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Who thought the world needed another pig book? Oh, yeah. me.
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Fourteen-year-old millionaire Tony Pandy solves mysteries from the seat of his wheelchair. Not because he wants to, but because he has to. Losing his home if he doesn’t. This time Tony has to find out why the Hindenburg disaster happened. "Because it was a big ole bomb-bag,” Tony said. “See, solved. Now I don't have to miss lunch." “Like you’d eat it,” his health aide replied. “Besides, maybe it's not that simple." And it’s not. Tony will have to face a fear he didn’t know that he had—and find out more about the mysterious trust that controls his fortune. Then there’s the problem of having squatters on the estate, one of whom just might be the love of Tony’s life. On top of that? She brought her boyfriend. As if the mystery wasn’t trouble enough. Book 2 of The Tony Pandy Mysteries.
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As you can imagine, I'm super excited to get this out the door, the sequel to The Counterfeit Father. It is currently on pre-order
here . Print copies will be available August 3rd.
If you're interested in reviewing this book, and putting that review on Amazon, contact me via this blog.
In a week's time, I'll be letting you know how you can read Book 1 of this series for FREE. Stay tuned.
Do you know what's better than a good review? A good review from an actual
reader. I'll let eleven-year-old Nictaf tell you what he thinks about my new book.
"The Counterfeit Father was an extremely good read that was fun and fast-paced."And in case you missed it, he also said:
"I cannot wait for book two, because this book made me laugh out loud! I would recommend this book for all ages; everyone will love it."
I don't know about
everyone. *blush*
But I do know this, Nictaf, you'll be able to read book two, A GANG OF SLEUTHS, before you turn twelve. That's a promise.
"From the outside, 13 year old Tony looks like he has quite the life:
A whole estate to himself.
A fangirl he flirts with online.
A pet monkey. (His third!)
Until you notice the wheelchair. Or that he only speaks with his mother by intercom. Or that he doesn't seem to know who his real father is.
And now, to save his home from a mysterious trust, Tony will have to ride in a broken-down motorcycle with someone who may not be who he seems, and solve the biggest mystery of all—Who he really is."
What do you think?
I haven't been blogging, and it's been five years since my last book. Good to know I haven't been just wasting my time mowing, right?
I'm calling this series, The Tony Pandy Mysteries. After the main character.
Book 1 comes out October 6th, and I'm currently running a giveaway on Goodreads. This is for two signed copies, and I would be thrilled if a reader of this blog was a winner.
The print edition is available for pre-order on Amazon right now. Ebook will be available in September.
Now, back to writing book 2. I'm not going to let another five years go by.
My daughter, Sparkly, is heading off to college.
Not to the school that, at 36k a year, promised her an iPad. Or to the 50k school who promised a cruise.
No.
To the one offering the best education.
Imagine that.
Introducing my sidekick, Mailchimp: The monkey who collects emails instead of bananas. No indie author should be without a way for fans to keep up with their favorite authors' new books.
At least, not this one.
Sign up here to be among the very first to hear about my new books.
Opps. Did I let it slip I've got a new book coming out?
Bad, PV.
At least I didn't reveal it's a mystery with action adventure. The first in a series.
There, I did it again.
Next thing you'll know there'll be a cover reveal and sample book description. Just watch.
And finally I'm brave enough to show you a picture of my kids.
I got myself in a real pickle. Let me explain.
Dean Wesley Smith was blogging his progress writing a 70k novel in ten days. No rewrites, no agonizing, just type and done. Inspiring.
Then a writer I'm following,
Ryan Casey, did the same thing. Making great progress, all the while finishing up his degree program.
Keep in mind, I'm a children's book writer. Immaturity is my hobby. So I..
sorta...
challenged Ryan to a race. And he
accepted.
Yeah, yeah. I know. It's not the speed but the outcome, we're all writing for posterity and shooting for Hemingway. I get that.
Both of us will be having our projects edited. Both shooting for a May pub date. Currently my middle grade mystery sits at 23, 113 words with a target of 25k. Ryan's at 16k.
Clearly, I'm cheating.
No, no I am not. I haven't so much as reread anything I've written—so it might be all run-on sentences and dangling participles. A ton of research still to do.
There will be ANGST. There always is.
This wasn't my original plan. I mean, really—I've a more than full-time job, children, a lawn to mow, why the heck would I think I could write a whole new novel this fast? My plan was to be finished by August and pubbed in October. Nice, leisurely pace. My last book took me a year in revision alone.
Yet, people I respect seem to think fast is the new awesome fluff in the peanut butter bestseller. We'll see.
Blame it on the peer pressure. If a writer jumps off the cliff, I'll be there bungee jumping right behind him.
Today, Amazon notified me that they're kicking me out of their lending library (ok, giving me five days—OR ELSE) because of a breach of agreement. That is, their exclusivity clause. They provided a link as proof. And they're right: there is my book, Not Just For Breakfast Anymore, on sale at Google Play.
Without my permission.
If you've ever used Google Editions, you already know what I know. It is hard to use, finding vital information is like a scavenger hunt in mud, at midnight, while blindfolded, and there's no way to contact them.
If a matter isn't about obscenity or copyright, Google doesn't want to know you. In fact (they admit) even then they may or may not respond anyway.
I removed my book from Google Editions over a year ago. But I logged in today, and there it was. A duplicate of my book, which I didn't upload, for sale. I quickly deleted it but...you know what? I have no idea if that's enough.
I don't blame Amazon for enforcing their contract. Duh, I agreed to it. But as an independent author, these whack-a-mole problems with e-distributors can be so frustrating. Little ole me against the faceless corporate machine of nested menus, techno-speech, and monumental indifference.
My advice to you Indies: avoid Google books. Exactly zero people I know has ever sold a book there, and you don't need the technical problems. Believe me.
The cover illustrator of my book is Rob Peters. He's having a Kickstarter campaign for his own book of cartoons. Full of mystery and adventure, and plenty of fun.
If you look closely at his pitch video, one of the examples of his work is Not Just For Breakfast Anymore. I also enjoyed seeing how he does his magic. As a guy who failed stick figures in school, I admire the skill necessary to draw lines on a page and convey character.
Rob does great work. Check him out and get your own autographed hard cover book today.
Today Not Just For Breakfast Anymore is
free on kindle. As a bonus, if you like the book and add a review on Amazon, I will send you a signed print copy (drop me an email or comment).
I'm calling this my 'getting to ten reviews' on Amazon promotion. I have six already, and many major review sites won't consider you until you reach double digits.
That's it! Okay, maybe not. Here comes the little lawyer.
Ah hem. While supplies last, not responsible for promoting Amazon world domination, will not refund your free purchase price more than six times, pig not included.
What started as a summer special has extended into fall, now winter. My book at 99c.
The result?At first, not much. A few more sales but not enough to offset the price. In other words, selling more but making less.Yet this experiment was never about money. I was sacrificing profit for sales ranking. Hoping to reach more readers.
Then, in December, the book started to sell like crazy. Five times the sales of previous months. At a guess, the introduction of Kindle Fire was spurring a lot more reading. More of my books, anyway.
Amazon has since launched a free library to Prime subscribers. A Netflix for books. A set sum is divvied up by ones percentage of total borrowed books and voila, payment.Costs nothing for the customer, and I get paid? Sweet!
What did Amazon ask in return? Exclusivity. I'd have to withdraw my book from distribution from a half dozen other e-retailers.
Oh.
What to do?
Lets see, what do the facts say? In the time it's taken to write this post, I've sold more books on Amazon than all the other distributers combined. All year.
Yeah, I'll give it a try Amazon.
Sure, there is no guarantee that ANYONE will borrow my book. Could be Prime people only read name authors. That's the chance I take. But being an indie author is all about taking risks. Putting oneself out there.So if you, or someone you know, has a desire to purchase Not Just For Breakfast Anymore on anything other than a Kindle, do it fast. By the beginning of the year it'll be an Amazon exclusive.
Established authors have been quick to dismiss the trend, but let me tell you about this poor man's marketing plan. Instead of advertising dollars chasing potential profits, 99c IS the advertisement.
Free advertisement.
Take, for instance, a 2k advertising buy. You sell 1k books at a profit margin of $2. Oh look. You break even.
Or you sell 500. Lose money. Or get NOTHING.
Instead you drop the price to .99c. Sell 1k books, and instead of $2,000 you get $400. Did that really cost you $1600 or, like me, would you have not sold near that many anyway? Not Just for Breakfast Anymore was priced at .99c for the summer. The result? A modest, but definite increase in sales, and now NJFBA is in the top fifty in its categories, if not top twenty.
Price is a superior marketing tool versus ad buys (when time is an abundant resource, which is the only thing indies reliably have). You only pay for marketing that results in sales.
Now you've all heard the blog blather about the 99c price line demeaning the value of the work (like anything has inherent worth) and 'creates a race to the bottom' (again, no. Books, like water, seek their own level) Competition doesn't reduce wages to zero—try finding a free gardener.
And indies can always raise the price once there's demand. Being able to control these aspects is what gives independent publishing its appeal.
As far as I'm concerned, dissing the 99c millionaires is a millionaires game. Easy to say from on top of a pile of money.
Today, Not Just for Breakfast Anymore launches as a serialized audio book. Narrated by me.
Becoming your own recording studio is no easier than becoming your own publisher, let me tell you. It involves learning a whole new craft — I've developed a big respect for voice over talent. Those guys earn their keep.
What I Did
I got a microphone, sealed off part of the house, and started to record in Garage Band (free with Macs). Think you know your book? Try reading it out loud. What's obvious in print is no longer there in audio.
I used royalty-free sound effects and stock music clips. Again, trying to lower costs to just time spent.
I flubbed words all over the place. Re-recording led to levels being off. Thank god for the app Levelator!
Where I Did
Podiobooks. The learning curve, for a novice like me, felt like a putting a puzzle together. In the dark. Missing pieces.
Don't get me wrong, Podiobooks is used to newbies like me and emailed detailed instructions. Pages. But they don't hand hold. Be prepared to cobble together your own process. Again, this is like learning a whole new craft. It can be done with minimal cost and programs that are free to you. You just have to really want to do it.
Why I Did
Audio books have been the launchpad for many an indie. If nothing else, it is another avenue for prospective readers to find my work. Besides, it was fun.
In addition to my book, check out the others at Podiobooks. Books are free, though donations are appreciated. The quality is fantastic and there's something there for anyone's taste.
For a short time, I've lowered the ebook price of
Not Just For Breakfast Anymore to $.99. Calling it July madness. Or potty training weekend. Whatevs.
Pay a buck to Amazon, and they give you a penny back.
How can you beat that?
Happy Summer.
I liked this story a lot. It was funny and had fun things going on.
12 year old Logan. Read the rest
here.I really enjoy kid-reader reviews the best. So genuine. So the reason I wrote the book in the first place.
Thanks to Heck of a Bunch blog for the review, and check out their other posts — well worth a look.
Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. ~Steuart Henderson Britt
So you've written a book. What now? Tell people about it! That, my friends, is advertising. Specifically, today, I'm talking about PAID advertising.
Catalog ListingMy book, NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE, was printed by Lightning Source and I advertised in the Ingram catalog (The one they send out to bookstores).
My sales were disappointing, but I was only offering a 35% discount (I've since learned that 40% to 50% is a minimum enticement for bookstores). Next time I will price my print book to accommodate this discount. We'll see.
GoodreadsGR recommends linking back in their ads to their site to create a buzz (discussion + internal links (TBR)). This does not necessarily result in
sales. So I also tried linking directly to Amazon.
My findings? Good return on investment, but surprisingly more on the print side. Ebooks are usually an easier lift for an indie than traditional books. Mine sell that way, ten to one. But that could be because of the demo of GR's more than anything else. Next time I will devote more resources for GR's ads. Didn't try Facebook ads, but will next time.
Kindle NationA must try. Best ROI. Also, the most expensive. Their audience of dedicated ebook buyers is exposure you need. Together with their family of affiliate sites, there is a place for your book somewhere. I had my best luck with their daily kindle sponsorship, some with their ipad ad, and to a lesser extent with their weekly newsletter (though that could be advertising fatigue, it ran last).
Google AdsI took their free money (trial) and ran a campaign alternating print book ads and ebook. Nada. Zippo. I just don't think that Google ads—as currently set up—are well suited to selling books; the profit is so slim that their low-priced ads generally get pushed too far back to be seen regularly.
Other AdsNo luck with static book ads on well-traveled book review sites. This might just be me, but I've yet to hear different from anyone else.
Kindle in the Wind styles itself like Kindle Nation, but at a much cheaper price. My experience is that it updates irregularly (and only listed my book for twelve hours instead of twenty-four). When my original ad failed to run at the appointed time, their customer service was underwhelming.
What I've LearnedMy takeaway from this first campaign is to focus on advertising to ebook buyers. That's the driver of indie success. Hello Amanda Hocking! McQuestion anyone? My next book will be more geared to that demo. And now that I know of proven performers in advertising, I'll be able to make better use of my marketing dollars.
How about you? Any lessons learned you'd like to share?
My fourteen year old daughter went to a concert. With a boy.
And I drove.
Daddy panic. Yeah, I had it.
To start with, the band is called My Chemical Romance. Perhaps you've sung along to such titles as "Thank you for The Venom", "Kill All Your Friends", and "Honey, this mirror isn't big enough for the two of us."
I'm not making any of these up.
Don't get me wrong, I was a scarer of parents from way back. My poison was Alice Cooper with his faked suicides and songs about blowing schools to pieces.
Let's just say that karma took it's sweet time, but she finally showed up.
But if I was worried about these two kids trysting in a mosh pit, the conversation between them during the ride calmed my nerves.
She: You're a butt.
He: No, you're a butt.
She: Are you calling me a butt?
They're both butts.
Before dropping them off, there is a moment for a dad to address the boy who will be escorting his daughter for the evening.
Mine was this: "Anything happens to my daughter, and there's no mark on you, I'll fix that. Got it?"
We bumped knuckles.
We cool.
Walking along the side of the road...
Gummybear (2 years old): Car!
Me: Yes, honey. A car.
Gummybear: Car!
Me: Yes, honey. A car.
Dusty (eleven): Car!
Me: Yes, honey. A car.
Dusty: No, really. It's going to hit you.
My ebook distribution for Not Just For Breakfast Anymore has mainly been through Smashwords. Upload the file once, they put it through what they call the 'meatgrinder' and off to edistributors it goes. Format is a bit wonky—that could just be
my ineptitude—and sales reporting is sporadic. What this distribution gains in simplicity, it loses in control.
And we indie authors sure love us some control. Huzzah!
So when Barnes and Noble started up a (similar to Amazon) DIY publishing option, called Pubit!, that was very indie friendly, you'd think I'd put on my top hat and brandish my publishing six gun. But I didn't. There was the bother, and I, frankly, like SW and it's founder Mark Coker. He has such a great attitude about this new age of publishing. Still, it bothered me that the formating was a bit off and there was no seeming way for me to fix it.
Then I read a couple of entries by indies indicating that going directly with B&N could triple sales—
that pushed me over the decision ledge.
That's three more sales, people. *grin*
Besides, I'd had much better success at other e-venues, it was a point of pride to do whatever I could to increase my visibility at B&N.
Pubit has a very friendly interface, accepts all manner of submission formats (which they then convert to epub for free), and you get to preview the file in a virtual Nook before submission. My book looked great. B&N also advises that one download the newly converted epub and view it in Adobe Digital Editions, the gold standard of epub viewing. Looked great. Even on my Nook App for Iphone. Win all around.
My victory lap was to view my book on an in-store Nook. If you haven't held one in your hand, it is a gorgeous ereader. Hell, I was thinking about putting my book on EVERY Nook in the store. Can't be shy about selling when the marketing department is only you. So there I was, surrounded by customers, clerks, stacks of the best books in the world, and I loaded my novel on the display Nook.
Face fell. The format was....screwy.
Gah! it was like everyone was looking at me and my embarrassing mistake! I fled from the store. Top hat deflated.
I couldn't figure it out. I followed the directions—perhaps my freeware conversion was the problem? I went back to the Pubit site and noticed that under 'conversion instructions' for submitting a Word doc, they stipulated the use of only three fonts. I had used internet friendly fonts, but not the recommended ones.
Back to the file, changeroonie, upload. Check in Adobe Digital Editions—fine. Go back to B&N store...Gah! screwy!
Then I adjusted the text for size and realized that there were a bunch of font choices on the Nook, including setting to publisher's default. That fixed everything. Perhaps there never was a problem—I may never know—but it goes to show you how much work is involved in being an indie author.
Gummy bear hopes it's very sweet.
Cats are so stupid. Climbing up things that they can't climb down from.
So, last night, the smoke detector started beeping. Battery, more than likely. The problem was that this detector is on the ceiling, with only a small ledge to reach it from.
It's ten pm; I don't want to disturb anyone — I'm limber. I built a platform of chairs and step stool, and climbed right up and changed the battery.
Looked down.
Boy, did I ever want to meow.
Now that baby lives in the woods, he misses the sounds of the city. So we got him a sound machine.
It goes: Do Dee Dum, Do Dee Dum.
After he got a cough, we got him a vaporizer.
It goes: Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
He misses the lighting from the streetlights, so we got him a night light. Hey, why not two?
So when baby couldn't sleep the other night, I entered his room.
Do Dee Dum! Whoosh, whoosh! Do Dee Dum! I read baby Goodnight Moon by night light.
I don't know why baby can't sleep.
Maybe he misses the night life? Next week I'm installing a disco ball.
"From the quirky cover art (did you see the little guy flying through the air by the title?) to the final scenes, it'll keep you turning pages"
Gina at IR made this her first book review commemorating National No Name-Calling Week. I can see why: A bully figures prominently in Not Just For Breakfast Anymore.
Insatiable Readers does a wide variety of book reviews. You really should check them out.
Yeah, I go big on blogger awards, or I go home.
I've received this award a couple of times and, honesty time, didn't quite get it. What the award was for, why it was given. Over think. Over think. Finally, the synapses connected: It's a compliment, PV, just go with it.
So I've decided to give out my own, to readers of this blog whom I believe are versatile (do more than one thing) and are a bit undiscovered and deserve a little shine.
In no particular order:
M.J.A. Ware. He's an aspiring middle grade author like me. So already he has my empathy. Blogs about writing (his and others). Check him out.
Tracy Sharp. An established writer, she blogs about everything: music, writing, family. Her post about
searching for truth really got to me. Her books are on my TBR pile.
Anne R. Allen. When she posts about writing, pay attention. She's spot on—all the time. I haven't read anything by her, yet, but I know it will be good.
Donna Perugini. Just look at her illustrations. Cutest. Ever. Blogs from a Christian perspective and is great about interacting with her readership.
I am a Reader Not a Writer. That says it all. Kathy does book reviews, conducts giveaways (she's the one who wrangled me into that blog hop a while ago.) Her enthusiasm for books is infectious.
Melissa Getting Published. That's her aim, but her blog is so much more. Though she's the last on this list, she was the first person I thought of for the award. She posts about 'cool words that they make you type when you want to leave a comment', the mechanics of writing, Komodo dragons, her followers, everything. Versatile.
So these are my six. Why six? Because that's the number.
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