As I’m quietly and steadily working my way through Blood Stone, and the weekend started out with an empty email in-tray, and nothing moving on Facebook or anywhere else, I thought this was going to be one of those bulletins where I would have nothing to report, except for progress.

But Sunday, which is usually the day when everything on the Internet falls quieter than the grave, suddenly got busy.

And, I’ve had a small flurry of reader emails with questions about future books that I thought I would answer here, as well as the private answers I gave, in case others were wondering the same thing.

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Bannockburn Binding was nominated for Book Of The Year 2011 by The Romance Reader.  It just manages to scrape in for this honour because it was released on December 13 last year, so it was a great surprise — especially as the book is indie-published.  A nice hats-off.

Now, though, the winner is selected by reader votes.  I’m always reluctant to trawl for reader votes.  There’s so many polls and reader-vote elections out there, and in my category alone there are about twenty books, each with their individual author possibly hounding readers for votes!  So…I’m not begging you to vote.  However, if you have read Bannockburn Binding and really feel you would like to vote for it, you can click here, then scroll down to the erotic paranormal category (about half-way down the page).  Bannockburn Binding is the second book is the category.

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The Royal Talisman received a very nice 4 Star review from Love Romance Passion.

The review itself was short on detail about why the reviewer liked the book so much, but she did like the special features a lot, which was nice.  She also gave Dar Albert, the cover artist, a lovely thumbs up, too.

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From the mailbox:

A reader was anxiously asking if there will be any more books after Byzantine Heartbreak, and another reader/reviewer wants to see Brenden’s story…and what are the release dates.

Yes, there will most definitely be more books in the series.  At this point in time I can’t say how many more, but this is not a simple trilogy, by any means.  I consider the series to be open-ended with ambitious, complex story-lines and character arcs.

Look at the cover montage for the series.  There’s two way to do that:  Place each book cover for the series side by side to build up the montage that way.  Or “cheat” and jump to the series information page to see the full montage spread in one view.  Apart from being awed by Dar Albert’s artistic talents, you’ll also notice there’s a lot of room for a lot more covers on that montage.  I planned it that way. :)

Release Dates

As for release dates…well, that’s one of the joys — and pitfalls — of indie publishing.  The advantages, especially to you the reader, is that I can release these books as fast as I can write and edit them, plus or minus a week or two for formatting and for Dar Albert to build covers (and she’s very fast).   The down side is that it does take time to edit, format and upload to all the various retail sites, and those sites won’t hold or delay a release, nor will they guarantee exactly how long it takes to build a sales page for a book.  So there is no way to predict, for example, the exact date and time a book will appear on the Amazon site, even though I know exactly when I upload it to Amazon.  That part of it is out of my control.  The same applies for all the retail sites — Barnes & Noble, etc.

Therefore, all I can say in regard to a release date for future books in the series is that they will be as soon as I’ve written the books — and I’m a pretty fast writer — and that your best best is to either sign up for my newsletter or sign up for the email version of my RSS feed, so it is delivered to your email in-box.  That way, you’ll get an alert about the release of any books, and won’t miss out.

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I’ve updated the Recommended MMF Romances list.

I’ve added some more titles, and I rearranged the list into sub-genre groups.

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A reader asked what happened to the Kiss Across Time series, and Kiss Across Chains, the third book in that series, which up and disappeared.

The Time-Crossed Love series was first released under the Teal Ceagh pen name with Ellora’s Cave.  It’s one of my favourite series of all time, and I love and adore Brody and Veris and their extreme alpha-male outlook on life and time.  I was never so happy as I was when I was prompted into writing Kiss Across Swords by readers and reviewers who belly-ached politely asked for more about their histories and…well, just more of them.

I have the third book of the series, Kiss Across Chains, half-written, and ideas for six more in the series.  Like Beloved Bloody Time, this is not going to be a simple trilogy.

But, the first two books of the series remain with Ellora’s Cave for now.  I am working to have the rights returned to me, but until I do, I won’t release the third book in the series.  To do so would only further cement the first two books where they currently sit, and there are things I want to do with the first two books before I release the third (including issue them with uniform covers, expand the first book to make it a longer book, and more.)

So for now, this series must wait in the wings.

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“I wish I could join a board or something and review your books, they are that great.”

There’s two parts to this:  Reviews and discussion boards.

Reviews. 

There are any number of places you can leave a reader review about my books, if you feel moved to do so.  I encourage you like crazy to do this.

As more and more indie authors start publishing more and more books, one of the few ways readers will be able to figure out which are the good books and which are the duds are through other readers’ reviews — and there will be more and more duds:  It’s part of the price we pay for the flood of cheap, great and really interesting reads on the market.

Your review doesn’t have to be perfect prose.  Just a paragraph or two of simple, clear English saying what you thought about the book, and why you did (or didn’t) enjoy it — what made it work for you?  Keep it impersonal (no attacks on the author themselves), and rate the book, and you’re done.

The absolute best place to leave your review is Amazon.  Even if you didn’t buy your book there.  That’s because huge numbers of people research about what book they want to buy next on Amazon, and then they sometimes buy the book elsewhere because they want a different format, or can buy it cheaper elsewhere, or for other reasons.  But they’ll research on Amazon first, because the information about individual books is so thorough and complete.

So you’ll be doing me all sorts of favours by leaving your review about my book on Amazon.

Discussion Boards

Amazon to the rescue again.  Did you know that every single book on Amazon has its own unique discussion board?

If you scroll down to where the general discussion boards start, way down the bottom of the book’s page, just above those board subject lines, there is a live link to the book’s discussion page.  Most of the time (well, all of the time, for my books!  LOL!) the discussion is empty.  But if you want to start a discussion group for a book (anyone’s book), or join it, you’ll find the link to the book’s discussion group right there.  Click on it, and dive in.

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The biggest news of the weekend, and the last to arrive in my in-box, was the brand new cover for Delly’s Last Night.  The cover, another Dar Albert spectacular, is mind-blowing.  I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the time to double-click on the covers here on the site, and look at them when they’re at full size or better.  It’s worth it.  Then you really get to appreciate the full stunning detail.  They’re mind-bogglingly beautiful.  And the amazing thing is, Dar builds these covers from scratch.  She creates them out of nothing.  She doesn’t use stock photos except in the background sometimes, when I insist on historical accuracy, or well-known buildings.

Check out the cover for Delly’s Last Night, and click on it to see it at full size.

I stayed up late on Sunday night and formatted the book for release, so now you can buy it, too.  :)

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2. Working Notes – The Book That Wouldn’t Be Short It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman: “I have also been accused of...
3. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
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I’ve made a habit of directing a lot of people over to the Goodreads recommendation lists over the years, and it’s always mildly annoyed me that the lists are subjective and voter driven, and I’m not on them.  [What? I'm not allowed to have an ego? :) ]  I wasn’t annoyed enough to go vote myself onto the lists, which I could do as I’m a member of Goodreads.   I suspected there were a few authors who had voted themselves on that way, because when you read through the list, there are places where one author’s books are all listed together in one chunk, one after another.  Dead give away.

But, no matter.

I thought, rather than making readers take that extra step over to Goodreads, and then over to Amazon, I’d start building my own list of recommended MMF romance titles here on the site.

Oh, idiot me!

Approximately six hours later…

I’ve just got through the first list on Goodreads.  Ugh.  I always knew my list would be a permanent, living document that would take consistent updating, but I didn’t think it would take so much effort just to build in the first place.  So I’m going to put up the list I have for now, and keep plugging away at it in spare moments over the next few weeks.

The reason it is taking so long is because I’m not simply siphoning off the list of titles from the Goodreads lists over to mine.  Just reading through the recommendation lists made my antennae twitch enough that I started vetting the list as I built mine.  Good thing, too.  Some of the titles on the list aren’t MMF romances at all.  Some only have MMF scenes incidental to the main romance — so I left them off the list, too.

It also puzzled me that books with ratings barely above two stars were making it onto the list.  But if anyone can add a book to the list, then there’s no quality control.  So I put a quality control on mine.  Only books with aggregate four or five star ratings were listed.  And that means that if they had a 3.75 star rating on Goodreads, but a 5 star rating on Amazon, they made the list, because the aggregate rating would be 4.375 stars.

Books that were listed on Goodreads, but were not for sales on Amazon I didn’t list.

If I couldn’t find an indication of MMF activity in the descriptions, categories or tags, I erred on the side of caution, and left the book off my list.

If the book only had one five star rating on Amazon, that looked like it was from a friend or might otherwise be a set-up job, and it had sucky ratings on Goodreads, I also left it off the list, even if it did scape into the 4-5 star ratings.

At all times, I kept in mind if readers would be happy about being guided to buying this book.  If I thought you’d get snarky about shelling out for the book and then being disappointed, I left it off the list.  If I find out later my assessment is wrong, I can always add the book back in.

Oh yes, and in the interests of full disclosure, I have added Amazon Associate links for all the book titles.  But don’t think this is a big money grab for me.  I use Associate links all over my site, and most months I don’t make enough to buy a cup of coffee from all the links combined.  The point of the links is not to make me rich.  :)

So, have a cruise through the titles and see what you think.  Of course, it’s not complete.  The list I was working from leaned heavily into BDSM and contemporaries, and didn’t seem to have anything from the last twelve months on it.  I have some catching up to do.

Recommendations gratefully received.

Recommended MMF Titles

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2. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part IV Where To Find Your MMF Romances This is Part Four of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part...
3. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances — Part VI Keeping Track This is the final part of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To...
4. Additional Books Off the Shelf For Now A quick follow-up to my announcement the other day about book title rights that have been returned to me, and therefore won’t be available for...
5. Recommended MMF Romance Titles Sources: Goodreads Recommended lists, Amazon Popularity Rankings, Amazon Kindleboards, Facebook and my MMF Romance author group.  Aggregate reviews of 4 or 5 stars only.  This...

Mark here.

So, I’m about to leave for a three day wrestling road trip and Tracy’s getting ready. Having me on the road for three days means that she gets three days of uninterrupted writing time. And she wants to make the most of it. That means it’s time to clear the decks – get everything else done and out of the way. So, like any good husband, I asked what I could do to help.

And here I am…

Now, what the hell am I going to write about?

I could write about all the crazy, wild, three-way sex we have as research for her books… but, we’re not supposed to talk about that in public. ;)

I could write about how Diana By The Moon got me in big trouble, caused a huge fight and a burned dinner just after it was written… but why dredge up the past?

I could write about how important tagging books on Amazon.com is to an author and that I think you should go tag Tracy’s books… but, I’m sure Tracy wouldn’t want me to talk about that.

Or I could just say that I think my wife is a brilliant writer and an inspired storyteller. Just how good she truly is amazes me. And, if you’ve ever bought and read any of her books, I’m sure you’d agree with me. If you haven’t bought and read any of her books, what are you waiting for??? Go buy Blood Knot! It’s only $2.99 and then you’ll be able to see for yourself.

Oh wait, I could talk about the time that Tracy and I went to the Romantic Times Convention and she dressed me up in bondage gear and led me around on a leash… but, now I’m out of space.

Maybe next time… if she lets me.

No related posts.

Quick update. My contemporary romance, Lucifer’s Lover, just hit print.  It looks gorgeous!  Especially with that cover.  And it’s a long novel, so it’s a pretty hefty tome, too.  You can pick up a copy directly from Createspace right now, or wait a few days for the print page to populate over at Amazon.

And The Royal Talisman, my erotic historical romantic suspense, has popped up at Barnes & Noble.com for all you Nook readers.  Although, as usual, no sign of a blurb, excerpt or author information, despite faithfully filing all that guff when I uploaded…  So I’m directing you to the book’s page here, first, then you can click through to B&N…

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1. LUCIFER’S LOVER is Out! I just released Lucifer’s Lover on All Romance eBooks, and on Amazon, and over the next few days will be formatting and uploading to the...
2. THE ROYAL TALISMAN Now Available at Apple and Kobo My erotic historical romantic suspense, The Royal Talisman, has just been uploaded to the Apple Store and on to Kobo today. Barnes & Noble and...
3. Blood Knot Now Out In Print Some quick housekeeping notes. 1.  Blood Knot, my erotic MMF urban fantasy romance, has just been released in print and is available on Amazon for $11.97....
4. My erotic historical romantic suspense, THE ROYAL TALISMAN, is out. Forgive me for the size of the cover, which is taking over the post here.  I really wanted you to get a good chance of...
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Last time around, for working notes, I had skipped over two books, and had to back track.

This time, I don’t have a book to talk about at all, because of another phenomenon of the indie publishing industry:  doing it yourself means actually doing it all yourself.  Everything.  The formatting, uploading, releasing, technical un-hitching, acquiring of ISBN numbers, the lot.

For the last week, since I finished with Lucifer’s Lover, I thought I would be able to dive right back into the second book of the Beloved Bloody Time series (and it is about bloody time, too – I’m dying to get back to it).  Ha!

Hoisted by my own petard, as they say.

Fact is (was…still is, as I write this), I wasn’t quite finished with formatting and creating  and releasing versions of Lucifer’s Lover, and technically difficulties mean that here I am, a week later, still struggling with getting the last two versions out the door.

One of the primary difficulties was simply a matter of time:  I’m also smack dab in the middle of the book tour for Bannockburn Binding, and I have to keep up with that, as well.  And as luck would have it, all my scheduled posts for my blog ran out at the same time.  So, I suddenly had to drop a few higher priorities in order to address a few urgent ones:  posts for this blog, guest posts for the blog tour…I figure you would like to read something interesting when you visit here and there, no?

Then, and only then, could I get back to formatting and uploading the last two versions of Lucifer – namely, Smashwords, and Createspace.  (Createspace is the print version – and feeds the Amazon print page, too.)

So for my “snippet” of my current work today, I thought I would give you a sample of the list of steps I go through to get a book out there, along with some notations.  I don’t always follow every single step, because some books are re-releases, for example, or for some other reason I might leave off steps.  But this is a standard, all-inclusive checklist for self-publishing a book, if you’re not paying for a lot of external processes like editing, formatting, distribution, etc.  I do everything myself but design the cover—but I have magazine editing experience.

First draft:  Write the book.  Pretty obvious, but just finishing a book is a milestone and should always be celebrated.

Final title for book.  A book`s title can change during the writing.  The final title is a marketing decision, weighed up with a careful eye toward reader appeal, with a dozen different criteria guiding the selection, including length, the initial letter of the title, the use or overuse of certain words and more.

Spell check and grammar check draft manuscript, then put book away to freeze.  (Get on with another book) I drift between not-very-good to terrible at following this step.  Oh, I spell check and grammar check the nuts off a script, no problems.  But putting it away and letting it freeze?  Yeah…not so good on that one.  But I do try, because I know how much more of a book’s strengths and weaknesses I will spot if I get just a little more distance from it.

Write blurb  This is a pretty standard duty for authors, but for me, there isn’t an editor or marketing department standing over my shoulder telling me if the blurb works or not.  So I sweat this task out, working and re-working the blurb, comparing it to best-selling books in my genre, tweaking until I think the blurb has the necessary come-hither quality.

Create book page on website and update site for upcoming book, etc. Again, another chore that was always mine.

Complete cover art questionnaire and send to cover designer.  Most authors get to fill in art questionnaires for their publishers, but I’m betting none of them have to provide the designer with printer’s specifications, spine width, trim allowances, bleed information, paper width and variations, the price of the book (which I have to figure out on my own, too), and more technical and graphic specifications of this sort.  I provide all this, along with the hero’s eye colour and the heroine’s full lips and pouty expression…

Read through book as a reader for impressions.  Mark up as necessary.  Here is where leaving the book alone for a while pays off.  I get to read it with relatively fresh eyes, and enjoy the read.  But often, if I haven’t left the book alone long enough, I’m reading and mentally editing as I go.  Still, I try to read like a reader…

Edit carefully.  Then spell check and grammar check.  Round two of the editing/checking/line editing/checking, typo-filtering process.  It’s here that I slide in professional editing or line-editing services if the book warrants it (it’s not a re-release, has never been edited before, or other circumstances).

Create Master manuscript with front and end matter.  It’s here that the publishing process really starts to depart from a normal author’s lot.  All the front and end matter that appears in a book I get to create myself, instead of the publisher doing it for me, because I am the publisher.  And I don’t get to invent it…it all means something.  This is where the acquiring of ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) comes into play, one for each version of the book – the Amazon, Smashwords, All Romance eBooks and Createspace version each have to have their own ISBN.  Then each have their own front copyright pages and copyright requirements.  Plus I’m also creating a “pretty” version as an Advanced Reader Copy.

Pour into Createspace template and format for page count.  This gets even more technical.  This is the two-page internal page layout for the print version, complete with bleeds, trim lines, folios (what you, the reader, calls a page number, but the printing industry gives a different name just to fool you), special fonts for the title page, justified text, kerning tweaks, and more.  This file determines how many physical pages will be in the print edition, which drives the price of the print edition, and also the spine width, which the cover designer needs to know to finish the cover.

Upload to Createspace.  The interior of the book gets uploaded to Createspace and waits for the final artwork, so I can hit the “publish” button on the print version and order a proof.

Create Amazon version from Master file and upload to Amazon.  Now I’m into full publication mode.  This task sounds simple enough, but there’s a lot of formatting involved to meet Amazon’s technical specifications, plus I have to resupply the same basic information all over again (Title, author, blurb, price, category, genre, tags, keywords, ISBN, bio).  Usually, each distribution platform wants the cover art formatted to their specific sizing, too, calling for a tweak of the original art files.

Format file for Smashwords and upload.  I admit I tend to procrastinate about Smashwords, because it’s technically the most fussy and difficult to meet the technical requirements.  They’re demanding, although they’re getting better.  Just like Amazon, I end up re-supplying the same basic information, re-shaped to Smashword’s specifications.

Format file for All About Romance and upload.  The fourth distribution outlet, and one of the easiest to deal with (except I usually end up forgetting to rename all my file formats and having to go back and re-do my book page anyway).

Send out requests for review and/or blog tour.  If the book is an Author Edition, or a re-release, I don’t do a blog tour.  If it has a huge number of glowing reviews already (like Lucifer’s Lover), I don’t even bother with the review requests.  Asking for reviews is a semi-new task for me.  Ellora’s Cave used to send out all their titles to a pre-set list of review sites, saving me the bother, until I built a list of other review sites that I liked and approached on my own.  Now, as an indie author, I have to find sites that will deal with indie published romances at all, and then do my own asking.

Update my site.  The book is officially released now, so there’s a ton of changes that have to be made on my website to reflect that fact.  Links, cover art, book page updates, widgets in sidebars, and more.  I also upload a copy of the book’s cover into my Facebook page.

Blog post about the release.  And then, finally, after all that, I get to tell you about the release.  Talk about the tip of the iceberg, huh?

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2. Working Notes – The Book You Missed and the One You Might Yet Miss I don’t think I’ve ever hidden the fact that I write posts ahead of time and schedule them to appear here on the appointed day. ...
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I just released Lucifer’s Lover on All Romance eBooks, and on Amazon, and over the next few days will be formatting and uploading to the other distributors — Smashwords, Createspace (print).  So it’s official, Lucifer’s Lover is published.

This may come as a surprise to you because I didn’t really given anyone a heads up about this one.  It’s one of my Author Edition titles, which I’m not releasing with as much fanfare as I would a brand new title, like Bannockburn Binding, as they’ve already been published elsewhere.

But neither are these Author Editions simply regurgitated re-releases with new covers.  I’m reworking all of them and adding additional features.  The Royal Talisman, for instance, became its own stand-alone title by the time I’d finished with it, and it used to be only a novella, when it was first released.

Ditto with Lucifer’s Lover, although I didn’t extend the story nearly as much as I did with Talisman.  Lucifer’s Lover was already very long, so I tightened up and cleaned up as much as I added…I’ve learned a thing or two since the book was first published back in 2006.

The nicest thing about this second edition of Lucifer’s Lover is the cover, which is just amazing.  Dar Albert does it again.  If you have a small monitor, or have this window crunched down, then double-click on the image to the left so you can see it at full size.  It’s really something else.  There’s a whole history about the cover that I explain in the book, too.

You can pick up Lucifer’s Lover in all the popular formats at All Romance eBooks, and in the next twelve to twenty-four hours, the page will build itself at Amazon, too.

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1. Lucifer’s Lover ~ Details ~ ~ Outline ~ ~ Reviews ~ ~ Excerpt ~ ~ Author’s Note ~ ~ Also of Interest ~ _______________________________ Details CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE...
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Once you’ve made the leap and you’re reading e-books exclusively — and it doesn’t take long to reach a point where you simply don’t like reading paper anymore — it’s at this point in time you can start systematically moving yourself to 100% paperless.

There are lots of advantages to making the transition:

1.  You’ll have all your books, including your keepers and favourites, at your fingertips, instead of scattered across different formats and locations, making you have to remember where they’re located.

2.  You’ll never again lose any of your books because of aging paperbacks, friends failing to return borrowed books, or simply loosing the physical copy of the book.  And your dog will never be able to chew your favourite book to pieces.

3.  In the long run, you’ll save money.  Once you’ve replaced your paperback copies, you’ll never have to do it again.

4.  You’ll save space in your home.

5.  Your library of books will be super-portable from now on.

There’s three simple steps to moving to paperless:

Replace your paper books

This will be a gradual process, dictated by your bank account, how many paper books you’re hanging on to, and also, how many of those books are available in e-book format now.

Not all romances are available in e-book — yet.  This is a self-correcting condition, though.  Publishers are working to bring old titles out in e-book format, and if they’re not, authors are fighting to get their rights back and self-publish those titles.  Sooner or later, the keepers you have on your shelf will re-emerge as e-books, allowing you to replace them.

You can figure out for yourself the best way to work through your paper collection.  Start with your favourites, or start at the A’s and work through to the Z’s.  Or start with a sub-category or series, or an author.  Your choice.

Once you have replaced the paper book with an e-book, you get to decide what you are going to do with the paper copy.

The obvious solution is to sell the paper copy to a second-hand bookstore, and recoup some of your original investment.

Here’s something to keep in mind, however:  You’re not the only reader who is replacing their paper book collection with e-books, and the rate that this is happening is only going to speed up in the next few years.  Second-hand bookstores will start to be inundated with paper books soon, and the chances that you will be able to get any money for your paper collection will diminish the longer you wait to replace it.

If you find you want to hang on to a paper copy of a particularly beloved favourite because of fond memories, or the fabulous cover, here’s some more thoughts:

• The paper copy will not last forever.  It is going to fall apart as the glue dries and the paper disintegrates.  Then you’ll have lost it, anyway.
• If you love the cover, why not find a high resolution copy of it on-line, or get it professionally scanned, then have it printed and framed for your wall?  Then you’ll have the best of both worlds:  A well-preserved reminder of the book, and the permanent e-book of the contents.

Use a content management program to manage your e-books

If you use a Kindle to read your books, then your Kindle device already “manages” your content for you.  There will be a directory on your hard drive called “My Kindle Content” that contains all your e-books, along with all the meta-data for those books (you tags, dictionaries, bookmarks, comments, etc).

If you’re using any other reading device, including iPhones, iPads, Smartphone, your desktop or laptop computer, or a dedicated e-reader that has sucky software, then you should consider downloading and using an e-book library manager like Calibre, that keeps your e-books catalogued and organized on your hard drive, plus talks to and synchronizes and formats your e-books with your reading device(s).  You can also use Calibre to shop for new books, too.

If you’re using Apple devices (iPad, iPod Touch, or an iPhone), then you can also use iTunes to manage your e-books, keep them synchronized on your reading devices, plus shop for new books, too.  The only limitation with iTunes is that it will only let you shop at the Apple store.

Back-up your e-books to another off-site drive

If you’re not already backing up your computer data to some sort of off-site storage facility — a data hard drive on your home network, or an Internet data back-up services, or a back-up media drive, etc, then at the very least, back-up your e-book directory once a week or once a month, and store that back-up somewhere safe.

How soul-destroying would it be to lose your entire library of books?  Think about that, then put some sort of back-up plan into action.

Even if you’re using a Kindle, do not depend on Amazon to keep your library safe and sound for you, forever.  Back up your “My Kindle Content” directory.  Even if you’re dumping a copy onto a thumb-drive once a week and tossing it into a drawer, you’ll be glad you did if Amazon ever again pulls a stunt like they did a couple of years ago when they literally took back books off readers’ Kindle overnight when they had an argument with a publisher that wanted to withdraw copies from publication.  Readers woke up to find books they had bought had simply disappeared from their Kindles.  There’s no reason why Amazon might not make a mistake and delete titles from your personal library.  Play it safe.  Back up your library for yourself.

Also, do not depend on on-line booksellers to keep copies of your purchased books on “your” bookshelf in their store forever, either.  I made this mistake with one on-line bookseller, and found that after a certain amount of time passed, they simply deleted the books from my shelf – with no warning.   Always download purchased e-books to your own hard drive and consider that to be your master copy.

How often you back up your e-books depends on how frequently you’re buying new titles.  If you’re a rabid reader and buying dozens of titles a week, then weekly back-ups might be wise.

______________

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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

This is Part 5  (and the last) of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

If you’re mining the Internet for everyone else’s opinions about the worth of a romance novel, in order to figure out whether you should buy it or not, it’s only fair that you contribute back to the system in order to keep it going for other readers, too.

Once you’ve read a romance, you should tell others what you think about it.

Romanceland is a changing world — if this series hasn’t convinced you, just wait a while and you’ll see for yourself, if you haven’t noticed already.  Once upon a time you may have thought it was the purview of the professional editors and reviewers to give a public opinion on the worth (or not) of a published book.

Not anymore.

Authors are publishing directly to the public now:  Directly to readers, and cutting out all middlemen.

That means word-of-mouth — readers talking to readers — is now the most effective means of sorting out the quality books.

You may think that adding your simple review or rating to the cacophony already out there will be a waste of time and energy, because no one is going to hear you or pay any attention.  You’re quite wrong, if that’s what you are thinking.  Your review or rating may not get a direct reaction.  You may not get anyone commenting or responding to you.  It’s highly unlikely the author will thank you — authors are taught or trained by hard experience to stay far, far away from reviewers and reviews to avoid publicity nightmares.

However your rating and/or review will be noticed.  I’ve used this analogy before, because it’s an exact one:  I’m a dedicated blogger, and my blog posts get incredible amounts of traffic every day.  Yet I consider myself lucky if I get one or two comments a month on my blog.  But I know that people are reading and reacting to the posts because my stats tell me they are.

It’s the same with reader ratings and reviews.  You may not get any direct reaction at all, ever.  But your review will be read.  The author will absolutely read it, and if your review is a positive one, I promise you the author will be pathetically grateful.  Then, every single potential buyer who considers the book will read your review once you’ve posted it.  You will have influence over their buying decision, and depending on how you write your review, your influence could be small or large.  Your rating will also form part of the average star rating for the book.

Every time you post a review and rating for another romance book, you’re adding to the weight of information out there for other readers to find.

What goes around, comes around.  Romanceland is becoming a true community of readers.  It’ll pay off big time to contribute meaningfully to that community.

Review on Amazon, even if you didn’t buy there

You only have to write one review, then you can copy and paste it to all your favourite review locations.

Amazon should absolutely top that list.

You’re using Amazon as a primary search tool for book titles, and as an assessment database, too.  Putting your review and rating on there is only fair.

There’s a small bonus to adding your review to Amazon, too.  People can rate your review for its usefulness.  So you can get a little feedback on your reviewing!

Once you’ve pasted your review and rated the book on Amazon, consider adding the review to all the “biggies”.  You can pick and choose amongst your favourite booksellers and review sites:

• Barnes & Noble.com
• Kobo.com (which has the potential now of becoming the next Amazon, thanks to the recent Japanese buy out)
• The bookseller where you bought the book, if they allow reader reviews.
• Goodreads
• Shelfari
• Google Books
• The book’s page on Facebook
• Any reader groups you belong to
• Your own blog, if you have one, or your Facebook page
• A rating line and link back to the review on Twitter

 A review is better than just a rating

Many review sites and booksellers will let you just rate the book and forego the review.  If you’re not good at stringing words together, it might be tempting to avoid writing a review and just click on a star rating and consider your contribution done.

You’ll be short-changing the system if you don’t write a review as well.

No one is expecting perfect prose for reader reviews.  You’ve been reading enough of them yourself to know that they’re not always grammatically perfect, or even close to well-written.  Sometimes even the spelling sucks big time, and if you can pick up on that much, you know you won’t embarrass yourself with your own review, right?

You also don’t have to write pages and pages.  A short paragraph is all you need, explaining why you enjoyed the book — or why not.

Your review, however, should be considered.  If you absolutely hated the book, try very hard to analyse why you hated the book and state it in objective terms in the review.  Don’t just verbally puke all over it and walk away.  That’s not going to help the next reader figure out if the book might still work for her.

It’s also not going to help the author.  If you think the author isn’t going to try to understand why you didn’t like it, again, you’re wrong.  Authors always read their reviews, even the bad ones.  Especially the bad ones.  And yes, they listen.  If enough readers are complaining about the same weakness in a book, you bet the author is going to fix it next time around.  Especially indie authors, who are writing directly for readers.  They need feedback.  So make it constructive feedback.

Your reviews for great books should be just as constructive and considered.  What made it so great?  What works so well in the book to make it fabulous?  Readers will want to know why it’s such a great read — they will want proof that it’s a winner before they buy it.  And the author will want to know what works well so they can repeat it in future books.

Use A Plain Text Editor

Write your review in a plain text editor like Notepad.  Don’t use Word or Wordperfect, because these programs add a lot of hidden coding to your text, so when you cut and paste to websites, all that coding goes with it and can completely screw up your pasting.  Using Notepad ensures there’s no hidden crap, just text.  If you want to use features like Spellcheck and Grammar check, then you’ll have to use a full text editor program like Word, but paste the text over to Notepad once you’re done, then save the file in Notepad as a text file, and shut it down.  Open it again, and then copy and paste to websites.  You’ll have got rid of all the hidden codes this way.

__________

This is the final post of this series.  You now have a full set of tools and a good collection of resources for keeping up with the shifts and upheavals in Romanceland.  The evolution of the romance industry is ongoing and changes will keep happening for quite a while before anything that looks like stability will appear — if it ever does.  In order for you to keep finding the very best romance novels to suit your tastes and preferences, you need to stay on your toes, and keep looking in unexpected places.

Romanceland isn’t the same place it was even a year ago, and it won’t look this way next year.  You have to keep redrawing your map…or simply throw the map away and enjoy the freedom of exploring new territory every day.

Have fun!

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1. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part IV A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Assessing Books This is Part 4 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
2. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part III A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 2 This is Part 3 of a...
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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Assessing Books

This is Part 4 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

By now, if you have set up your Google Alerts; mined the depths of Amazon, romance-related websites, blogs and news sites; plus the various RSS feeds and newsletters you have temporarily subscribed to; along with any romance-related groups you may have joined, you should have built up a satisfyingly long list of potential romance titles to investigate.

The titles you placed on your list you should know very little about, except that for some small reason, they appealed to you, and they’re in your preferred reading niche(s).  The authors, publishers, and general quality of the books could (and should) be a complete mystery to you.

Now, you get to assess those titles and find out if they’re worth buying.

The breakup and fracturing of Romanceland is bringing a flood of new titles onto the market.  There are new e-publishers springing up every day.  They edit their books, yes, but how good are those editors?

There’s no guarantee that just because a book comes from a New York publisher, its quality is guaranteed, either.  Recently, an e-book published by a New York publisher garnered so many complaints about formatting problems, editing and spelling errors in the text and more, that the publisher was forced to withdraw the book from sale and issue refunds.

Too, indie authors’ books have long suffered the reputation of being poorly edited and badly written.  Sometimes this is true.  Often, it isn’t — indie authors are increasingly becoming more savvy about their work; they hire professional editors, and book formatters to build their e-books for them, plus professional cover designers (I do, for instance).  The product indie authors put on the virtual shelves can be indistinguishable from New York books.

There is nothing stopping indie authors from publishing whatever they want, whenever they want.  Titles are hitting the market every day.

The flurry of new e-publishers means those publishers are also pumping out new titles every week, too.

And New York is gamely trying to keep up its output, as well.

The fact is that with the fracturing and breakup of Romanceland, there will be hundreds more exciting, different and interesting romances flooding the market.

The price for all that innovation and creativity is that some of the books are going to suck.  Romanceland is turning into a free market, where anyone can publish anything — and will.  And some of what will be published will be fabulous.  The flip side of getting all that fabulous stuff is that you also get the stinky stuff.

You have to learn how to recognize the stinky stuff before you put your money down.

Relying on other people to tell you what is good is no longer going to work.

No single review site can keep up with the deluge.  They haven’t been able to do that for a while now.  Most review sites run anywhere up to six months behind release dates — or more.  I’ve had reviews of my books emerge up to a year after the book was released.  The lag can only get worse as the number of romance titles released per week rises.

There is no single best-seller list that incorporates every single romance title for sale.  There never has been.  The New York Times Best Seller list, for instance, never included Harlequin/Silhouette category romances, which regularly outsold the #1 best-seller.  The NYT list only started included e-books in mid-2011.  It still doesn’t include indie titles.

There are only two ways you can find out if a book sucks, or if it is worth reading.  One way is to read it.  But that gets expensive, especially if you keep hitting sucky books.

The other way to find out if a book sucks or not is to tap into word-of-mouth sources.  Consult other readers.

There’s a number of ways to do that.  If you use a combination of these tools and resources in a systematic way, then you’ll get a pretty good idea, very quickly, if the book you’re considering is a dud, or not.

Amazon

Amazon is the best place to start, because something like 99% of every romance book ever published is there, and because 99% of every review for the books on there are reader reviews.

In addition, you get reader ratings — the five star rating that is an average of every readers’ rating.

There will also be the odd professional review, too.

Read through all the reviews, both the good and the bad.  Reader reviews are usually not very specific about why a book doesn’t work for them, but see if you can determine why the book failed to please the readers who didn’t like it.  If it is for reasons that won’t affect you (they don’t like European settings, say), then you can safely discount the negative reviews.

If the book gets consistently bad reviews, you may need to cross it off your list.  Put a question mark next to it for now.

If the book is part of the “Look Inside” program, you can even read an excerpt and see if it intrigues you.

Professional Reviews

Hunt down some professional reviews for the book.  Using Google, or your favourite search engine, put in the book title, the author’s name and “review”.

Amongst a few negative results, you will get a listing of links to reviews of the book.  Check them out for overall impressions on the quality of the book.

If the book received crushing reader reviews and ratings on Amazon, and the professional reviews support the bad rap, then it’s probably time to knock the book off your list.

However, if the reviews are all glowing, or even just generally positive, you can move onto the next step, if you are still uncertain about whether you want to buy the book or not.  If you’re already convinced you want the book and are comfortable enough to buy it, then you don’t have to search for further word-of-mouth.

While you are browsing the review sites, if you find that there is a particular reviewer whose voice you like, bookmark the site, or subscribe to their feed.  This is a reviewer who reviews romances in the niche you read.  They may review a romance you will like in the future.  It could pay to keep up with their reviews.

Goodreads

Goodreads and other social reading networks will provide you with one more average reader rating on the book you’re researching — if it has been listed on that network.

There may also be the odd reader review (more like short comments).

The feedback you get from these reader networks usually isn’t comprehensive, but it will provide confirmation and back-up for whatever you’ve already learned about a title.

Reader Groups

If you belong to a reader group, this is the perfect place to actively ask for information.  Put the question to your group:  “What did you think of xxxx?”

If the group has archives or a database of titles you can access, even better.  You can check out members’ reviews of the title for yourself.

Too Little Information

It sometimes happens that a title is too new to have gathered enough information to help you make a decision about its quality.  There won’t be any, or too few, reader reviews on Amazon to reassure you.  If a title is very new, there likely won’t be any professional reviews for it, either.  If it is an indie title, professional reviews are even harder to acquire as many review houses refuse to review indie authors at all.

In this case, what you can do is:

1)   Read an excerpt of the book and check the quality that way.  If the excerpt reads okay, and you don’t notice any obvious grammar and spelling mistakes, typos or other formatting flaws, then the rest of the book should be of similar quality.

2)   Go to the author’s website.  If there are any reviews or positive feedback at all, there’s a good bet the author will have them listed there for the title. (But keep in mind that the author won’t report bad reviews!)

3)   Research one of the author’s other, older titles, in the same or a similar niche as the one you’re interested in.  If that other title got glowing reviews and high ratings, then you’re probably on safe ground with the new book.  Check several of the author’s books, if you really want to be sure.  If they’re all high ratings and good reviews, you’ll feel that much more certain about the new book — and you’ll have more titles on your to-buy list, too!

Sometimes you’ll hit a book where there’s little information and no other titles by the author.  (Every author has a first or second book).  Ultimately, you’ll have to make a decision about whether to buy, or not, based on your gut feeling.

If it’s an indie author, the chances are the price will be very low, so taking a chance on the book won’t be such a big deal.

For New York titles, where the price isn’t so reasonable, you may decide to wait a few days or weeks until the book has gathered reviews and ratings…or not.

For any title where the blurb and excerpt have really grabbed you by the throat and you decide to risk it; go for it.  Why not?  Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and see where it takes you.  And sometimes that jump will pay off with the most unexpectedly delightful story you’ve read in ages.

That’s the bonus of a free Romanceland market.  You get to be surprised and delighted every now and again, when you reach out and try something new.

Enjoy your hunting.

__________

Next:  Contributing to Word-of-Mouth

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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Finding Books – Part 2

This is Part 3 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

Last post, we explored all the ways of using Google Alerts results to mine the Internet for useful blogs, sites and newsites, and the bounty they give up:  romance titles for your growing list of potential books to buy.

Here are even more resources to tap.

Amazon

Even if Amazon doesn’t have every single romance title published available for sale on its virtual shelves (and if it doesn’t, it’s only by a gnat’s whisker), it comes a lot closer to 100% than any other bookseller in the world.  For this reason, and one other, Amazon is one of the most advanced search tools on the Internet.

The other reason Amazon outranks any other publisher, bookseller or database in the world when it comes to searching for books, is that readers, publishers, authors…anyone…can categorize and tag the books that Amazon offers for sale.  In other words:  keywords.

And those keywords are searchable.

You may not like shopping via Amazon.  But searching via Amazon is hard to argue with.

With your keyword groups in hand, head over to Amazon, and in the Departments drop down box, select “Books” and hit the “go” button.

Underneath the search bar, you’ll get a row of menu items, including the “Advanced Search” link.  Click on that.

You’ll come up with a screen called “Book Search” and the first row of the range of fields you can fill in is…keywords.  J

Don’t add any other conditions than your keywords.  You’re not trying to narrow down the range at this stage (quantity, remember?).  Just add your keywords, separated by commas, and hit enter.

You’ll come up with a list of titles that may be surprisingly long or short.  If you think your list is too short, try searching again, and dropping off one of your keywords — whichever one is the least critical in your opinion.

For each title that pops up in the search, open up that book’s page (use the right hand mouse button to open the book up in a new tab, so you can save the search page and come back to it later).  Have a quick look at the blurb, etc, and add the book to your list if it makes your interest level twitch at all.

Also check out the books listed under the “Frequently Bought Together” titles and add them to your list, if they beckon in the slightest.

Then check the books listed under the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….” section.  Books under this section are often similar, but not always.  A quick look at the blurb will tell you if you can add them to your list or not.

And don’t forget, for each book that you click through to, you should also check their “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….” sections for similar types of titles.

And start adding titles to your list.

Repeat this with all of your keyword groups.

Reader groups

There are romance reader groups all over the Internet.  And I will give you a list of places where you can start looking for like-minded peer groups in a minute.

But there are strong pros and cons to joining reader groups of which you should be aware before signing up.

Pros

A romance reader group that works well is a fabulous resource for word-of-mouth about great romance novels, changes in the industry, help, support, friendship, and fun.  When reader groups work well, they’re fabulous places to hang out.  And you will hear of so many great books you will never catch up!

If you can find a group that is “closed” (there is some sort of formal subscription process) and has a stable membership, you’ll find yourself making friendships that last years.  If the group caters to a small niche category that you love and adore, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

Reader groups that function well bring all the best qualities of each of its members to the group.  The knowledge of each member provides a pool of information that all members draw upon for a unique resource that provides support for the group as a whole and enhances it.  A strong coordinator/manager is a must.

Cons

Many “reader” groups are over-subscribed, or open, and subject to spam, hackers, or the abuse of authors who use the group as promotional platforms, to the detriment of free discussion and fellowship.  In the very large reader groups, you will hear of many, many romance titles via promo posts from authors or promotional companies, but not much else.  These larger groups are rarely niche groups.  They cater to larger divisions of romance (e.g. “erotic romance” or “paranormal romance”).

Smaller niche groups have tiny memberships and are often moribund through lack of activity or current interest in the niche.

All groups may also be subject to bias via group pressure.  If the group is aligned with a website or publisher, then discussion will be limited to that website’s reviews, or publisher’s books.  There may also be more subtle or political prejudices:  The group may have a bias against indie titles, or e-books, that isn’t apparent on the surface, but only via consistently bad reviews of anything other than New York published titles, for instance.

Even if none of the above occurs, groups sometimes break out into bickering and sniping, if there is one or two forceful members who don’t see eye-to-eye.  If these frictions are not resolved, groups can end up disbanded or deserted because members grow tired of the conflict.

—

Despite the downsides, there are more well-functioning groups than not.  Each group has a lifecycle and groups are forming and disbanding all the time.  You just need to find a group that works for you, if you think one would be useful for you.

Where to find Groups

Yahoo Groups – The grand-daddy of groups, Yahoo is still the one most people think of when they talk about “groups”.  Posts are delivered via email as a defaul, although you can check your group’s postings online if you want.  There are dozens, if not a hundred or more, romance novel-related groups on Yahoo.

Google Groups – Google took over the old Usenet bulletin board style groups, then added their own Groups on top.  One of the oldest writing groups on the usenet boards is still going on Google – rec.arts.sf.composition.  One of the problems with Google, though, is that the groups are semi-open, so hackers and spam is rife.  I’ve looked for romance novel groups there, but didn’t find any.  However, if usenet groups are your thing — and some people like them — then you may consider the idea of creating one of your own in your favourite niche.

Facebook – Whatever you think of Facebook, there’s no denying the numbers it commands.  It’s #2 on Alexa (Google is #1).  And Groups is Facebook’s next “thing”.  If you’re a member, go to your home page, and type your keywords into the search bar at the top.  There’s potentially a group page will pop up with your keywords.  If not, drop the least critical keyword off and try again.  Sooner or later you’ll end up with a group showing up in your search results.  I guarantee that group will be talking about romance books in your niche.  And you can always ask for recommendations, too — and brace yourself for impact.

__________

Next:  Assessing your List Of Potentials

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