Self-Publishing on Amazon: 4 Crucial Tips for First-Time Authors

Guest Post by Savannah Cordova

 

Image courtesy of Unsplash

Self-publishing a book on Amazon is a big step for any author, but especially if you’ve never done it before. No matter how much research you’ve conducted or reassurance you’ve gotten from friends, putting your book up on Amazon is always an intimidating process — there are so many little details to remember, and therefore many little things that can go wrong.

Luckily, there are also concrete steps you can take to insure your self-published book as much as possible. And while no single measure will guarantee a successful launch on Amazon, doing all of these things will certainly maximize your chances! Here are four crucial tips for authors who decide to self-publish on Amazon, covering everything from uploading your files correctly to planning your marketing approach.

Tip #1: Polish and upload your manuscript effectively

Before you even think about putting your book on Amazon, you need to get your manuscript and cover in tiptop shape. Not only does this mean writing the best book you possibly can, but also hiring an editor or proofreader to sweep for inconsistencies and errors — not just proofing it yourself or asking a friend. Paying someone else to do the job, someone whose livelihood depends on their abilities, is a much safer bet than trusting inexperienced eyes.

You should also invest in a professional book cover design. Repeated tests have shown that a professional-looking book cover gets you way more clicks on Amazon, and you don’t want to lose up to 50% of potential buyers just because of your cover! So bite the bullet on the cost and get that gorgeous cover for your book.

Once you are absolutely, 110% sure that your manuscript and cover cannot be improved, you’re ready to prepare your files for Amazon. As you may already know, the Amazon Kindle Store uses MOBI files. This means that no matter what kind of file you upload, it will be converted to MOBI — which can have adverse effects on your formatting. So before you upload, ensure that your file is already a MOBI to prevent Amazon from converting it.

As for your book cover image, pretty much all you need is for it to be 1,000 pixels tall x 625 pixels wide, in the form of a TIFF or JPG. If one doesn’t work, try the other — the cover upload function can act up sometimes, so you may need to re-upload a couple of times.

Tip #2: Optimize your description and keywords

With your files safely uploaded and looking beautiful, you’re ready to write the description and set the Amazon keywords for your book! The more you can optimize these elements, the easier it will be for your readers to find you, and the more sales you’ll make. Annie’s already touched on how to write a great Amazon product description, but here are a few things you can do in terms of keywords specifically:

• Try to get into your target reader’s head

It might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many authors go straight to using keyword tools rather than thinking about it from a human perspective. Simply imagine that you were a reader looking for a book like yours, type all the keywords you can think of into Amazon, and check which titles are ranking for each keyword. If they’re similar to your book and have decent rankings, you can bet that’s a strong keyword, and you should add it to your own details.

• Focus on high-traffic, low-competition keywords

Of course, though you want to be using some of the same keywords as your competitors, you’ll benefit even more if you can find a few niche keywords with high traffic but low competition. If lots of people search for a certain term, but not too many books are actually a good match for that term, this could be your chance to fill a gap in the market!

• Use Amazon’s ad system to your advantage

This is a tip for after you’ve put your book up on Amazon, but it’s just as effective (if not more so) than trying to optimize your keywords beforehand. Once you’ve made some sales, you can go into your KDP dashboard and “create an ad” — but instead of actually setting up Amazon ads, just check the suggested target keywords for the ad that you would make. Amazon will tell you exactly which words and phrases readers have been using to find your book, meaning you can go back into your description and re-optimize to capture even more readers.

Tip #3: Weigh your options with KDP Select

There’s been a lot of talk surrounding the various pros and cons of enrolling in KDP Select, the program that offers various promotional opportunities in exchange for Amazon digital exclusivity. As in, while enrolled in KDP Select (which lasts 90 days), you cannot sell your eBook anywhere other than Amazon — though you may distribute print copies if you wish.

The KDP Select program has several concrete benefits, including:

1. Free and discounted price promotions, which help you get tons of downloads and gain visibility by ranking on two different types of lists (the free store and the paid store on Amazon).
2. Having your book on Kindle Unlimited, which is basically Amazon’s “Netflix for books” that allows subscribers to pay $9.99 a month for unlimited ebooks. Authors take home a very small percentage of royalties from this (only about $0.0044 per page), but the massive exposure to millions of KU subscribers and subsequent rankings boost makes the actual payout more or less irrelevant.
3. 70% royalties in extended territories such as Japan, India, Brazil, and Mexico, as long as your book is between $2.99 and $9.99 (though with non-select, you still get 70% royalties in most Anglophone territories).

Of course, the program has drawbacks as well. For example, KDP Select is great for reaching readers in the US and UK, where Amazon overwhelmingly dominates eBook distribution — but other countries like Canada and Australia have a much less autocratic ebook market, with companies like KOBO and Apple Books taking 20-30%. Though this is still less than Amazon’s share of the market in those countries, it’s enough to potentially hurt you if you go Amazon-exclusive for your book launch.

You should also steer clear of KDP Select if you’re trying to get onto bestseller lists other than Amazon’s. Not many people know this, but one of the prerequisites for lists in publications like The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, etc. is that you sell your book on multiple retailers — i.e. Amazon exclusivity is a deal breaker.

The takeaway here is that only you, the author, can decide whether or not KDP is the right path. Carefully consider both sides, and whichever you choose, keep track of what works and what doesn’t so you can make an even more informed decision with your next book.

Tip #4: Prioritize getting reviews

Finally, once your book is up and selling on Amazon, you have one goal that should take precedence over all others: getting (legitimate!) five-star reviews. Naturally, five-star ratings in and of themselves are important, but you also want to have as many people as possible leaving written reviews on your book’s Amazon page.

Why? Because you have to anticipate poor reviews and have a buffer in place just in case. Nothing pokes holes in a buoyant Amazon ship like a burst of one-star ratings, and nothing sinks it like a one-star review, especially if it’s the only review on the page. The more glowing reviews you have, the less likely that a potential customer is going to see that one-star review and decide that your book isn’t worth their time.

To that end, maximize your reviews by asking everyone you know to leave one, publicizing your book through your email list, and utilizing promotional sites and services. Of course, you should never pay FOR a review, or even “review swap” with another author — if Amazon suspects anything fishy, they’ll come down on you hard.

But don’t worry: promoting your book in other ways should lead to plenty of organic reads and reviews. And while you can’t guarantee that everyone you ask will leave a review, the more work you put into this stage, the more reviews you’ll get out of it.

So there you have it: polish your book, optimize your keywords, calculate your odds with KDP Select, and focus on reviews. No matter what kind of book you’ve written, these tips should significantly contribute to your self-publishing success… and perhaps even equip you to make a name for yourself in the cutthroat world of Amazon.

Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors and publishers with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. She’s very interested in the self-publishing industry and where it’s headed. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction and writing short stories.

Indie Spotlight on Non-Fiction Author, David Kadavy

You can feel it. You know you have something to offer the world. Something nobody else has. But how do you find the courage to make it real? You’ve heard the advice “just get started.” But it’s easier said than done. You don’t have the time, or you don’t feel like you’re ready. The Heart to Start will help you systematically break down resistance to start writing your book, and to find the momentum finish it. Buy it on Amazon, on Kindle, paperback, or Audible audiobook.

 

 

 

Your Book Launch Doesn’t Have to Kill You

As I reviewed my launch plan for my book, I could feel every muscle in my body tense up. It seemed there was no way I could pull this off. It didn’t help that Christmas was coming.

It would take several weeks for a Createspace proof to arrive at my home in Colombia. It would take two weeks for ACX to approve my audiobook to be sold on Audible and iBooks. It would take many hours to record and master the audio for the audiobook.

Then there was the marketing. As a podcast host myself, I knew that if I wanted to appear on podcasts during a given time-frame, I’d better be pitching up to six months in advance. And guest posts like this one also take time to coordinate and write.

It started to make sense why traditional publishers take a year just to prepare for a launch. There’s a lot of work to be done, and much of it still moves slowly.

How could I possibly do this all at once? It had been two years since I decided I was going to write another book. I pictured being at a family gathering for Christmas – now only a few months away – and sheepishly explaining once again that my new book still wasn’t finished.

I needed a book launch that wouldn’t kill me.

I got lucky with my first book. I wrote the right blog post on the right subject at the right time, and a book deal fell in my lap. My publisher took care of layout and cover design, and getting books into stores all over the world.

So, I was free to concentrate on my launch. It worked. My first book, Design for Hackers, debuted in the top twenty on Amazon.

But this time was different. I had spent almost two years trying to get a book deal. Sometimes I felt like a failure, but I eventually learned that self-publishing was more my style.

Many things are different about self-publishing, so maybe the launch is different, too. Maybe your self-published book launch doesn’t have to kill you.

There are reasons book launches are so do-or-die in traditional publishing:

• Best-seller lists. They’re all about sales velocity. How many books can you sell in a small amount of time?
• Human resources. It’s more efficient for publishing professionals to work on one launch at a time, rather than diluting efforts among all of their books.
• Print runs. If a publisher has invested thousands of dollars on a first print run, they want to recoup that expense as quickly as possible.

My incentives as a self-publisher were different:

• No best-seller lists. I wasn’t trying to publish a NYT best-seller (nor WSJ nor USA Today).
• One-person human resources. I’m only one person. While I have all of the skills needed for self-publishing, I can only do one thing at a time.
• No print run. I didn’t have to invest on a print run up-front. Kindle costs nothing, and Createspace is print-on-demand.

Plus, my morale was waning. I needed some motivation.

Then, I remembered my own advice from the very book I was publishing. In The Heart to Start, I talk about “the whip.” The idea that one piece of a project should build motivation for the next.

Instead of killing myself with my launch, I decided to do one piece at a time. Each piece would build momentum for the next piece.

• First, I launched on Kindle.
• Then, I recorded the audiobook.
• Then, I launched Createspace. Reading the audiobook helped me catch any last-minute mistakes. I could easily fix them on Kindle before putting the content on Createspace.
• Then, I launched the audiobook. It took several weeks for my audio editors to master the audio, and for ACX to approve it.

Each piece of the launch built momentum. Each piece of the launch allowed me to learn new things. As a nice side-bonus, each launch step gave me a new reason to email my readers and ask for reviews.

Two months after my book debuted, I’m still “launching it.” I’m learning new things every step of the way. I’m running AMS (Amazon) and Bookbub ads, I’m doing podcast interviews and guest posts.

• Once my Kindle Unlimited term is up, I’ll go wide and publish on iBooks, Google Play, and Kobo.
• The paperback is now available on Ingram, and I may see if I can try to get it on shelves at Barnes & Noble.
• When everything is in place, I’ll start trying for a Bookbub promotion.

As self-publishers, we have so much to learn – and it is truly a never-ending learning experience. But we don’t have to let the vision of the “perfect” launch get in the way of getting our work out there. One step at a time does get you there.

I hope that sharing my approach to launching a book has given you ideas for your own book launch. And has helped to show you that your book launch doesn’t have to kill you.

 

David Kadavy is best-selling author of The Heart to Start, and Design for Hackers – which debuted on the top twenty on all of Amazon. He hosts the podcast Love Your Work , where he explores finding your unique path to success, and optimizing your creative output. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

 

Indie Spotlight on Fantasy Author Jack Massa

True Magic is never an easy road.

For sixteen-year old Abigail Renshaw, the terrifying nightmares are not the worst part. When apparitions start leaking out of the nightmares into her waking life—Well, that’s a problem.

But Abby’s dealt with hallucinations before, and she’s nothing if not resilient. Following clues from the nightmares, she convinces her mother to let her visit Harmony Springs, the small town in Florida where Abby was born, and where her grandmother still lives.

There, Abby finds unexpected help from new friends: a compulsive teenage blogger named Molly Quick, and Molly’s older brother Ray-Ray (a guy Abby really starts to like). 

The not-so-good news? Abby’s apparitions might be real after all. And one of them wants to kill her. Ghosts of Bliss Bayou is available at Amazon. 

Story Craft: Presenting Backstory in Scenes

As fiction writers, we often hear the advice “Show, Don’t Tell.” But what exactly does that mean?

To me, it means to present your story with immediacy. Write it mainly in dramatic scenes, and focus each scene in a single character’s point of view.

But a rich story embodies a lot of information. If you try to convey all of it in scenes, you can easily find yourself writing lots of extraneous scenes, as well as using obviously contrived dialogue (“As we all know, Tom, the Druna are an ancient elvish race who live in Dampwood.”) This is a great way to ruin a story.

For this post, let’s define backstory as all the information from outside a scene that the reader needs to understand that scene. Skilled story-tellers use a number of techniques to present backstory within the structure of their scenes. Here are few that I’ve observed.

Tip 1: Create a scene in which the character can reflect

In real life, we all spend time thinking about our problems. Your characters can do the same: when out for a walk, waiting in line, riding a bus, whatever.

For example, in Chapter 1 of Ghosts of Bliss Bayou, our heroine Abby has woken up from a recurring nightmare. Worse, figures from the nightmare are now appearing in her waking life. To get a grip, Abby goes out for a run. During the run, she has a chance to reflect on her past:

With the route set, my brain flips into autopilot, and I can think about other stuff.

Like my hallucinations.

I’ve always been the sensitive, imaginative type. Hyperaware of other people’s feelings. Sometimes I can tell what they’re going to say before they say it. And I’ve always been prone to anxiety. But when I started to go through puberty, things got really bad. I was afraid all the time, and then I started to hear voices in my head. Scary voices, telling me I might as well just die, that I had no future, that I was cursed.

Just like my dad.

This goes on for several more paragraphs and gives the reader a chunk of backstory while keeping the immediacy of our protagonist confronting her very scary problem.

Tip 2: Let characters catch each other up

We’re all familiar with scenes where a character learns some backstory by hearing it from another character. You have to handle this carefully or it will seem contrived or ‘stagy.’

First, make sure your viewpoint character would realistically learn this information from the other character. (Tom really doesn’t know that the Druna live in Dampwood.) Secondly, present the dialogue in short chunks, not long speeches. Finally, make the disclosure part of an emotionally-engaging scene.

In this example, Abby has travelled to Florida to visit her grandmother and try to figure out where her nightmares are coming from. She’s just met Molly, and they’re talking over coffee about some recent weird happenings in the town.

Molly nods. “It’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. The history of Harmony Springs is full of paranormal stories.”

A wriggle of fear starts in my stomach. “You mean like apparitions and ghosts?”

“Sure. The families who founded the town were spiritualists. The Greenes, the Hollingsworths, the Aldens”—she gestures at me with an open hand—“the Renshaws.”

The wriggle turns into a cringe. “I didn’t know that.”

The scene goes on to reveal more of the town’s history and a supposed curse on Abby’s family. Notice that this exposition is rooted in the protagonist’s immediate and deep emotional concerns.

Tip 3: Add blocks of backstory near the start of the scene.

In this technique, you start a scene in the present, ideally with an emotional hook to engage the reader. Then after a few lines, you skip back to reveal the backstory. This is not really a flashback, just a bit of exposition that explains how we got here.

Midway through Ghosts of Bliss Bayou, Abby is scheduled to leave Harmony Springs. She has tried to convince her Mom to let her stay longer, but the reader doesn’t yet know the outcome. In the next scene, Abby meets Molly and tells her that, after a week up north, she’ll be coming back.

Molly grins. “Yippee! You must really like us.”

I grin back. “Yes!”

Mom took a lot of convincing. Granma and I both talked to her three times before she gave in. She finally had to admit how little time she’d actually have to spend with me in London, and I think she began to see how lonely I would have been. She did insist that I fly home this week so we could see each other, but that was something I wanted too.

Here, the tension of whether or not Abby will get to stay is resolved as part of a scene that emphasizes her growing friendship with Molly. A single paragraph of backstory does the trick.

What do you think?

Think about your favorite authors. How do they handle the presentation of backstory? Are there tips and tricks you can add to my list?

Jack Massa has studied writing and other forms of magic for many years. He has published fantasy, science fiction, poetry, and oodles of technical nonfiction.

In addition to the Abby Renshaw adventures, Jack’s current projects include The Glimnodd Cycle (epic fantasy featuring witches and ice-pirates; two novels published to date) and the Conjurer of Rhodes series (historical fantasy set in the ancient world; forthcoming).

Jack lives in Florida with his magical wife, wonderful son, and a pet orange tree named Grover. If you’d like to know more about Jack, you can visit his website, follow him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.

 

Indie Spotlight on Paranormal Mystery Author Elle Klass

Elle’s new series, Evan’s Girls kicks off with the book, Scarlett. The book will release in November 2017 but is available for pre-order at Amazon. This is a story that will make you shudder in fear, cry from sadness and shout for in anger. Scarlett is told in 3 parts and Elle is offering Part I for free via Instafreebie, so get over there and download it today.

Book blurb: When my parents died I became a child no one wanted. Scooted from one foster home to another, facing evils no child should. A foster father who used abuse to control those around him, unloved children who took their insecurities out on others. I was ridiculed and bullied, but none of that was worse than who I was. The part of me that feared even itself.

When my biological half-sister and wealthy husband opened their home to me I thought the terrors of my past were over. That was the farthest thing from the truth. The tortures I faced forced me to accept and take control of the sixth sense that lived inside me from before birth. My biological parentage gave me a gift or a curse. The thing that made me more than an average girl.

Under duress, I was impregnated and gave birth to the most vicious serial killer of all time. He is remembered only with shudders of fear. It is my mission to end his life using the tools stored in my DNA.

Writing a Spin-off Series

When I first wrote Eye of the Storm Eilida’s Tragedy it was meant to be a stand-alone. It wasn’t until I got to the end that I realized I needed to further explore and the Ruthless Storm Trilogy was born. The trilogy centers on a specific event that happened. In the first book Eilida witnesses something at her neighbor’s house that scares the pants off her. She runs from the scene. It’s storming and the ground is muddy and slippery causing her to fall and plummet down the mountain, hitting her head on a large boulder. She wakes up in the hospital and doesn’t remember anything. The paranormal connection comes in here and through it she remembers, everything, including what she witnessed. This story became a paranormal fiction award-winning novel.

Each volume is a different characters story therefore, each volume is unique. Volume 2 is more a crime thriller with a paranormal twist including a serial killer and his deranged motives. It’s also a prequel and ends during the event witnessed in Volume 1. Volume 3 is a romantic suspense with a paranormal twist. It picks up a year after the event and ties all the characters and their actions the day of the event together into the twisted shocking truth.

For me that was the end but not for readers. They came at me with questions about the girls the serial killer leaves being physically unharmed. I gave it a lot of thought. There’s no way these girls had picture perfect lives. The series is a thriller so pursuing their lives one can’t expect rainbows and chocolate. There are eight girl’s, one whose story has already been told so that left seven. If it wasn’t for a persistent nagging enigmatic character that is first introduced in Volume 2 it would have stayed at 7 but her story needed to be told. I can’t ignore my readers or my characters so I explored her story and learned so much more about her and the trilogy in general.

When writing a spin-off or a series I recommend a character chart to keep everyone straight, maybe also a skeleton map. Some people are meticulous planners and all those notes will come in handy. I also suggest reading the previous book before writing the next. In a spin-off read them all first. I’m a panster so did none of the above. I don’t suggest doing it this way but when I’m writing a scene or a character from a previous book I open the word doc and “find” what I’m searching for. Another benefit I have s an editor that’s edited all my work.

Promoting is spin-off series is time to promote the first series. Build up hype and be sure to include information about each series in the books. When people enjoy a story, including myself, they don’t want it to end so give them more!

BIO: Elle Klass is the author of mystery, suspense, and contemporary fiction. Her works include As Snow Falls, The Ruthless Storm Trilogy, Zombie Girl, the Bloodseeker series and the Baby Girl series. Her work Eye of the Storm Eilida’s Tragedy is a Reader’s Favorite Fiction-Paranormal Finalist in the 2015 Awards. She loves traveling, especially the Caribbean, and beaches. She is a night-owl where her imagination feeds off shadows, and creaks in the attic. If you’d like to learn more about this prolific author you can visit her website.

 

Indie Spotlight on YA Author Piper Templeton

Rain Clouds and Waterfalls, is a coming-of-age novel told in linked short stories, with each story/chapter named for a Beatles song, that sets the theme of the chapter.  NOW AVAILABLE as an audio book as well.  You can get Rain Clouds and Waterfalls at Amazon and Audible.

The Beatles – Timeless Icons Who Influence Pop Culture Across Multiple Generations

The Beatles continue to influence pop culture as their music inspires and delights multiple generations.   I’ve been a witness to this phenomenon as I’ve seen three generations of families soaking up the unadulterated joy experienced at Paul McCartney concerts.  Their songs are part of our broad pop culture, and they also serve a more intimate purpose to many individuals:  The songs deliver comfort, wisdom, poignancy, and lots of smiles at the memories they invoke.

Their songs are embedded in our collective conscious and plant themselves into ordinary, everyday facets of our lives.  I pass a street sign every evening on my commute home from work named Blue Jay Way.  I often see salads on menus named Strawberry Fields. I have a container of popcorn sitting on my desk right now that I ordered from a Youth Group fundraiser.  The name of the popcorn?  Sergeant Salt & Pepper.

The Beatles have been a recurring presence in movies, whether through dialog, one of their songs playing, or actual footage. As a very recent example, in Twin Peaks:  The Return that recently aired, one character starts telling his work buddy about a dream.  After he recaps his dream, he starts telling the other that he woke up, and then he recites the middle part of “A Day in The Life”  “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, found my way downstairs…”  The characters give each other a knowing grin.  In Boyhood, there’s a great scene where the dad makes his son a composite of Beatle solo songs that he calls “The Black Album” and walks his son through the rhyme and reason of it all.

Beatles songs play in the background of many films.  One of my favorite examples is the unforgettable parade scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.   Who can forget Ferris dancing away on a float to “Twist and Shout”?  In a somber example, the use of John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the end of The Killing Fields seared our memories and hit the perfect emotional note.

 

How could Forrest Gump guide us through the 1960s and 1970s without bumping into a Beatle?  I love the scene of the old Dick Cavett footage in which Forrest is superimposed over Yoko One, and he finds himself seated next to none other than John Lennon.  Through Q&A with the host, he then inadvertently inspires the lyrics to “Imagine.”  It’s priceless!

You can check out a detailed, lengthy montage of Beatles references in film from the SgtPepperChannel on You Tube.

On a more personal, intimate level, I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I’ve found that many of their songs function as a Greek chorus to my life.  “Take a sad song and make it better” from “Hey Judge” automatically plays in my head when I’m going through a difficult time.  One day I was driving to work after experiencing a crushing loss.  Weeks had passed since the ordeal, but when alone, I could not get past the crying part of the grief.  I would think about the loss, and the tears would surface.  One morning as the tears started filling my eyes, “All Things Must Pass” came on the radio, as if in direct response to my personal grief.  It helped put matters in perspective and offered me a handle on my grief.

When I think I’ve got my day and week all planned out, and chaos instead ensues, I hear John Lennon’s lyric from “Beautiful Boy” floating through my head:  “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”   When life deals blows that seem to come crushing down on me, I hear my Greek chorus again:  “Bang, bang Maxwell’s Silver Hammer came down upon her head.”

The Beatles’ music has always been playing along either in the foreground or deep in the background as I journeyed through life.

BIO: Piper Templeton lives and works in the New Orleans area. A Liberal Arts graduate from the University of New Orleans, she loves writing fiction that mines beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people’s lives. She combines her love of children and books by tutoring second graders in reading.

Other passions include animals, music, nature, long walks, and good laughs.

She developed a love for writing fiction in childhood and forayed into self-publishing in 2014 with her Beatles-inspired novel, Rain Clouds and Waterfalls. If you’d like to know more about Piper you can visit her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indie Spotlight on Historical Romance Author, Kirk Raeber

A trove of forgotten letters reveals a love that defied a world war.

In 1924, eight-year old Robert Campbell accompanies his missionary parents to Japan where he befriends a young Makiko Asakawa. Robert enjoys his life there, but the dark tides of war are rising, and it won’t be long before foreigners are forced to leave Japan. Torn from the people Robert has come to think of as family, he stays in contact by exchanging letters with Makiko, letters that soon show their relationship is blossoming into something much more than friendship. The outbreak of total war sweeps all before it, and when correspondence ends with no explanation, Robert fears the worst. He will do anything to find Makiko, even launch himself headfirst into a conflict that is consuming the world. Turmoil and tragedy threaten his every step, but no risk is too great to prove that love conquers all. Forgotten Letters is published by Honey Rock View Publishing and available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Audible

From a Dream, Comes a Novel…

The inspiration for “Forgotten Letters” came to me ten years ago in the form of a dream so vivid that I began to see it as the starting point for the story portrayed in Forgotten Letters. The dream began with an earthquake in the early 1900’s somewhere in Japan. My most vivid memory from the dream was not so much the destruction, which was devastating, but the strength and courage of the Japanese people in resurrecting their lives in the face of such tragedy.

Over the years, I have researched the many earthquakes that are a regular occurrence across the Japanese Islands. The “Great Kanto” of 1923 seemed to best mimic the earthquake from my dream, in particular the unstoppable fires that destroyed most of Tokyo and Yokohama. This is where my story begins.

Ironically, the two cities were again destroyed during World War II and, as they were after the “Great Kanto,” have been rebuilt by the dedicated, hard working people of that amazing country.

The story starts with Fumiko and Ichiro entering their recently deceased parent’s house.  They enter the house with thoughts of childhood memories and what to do with the dilapidated home.  Fumiko and Ichiro are both dealing with personal problems that seem to consume most of their thoughts as they wander through the house.

Ichiro finds a trapdoor to the attic and enters a dark and dusty area that has not been visited for years.  They look around the room and see old furniture and trash.  Ichiro pulls out a military footlocker with his father’s name printed on the outside.  Ichiro states “This was Dads”.  Ichiro has some difficulty opening the footlocker but is finally successful.  Inside he finds an old World War II officer’s uniform and a precisely folded cream and red colored kimono.

Underneath the two garments they discover a box which is wrapped in red foil and secured with a white ribbon that is squashed flat.  Fumiko and Ichiro look at each other thinking what secrets are in this special box.  Ichiro unties the ribbon, unfolds the paper and removes the lid.  Inside the box lie rows of letters, yellowed and stained.  The letters are in random order the earliest postmark is 1931.  The letters are correspondence between their parents.  Fumiko opens a letter postmarked 1931 and reads aloud “Dear Robert”.

When you read Forgotten Letters, remember three words from the beginning of the book and then are revisited later on.  I think the reader will smile when they read these words again.  The three words are spider, baseball and birthmark.

My sincere hope is that you will find Forgotten Letters an enjoyable read.

Bio: Kirk Raeber is an emergency room physician. He has always had a strong interest in World War II history and especially in the war in the Pacific. He served in the US Navy and was stationed in Japan for one year. Forgotten Letters is his debut novel. He lives in California with his wife and three Anatolian Shepherds. If you’d like to know more about Kirk and his books, you can visit his website: http://www.theforgottenletters.com, and/or follow him on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Forgotten-Letters-814455975239863/  and Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomkirkraeber

 

Indie Spotlight, YA Author TE Carter

Bruno Guenard / BIOSPHOTO

I STOP SOMEWHERE (releasing 2/27/18) available for pre-order in the US and UK

Ellie Frias disappeared long before she vanished.

Tormented throughout middle school, Ellie begins her freshman year with a new look: she doesn’t need to be popular; she just needs to blend in with the wallpaper.

But when the unthinkable happens, Ellie finds herself trapped after a brutal assault. She wasn’t the first victim and now she watches it happen again and again. She tries to hold on to her happier memories in order to get past the cold days, waiting for someone to find her.

The problem is, no one searches for a girl they never noticed in the first place.

TE Carter’s stirring and visceral debut not only discusses and dismantles rape culture, but it makes you slow down and think about what it is to be human.

Telling contemporary stories that focus on crime

As a reader, one of my favorite genres is crime fiction and mystery. I’m a huge fan of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins, but also of traditional mysteries like those by Agatha Christie. This extends a bit into my personal life as well, as I’ve always been drawn to dark stories and crime shows on television.

When I started writing, I knew I wanted to write something that I would like to read, but for some reason, I found that writing mystery, crime fiction, and horror – despite being some of my favorite genres – didn’t come naturally to me. Instead, I began delving into contemporary fiction, which I also love. As I started writing, though, I also noticed that my reading preferences found a weird way of looping themselves into the contemporary stories I was telling. In a way, I was creating a mashup of genres I loved and telling contemporary stories that focused on crime.

My debut YA novel, I STOP SOMEWHERE is a contemporary novel at its heart. It’s about the world we live in and the things that happen to young women unfortunately. It’s also a story of a crime, but told in a different way. Instead of being about the crime itself, it’s about the reverberating effects of a crime on the people who experienced it. Ellie, the protagonist, is viciously assaulted and the story mainly focuses on her, but it also shows how this attack reaches her father, the detectives investigating the crime, other victims of the same perpetrators (as well as other victims of sexual assault not necessarily connected to the same parties), and even the reporter assigned to cover this case.

From I STOP SOMEWHERE, I continued writing in this mashup genre that one of my critique partners called a form of introspective crime fiction. My second title, releasing in 2019, is also about a crime, but it’s about a girl whose brother commits a heinous act and how his actions affect her. We frequently see stories in the news and we have a morbid fascination with dark crimes, but on the periphery of that, there’s an entire group of people affected on a daily basis by these things – well beyond the criminals and the victims themselves. In this novel, the story follows her coming of age in a world where anyone who gets a hint of her brother’s actions tries to define who she is because of him. It’s about the assumptions we make about people, as well as how we play a role in each other’s experiences.

This has grown to be an area where I enjoy writing. I like considering how actions echo and how people you forget in the storm of a murder trial, for example, live each day with that hovering over them. It’s not necessarily the same focus on the inner workings of a criminal’s mind or on the criminal procedures to track a murderer, but instead, it’s on the realistic and contemporary effects of crime on regular people. I like the label of introspective crime fiction, because crime drama is often more of a public spectacle. We don’t necessarily take the time to consider the inner conflicts and emotional turmoil it may have in real life, partly because crime fiction and mystery are still forms of escapism. I have enjoyed taking a realistic lens to these news stories and considering the questions we usually don’t ask. I think it’s given me a chance to mesh the genres I love with my own writing style and to create something new. I hope readers agree!

TE Carter was born in New England and has pretty much lived in New England her entire life (minus a few years in high school). She still lives in New England with her husband and their two cats. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading classic literature, playing Xbox, organizing her comic collection, or binge-watching baking competitions. If you’d like to know more about TE you can visit her website follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Indie Spotlight Gothic Horror & Non-Fiction Author – Julie Ann Greenawalt Hacker

What Scares YOU!?

 

Someone recently asked, “As a spiritual-metaphysical-mystical author and life coach… …what scares you?

What I’ve noticed in life, is that many people freeze in the name of FEAR. I’m not referring to your everyday type of fear like the fear of death, or car accidents, or getting sick, spiders, or the dark, not phobias or catastrophic type of fears (these nemeses we’re born into and they appear on the outside of who we are in a physical sense); but un-explainable fears hidden in the deep wells of our sub-conscious—you know, that subtle torture you don’t even know about because it creeps up on you like a soft teddy bear in the night. And suddenly, when you finally wake from your deep slumber, you realize you’re snoozing alongside an angry, ravenous black bear.

• This bear doesn’t care that you’ve ignored the deepest parts of you. He just wants to eat your fears as they pulse inside your body.
• He wants you to be unaware of those dark crevasses so he can continue to feed, day-after-day, year-after-year; perhaps life-after-life. And, if you can picture your very own ‘Self’ or soul being an endless supply for the angry black bear because of the unwitting ways this world teaches us to survive and live…yeah, it can get pretty intense.
• Now multiply that fear by billions of people and you’ll get the idea.
• But yet, we still walk around everyday either ignoring it or not being able to identify why something is “off.” This is the hidden fear.

Unidentified, this silent enemy caresses the soul deep inside and lulls us into an obscure manipulation of what we call reality. These fears creep out all over the place without our acknowledgement.

Now, picture that nasty black bear as another human being. FEAR of succumbing to the belief that another being, whether human or otherwise, would willingly suck the soul right out of your mind and body, if left to do so, is pretty scary. (This is one of the few things that used to scare the hell out of me.) And I believe these are our most ultimate questions:

Why does this happen?

What is doing it?

And how do we stop it?

The process used by these people or unidentified forces can be very clever, unless you learn what to look for.

I know, I know. This all sounds a little esoteric and whoo hoo. But, when you take the time to inspect it, I mean, get really close to it, and someone can guide you there so you’re not all alone, the sting of fear diminishes.

The headlines of my own life drove me to contemplate those very questions. And, what I found out about myself and the world blew my mind.

This is why I write Gothic horror, non-fiction/self-help, blog, and coach people just like any one reading this who can’t identify the reasons why they’re stuck in life keeping them from Stalking their own life PATH!

So, my ultimate message for this post is:

You exist in time, but you belong in eternity’s loveliness. Find the fearful secrets that keep you from being free, then, don’t be afraid of releasing them, they’re not your friends, and allow them to disintegrate forever.

Best in all your Re-WILDing & Path STALKing,

Julie Ann

!!BIG HUGS & THANK YOUs to my dear friend ANITA RODGERS for giving me this opportunity to guest post on her blog!!

If you’d like to know more about Julie Ann, her books, or her Wild Beautiful You movement connect with her on her website and facebook.

Free gifts for you!

As a special thank you to my readers, Julie Ann is offering a free PDF copy of Re-WILD Your ‘SELF’ & Stalk Your PATH! web-book, which you can get by signing up at her website.

And a free PDF copy of The Dead Dance Faster: Unsacred Awakening her awesome scary Gothic-horror novel, which you can get by emailing her at: julieann@wildbeautifulyou.com  (or by contacting her me via WBY!’s contact form on the site).

Indie Spotlight on Biographer Elva Green -My Writing Journey as My Father’s Biographer

Today, we welcome biographer Elva Diane Green, who discusses writing a biography of her entertainment pioneer father, Eddie Green who was an actor, playwright, singer, dancer and all around performer – in short, a real Renaissance Man.

Note from the author: “In 2014 I started a blog to chronicle the writing of a book about my father, Eddie Green. First blog. First book. First laptop. Because according to the internet when writing a book I needed a “platform”. I needed a “following.” I needed to get the right publisher, and learn how to write a query letter. After spending too much time agonizing over what was what, I just gathered all of my papers and started writing. On the blog I began at the beginning, adding anecdotes and photos and funny pictures from Google’s advanced image search, and along with the blog I also began writing my book.”

Take it away Elva!

My Writing Journey as My Father’s Biographer

I decided to write the book in 1996. My father was famous. But my reason for writing the book was not because of his fame but because of the inspiration his story could provide for my grandson. As a child, my grandson was convinced of his inability to complete homework assignments. His words were always “I can’t.” I figured I could provide inspiration for him by writing a book about his great-grandfather who had become successful during the early 1900s. The inspiring part was evident in that Eddie was a Black man, and in those early days in America just to survive was a struggle for Black men.

While working on this book I came to realize that it could inspire not just my grandson Edward, but other young people like him. It could inspire anyone, actually, who felt an inability to succeed or who had run into obstacles while trying to achieve their goals. The title of the book became Eddie Green The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer. It is a rags-to-riches story of a man who became a filmmaker, a Broadway and movie star, a composer, and an Old Time Radio icon. His career spanned the years from 1917 until his death in 1950. As an entrepreneur he was a music producer, he owned a string of restaurants and headed two movie and television studios, Sepia Art Pictures Co. and Sepia Productions, Inc.

I was only three when Eddie died and my memories of him are vague. My mother, Norma, told me about some of his achievements. I say some because I did not find out about the restaurants (and a few other things, which I will get to further down) until 2015. She told me he became famous as a result of being cast as Eddie, the waiter in the popular, long-running radio program Duffy’s Tavern. That he had also played the lawyer, LaGuardia “Stonewall” Jackson, in the Amos ‘n’ Andy radio program. When I was eight years old she allowed me to stay up late one night to watch the Paramount movie Duffy’s Tavern (1945), because Eddie had been chosen to portray his radio character, Eddie, the waiter, in the movie.

Mom also told me that in 1917 Eddie wrote his most famous song “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and that Frank Sinatra had recorded the song. She did not tell me of the fifty or more other folks who had recorded the song. I was told that Eddie had performed on stage in a theater production where he sang “Titwillow”: “On a tree by a river a little tom-tit, Sang “Willow, titwillow, titwillow!” What I was not told is that the song was from the theater adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. The adaptation was produced by Mike Todd and titled the Hot Mikado and featured an all-Black cast starring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Eddie played the part of KoKo, the High Executioner. I learned this in 2015 which is also when I learned that the show was performed on Broadway and at the 1939-1940 NY World’s Fair. For a brief glimpse of the performance it can be seen on YouTube.

Anyhow, my mother and I began the process of writing the book. As I began research in the old newspaper archives, I kept finding more and more information which led to more and more research, that began to make for a lengthy process. Life stepped in and that process became delayed. I lost a job, went back to school and in 2006 mom’s health began to fail and I put the book aside. After mom passed I decided to put both feet into getting the book done as a way to handle my grief. The thing was, once I got back into the research I found still more information. Surprising information. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t begin the writing process because I could not stop reading all the newspaper clippings about my father.

Imagine my surprise as I discovered that my mom was Eddie’s fourth wife. When I discovered that Eddie had worked the Apollo. When I discovered he made five movies not just one. I discovered that he worked with Paul Robeson on a radio show for Commander Byrd in the Antarctic. That he appeared on Jubilee radio shows for the United States service members during WWII. And that one of the radio skits was about Santa Claus bringing Private Eddie Green a Lena Horne doll as a Christmas present (the doll turned out to be the real Lena Horne.) There was much, much more. Remarkable.

I began to realize that Eddie had been “somebody.” Just like Lena or Robeson or Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. I also began to realize that if I mentioned “Bojangles” people knew who he was. If I mentioned Lena, people knew who she was. Not so when I mentioned Eddie Green. It was as if Eddie had simply vanished from the picture. And so my intent for this book expanded to include the mission of bringing my father’s name back to the fore of the public’s memory and to honor his vast amount of work.

Well, the book was published in 2016. I have been named the winner of the Foreword INDIES 2016 Bronze Book Award. I have just completed an interview with the National Public Radio (NPR) which will soon be available (I am told an author would give one of their molars for a chance like this). Thanks to my blog, this has been one experience that has kept my spirits up.

Anita, thank you for being a friend, a part of my mission and for asking me to guest post.

BIO: Elva Diane Green was born in and continues to live in Los Angeles, California. In 1996 she decided to write a book about her father, the legendary Eddie Green, to provide an example to her grandson of the ability of a person to succeed no matter the obstacles. Eddie Green The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer is the culmination of her extensive research into a book that draws the reader into the story of one of America’s most beloved comedians. Elva has been named the Foreword INDIES 2016 Bronze Book Award Winner. If you’d like to connect with Elva you can visit her blog, Pin in the Tush, follow her on Twitter, or Facebook.

 

 

Indie Spotlight Picture Book Writer MJ Belko – I Don’t Read Mysteries

Today’s indie author is MJ Belko. In her article she discusses the irony of not being a mystery reader and yet having written a mystery picture book for kids. Take it away, MJ.

I Don’t Read Mysteries

I don’t read mysteries.  I know, a pox upon me.  I don’t mind watching them, but I never felt compelled to read one.  I’m more of a nonfiction reader.  As a writer, picture books are my wheelhouse.  So, how did I end up writing Winthrop Risk, Detective—The Mystery of the Missing Hamster, an early reader with a nine-year-old detective who sounds like he just stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel?

I certainly don’t have any disdain for the mystery genre.  I’m a rabid fan of Benedict Cumberbatch as a modern version of Sherlock Holmes.  I loved Derek Jacobi as Cadfael on PBS.  But write one?  Not on your life.  Plot twists and red herrings just aren’t my thing.

Picture books have always been my first love and I’ve written several, though I haven’t found a publisher for them.  I can only say that I stumbled upon my little detective.  He emerged out of an unfocused daydream, his character fully formed in my mind.

Winthrop Risk is a boy of about nine.  He’s smaller than his classmates and is considered by them to be something of a dork and an oddity.  Winthrop, however, has no doubts as to his skills.  He’s a first-rate gumshoe, and he knows it.  The school bully has it in for him and could easily beat the snot out of him, but Winthrop never runs from him.  He stands his ground.  Without fuss.  Without yelling.  Without threatening to tell the teacher.  Winthrop isn’t a boy on a journey of self-discovery (*gag*)—he knows damn well who he is.  I like that about him.

My inspiration came from a Steve Martin movie from years ago, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s brilliant.  Steve Martin plays a hard-boiled detective in the Philip Marlowe mold.  The movie was filmed in black and white, with scenes from old detective films spliced in to create a story.  It’s all there—the wisecracking detective, the beautiful dame, and the usual suspects; but I still didn’t have the framework for writing a mystery.

I began to watch more mysteries on TV.  I gorged on episodes of Murder, She Wrote and some of the more current “cozy” mysteries.  There’s a definite pattern to these stories.  An ordinary citizen, usually female, has a fascination with mysteries and routinely finds herself knee deep in corpses.  Because Winthrop was to be the hard-boiled detective type, I picked up a couple of Raymond Chandler novels and dove in.  Chandler had a fascinating way with the English language.  Before I had the plot fully worked out, I had a great deal of Winthrop’s witty repertoire written.  I formed the story around that.  The thing I found to be most interesting about the TV mystery shows and books is that the mystery itself is never really that baffling.  In fact, I’ve played games of Clue that were tougher to solve.  So what’s the selling point?  It’s the main character and the backdrop of the story.  The sleuth in these stories is always a keen observer, usually with no police training or experience.  In fact, of the mystery shows I’ve watched, the main characters include a Crusader-era friar, a baker, a librarian, a writer, a general contractor, a bookstore owner, and an antiques dealer.  Somehow, they end up stumbling over dead bodies at every turn.  The backdrop is usually some cozy little town straight off a postcard.

Naturally, I had to tone down the plot for my young audience, so there will be no dead bodies in the Winthrop Risk series.  Winthrop’s first adventure has him trying to find out what happened to the class pet, a hamster.  He’s hired by a classmate out of sheer desperation.  Over the four chapters of the book, Winthrop proves himself to be more than capable of solving the mystery, earning the grudging respect of his peers.  He’s funny, smart, confident, and has a definite way with words.  I think Philip Marlowe would like him.

With a bit of research and observation, I think I accomplished what I set out to do.  I have an interesting and relatable main character with witty dialogue, a missing pet, a class bully, and a “like” interest (that’s as heated as it gets for a nine-year-old).   The trick with the sequel is to let the characters grow just a little bit, without outgrowing the elementary school backdrop.  The sequel will involve slightly more risky circumstances—a gang of thieves stealing from Winthrop’s school.  We’ll learn more about Winthrop’s home life and why he never talks about his dad.  We’ll learn about the school ghost and what’s really going on at the local railroad yard.

Writing Winthrop Risk was a huge step outside of my comfort zone, but I love how it turned out.  Don’t be afraid to take some risks of your own with your writing.  That path you’ve wandered down a few times could lead to something terrific.

Write on.

MJ Belko (O’Leary) was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1963 to an Irish family of cops, firemen, and the occasional priest. She is a US Army veteran of the Cold War era and spent about seven years as a lieutenant on her city’s Community Emergency Response Team. After working for an arson investigator, a private investigator, homeschooling two sons, and spending years as a medical transcriptionist editing medical reports, she finally decided to pursue her dream of being a writer. She released her first children’s book, “Winthrop Risk, Detective”, on Amazon in 2016. MJ currently resides in Michigan with her husband of more than 30 years.

If you’d like to learn more about MJ, you can visit her website.