Ways It's Gotten Harder to Self-Publish

When I first got into self-publishing in 2011/2012 it was hard work to put out a quality book and get sales, but I did it, and I was able to do it without spending an arm and a leg. My first novel, Into the Deep, quickly made me back the money I'd spent to publish it. The self-publishing world is a lot harder today, not only in terms of making sales but also when it comes to getting free downloads or even just getting reviews. Below are a number of reasons why I think it's harder to publish a book today.

1. Amazon has gotten stricter: From deleting reviews to changing their algorithms, getting attention on Amazon is harder than ever.

2. KDP Select free promotions don't hit numbers like they used to: Like I mentioned above Amazon has changed a number of things, one of them being how they count downloads.

3. It's harder to get Book Reviews: Books bloggers are overwhelmed with review requests and the average reader isn't as enticed by a free book in exchange for a review as they used to be because there are a lot more books out there.

4. Goodreads doesn't let you add your own books to lists anymore: I love Goodreads Lists and getting your book in a few relevant lists can help you get discovered by more readers, but Authors can no longer add their own books to lists.

5. Facebook just doesn't work anymore: Facebook has changed how your posts appear in your follower's feeds meaning they don't get the views they used to. Facebook also used to be the go-to place for book promotion but buying ad space there seems to yield few results now.

6. It's harder to grow your following on Twitter:  Twitter is paying more attention to the number of users you follow and unfollow and free services like Crowdfire are now implementing smaller caps, making it harder to grow your following.


So what still works?

Having readers stumble across your book and take a chance on it is a thing of the past. The only way that seems to still work for being successful self-publishing is to gain loyal fans.

Tips to gaining loyal fans.

1. Write GREAT content: With more competition, it's more important than ever to produce a quality product with professional editing and an eye-catching cover.

2. Take care of your mailing list: Use sites like Instafreebie to grow your list and have a sign up for your mailing list on your website. (You can find mine at www.laurynapril.com)

3. Connect with your readers: Respond to comments and discuss relevant content on social media.

4. Support other Indie Authors: Don't forget writers are readers too and we're all in this together!


What things have you noticed have changed in the self/indie publishing world? Have any publishing tips? Share in the comments below.

IngramSpark VS Amazon

Last month I published Unearthed After Sunset. Usually, I only publish my paperbacks through Amazon and reach out to other distributors for the e-book copy of the book. But, this time I decided to use both Amazon and IngramSpark.

First, I want to talk about my reasons for wanting to use IngramSpark. In the past, I would set up multiple accounts to get my books available as many places as possible. I had a KDP account, a CreateSpace account, a B&N account and an account at Kobo. After some time I realized that checking in with all of these accounts was time-consuming and I still didn't have my book in as many places as I wanted. What's awesome about Ingram is that you set up one account and your book is available in both paperback and e-book basically everywhere.

Benefits of using Ingram Spark:

1. Availability to 70+ Major Online Retailers, including Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and iBooks

2. Ability to produce hardcovers (which I haven't done yet, but would love to!)

3. All your sales and data in one place

4.Better returns if you sell to bookstores, and you're more likely to get into bookstores (Amazon doesn't give bookstores as good of a discount to buy your book as IngramSpark does)

So, if Ingram is so awesome, then why not only use Ingram (they will make your book available on Amazon after all)? Here's the thing, Amazon is where I sell most of my books, and even with how awesome IngramSpark is, Amazon has some benefits of its own.

Benefits of using Amazon (KDP or CreateSpace):

1. KDP promotional deals like free days (You can only use these if you exclusively sell on Amazon)

2. Easier to use, publish, update books, check sales - The KDP and CreateSpace sites are waaay more user-friendly than IngramSpark

3.No set-up fees (IngramSpark has a $50 set-up fee)

4.Easier to create and upload inside files. Formatting your files for e-pub is a lot harder than formatting for Kindle (Formatting the PDF for your paperback is about the same)

5.Easier to create and upload the cover file. (Amazon's book cover creator makes everything so much simpler)

6.No worries about your book being "out of stock." If you use Amazon to print your book it will never be out of stock, but if you use IngramSpark to supply Amazon with your book, if you're not flying off the shelves, Amazon may mark you as "temporarily out of stock"

So, here's what I do. I use Amazon's KDP [which now allows for publishing paperbacks as well so I don't need to use CreateSpace] to make my book available on Amazon only. This makes it easy to upload my book to the place where I get the most sales. It also makes checking those sales easier as the KDP site is easier to navigate. This also means my print book will never be "temporarily out of stock on Amazon. Then I also have an IngramSpark account to get my book into B&N, Kobo, I-Books and more. That way I can reach a lot of retailers and have only one place to check the rest of my sales. This also means if I want to pull my book from all other retailers to take advantage of KDP select and free days, I only have one site to pull it from. So essentially, I'm trying to get the best of both worlds.

A Look At Quality:

When it comes to my e-books. They're basically the same whether you purchase them through Amazon, or say B&N where the file comes from IngramSpark. The same cannot be said for paperbacks.

Here's a side by side comparison of what my printed book looks like from each company. Both IngramSpark and Amazon offer various sizes and both gloss and matte finishes. I chose the matte finish, which had basically the same look on each book.

(Left: IngramSpark, Right: Amazon)

Looking at the books side by side it's clear there are a few differences.

1. The colors on the IngramSpark copy are brighter and more true to my design

2. The Amazon copy has a slight white line on the bottom right corner of the cover (This was my proof copy, I believe I've fixed this issue, though I'm not sure what caused it)

3. They are not the exact same size. - Both books were printed as 5x8, but it's important to know that they are NOT the exact same size. So, if you are writing a series be aware that if a reader buys book #1 from Amazon and book #2 in the series from an IngramSpark retailer, they will not match.

Ingram Spark

Amazon

Top: Ingram
Bottom: Amazon

Left: Ingram, Right: Amazon

There were also some differences inside the book. In the photo below, you can see that my photo on my Author's Page is much better quality in my IngramSpark book than in the one from Amazon. The overall paper quality seemed nicer in my IngramSpark book as well. The IngramSpark book was noticeably thinner than my Amazon book.

(Left: Ingram, Right: Amazon)

(Left: Ingram, Right: Amazon)

Conclusion:

Books printed through Ingram Spark are better quality. That said, my Amazon book certainly wasn't poor quality, and Amazon in general is a lot easier (and cheaper) to use. If you're a new-bie author looking to publish your first book, maybe start with just Amazon. If you want to try and get your books into more retailers and have a good understanding of formatting go with IngramSpark (or do both, like I did.)

Psychology Tips for Better Writing (Part 2: Characters Who do Bad Things)

In Part 1 of Psychology Tips for Better Writing I relied on my psychology degree to discuss five tips to help create well rounded characters. In Part 2, I'm going to specifically discuss psychological tips that will help with writing characters who do bad things. This includes writing villains and antagonists, who should be just as developed as your hero.

5 tips to writing more believable bad guys based on Psychology.

1. Authority figures are incredibly powerful: The Milgram Experiment (1963) set out to test whether or not "just following orders" and obedience to authority figures was a justifiable defense for Nazi soldiers who helped commit genocide. The experiment showed that people are likely to follow an authority figure's orders even to the point of killing another person simply because an authority figure told them to do it. The reason for this is because we expect the authority figure to take responsibility for whatever it is they've asked us to do. When people feel like they are responsible for their own actions they're far less likely to listen to other people's suggestions. So, if you have a character that's going to stand up to an authority figure, make sure you take the time to show why.

Example: In Legend by Marie Lu June is a soldier who follow's the Republic's orders without question. She believes that Day is the criminal that the Republic tells her he is and follows their orders to hunt him down. June remains obedient to the Republic for most of the book. It takes a number of events for her to start questioning her authority figures. Lu also sets the scene to show why June is later able to break away from these authority figures by portraying June as a girl willing to break the rules to prove her worth to the Republic. She gives her a fierce independent streak which makes it believable when she later disobeys the Republic. At the end of the book, June learns new information that sheds lights on the Republic and she's reminded that Day is going to die because she turned him in. Feeling responsible for his situation she sets out to rescue him.

2. What we think we're supposed to do plays a big role in how we act: The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) sought to explore the cause of brutality against prisoners by their guards. It tested how quickly regular people would conform to the stereotypical roles of prisoner or guard. This experiment demonstrated that though regular people were randomly assigned the roles of either "prisoner" or "guard" they quickly adapted the characteristics of their roles. Guards for example, began treating the prisoner's as criminals though they had entered the experiment the same as the guards had. The guards became more aggressive and the prisoners more submissive. A clear divide formed between these two groups simply because they were given specific roles. The experiment showed that much of our behavior is a result of conforming to social expectations based on the roles we play in our lives.

Example: In The Hunger Games the people of Panem watch a group of twelve teenagers kill one  another as a source of entertainment. Though this act is barbaric, it's considered normal for the people of Panem. It's expected that these twelve children will participate in the Hunger Games and fight until death.

3. People generally seek instant gratification: When given the option of receiving a reward immediately or waiting to receive it in the future, our instincts push us toward instant gratification. Delayed gratification, or holding out for a better reward is something we learn over time as we gain more self-control. Authors often like to have their villains be a few steps ahead of their lead character. This is, after all, what keeps the plot moving forward. Be careful not to have your villain planning too far ahead or your reader will find them unbelievable.

Example: In Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Amy has a ridiculous amount of self-control and sets up an elaborate (spoiler) ruse to frame her husband for her own murder. Amy is a sociopath and capable of looking ahead and waiting for delayed gratification. Most villains are not true sociopaths, and most people are not capable of planning things out to this degree. And, even Amy changes her plans at the end of the book when she decides she no longer wants to see Nick end up in prison. If your character is motivated by vengeance it will be more believable if they act quickly. The more time it takes your character to get their reward (vengeance) the more likely they are to change their mind before they receive this pay off -- whether that means they give up, come to their senses, or find forgiveness.

4. Villains should have a reason for doing the bad things they do. They need to be motivated by something. People justify the things they do. Basically, we want our how we act to be in agreement with what we believe. If we act in a way that disagrees with our beliefs we deal with a type of mental stress called cognitive dissonance. People generally don't like mental stress so, when our action and our beliefs are not in agreement we seek justification to remedy the disagreement. This would be like someone who insists that cigarettes won't harm them because their "grandfather smoked until he was 90 and died of old age." A person who says this probably knows that cigarettes are bad for them, but because they smoke they feed the need to justify it.

Example: In the Lux novels by Jennifer Armentrout Blake betrays Katy, handing her over to Daedalus. Though Blake cares for Katy and knows he's putting her in a position to basically be tortured, he justifies betraying her by believing that it was the only way to rescue his friend, Chris, and later it's shown that he believes it was for the greater good.

5. Discrimination, racism and hate are learned behaviors: The Stanford Prison Experiment does a good job showing how the power that came with being a "guard" affected the actions of the participants and even how the "guards" felt about the "inmates". Jane Elliot's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise also does a good job of emphasizing this point. Her experiment, where children were told that certain kids in their class were superior to the others based on the color of their eyes, basically showed how discrimination and racism are viewpoints we are taught the believe.

Example: There are many books that explore discrimination, racism, sexism, and class and you can check some of them out here. One novel that particularly demonstrates Jane Elliot's experiment well is The Selection by Kiera Cass. In the Selection not only are people's worth determined by the caste they're born into, but so is their occupation. One's are royalty and eights are "untouchable." The book's main character, America Singer, is a five and as such must choose to work in a profession related to the arts. Like in Jane Elliot's experiment, people look at others differently based on what they're told to think of them.


If you liked this post, check out Psychology Tips for Better Writing (Part 1: Believable Characters)

5 Reasons Readers Put Books Down

I've been posting book reviews for years, but I decided a long time ago that I'd never write a review for a book I didn't finish. That said, there's been plenty of books that I didn't finish. So, in this post I wanted to write about why I put those books down. Below are five reasons readers put books down with examples of books that I didn't finish for those reasons.

1. Your reader doesn't relate to your characters. Your main character isn't going to be like every  one of your readers, but there should be something about them they can relate to or root for. When reading Falling Under by Gwen Hayes I found  I just didn't connect with the characters. Theia is British, and moved to California with her very overprotective father. I liked her personality but I just didn't have much in common with her, and there wasn't anything about her that made me want to root for her. Her best friend was her polar opposite, loud, reckless, and the man from her dreams felt a little too proper compared to the first glance we get of him in one of Theia's dreams. Despite feeling like Gwen had an interesting concept for the book it just wasn't something I could relate to.

Another example is Poison Princess by Kresley Cole. I normally am a huge fan of paranormal as well as dystopian stories, but this book immediately sucks you into this extremely dark post-apocalyptic future. After reading the first few chapters I  found myself unable to keep reading. The main character Evie seemed well written, and this book certainly had a very unique style, but it was being told through the POV of a character named Arthur. Arthur was beyond creepy and I didn't like being in his head.

2. Your book reads like a first draft. Don't publish your book until it's really ready. Make sure you've taken the time to develop your characters, their relationship and tie up any plot holes. After that, edit, edit, edit. A great story will have a hard time keeping readers until the end if it's riddled with grammatical or spelling mistakes. A lack of editing is distracting, it's like watching a movie on your laptop with a poor wifi signal and every few minutes it cuts out to buffer. Make sure your novel's ideas are fully fleshed out and that you've gone through it with a fine tooth comb. After that hire an editor and a proofreader to do the same. When I read Miss Underworld by Racquel Kechagias I had a hard time getting sucked in to the story because it felt unfinished. The interesting combination of vampires and Greek mythology fell flat because I felt like I was reading an early draft of a novel that had yet to completely come together instead of a finished project. To be fair, I did finish this book (unlike the others on this list) but I didn't leave a review for the above reasons. This novel may have been updated since I read it years ago.

3. Your book opens with a scene that your reader has seen before. It's impossible to avoid all cliches. Everything has been done before, but if you can't show your reader something new in your opening chapters they'll wonder why they should continue. When I picked up Dark Lover by JR Ward I was really feeling like reading a vampire novel, but Dark Lover just wasn't what I was looking for. Ward seemed to be trying to create his own world, but there were just too many things about this book that had been done before. Ex: Main character, vampire, long black hair with a widow's peak. Ex: Main character, female, nearly gets raped in an alley. Ex: Vampire names like "Thorment" and "Wrath". I suppose for me the 'vampire' world of it was a little cheesy.

4. You don't have a good enough hook. You need to catch your reader's attention asap. Fill the beginning of your book with boring backstory or take too long to jump into the action and you risk losing your readers. When I started reading Existence by Abbi Glines I had high hopes that I would love this book. It sounded like it was right up my alley and had great reviews, but it just didn't pull me in. There wasn't anything in particular that bothered me, but also nothing that really hooked me either. After the first chapter or so I put it down and simply never picked it back up. It started out with a typical high school scene and a girl with an ability, but nothing stood out to me as different. Also, I hated the name "Dank," maybe a small thing, but it was a big turnoff. Your readers need to know from the beginning what makes your book worth reading.

5. Your story takes a left hand turn after a few chapters. Readers  go into a story with certain expectations based on your blurb and the first few chapters. Twists and turns are great, but change directions too radically and your readers will feel tricked. This is what happened when I started reading Seers of Light by Jennifer DeLucy. I loved the first chapter or so of this book. it had me hooked. It seemed different and, it was scary. I could tell that it was going to be a little darker of a read and that had me interested as well. But, what started out as a story that possibly revolved around ghosts or maybe demons and an eerie, mysterious forest radically shifted gears and went in a totally different direction. Suddenly, there were blue veined vampires and a handsome British character that was dragging my main character away from this wonderful world  Jennifer had created. Maybe it would have been a good read had I had a better idea of what it was about, but after having my hopes for what this book would be shatter I had to put it down.


It's important to keep in mind that what "makes a book good" will be different from one reader to the next. The books I listed above may not have been my cup of tea, but they could be someone else's favorites. That said, I think these suggestions to create relate-able characters, open with an exciting hook and set up your reader's expectations can help writer's keep their reader's reading.

Why did you stop reading the last book you put down?

How to Protect Yourself from Pirates: Keep Your Book Safe

Five Ways to Help Keep Your Book from being Pirated

1. Don’t give away loose files to anyone you don’t trust. What do I mean by loose files? I mean any kind of file that can be easily transferred from one place to another, for example: the Word document of your book. Obviously you’re going to give this file out to your betas, and hopefully you trust them enough not to steal from you. But, I also mean regular mobi, e-pub and PDF files. YES, these have been formatted, but just like it’s easy for you to e-mail them to your ARC readers or giveaway winners, it’s also easy for them to take them and upload them on a pirated site. If you can, instead of giving away mobi or e-pub files to giveaway winners, gift them copies from Amazon, B&N, or Kobo.

2. Add specific copyright information to each book. Sometimes following rule #1 is hard if not impossible to do. For example, when sending out ARC copies to acquire some reviews before your book is published you may need to send out “loose files”. Other times it really is just easier to give out mobi or e-pub files in giveaways than to gift them. So, if you can’t follow rule #1 then format each book for each reader. In my advanced reader copies I write "This is an ARC for Lauryn April's Use only." So each individual book has that reader's name in it. This way if I find my book pirated later on at least I'll know where it came from. 

3. Don’t use online formatters. The internet is not secure. Do not use a website to convert your files into epub or mobi. Instead use a program that you download onto your computer like the Auto Kindle eBook Converter. For e-pubs you can upload a word doc to Nook Press, they will convert it and you can download the e-pub file to use elsewhere. Check out the Formatting Resource page on the Phantom Owl Press website to help you safely format your book.

4. Do apply the DRM to your books. After your upload your file on Amazon, but before you hit publish they will ask you if you want to enable DRM. This stands for Digital Rights Management, and adds a layer of protection to your book to keep it from being pirated. B&N and Kobo have DRM as well.

5. Don’t use Smashwords. Smashwords has no DRM option. They have absolutely no mechanism to prevent piracy, and I’ve heard more than a few horror stories of authors finding the books they’d hosted on Smashwords pirated on other sites. Check out this post by Author Samantha Young and read why she no longer uses Smashwords.

Note, while these suggestions will help keep your book from being pirated, they may not prevent it. Pirates acquire books in a number of ways, probably more than I even know about. I’ve heard of authors having their e-mail’s hacked and even of pirates finding ways to remove DRM.

Furthermore, while taking these steps may help prevent your book from being pirated, they will also limit your ability to reach as many potential readers as possible. As an author you need to weigh the pros and cons of the above actions to decide what’s best for your book. Personally I follow all of the points mentioned above.

How to Know if Your Book is being Pirated Already

I know a number of sites where I’ve found my book pirated and I could list them here, but they are only a few sites in an incalculable number of sites that host pirated books. Going through them one by one and searching for your novel would be not only an endless process but a tiring one as well. Luckily there’s an easier way to do this. Google yourself!

Go to Google and type the title of your book along with your name Ex: “A Different Kind, Lauryn April” and see what comes up. Hopefully you’ll see your blog and Amazon page, maybe even some blogs that have reviewed your book. That’s all well and good, but if you see anything that looks odd click on it and see what it is. If they are hosting an illegal copy of your book to download it will be very obvious.

How to Remove Your Book from a Pirated Site

Once you've found your book on a pirate site you'll want to remove it. To do this you need to file a DMCA complaint with the site you’ve found your book on. DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and is a United States copyright law that among other things heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

Basically, if you file one of these complaints with a site they have to remove your book from their site. If they fail to do so you can file a DMCA complaint with Google, Yahoo, ect… and have the page which is hosting your book removed from their search engine.

However, it’s not quite as simple as sending them an email that says “please remove this”. There are specific things you need to say in your message, and most sites will tell you exactly what those are, but in case one doesn’t, I’ll show you exactly how I fill out my DMCA requests.

Look to either the header or footer of the pirated site you’re on for a link that says “DMCA Complaint,” “Copyright Complaint” or “Contact”. They will most likely have instructions on how to file a complaint, but if all you come across is an e-mail address, below is the information you need to include in your message.

First: Include the link to the exact page where your book is being downloaded from.

http://www.TheLinkToYourBookOnThePirateSite.com is my copyrighted book and has been illegally uploaded to your site.

Second: I always include my copyright page and a link to where my book can be bought.

This book can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JCBQH9Q and below is the information from my copyright page.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A DIFFERENT KIND

Copyright © 2014 by Lauryn April

All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission of the author. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted save with the written permission of the author.

Edited by Victoria Shockley
Cover Design by Lauryn April

A Phantom Owl Press Book

www.PhantomOwlPress.com

ISBN-13: 978-0991576210

Next: You must include this statement.

"I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

Sincerely,

Lauryn April

Finally: You need to let them know how they can get ahold of you.

You can contact me at laurynapril@gmail.com

The Ninja Wins! by Andrew Becraft

I Hope this post helps authors fight piracy. Please comment below, share your experiences, thoughts and advice.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The Piracy Plague: Why it Hurts (Not Helps) Authors

and Ten Ways to Get Books for Free (That are Legal)

Cover Art: Tips for using Stock Photos

Stock photos seem to be a go to when it comes to designing a book cover. For those of us who aren't talented in the world of photography, stock photos allow us to have quality images at a reasonable price. However, with more and more self-published authors and indie publishers using stock photos in their cover art designs problems arise with the same image making it to the cover of multiple books. So, here are some tips to keep your stock photo cover looking original.

1. Do know what stock images have already been used on covers, and try not to use them. Look through other book covers, especially of those in your genre to see what images have already been used and how they’ve been used. Scan through books on Goodreads and Amazon, and be especially aware of images that have been used more than once already. Check out this Goodreads list to help: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5051.Cover_Couples?page=1

2. Just because a book is popular does not mean you can ignore rule #1. After Samantha Young hit it big with Penguin, the cover to “On Dublin Street” was being copied over and over again (granted there are many books out there published with this image before On Dublin Street came out, but I noticed a boom in the use of this image after it was released), and it was obvious that authors were trying to cash in on the popularity of that image. But, people will know the difference between your book and the best seller you’re trying to replicate. You don’t want to trick people into buying your book.




3. Stay away from images that are already specific to a certain genre. For example, don't go on a stock photo site and search for an image for your new vampire novel with the search term "vampire". The images you'll find will already be specific to that genre of book making it more likely that someone will recognize it (if the image is used again) because it will most likely be used again in the same genre.





4. Do try and change the image you choose in a way that makes it new and original. Copies are going to happen, especially with millions of books being published every year. The more you can do to change elements of your cover the less likely it will be compared to another book.




These two novels use the same image, but each has a completely different feel.




These two could easily be confused for the same book


5. Don’t be upset if someone uses the same image as you later on. While it may make you feel a little less special it doesn’t mean people are going to stop buying your book. Look at Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series and Shelly Crane’s significance series. Both feature cover art of the same couple (as a number of other books have as well), both have been fairly popular series’ and neither one has really caused any problems for the other.

Writer's Digest Feedback for Into the Deep

Sadly, Into the Deep did not win any awards in the Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards, however it did receive some wonderful feedback from the Judges. I wanted to take a minute to share this with all of my readers, and to remind everyone that there are some wonderful self-published books out there. My budget for Into the Deep was practically nonexistent. I didn't have extensive developmental editing, I had beta readers, I didn't have thousands of dollars to spend on cover art or formatting, I had zero dollars (with the exception of paying my editor). I did have great friends and an amazing editor, Victoria Shockley. That "outstanding" score in grammar is all her. And, even though I'm not going home with a prize I still feel very honored and validated in my craft to have received the feedback I did from the professionals at Writer's Digest.

[Note: If you have not read Into the Deep yet the commentary below does contain spoilers]

Books are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “needs improvement” and 5 meaning “outstanding”. This scale is strictly to provide a point of reference, it is not a cumulative score and does not reflect ranking.

Structure and Organization: 5

Grammar: 5

Production Quality and Cover Design: 4

Plot (if applicable): 5

Character Development (if applicable): 5

Judges Commentary*:

I really enjoyed your story.  I got so caught up in it that I didn't notice any mistakes in grammar.  You did a great job of characterization and through Ivy's ability to read thoughts, I think your reader will analyze, then try to understand the types of teenagers and the problems that you describe.  The fact of putting a time limit on the bomb helped increase the tension as the deadline grew near.  Your subplots of the various parents' problems impacting the teens' personalities added a deeper dimension to the story.   I liked Ivy's perceptions of so many of the characters changing when she learned more about their lives and by the end her three shallow friends being redeemed by clearing the crowd from the bombsite.   I didn't realize until the end that this was the first book of the series.  In retrospect, that made your climax even more interesting.  The reader expected Ivy to lose her psychic ability when hitting her head for the second time.  A surprise ending is always good.  I think I remember your foreshadowing Eric being picked on in the beginning of the story, but I couldn't find it again to make sure.  Great if you were able to slip that it so inconspicuously.  Your voice sounded perfect for your target reader and your minimalist sex scenes were great.  I'm glad you had a lot of dialogue to make up for the necessary blocks of text where Ivy was alone with her own thoughts.  The text never felt heavy.  Great subplot conflict with Ivy and Tiana's jealousies.  A good read, well thought out and written for your target reader.  You are a very talented writer, good enough for the major publishers with sales/marketing staff to support your efforts.   It's a tough business; don't give up.  Good luck.

Read more about Into the Deep on Amazon 

Read more about  Into the Deep on Goodreads

KDP Free Days, My Second Time Around

Earlier this month I did a free promotion with Into the Deep, so I thought I'd share with everyone how it went.

A year ago, when I first released Into the Deep, my debut YA Paranormal Romance, I immediately signed up for Amazon's KDP Free day promotion, and was very happy with the results. Now, a year later I signed up with Into the Deep again and did more than twice the "sales" of my first run. So, here's a look at what's changed and what I did the same.

The Numbers:

2012 Promotion: Gave away 3,000+ copies of Into the Deep
2013 Promotion: Gave away 6,000+ copies of Into the Deep

2012 Promotion: Rose into the top 200 Free in Kindle Store
2013 Promotion: Broke into the top 100 Free in Kindle Store rising to #78 and #2 under Teen and Young Adult

Subsequent paid sales, after my free promotion ended, in 2013 were also more than double what they were in 2012


Things I did the same this year as last year:

• I ran my promotion for the same book, Into the Deep.

• I broke my promotion up using three of my free days, saving two for later.

• I ran my promotion in the same month, September.

• I ran my promotion on the same days of the week: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Things I did differently:

• This year I ran my promotion at the end of the month into the first of October, whereas last year I ran my promotion at the beginning of September. (Possibly, the end of the month may be a better time for doing a promotion.)

• This year I had two books out, Into the Deep and it's sequel Hidden Beneath. When I put Into the Deep up for free, paid sales on Hidden Beneath went up as well.

• Into the Deep only had a handful of reviews last year whereas this year it had nearly two dozen before the start of the promotion.

• I created a new cover for Into the Deep before my 2013 promotion, one that I feel looked a little more professional than my 2012 cover. 

Overall I think the things that added most to this promotion being a bigger success than the last one are first that I've been around a little longer. I had a bigger platform to tap into this time to get word out about my promotion. Second, having more reviews on my book helped give it credibility and finally having two books out not only gave me credibility as an author, but since the books were in a series the promotion of one fueled the promotion of the other.

Hopefully you all found this helpful.
For more information on Amazon's KDP program read about my first experience with Amazon in The Pros and Cons of Amazon and KDP