Nom de Plume Publications, LLC

Location, Location, Location!

In our second blog post, we discussed the benefits of starting your story plan with the time frame that it takes place in. Now that you’ve settled on the when of your story, it’s time to move on to where it takes place.

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The location of your setting is going to impact what types of characters to include, the contributing details of everything from the clothing that they wear to the food that they eat, and the dialect that they speak as well as the mundane details such as the name of the town and which street the burned-out drycleaner’s abandoned storefront sits on.

Side Note: What is a contributing detail?

If your story takes place in London, as our sample in the introduction did, you’re more likely to find characters sipping tea in a parlor or drinking room temperature beer and eating blood pudding in a pub than you would if your story is set in 1960’s New York, for example. Conversely, if your story takes place in 1980’s Texas, a large reunion on the family ranch is going to seem more relatable if the characters are chowing down on barbeque than it would if they were passing around a sushi platter. These are the types of things I refer to as contributing details. They aren’t the meat-and-potatoes of the storyline, but they do offer a layer of relatability that readers rely on for context.

Moving on…

Is your setting a real place or an imaginary one?

(For the purposes of this post, an imaginary town set in an existing city, state, or country is considered a real location.)

Many writers assume that it is less work to create an imaginary world than it is to spend the time researching real locations. There are times where it makes better sense to create a storyverse from scratch, as it were – such as The Lord of the Rings or The Harry Potter books – but for authors who are not writing in a science fiction or fantasy realm, the benefits of using a real setting can out-weigh the convenience of not having to research a location.

When you use a real place as a basis of your setting, you are able to weave historic and location details as well as social and civic information into your writing to lend an air of authenticity and realism. For example, in your story about a modern-day person escaping from a kidnapping ring in the south, you could have them following the trail of the underground railroad using a sightseeing map they found skittering along the ground as they snuck out of a window that their captors forgot to lock.

On the other hand, when you create your own storyverse from scratch, you have to create the entire backstory of the location(s) in the book as well or the story could end up leaving the reader with questions that you didn’t anticipate.

How many locations can one book have?

When you choose a location for your book, it can be as broad or as narrow as you wish as long as the story doesn’t move beyond the borders.

What does that mean, exactly?

It means that when you, the author, set up a specific location in your story, the majority of your action should take place in the location you have spent the most time preparing your reader for.

In our example, we used the dank, dimly-lit alleys of a high-crime section of London. Now, that doesn’t mean that most (or all) of our action has to take place behind Bow Street Number 4, but it does mean that the author has to choose – and be prepared to work through – a specific setting plan.

While not the only possibilities, the standard options are as follows:

The most common setting profile is that the story takes place primarily in the city of London. There may be short reaches outside of the city – to the surrounding countryside or even to neighboring countries – but the story will begin and end in the city of London.
This is usually the easiest plan to work with as it only requires the in-depth description (and the related research) of one location.
The flash-back method allows the author to use the initial description of Viago skulking in the dark, crime-ridden part of London and then relocate the story to a different part of the country or even to another continent entirely.

This is a less common approach and requires not only in-depth research on the introductory location and the actual story location, but will also need a reasonable explanation for the relationship between those locations.

For example: if the prologue to the story fades out on our rough-around-the edges private dick waiting to pounce on potential evil-doers in the early morning hours in London. Then the first chapter opens with a description of Viago in a suit and tie, sitting at the second desk as a criminal prosecutor in a Scottish courtroom. Your readers will struggle to connect with the story unless you provide a viable tie-in.

The third and least common method involves having multiple primary locations for your story. This is also the most difficult and time-consuming option.

To expand on our example above, imagine our story opened with Viago in the London alley, but this time, in addition to his thin t-shirt and cheap running shoes, he is also wearing a knit mask pulled down over his face and has a pair of rusty handcuffs stuffed into the pocket of his fake leather jacket as he glares at the rain-soaked news article in his hand. He grits his teeth as he reads the headline that screams “London petty thief escapes Scottish justice for the third time!”.

Suddenly our down-on-his-luck private investigator looks suspiciously like a masked vigilante and it would make more sense to turn to chapter one and find him in an abutting country (Scotland) working as a prosecutor who, frustrated with trying to punish the criminal element that crosses the border at will, spends some nights taking justice into his own hands.

You can see how this story plan will work, but it will also require twice the preparation, research, and, yes, twice the actual words making their way to paper, to be successful. (If I didn’t explain this clearly, please comment and I’ll be sure to respond.)

Choosing the location (or fine-tuning your created location)

To be sure that your location fits your storyline, consider the following questions:

Did this location exist when your story took place? Or can you tweak the storyline to make the history fit?
Could my events actually happen there?

I don’t mean the actual story; after all, that’s why we call it fiction. Consider the hard attributes of the location that you chose (weather, access to natural resources, etc.) and try to picture the storyline unfolding. If you can’t, its unlikely that your readers can.

For example: If your story is about a couple that meets on a mountain hike and forms an unlikely romance as they weather a blizzard together after their guide is eaten by a mountain lion, Hawaii might not be a good choice. Conversely, if your story takes place on a cruise ship that has been commandeered by terrorists and taken out to sea, it probably needs to begin in an area that has a sea port instead of, say, Iowa.

Does the actual history or your created backstory support the attitudes and behaviors of the characters in it? If your story is placed in an area that is known for xenophobic or racist attitudes, having a colorblind society would be great, but isn’t going to be realistic.

(Side note: This, of course, is something that can be addressed through your storyline.)

Do the details that are important to your story work here? Do (did) the real people in that area dress, speak, act, or <insert verb here> the way your characters do? This is a good place to consider the issues like sushi in Texas or blood pudding in New York.

Now that you have your when and your where, in our next post we’ll puzzle through who is there. Keep on writing!

February 8, 2018 0

All in Good Time (The when of story planning)

Welcome to week two in our 2018 Writing a Novel Blog Series!

Identifying the when that your story takes place in as the first step in your book’s outline allows other aspects of the story to fall into line more easily. Not only does it guide you toward the clothing, behaviors, and speech patterns that will allow your characters to blend into the story seamlessly, it will also save you time by directing you to specific areas of research.

Remember our sample from last week? Consider the section in bold print.

“Viago skulked in the dank, dimly lit alley behind the Bow Street Runners headquarters of London’s Bow Street Number 4, as it was known through the seedy underbelly of the city. He’d been crouched in the same spot for what seemed like hours, waiting for the flood of thieves and pickpockets that he knew would be coming. The air around him was wet. The mist that would become the morning dew already thick in the air. It clung to his wavy, shoulder-length hair and dripped down the back of his neck to saturate the thin t-shirt inside his cheap fake-leather coat, making him wish he’d thought to grab the thick woolen scarf he’d received for Christmas.

He bounced on the balls of his feet, his toes barely cushioned against the stone roadway by the worn rubber soles of his shoes, trying to increase his body temperature as he waited for his mark. He was still alone – of that he was certain – unless one considered the occasional clop-clop of the horse’s hooves as the delivery men made their early rounds through the city streets or the even less-common backfire from a horseless carriage.”

Creativity is a fantastic tool, and one of the joys of writing fiction is that the author is not restrained by rigid boundaries. That said, creative license can’t be used to alter real life facts unless the author is clearly creating a unique universe. Specifically to this point, automobiles did not exist in London at the same time as the Bow Street Runners. This may seem nit-picky and unimportant, but the smallest detail can ruin a book for a reader.

In Viago’s story, the author had chosen the time frame as eighteen-hundreds England. However, by not settling on a specific time frame before the author began writing, they allowed themselves a bit too much freedom to imagine, and it resulted in the research not being narrowed down far enough. Had they narrowed it down further to a specific year, or even decade, a google search would have allowed an excellent starting point.

If your story is centered in a real-life event – two athletes from warring nations falling in love while competing in the 2012 Summer Olympics, for example – identifying your when presents no challenge and you can move on. Ditto for authors who are creating their own universe. But if your story is set in a real time and place, you’ll want to decide on a century and then make a second list to help narrow it down.

When:

Length of time?

This might seem silly, but it can make a huge difference. Does your story take place in a single day? Over a long weekend? Through the course of a year? Or over the lifetime of one or more of the characters?

What decade, century, year is it? (Hint: you only need one answer!)

From one year to the next, there have always been changes in the clothing styles, the type of work that people undertook, and the leisure activities that they engaged in, but for stories set in modern times, you will actually do the longevity of your book a favor by not leaning too heavily on social details. For example:

“Brian shifted in his Batman sleeping bag. The lumpy cotton stuffing was doing even less to protect his forty-year-old back from the racks in the concrete sidewalk than it was to keep the twenty-degree weather at bay. Still, he reasoned with himself, once the store opened and he held his newly-released iPhone 6 in his hand, the discomfort would all be worth it.”

You see how the addition of the iPhone’s series (6) immediately points out the lag between when the story was published (or written) and when you read the passage? With one little change – the deletion of the detail – the story becomes timeless. After all, it’s not like iPhones are going away any time soon!

“Brian shifted in his Batman sleeping bag. The lumpy cotton stuffing was doing even less to protect his forty-year-old back from the racks in the concrete sidewalk than it was to keep the twenty-degree weather at bay. Still, he reasoned with himself, once the store opened and he held his newly-released-and-long-awaited iPhone in his hand, the discomfort would all be worth it.”

Once you move past the pesky social lives of the time, there are also legal, political, religious, and economic variances to consider. Throughout history, these have usually been spread more widely apart on a timeline than the social changes.

Depending on the country, political changes can be anticipated at somewhere between two and ten-year intervals, whether that is a 4-year presidential upset in the United States or a modern-era English Parliament election every five years. The more significant economic changes usually begin within a year of political transition, whether that is a new democratic leader or a death in a monarchy or dictatorship.

Legal changes can be harder to anticipate, but a good rule of thumb is to anticipate them within a year of significant political changes and within six months to two years of a major criminal event or social tragedy (think a terrorist attack or a plane crashing due to over-tired pilots).

Religious changes are the most widely spaced events on a social timeline. I am not aware of any generally accepted algorithm for anticipating them, but they tend to slowly evolve over decades or longer.

All of that matters for one reason. Once you have narrowed your when down to your specific time frame, you can pinpoint the significant events that took place before, during, and after it and use that information to bolster your setting, your character’s backgrounds, and your sub-plots.

When you fill in your when list, don’t limit yourself to the events of the country, hamlet, or town that you are anticipating your story taking place in. Your main character may be a Texas mail-order bride from Russia, but its always possible that the reason she allowed herself to be sold was that her husband was killed in the terrorist bombing in Moscow’s Metro in 2010, right?

When you prepare your when, you can do it in any format that you like, but my preference is to start with a simple outline:

When:

Duration:

Year:

Political:

Legal:

Economical:

Religious events:

This list can also come in handy when you’re working on character backstories, you might want to hold onto it until we reach our who post! Up next week, it’s all about location, location, location when we decide where the story takes place!

How do you write a book?

“How do you write a book?”

An amazing number of the conversations that I’m involved in start with this question. And, based on the amount of money that is spent on writing books, computer programs, plot generators, and the like, many more people out there are struggling with it. Now, not to vilify those tools – for that’s all they are, tools, and they can be a lot of fun – most beginning writers will succeed faster by starting with the basics instead of wasting their hard-earned money on get published quick promises.

And so beginith Nom de Plume’s 2018 Writing a Novel Blog Series…

Every book begins with a story. On the most basic level, every story begins with the same five components, and you already know them. They are the elements in a news report, the particulars of a wedding invitation, the juicy details in the gossip that your best friend just whispered behind a cupped hand. They are the building blocks of our societal lives. I’m referring, of course, to the simultaneously acclaimed and bemoaned when, where, who, what, why, and, for the purpose of plot, how.

I know, I know. Half of you just rolled your eyes. The remainder groaned. It seems like the most basic of information. Still, take a moment to think back to the last book you read. Were there holes in the plot? Characters that you never received the most basic back story for? At the end of the book, could you have explained the location or described the setting that the story took place in? Surely you knew what happened, but why did the conflict become an issue for the characters? How did they move past it to reach the conclusion?

Not only would I suggest using this specific list for beginning writers, I strongly advise answering the questions in the order listed. A surprising number of authors begin by sketching out the main character who has been lurking in the shrouded safety of their deepest thoughts. Then they make glaring errors when they plop him into the setting.

Imagine, if you will..

“Viago skulked in the dank, dimly lit alley behind the Bow Street Runners headquarters of London’s Bow Street Number 4, as it was known through the seedy underbelly of the city. He’d been crouched in the same spot for what seemed like hours, waiting for the flood of thieves and pickpockets that he knew would be coming. The air around him was wet. The mist that would become the morning dew already thick in the air. It clung to his wavy, shoulder-length hair and dripped down the back of his neck to saturate the thin t-shirt inside his cheap fake-leather coat, making him wish he’d thought to grab the thick woolen scarf he’d received for Christmas.

Wait..what?

Unless our friend Viago is a time traveler – and he isn’t – how can he be wearing rubber-soled shoes, a thin t-shirt, and a fake leather coat? None of those items existed yet in London when the Bow Street Runners were laying down the law. This is one of the most obvious examples that comes to mind of an author who created a character first and then wrote the scene around him. You can see it didn’t mesh well.

When:

The intricacies of a period can vary widely in only a few months or years. In our example above, we know that the story must be set between the years of 1749 and 1839 because the Bow Street Runners only operated between those years. This raises another issue. The first motorized vehicles didn’t arrive on London streets until at least sixty years after the Bow Street Runners disbanded in 1839. By failing to properly research the period that the story was set in, the author created a number of issues that had to be revised.

Where:

Everything takes place somewhere, and the location of that somewhere is going to impact the descriptions of your characters. If your story takes place in historic London, as our sample did, you’re unlikely to find American cowboys, Italian mob bosses, reality television stars, or low-dollar private dicks in fake leather coats and cheap running shoes. Once you know where your story takes place, crafting your characters becomes a much more fluid process.

Who:

Who are the characters? What is their motivation? Within the first twenty percent of a book, we should be able to identify the main factors that contribute to each character’s persona. We should know their strengths, their weaknesses, and be able to get a feel for how their past resulted in both.

Many authors get caught up in the who of the moment – in crafting deliciously complex characters that leave us emotionally invested in every aspect of their existence – but neglect to tell us why they are complex or how they became the characters that they are.

(In fairness to Viago’s creator, it is impossible to show in the two paragraphs I used, but Viago is actually an incredibly complex character. He is an attractive young vampire who has spurned others of his own kind, only preys on criminals, and continues his human life’s work as a private detective solving crimes for the forgotten citizens of London.)

What:

The what is the meat of your story sandwich, but some authors get so caught up in other aspects of their writing that they inadvertently neglect it. The what should be more than what happened. It should also include what did each character do or contribute (or not) to the situation(s) at hand. What was said? What was meant? What was felt? This doesn’t mean that you need to write a hundred different what questions for each event, but you should understand the causes, feelings, reactions, and implications for the main characters even if you don’t specifically spell each and every one out.

Why:

Ahh…the why! The intertwining motivations of your characters. The history behind the choices they have made in the past. The reasons for the decisions that they are making now and those that they will make in the future.

This is your opportunity to weave all of the details that have been dancing through your subconscious into a story tapestry, and plotting them out ensures that you won’t miss any!

(Why does a down-on-his-luck vampire private investigator struggle to remain on the straight and narrow? Why does he remain a fringe member of law enforcement instead of surrendering to the demon inside him and killing his way through the innocent patrons of a London theatre? Why does he only feed on the criminal element? Hmmm…. I think one of our most popular NDP authors will be telling us more soon…)

How:

The nuts and bolts of your plot. The minutia and details of how the characters reached the climax. The blind psychic describing to the police the way the knife plunged into the victim that thrashed on the floor in the cheerful kitchen. The tiny Welsh pony struggling up a mountain-side with the rider’s legs dragging the ground on each side. The spurned boyfriend smirking in the light of his cell phone as he catfishes his ex on a dating site, determined to draw his lover back. How it all came together!

Starting next week, I will cover each of these in greater detail in a weekly blog post and I look forward to your feedback and questions!

Every life has a story, and yours is worth telling!

January 3, 2018 0

Happy New Year! (and good riddance 2017)

Dear friends,

I am incredibly grateful for the authors, editors, illustrators, and other contributors whose combined efforts made 2017 a successful year for Nom de Plume Publications. I am also incredibly grateful for our readers who make all of the hard work worthwhile. With your support in 2017, the authors of NDP Publications sold over 50,000 books worldwide, had a combined 7,000,000+ pages read on Kindle Unlimited, and donated over $10,000 to charities that included the Trevor Project. Without our readers, that couldn’t have happened, and I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.

Normally that would be where I signed off – probably with a cute picture of a kitten in a party hat – but this year I think that there is more that needs to be said.

For many, many people – myself included – this has been a year of significant hurt, anger, and frustration resulting from the current social and political environment in the country that I love.

In 2017, 2002 people were wounded and 588 were killed in mass shootings. After fifty-seven years of moving forward to obtain equal rights for all, our friends and loved ones in the LGBTQ community have seen their basic rights again threatened by the government. Hate crimes against Jews, gays, and Muslims increased for the second year in a row. The transgender murder rate hit a five-year high. A man who bragged about sexually assaulting women was seated in the Oval Office. No, I am not sorry to see 2017 end.

Despite all of this, I look toward 2018 with renewed energy, determination, and optimism. As painful as the last twelve months have been, there have been bright spots as well. Shining moments that reminded us that the majority of Americans – the true majority, the kind of majority that is determined by math and not through volume of noise and bluster – do not support the hate and violence.

The American Civil Liberties Union collected a record $24 million in donations in one weekend after the Trump administration enacted their first Muslim travel ban. 2.6 million women marched against misogyny and hate. And our LGBTQ community? Did they shrink back into closets and hide in the shadows when Trump’s administration began their attempts to marginalize them? No. They protested the Trump administration’s anti-gay positions. They demonstrated against the abuse of gays and lesbians in Russia and Chechnya. They marched in parades and hosted fundraiser social events. The 2017 Pride Days in New York, Chicago, and, Washington, D.C. drew record crowds. Our LGBTQ people and their allies didn’t knuckle under, they stepped forward and reminded us again that they’re here, they’re queer, and damn it, they’re fabulous!

This – all of it – is the reason I am optimistic about 2018. We are a nation that knows the meaning of the word quit, we simply refuse to use it as a verb. We will regroup and move forward with purpose born of having the courage of our convictions. We will continue the fight for our collective rights because we know that failure is simply not an option. We will resist and we will succeed. From the ashes, our nation will rise stronger than ever.

I wish each and every one of you a 2018 filled with love, peace, and freedom.

Sincerely,

Brandie Chesser
Nom de Plume Publications, LLC

have-a-happy-new-year-kitten-graphic

January 1, 2018 0

In answer to your questions..

Dear friends,

I have received several questions as to why the NDP website has not been updated to show the charitable donations for the month of November.

As you know, the authors of Nom de Plum Publications donate a portion of their monthly royalties to support charities. Those donations are typically made two months after they are earned because that is when our biggest marketplace – Amazon – pays out the royalties earned.

We strive to make those donations on or before the first of each month but there are times that it isn’t possible. Due to a glitch in the payment system, the royalties earned and due at the end of October are still pending.

I absolutely understand your concern and assure you that as soon as those payments clear, our monthly donations will be made.

Thank you for your support!

Brandie

November 9, 2016 0

A lovely letter from The Trevor Project <3

Brandie,

I hope you are having a great start to your week!

I was going through our records today and noticed that Nom de Plume has made multiple wonderfully generous gifts to The Trevor Project, and I wanted to reach out and express our gratitude for your continued support of our life-saving mission. Last year, The Trevor Project’s services impacted the lives of over 200,000 young people. It was also our first year of offering two days per week of our innovative TrevorText service and, due to this increase in service, we were able to answer 33% more texts from youth in crisis than in the previous year.

As we ramp up our work this year in response to an ongoing surge in need and a climate that remains hostile to these young people, we want to let you know that your generosity helps us reach more young people than ever before!

If you have the time, I would love to hear more about your company and what made you choose to support Trevor.

Thank you again for your tremendous dedication to our mission! If there is anything I can ever do to assist you, or should you like to learn more about how your giving directly impacts the lives of LGBTQ youth, please do feel free to reach out to me at any time!

All the best,

Rebecca

Nom de Plume Publications Response to The Trevor Project:

Hi Rebecca!

On behalf of our authors and, of course, the readers who make our donations possible, I am thrilled to receive your letter!

Nom de Plume Publications is a very small publishing company that provides a wide range of a la carte publishing services to independent authors. When I formed the company in the spring, it was with the keystone belief that giving back to the communities that support us is incredibly important.

In that spirit, we invite our authors to join us in donating 5% of their monthly royalties to charities with a proven positive impact in the community most closely associated with each genre.

The donations made by Nom de Plume Publications to The Trevor Project represent 5% of the gross monthly royalties received on projects (digital, print and audio) published in the LGBTQ genres during that month. Two of our authors – Kian Rhodes and Dion Demetri – make up more than 80% of the donations to your organization. With Ms. Rhodes’ immensely popular series The Omega Auction (gay paranormal romance MM) coming to Audible in the coming months, we are excited to predict that our support will only increase!

We donate to your organization for one simple reason: as an entity, we believe in the work that you do! Growing up is hard enough when you fit easily into societies pre-determined slots of acceptance; for LGBTQ youth, those challenges are often times so much harder. There is no mistaking the importance of the services that The Trevor Project provides to LGBTQ and questioning youth in their darkest hours.

Thank you again for your lovely letter and, on behalf of myself, the Nom de Plume authors, and our readers, thank you for the work that The Trevor Project does!

Sincerely,

Brandie Chesser
Owner
Nom de Plume Publications, LLC

October 4, 2016 0

NDP’s 2016 Spooktacular Short Story Contest!

Nom de Plume Publications, LLC invites YOU to enter our
2016 Spooktacular Halloween Short Story Contest!

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NO ENTRY FEE AND ALL WINNERS AND HONORABLE MENTIONS WILL BE PUBLISHED!

The First place winner in each category will receive a $100 certified check and a Kindle edition of the anthology

The Second place winner in each category will receive a $75 certified check and a Kindle edition of the anthology

The Third place winner in each category will receive a $50 certified check and a Kindle edition of the anthology

Honorable Mentions will receive a $25 Amazon gift card and a Kindle edition of the anthology

Now that you know what you can win, you want to know what you have to do – right?

Your categories are…..

Children (7-11) Young Adult (12-15) Adult Romance (male/male, male/female and female/female)

The theme is Halloween and the deadline for entries is Midnight, October 21st, 2016.

For this contest, all entries must be online or via email.
All entries must be short stories – not to exceed 15, 000 words.
Your entry must be original, in English, unpublished and unproduced, not accepted by any other publisher or producer at the time of submission.* Nom de Plume Publications retains non-exclusive publication rights to all winning entries and honorable mentions in each category for distribution in book/story bundle.**
BE SURE OF YOUR WORD COUNT! Entries exceeding the word limits will be disqualified.
Writers submitting under a pen name must provide a legal name for payment in the event that they win. Legal names will be held in strictest confidence.
Due to U.S. Government restrictions we are unable to accept entries from Syria, Iran, North Korea, or Sudan.

Ready to enter?

*All submissions will be run through plagiarism identification software. Anything with previously published or non-original content will be disqualified.

** Non-exclusive publication rights allows NDP Publications to release and sell the submitter’s work via anthology bundle in any and all media format under NDP copyright. Author retains all other rights to their work including primary copyright and rights to publish. Winners will also be offered a FREE ISBN number to self publish under the NDP brand.

September 28, 2016 0

Your book is available on Amazon! Now what?

You, the self-publishing author, have spent weeks, months, possibly even years, writing your book. You poured everything you had into it; sweat, blood, tears but it’s finally finished! Your cover is dramatic, creative, and engaging. The book itself? A literary work of art. You publish and wait for that first review to come in. You wait. And wait.

Then, a friend, associate or another author has an idea. Why not contact people who have reviewed other books in your category on Amazon and email a free copy with a request that they review it? Brilliant idea, right? As it turns out, not necessarily.

We (NDP Publications) receive many, many requests to provide book reviews. Many are accompanied by an attached pdf file of the book in question. Due to the inherent conflict of interest, NDP does not provide book reviews. We do, however, respond to those authors to explain why the method that they are choosing to market their masterpiece may not be the method most likely to benefit them. Today, we’ll lay it out for everyone else.

Our writers have hundreds of reviews (combined – of course) – some great, some less than encouraging, and even a few declaring that our writers shouldn’t quit their day jobs – but none that qualifies as a “bought” review. A “bought” review meaning the book was offered free or at a discount specifically in exchange for a review.

As anyone selling anything on Amazon is required to know, all people responding to a request for an Amazon review – even if you send it to their email with a PDF copy attached – are required to attach a disclaimer stating that they received the book (or whatever the product is) in exchange for agreeing to review it*. So while you may be able to rack up ten or fifteen reviews in a few days, the required disclaimer can leave potential customers with the impression that you have to “buy” reviews. Instead of encouraging people to take a chance on your story, those reviews can have the opposite effect and instead actually cost you sales.

They also have the potential to negatively impact your sales in two additional ways:

People who post a lot of Amazon reviews (which will be anyone you find on an Amazon top reviewer lists) are frequently targeted by Amazon’s verification process as posting fraudulent reviews if they post a review on anything that doesn’t show “verified purchase.” A verified purchase meaning it was ordered through Amazon. That review is then removed, and the reviewer blocked from leaving one at all – sometimes on your future items as well.

If you end up with a high percentage of reviews that Amazon can’t verify a purchase on, they can, and occasionally will delete all of your reviews as presumed fraud. Especially if those reviews are marked as fraudulent by another Amazon user. This, unfortunately, is an all too common “sour grapes” response by fellow authors who aren’t getting reviews.

Here’s the tried-and-true marketing recommendation that we make to our authors:

Do collect the email address from the profiles of people who have reviewed other books in your category. In addition to the emails that you collected, make a list of bloggers and Facebook pages (easy through Google and Facebook search) who focus on the topic that your Amazon category correlates with. They are frequently looking for related ideas to send out in emails and tweets just to keep their name in front of their customers. Free marketing!

Once you have your marketing list, use the Kindle marketing program to make your book free for a few days – preferably on a weekend. (I usually tell our authors to limit it to 2 days to apply urgency to the call to action.) People are much more inclined to leave a review when they feel that they got a bonus such as a free copy to keep instead of checking it out on KU.

Then, purchase an ad on Facebook with the link to the free book and schedule it run concurrently with your promotion. Use the advanced options to target the ad to people with specific interests that relate directly to your book. For example, a romance novel should be targeted to people who have “romance stories” in their interests. Our authors usually set the “lifetime” dollar limit at $20 per ad and see excellent results.

Email a press release to your marketing list first thing in the morning on the first day of your marketing push. It should be labeled “press release” and include the name of the book, publisher information (if applicable), a brief synopsis of the story, a picture of the cover and include the link to get their FREE copy.

At the bottom of the press release, simply state that “reviews are always appreciated and encouraged” and include the link to your book on Goodreads as well as Amazon. (It’s amazing how much bigger of an impact Goodreads reviews have over Amazon reviews). You have now offered a free copy as a marketing inducement which does not require the reviewer to post the dreaded disclaimer.

As with everything else in life and business, there is a potential downside to this method: If your book is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program (KDP Select), you will not be paid for pages read in that book during the time it is listed for free. In the long run, the sales that you will garner will usually well exceed the $0.0047 (approximate) payment per page that you lose during that two-day marketing push.

Good luck with your release!

*It is important to be familiar with all applicable policies. Specifically, if reviewers are suspected of posting “bought” reviews and not posting the required disclaimer, Amazon does reserve the right to remove your book and cancel your Kindle Direct account. For additional information, read the policies regarding manipulating reviews.

August 30, 2016 0

we like big books and we cannot lie…