ROBUST discussion
This topic is about
Swallow The Moon
Members' Books
>
'Swallow the Moon' FREE Amazon AU & US
I made a pretty banner ad for it.Going to replace the other ad for a month. Then run both.
TADA!!!!here is the Barnes & Noble link:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Swal...
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...
This happened even faster that I thought it would. I got the ISBN from Smashwords - and it's on sale on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Swallow-Moon-Da...
Now I need to get it over to Goodreads.
No cover. (sigh) It's such a cool cover.I'll give it a few more days to see if the cover comes over.
BTW - prepare to get spammed with the announcement/launch for the book. I'm still getting all the links out to different sites. I'll know when I've got them all because I'll get my first sale.
Good news!Just heard back from The Romance Review Blog - they are going to offer the book to the reviewers.
I'm SO stoked!
Of course, this could take months for anything to actually get posted - and they could hate the story and...
Mod
Hmm - do you think they'd give me 4 stars or 5 stars on Amazon? LOL It would be worse if they gave it to a Catholic nun...just saying.
Mod
LOL - there's not enough sex in it to interest a Catholic school girl.
Kat wrote: "Got a great review from Daniel - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12..."
Congrats, Kat. It is a splendid review. I sure wish I had time to read adult books more often. I did read Let's Do Lunch. But I am going to have to read it again to do a review; it's been weeks since I finished it. :)
What matters is that you liked it - LOL.
Kat wrote: "What matters is that you liked it - LOL."Oh, that I did. It was perfect for a Saturday afternoon.
I like books that I can read in an afternoon.
Kat wrote: "I like books that I can read in an afternoon."Me too. The pace was perfect; but I have to stop right there or I will be up all night caught up in the pursuit of writing the review. Take care.
Wouldn't want to do that to you.Most people don't like the pacing, say it is too slow. Glad it didn't bother you.
I'll read the review when you get it done.
Mod
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12..."
I thought it would have crossover appeal.
Mod
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12..."
I thought it would have crossover appeal."
"Crossover appeal" -- now we know why the romance ladies won't let Kat into their club. Envy is such an ugly emotion.
Yeah - 'look at her - she writes romances that men like...ewwwww!'
Mod
Congrats, Kat. Nice to have a review so soon!
Thanks everyone.Hehe - Claudine, I kept the book under wraps so I wouldn't be pressured to turn it into porn.
Mod
Oh yes - There is a lot of peer pressure. It is hard to decribe but it's there. More like a competition to add the most sexy scenes or the kinkiest scenes. Mostly there is a kind of snicker if there isn't at least a couple of torrid scenes. "You know that won't sell to such-n-such, they don't do 'sweet' romance anymore."
The first 2 were written for the romance market. This 3rd book isn't a romance. It's straight up fiction. I'm not trying to hit the tropes at all. I'm just writing it the way I want to. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying it so much.
I've received a lot of pressure to add torrid stuff to one of my books. It was explicitly designed as a sort of Georgette Heyer romantic adventure with magic. Nothing more than kissing. I know it's not for a lot of people, but as I've read plenty of books like that I know there's an audience out there (as obviously trads wouldn't be publishing books just for me).
Harlequin used to have a "Blush Meter" a year or so ago. I have no idea if they kept it or not, but it was there to rate the different sex scenes. The more blush they got, it was supposedly better to read. Don't let them make you all sink to their raunchy levels. A few years ago I suggested on their forums that love scenes in a book should have reason that's related to the plot, a part of the connection that develops between the two love interests and not be so much based on 'just because they're hot'. I was shredded from every angle for the mere suggestion, and that is how I found out that the big H wasn't the right publishing house for any of my own romance books.
Mod
Mod
Kat wrote: "I'm not trying to hit the tropes at all."
J.A. wrote: "I've received a lot of pressure to add torrid stuff to one of my books"
Mechanical formulae for creating books always create mechanical formulaic books. I just don't see the point. Almost anyone who can make a few bucks writing formulated crap can make a really good living at some other endeavor. So, if you're not writing because you're having fun, writing is a form of masochism. All these one- and two-book indies who wanted more to be "an author" than to write, are just discovering that. I have little sympathy for people too stupid to see that in advance.
Claudine - There is another Romance site that uses little red peppers to rate their books. (snicker) Other sites use kisses.If you want to write and be published through the trades, then you have to jump through the hoops.
Which is why I'm not jumping through hoops. Don't have to any more. (Yippee!)
Daniel & Claudine - I think this one has a MUCH better twist at the end.
Mod
The new one or this one? I quite liked your book but if you tell anyone I will deny it. Forever. :D
The 3rd book will have a much better twist at the end.Statistically - people read more romance novels than any other genre. So everyone has to read one once in awhile.
Was tweeted today by 'Indie Books List' and 'Only Romance' there is a sample up as well. http://t.co/wCzCD2PT
http://t.co/774ExCc4
J.A. Beard finished his review of 'Swallow the Moon' - you can find it here:http://goodbookalert.blogspot.com/201...
Mod
True in the sense that every novel is a Romance, meaning an imaginary tale of out of the ordinary events. Many, perhaps most, novels have a romantic thread running through them.
But, if you mean "romance", as in the flood of cheap shit from imitators of Mills & Boon, it is not true; most people read better literature.
I know that the ladies who write romantic crap fight hard to keep those who write novels out of their genre, and that makes sense from their viewpoint: who would be stupid enough to choose to be compared to, say, Kathleen Valentine?
It also makes sense from your viewpoint to grab any sales you can get by being identified as within their genre, same as it does for Kathleen.
However, it would be smart for you also to differentiate your novels somehow as better than the flood of crap in the genre, and even as different from the best that belongs strictly to the genre. I've just dipped into your stuff but it seems well-written, and there are plenty here who agree it is better-written then the strictly-genre-books.
That's something to treasure and build on and merchandize.
***
Something that doesn't appear to be generally understood by indies, who have been shouted at about finding their niche until they are punchdrunk, is that a genre and a niche, while offerering inferior and barely good enough writers a defined market of regular readers and a form of security, is also a ceiling. Books in the general market — a novel of suspense rather than a thriller, a Romance of high adventure rather than a romance of suburban sweat and semen — will attract almost all the relevant niche market, and all the literary market, and bits and pieces of everyone else's market. It adds up, and if your writing is good enough to stand up to this class of scrutiny, you should go for it.
K. A. wrote: "J.A. Beard finished his review of 'Swallow the Moon' - you can find it here:http://goodbookalert.blogspot.com/201..."
It's a great review, Kat!
Thanks - I had a long reply, that was deleted by accident.Suffice to say that I've the material to make 'Swallow the Moon' the first of a series. I'm using Scrivener to put the pieces together in one place. Also I'm planning a trip back to Ashtabula to reasearch some local legends for more material.
It's a big step from category romance single to a series of Paranormal Suspense(?) novels.
However, it would be smart for you also to differentiate your novels somehow as better than the flood of crap in the genre, and even as different from the best that belongs strictly to the genre. I've just dipped into your stuff but it seems well-written, and there are plenty here who agree it is better-written then the strictly-genre-books.
"Somehow" is the joker in the deck. There are so many indies, so many Mid-List pros, so much backlist out there - I'm not sure how to do it.
You'll get there, Kat... Especially after great reviews such as the last one.Andre wrote: ...Something that doesn't appear to be generally understood by indies, who have been shouted at about finding their niche until they are punchdrunk, is that a genre and a niche, while offerering inferior and barely good enough writers a defined market of regular readers and a form of security, is also a ceiling. Books in the general market — a novel of suspense rather than a thriller, a Romance of high adventure rather than a romance of suburban sweat and semen — will attract almost all the relevant niche market, and all the literary market, and bits and pieces of everyone else's market. It adds up, and if your writing is good enough to stand up to this class of scrutiny, you should go for it.
Very good advice...
General fiction instead of genre fiction?Okay, if that's what it takes I'll throw my hat in the ring.
I'm not afraid to put my work out there. It's not like I can't spell or put together a sentence.
PS - the freebie of Impressive Bravado has already jumped to 15k on B&N. Last time, 25k meant 85 sales.
Not instead of, Kat, as well as...Nice work on IB!
Yes, IB has surprised me, yet again. I'm interested in seeing how far it goes by the end of the year.I can only hope that it brings more sales to my other books.
Mod
The other mistake indies make is to look for a single killer "trick". There isn't one. There is only steady work piling up, many facets of the same thing.
You've already distinguished your book with a cover out of the ordinary. That's one facet of "somehow".
Well - after some thought I've started marketing the book to the Urban Fantasy readers. That will give me a wider market - a more 'male centric' market.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. Are you doing this in addition to PNR efforts? Just as a market segment thing, female fiction readers outnumber males, so you don't necessarily want to try and focus on men to the exclusion of females, but widening the net as much as possible.
Incidentally, I actually came very close to classifying it was UF when I wrote my review as the fulcrum the plot rests on isn't, arguably, as tightly focused on the attraction between the hero and heroine as one typically expect from a species of romance.That being said, genre, to a certain extent, is just a somewhat artificial heuristic device, so find every possible marketing angle and exploit it. :)
The relationships weren't enough of a focus for a true romance, (should be 70% of the plot) so I decided to widen the market.I couldn't see writing my MC as a 'quivering bunny' who can't wait to get the hero in the sack.
I like the character too much. I didn't want it to be a parody of a romance...The fact Jake used June's desire for a 'soul mate' against her was enough of a poke at PNR.
Started the next book in the series today. Gathered up all the bits and posted a bit on my blog.
http://jordanscroft.blogspot.com/2011...
Mod
This is the BIG NEWS,
Congratulations.
I have the proof for 'Swallow the Moon' - in my sweaty little hands.WOW!
June called down the moon to find her one true love. A motorcycle from hell dumped Eric on her doorstep.
An accountant for a failing company, June longs for true love. In a Wiccan summoning ceremony, she swallows the moon in an effort to find her soul mate. What she gets is Ohio National Guardsman Eric Macmillan, who owns a cursed Suzuki Hayabusa and two spirits: DEA agent Jake the Snake, and the malevolent stripper Cora Cobra.
Back from Afghanistan, divorced and un-employed, Eric is the third owner of a Suzuki Hayabusa. The other owners are dead, just not departed. He's looking for the artist who created 'Cora's' snake-inspired paint job. When Eric arrives at the scene of Jake's last sting, on a one-of-a-kind motorcycle, all hell breaks loose – someone tries to kill him.
Van Man Go is the world's greatest airbrush artist. He will repaint Eric's Hayabusa, for the usual price. Like Cora Cobra and Jake the Snake, Eric must put his soul up for collateral. Cora and Jake failed to pay their debts, now the devil wants his due.
Somebody's going to pay, and pay very soon. Who will it be?
Care to take a ride on the Hayabusa from Hell?
Paperback: https://www.createspace.com/3650118