Sunday, January 26, 2014
Update on Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Oh no, Henri's blogging!
So anyway, I want to stay on his good side so I'd like to introduce you to Henri's blog. Oh, Henri is one of the characters in Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost but not only that, he's a real ghost. Don't think so? Don't tell him that or you'll find him sitting beside you one night eating popcorn and raiding your fridge for Coors Lites.
Here's his blog:
http://henritheghostestwiththemostest.blogspot.com/
There, Henri, are you satisfied now?
Back to updates with the book. I know everyone is wondering when it's coming out. Or at least curious as to why there's a blog tour with no book. I set up the blog tour when I thought it would be released only that's not the way it works in the literary world. Don't count on anything happening on time even when you're self-published. So Cheryl, my editor, is waiting for the final 3 chapters to come over to her. The thing is, as I was revising, I came up with a better and cooler ending so....between my other work and this, it is taking longer than I planned.
I want to thank all of our blog hosts who have graciously moved their "stops" up a month so that we can have the book up at Amazon first.
I also want to thank all of you for your patience. I am looking at the middle of November for it to be released but I'll be shouting it from the rooftops when it happens.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Blog Tour Day 1 - Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost Visits Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts & Reviews
Woohoo! The blog tour starts today!
Today we're stopping off at Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts and Reviews where Laurie asks Dorothy about some very interesting things about her book. Be sure to stop by and enter the huge giveaway which includes a Kindle Fire HD!
Today we're stopping off at Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts and Reviews where Laurie asks Dorothy about some very interesting things about her book. Be sure to stop by and enter the huge giveaway which includes a Kindle Fire HD!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
{Video} The Million Dollar Challenge to Find Spirits
Can you win the million dollars? The girls in our book triumphs! Or do they? Watch this video about the million dollar challenge:
Can you channel spirits to win the million dollars?
Can you channel spirits to win the million dollars?
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
They like us, they really like us!
I'm really really happy with the way things are going so far. My intention was to pre-buzz this tour with a cover reveal since we're not at Amazon yet. I think it would be better of course to be at Amazon but we can't change things so this is what I'm doing. I'm keeping track of website hits. So far we've increased hits to this blog at least 750%. If I have my math right. Never was good in math. But that's what it's looking like so far. Because I was in the ER not able to promote a thing, I can't imagine what kind of hits I'd be getting if I could have sent out my own promotions.
On the other hand, the bloggers who have hosted us have been over the top fantastic. The comments on these blogs will blow you away. They love the concept, the cover and are saying they want to buy the book. Even if we don't sell a single copy, that is enough to make my day right there.
Let me give you an example. Here's what was on My Book Addiction and More yesterday:
What an interesting concept! I'd love to read the book.
What beautiful cover art and a very intriguing synopsis. Looking forward to the read, thanks for sharing. Definitely going to enter the giveaway for this treat ;)
I do believe in ghosts - there is just so much more out there than my puny mind can fathom - so why not ghosties :)
Is that the coolest thing or what? I'm still out there promoting but those readers are like gold. ;o)
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost Cover Reveal Begins Monday!
I am so excited. The Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost Cover Reveal begins this Monday! This cover reveal precedes the humungous blog tour coming up starting in October. We don't have a release date yet, but this is mainly to start spreading the word the book is coming. I want to thank over 60 bloggers for hosting us! Drumroll please...here they are!
Monday, September 2 – Mom with a Kindle
Monday, September 2 – Laurie’s Paranormal Thoughts & Reviews
Monday, September 2 – Close Encounters with the Night Kind
Monday, September 2 – Blooming with Books
Monday, September 2 – Melissa’s Eclectic Bookshelf
Monday, September 2 – My Book Addiction and More
Tuesday, September 3 – Books R Us
Tuesday, September 3 – Freda’s Voice
Tuesday, September 3 – Margay Leah Justice
Tuesday, September 3 – Books and Needlepoint
Wednesday, September 4 – In Shadows
Wednesday, September 4 – Jersey Girl Book Reviews
Wednesday, September 4 – Jody’s Book Reviews
Wednesday, September 4 – Midnight Thrillers
Thursday, September 5 – Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews
Thursday, September 5 – Read 2 Review
Thursday, September 5 – Gina’s Library
Thursday, September 5 – Books Books the Magical Fruit
Friday, September 6 – Inside BJ’s Head
Friday, September 6 – Bibliophilia Please
Friday, September 6 – Shhh…Not While I’m Reading
Monday, September 9 – The Book Connection
Monday, September 9 – Rainy Days and PJ’s
Monday, September 9 – Queen of All She Reads
Monday, September 9 – Deal Sharing Aunt
Tuesday, September 10 – The Top Shelf
Tuesday, September 10 – Moonlight Reader
Tuesday, September 10 – Alana Munro
Wednesday, September 11 – The Writer’s Life
Wednesday, September 11 – The Dark Phantom
Wednesday, September 11 – Authors & Readers Book Corner
Wednesday, September 11 – You Gotta Read Reviews
Wednesday, September 11 – The Dark Phantom
Thursday, September 12 – Paranormal Book Club
Thursday, September 12 – Literal Exposure
Thursday, September 12 – Community Bookstop
Friday, September 13 – The Busy Mom’s Daily
Friday, September 13 – Miki’s Hope
Friday, September 13 – Snarky Mom Reads
Saturday, September 14 – Melissa’s Midnight Musings
Monday, September 16 – Culture Shock
Monday, September 16 – Literary Winner
Tuesday, September 17 – Reading Lark After Dark
Tuesday, September 17 – My Reading Table
Wednesday, September 18 – Bibliophilic Book Blog
Wednesday, September 18 – Mary’s Cup of Tea
Thursday, September 19 – Peeking Between the Pages
Thursday, September 19 – So Little Time…So Much to Read
Thursday, September 19 – Book Reviews by Dee
Friday, September 20 – Thoughts in Progress
Friday, September 20 – Review From Here
Friday, September 20 – Literarily Speaking
Monday, September 23 – The Road to Here
Monday, September 23 – The Phantom Paragrapher
Monday, September 23 – I’m Shelf-ish
Tuesday, September 24 – Bless Their Hearts Mom
Tuesday, September 24 – Cheryl’s Book Nook
Tuesday, September 24 – Beyond the Books
Wednesday, September 25 – Socrates Reviews
Wednesday, September 25 – Bibliotica
Thursday, September 26 – Melina’s Book Blog
Thursday, September 26 – My Cozy Corner
Friday, September 27 – Celtic Lady’s Reviews
Friday, September 27 – Cindy’s Love of Books
Friday, September 27 – As the Pages Turn
Friday, August 2, 2013
Putting the cart before the ghost...
I wanted to post an update on where we are with this. Everything is almost a go except the hardest part - editing and getting it up on Amazon. I found a really neat website that puts up books for you on their website apparently free too - but I want to wait until you
I'm just so excited about this. As I'm going over edits, I'm reliving the book and omg I forgot how much fun that was to write. I have more of a grasp of the characters this go around. Where there were three of us writing this, some of the characters were taken over by the other two authors and I never really truly connected to them like I have done this go around.
Then there's Ezra. I really like Ezra. Heide wrote her character but Ezra is someone I'd want to hang out with. And she has a resident ghost - Henri - who is a class act. He's lovable and quite a ladies man but he's fun and unpredictable.
Ezra's friend, Brianna, who goes on this ghost hunt with them, doesn't believe in ghosts. Gotta have a skeptic somewhere, right? Brianna is full of herself - beautiful and she knows it - but her husband has died and she's searching for answers and takes them up on an offer to go ghost hunting just for something to do.
Then there's Brooke. Heide wrote her character after the original author jumped ship on us and we had to rewrite her part and were very careful we didn't use any of this author's words so she didn't come back and sue us, lol. Tricky.
Oh there's Peggy. She's a Sunday School teacher and I believe Heide wrote her part, too.
Then there's Jerilynn, the grounded one and the one most psychic. Pam wrote this character.
And Fenella makes the sixth woman to embark on this ghost hunt. Fenella wasn't part of the original Spirit Seekers group. She ended up catching a ride with them saying she had a golden ticket too. But she is definitely a strange one.
Of course, there's Rodger Hawthorne III which is a looney tune because his wife died twenty years ago and he can't get over it. Hence, the million dollar payoff will be coming from him if the girls succeed. Once the girls arrive at the mansion, he's gone an awful lot which makes him very weird.
There's more but they're the main ones. There's going to be sequels and the girls and I are tossing around ideas but nothing is sticking yet. But I have really fallen in love with these characters even though I'm a bit biased. Especially Henri. The ghostest with the mostest. He's a mess.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
You know you're a ghost hunter when...
I saw this on a Facebook page a few minutes ago and just had to share. Is that cute or what? And so appropriate for this blog since the main characters are - GHOST HUNTERS. The book's concept is a group of ordinary women embark on a ghost hunt for a million dollars but what many people might not realize is that the very idea behind this book came from a group of women who met online to discuss the paranormal of which all of us - myself, Pam and Heide - actually did. We can't really call ourselves ghost hunters but we find the paranormal so interesting - just what if there was proof that ghosts did indeed exist?
Just think - what if you could bring back family members even for just a fleeting moment? What if you could ask them things you never got a chance to while they were still alive? What if they were your key to finding out things you could never find out because they were the only ones who knew?
Some people might think this is morbid but I think they've been watching too many movies. It's like aliens. Most of us believe in aliens, right? Of course the thought of actual seeing one gives you the heebie jeebies just thinking about it, but what if we could get over that fear and learn to make friends with them? My goodness what we could learn from them, eh?
Same with ghosties.
Anyway, in the book (which I'll give you the update of the book in just a minute), this group of women not only are doing something they enjoy (ghost busting) but they are to be rewarded as well. That's if they can prove without a doubt that ghosts exist. Are they able to do it? You'll have to read the book to find out. I'm such a tease, aren't I?
Back to the book's progress, it's still in the editing stage but we need to move faster. The cover reveal will start the first week of September and it feels like it's right around the corner. We have about 60 bloggers lined up for that.
The tour itself starts on October 1 and we'll be having lots of prizes and giveaways along the way. So far, we've got over 50 bloggers lined up and by the time it's finished, we'll probably have well over 100. If you're interested in being a host, all you have to do is have an updated blog, love books and be willing to review our book, interview either one of us, have us write a guest post for you or spotlight us and you're in! Email Dorothy at thewriterslife(at)gmail.com if you would like to participate - it's going to be fun!
Of course, there's the Facebook party with Release Day Diva on October 31 and maybe a radio show or two so we've got lots of fun plans ahead, but we better get busy and get this book out there!
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Pre-marketing Romancing the Million $$$ Ghost: Setting up the cover reveal
First of all, it's Father's Day today so Happy Father's Day to all you guys out there that fathered babies and stepped up to the plate to raise them!
The book's publishing plan and marketing campaign is moving along swiftly I'm so happy to report. I've already thought ahead to how I want to market this and of course the first thing that popped into my head was doing a virtual book tour and not only that but making it one of the longest virtual book tours in history. Sure it's going to be a lot of work but I think I can do it.
Why so long? Here's my theory and it's really easy to figure out. In our case, it'll be ebook at first and of course we're going to be solely promoting online. The best strategy to use when your book is solely online is to promote online, right? When your book first comes out, actually way before your book comes out, you need to come up with a game plan. Most authors who have never embarked on a virtual book tour are still out there finding bloggers willing to interview them or review their book, etc. With a virtual book tour, it's all organized. You take out a sheet of paper, a document, a notebook, whatever you want, and note which months you want your book promoted. At this point, we're doing a month long cover reveal in September and beginning the blog tour the first week of October and running it until the end of March unless we decide to go further. That's the perks of being a book promoter, a self-publisher (woot!) and access to over 500 bloggers.
On that same piece of paper, I put the name of the event at the top and the month. I have separate pieces of paper for each month. Then a line gets drawn down the left side and across the page for as many dates there are in the month. Then, I start filling in. I used to do this on a doc but I found it too cumbersome to keep having to pull the doc up so I bought some hard paper at Walmart (what they use for photos) and I'm set. It's only about $5 a bundle and lasts forever (I use them for my clients as well). I opt for hard paper because they are easier to handle.
So I have a game plan going for the cover reveal and the blog tour right in front of me. When I find a new host (blogger), I add them in the slot we have both agreed on.
What I am finding great is a new program (or at least new for me) called SignUpGenius. You can find out all about it at www.signupgenius.com. I have already set up a call for bloggers for the cover reveal at http://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040845ADA72EA20-romancing. If you'd like to sign up, go right ahead we'd love to have you! Not all bloggers are listed there as I started early finding stops for this which was before I found SignUpGenius. You can see who I have lined up so far at http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2013/06/15/cover-reveal-pump-up-your-book-presents-romancing-the-million-ghost-cover-reveal-win-ghostie-swag/.
So I have that all in place and I just wait for bloggers to email me (having a huge email list is priceless).
The next thing I did was make a countdown widget at http://www.widgetbox.com. I can't remember how much this costs but we opted for the premium plan.
Why I want this is so that I can enlist bloggers to post this in their sidebar. It looks like this:
Cool, eh?
Here's the code if you'd like to post it in your sidebar to help us spread the word about the cover reveal coming up:
<script
type="text/javascript"
src="http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js"></script><script
type="text/javascript">if (WIDGETBOX)
WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('c12f9645-816f-489d-9b93-ff24e831d120');</script>
<noscript>Get
the <a
href="http://www.widgetbox.com/i/c12f9645-816f-489d-9b93-ff24e831d120">Countdown
Creator Pro</a> widget and many other <a
href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at
<a href="http://www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox</a>! Not
seeing a widget? (<a href="http://support.widgetbox.com/">More
info</a>)</noscript>
Bloggers have already starting adding it to their blogs (THANK YOU). When I get an email from SignUpGenius that a new blogger has requested to join the cover reveal campaign, I email them back thanking them profusely and giving them the option to post this in their sidebar.
The next step is to get the word out about the cover reveal. No one really knows what it'll take to bring awareness of your book and then have it sell, but the secret is to get your book noticed on as many blogs and websites as you can and don't forget the social networks.
I'll be talking about setting up the blog tour in a future post, but this gives you an idea of how we're going to promote this book and we'll see if it makes a difference in the long run.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
Know your characters: a control freak's opinion on editors
Being a control freak has its advantages and disadvantages but sometimes the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. You can't put on blinders. Sure after countless re-readings and proofings and all that, you are sure this is the best it can be, then...a full page of edits on each page comes into your email box.
Ack.
But I'm going over each line and I can see where the book is tightening up. And I didn't realize how often I use exclamation points that were totally unnecessary.
But the one thing that I learned today is to really know your characters before you publish your book. So today, my editor (her name is Cheryl Malandrinos look her up she is terrific) told me that I should add some kind of description to a flamboyant makeup artist named Renaldo that's in the first chapter.
Rodger Hawthorne, one of the main characters in the book, is in his dressing room at the Unusual Propositions show in New York. In walks his makeup artist and Cheryl made me realize that just "saying" he was flamboyant might not be enough. When you picture someone "flamboyant," you automatically picture this gay dude with loads of makeup and hands flying as he is talking, right? So now I've got to go in and add a description and wouldn't it have been helpful if I already knew what he looked like? Holy Mary of Jesus, that's a big no no not to know your characters - all of them even the minor ones.
So...I thought I'd do a search in Google to see if an image would pop up that would give me an idea on how to put this. Okay, here's a good one:
THAT'S IT! Prince!!! So he's a young black dude with loads of makeup and I Dream of Jeannie clothes, mainly purple.
Okay back to the drawing board, or writing board, and create a description for Renaldo.
But you see how this could have saved time if you already knew what your characters looked like?
Friday, June 7, 2013
Do we need an ISBN at Kindle Direct Publishing?
So, I asked and here were two responses which really helped:
"ISBN ownership classically was a way of tracking who the publisher of a
work was. That's no longer the case, and has never had any legal
standing.
Your publishing company gets listed regardless whether you have an ISBN
or not, for ebooks at all major retailers. Just enter your company name
under "publisher" when filling out the book form.
For *Createspace* books, if you opt to use their free ISBN, Createspace
gets listed as published. But that's print, and it's different; in
general, I consider paying the $10 for a Createspace-assigned ISBN
(which associates my publishing company with our books) to be the
minimum solution. I don't recommend free ISBNs for print.
"Dorothy, electronic-only (eBook) Amazon Kindle does not use ISBNs. If
you already have one they accept it when you upload the book to their
site. Whatever name you enter into the "Publisher" field...is the
publisher. This does not change.
For print books, Kevin covered the ISBN question in his "Createspace" post."
I'm
wondering if when you have an ebook, and then you go to paperback, that's when the ISBN thing applies?
Update on Book Cover from Hell
So he finally gets in touch with me. He said he had computer problems. Okay, I understand that; we all have been there at some point or another. Here's the new cover:
Let's see if you can guess what's wrong?
Jiminy crickets. He is such a talent but I think life is throwing him curve balls.
Let's see if you can guess what's wrong?
Jiminy crickets. He is such a talent but I think life is throwing him curve balls.
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