week for reviewers, I’m going through and finding all the Poe and Carroll websites I can in hopes of drumming up interest in said ARCs/media packs, and I may even go with a book tour company for this one.

One huge blessing with all of this is that I’m an old pro at promotion, thanks to all of my Nicola Cameron books. Of course, MMM will be slightly different — I won’t be able to use any of my romance reviewers/book bloggers/Bookstagrammers, so I’ll have to build an SF/mystery list of those from scratch. But I do have a To Do list of everything I need to get done in the next three weeks, and I’m going to spend the weekend compiling a list of reviewers and bloggers who like mixed genre books.

And I have to admit, I’m excited about this. It’s my first novel to come out under my own name, and I’m really hoping that SF and mystery readers enjoy it as much as romance readers have enjoyed my Nicola stories. Gonna be a busy August, that’s for sure.