Writer’s Corner: My First Kickstarter

Posted: March 6, 2023 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Book Promotion, Books, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Kickstarter, marketing, Women's Fiction, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner | Tags: Delilah, Kaye Lynne Booth, Kickstarter, Women in the West adventure series, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 5 Comments

A Kickstarter campaign allows authors to find supporters who believe in thier work and want to support them, and it is a method of direct sales for authors, which allows us to cut out the middle-man distributors and their percentage and make more money from our books. But it is also a platform where readers and fans can get some really cool stuff for their supporting dollars. It’s just a “Give me… Give me… Give me…” platform, but one where it is our job to make sure our fans and readers can get a good value for their buck, providing cool rewards in exchange for monetary support of the project. It is similar to the famous artists of the past, who found patrons to support them and their works, so they would have the time to create their art. A Kickstarter campaign is a similiar type of patronage available to authors. And what’s really cool is, we’re not begging, we’re selling books and other cool stuff without the middle man. No book distributors to take their cut. Of course, Kickstarter gets a cut, but the also provide the platformand tools to run a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the analytics to measure your succcess, which, I think, is well worth it. (More on direct selling with Kickstarter here.)

In Jaunuary, I ran my first Kickstarter for Delilah and the Women in the West adventure series. The goal I set was $500 and I decided on a thirty day campaign.

This series has three books planned so far, each featuring a strong female protagonist and appearances by historic female characters. Delilah is a western, but it is also historic women’s fiction and will appeal to all three audiences. Delilah was my first novel to be published, but the publisher really didn’t get what Delilah is all about, because they billed it as western romance. Although there is a romance thread running through this story, it’s not the main thread. Western romance is not a good way to categorize this book and it did not do well. When my contract ran out, I decided to revise it, making it read closer to my original story. I guess you could say this is the “unimproved” version, that goes back to before I veered from my original plot line. As I did the rewrite, I realized that there were other characters in this story who bear to have their stories told, and the idea for the Women in the West adventure series was born. But, this post is about the Kickstarter campaign experience rather than the books, and I’m veering from the topic.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at my Kickstarter campaign, what I might have done wrong, and what I might have done right.

How a Kickstarter campaign works

Kickstarter was designed with the creative economy in mind, before it was labeled the creative economy. You start with a project. In my case, it is Delilah, which is book one of my Women in the West adventure series. I chose this project because the book is finished, and already scheduled for release on March 21, so I knew for sure that I would be able to deliver the goods.

Once the campaign launches, your readers, fans, and others who would like to support your work can pledge their support at the different reward levels you’ve set up, or pledge for any amount, just because they believe in your project. I set up three levels: $5 with an early digital copy of the book, $25 with a signed print copy, and $50 with an opportunity to name a character in book two.

You can also offer add-ons for each level so they can get even more cool stuff if they choose, because you want to offer your fans as much value as possible, since this is a method for direct sales, not digital pan handling. I offered a PDF copy of my short story, “Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”; an audio reading of my flash fiction Western story, “I Had to Do It”; and an interview with Delilah.

You set a goal for the amount you need to raise. You don’t want to set it too high, because Kickstarter is an all or nothing deal. If you don’t reach your goal by the end of the campaign, your backers don’t have to pay anything and you don’t have to deliver anything. However, if you make it and are funded then you get anything over your goal amount, minus Kickstarter’s cut, of course.

I was fortunate to be able to follow Kevin J. Anderson’s Kickstarter campaign for his book, Double Booked and his Dan Shambles Zombie P.I. series, from start to finish and it was amazing. His Kickstarter funded within the first 36 minutes, which I thought was phenomenal. His campaign was one of the things that made me decide to give Kickstarter a try.

My Kickstarter Experience

I sent out media blasts in December announcing the pre-launch page, which received a total of five folks signing up to be notified when the campaign launched, which I did not take to be a good sign, but I figured that it could be because the pre-launch page did not reveal the rewards offered for supporting the campaign.

On launch day, I published a blog post about the campaign, asking for people’s supportand sending out social media blasts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pintrest. I also sent out a newsletter dedicated to the Kickstarter on opening day to alert my readers to the campaign. And, I know of several individuals who sent out social media blasts on my behalf. I even went out on a limb with some paid advertising aimed at super backers, for a minimal amount, since it was my first time using Kickstarter. Now if my campaign didn’t fund, I’d be in the hole, but I wanted to do everything I could to make this a successful campaign.

That first day, the campaign only funded 13%, but I was thankful that I had even a few backers. I launched on January 3, which was News Year’s Day (observed), so technically, still a holiday, so people may not have been back on social media. It went up to 19% on the second day, and it stayed there through day 4, when it went up to 20%. I sent out more social media blasts to promote the campaign. Then I watched and waited… And waited… And waited… But it stayed at 20%. I really started to worry.

What if it didn’t fund? Then all my hard work would be for naught. And a Kickstarter campaign is work, make no mistake. I know I’m not Brandon Sanderson, or even Kevin J. Anderson. I didn’t expect my campaign to fund within 23 minutes. But this was ridiculous. I couldn’t even get a quarter of the way to my modest goal of $500. I tried to keep a positive outlook, but it was frustrating.

I was driving myself nuts, checking the status of the campaign several times a day, so I vowed to stop, and instead, watch for the morning and evening updates from Kickstarter in my email inbox. My constant checking couldn’t make people want to support this project. They would come on thier own, if they were going to. I had known that the possibility of not being funded existed going into this. All I could do was wait…, and see what would happen.

I sent out more media blasts. I checked my twice daily updates. There’s was still no change by Day 8. I emailed Kevin, because he’s the only author I know of who has actually done a Kickstarter, and even though he is no longer my professor, he is a really nice guy, so he sent out an additional blast and sent me suggestions of things to try.

Day 10, and still no growth. What was I doing wrong? Are the rewards I’ve chosen to offer not appealing? Am I missing the mark with my target audiences? Was I targeting the wrong audiences? Is there really only five people out there who believe in me and my work enough to support me? All these thoughts were going through my head.

Friday the 13th saw the project past the 20% mark, which made me feel a little better, even if it was only up to 23%. And on the 15th, the campaign bumped up to 34%, which was downright heartening. It was a single pledge, at the $50 level – the first pledge I’d had at that top level. That fact was exciting to me, in and of itself.

Then, on the 16th, there was no growth once more, and I bagan to forsee another stall just below the $200.00 mark. I knew I wasn’t going to fund on the first day, like better known authors might, but I had thought that I would be funded by the halfway mark, so I could relax and have fun adding stretch goals and rewards. I wasn’t expecting to still be trying to reach the origianl goal at this point in the game, so I couldn’t help but to be feel a bit disappointed. I had a total of eight backers. Was there really so few people that believe in me and this project? So again, I waited… and waited… and waited some more.

I boosted a post on Facebook, in hopes of pulling in some more backers. Although it showed that people were engaging with the post, it didn’t seem to be bringing me any new backers. Was it because I chose a western for my project? I knew my covers for these books weren’t great, but if funded, some of that money was to go for improving the cover design. The boost ran out on the 26th, with a reach of 86, an engagement of 168, thru plays of the video 162 and one click through. The numbers didn’t seem to say the boost did all that great, even if the one clickthrough decided to back the project.

Heavy Competition

On the 18th, Kevin J. Anderson launched his Kickstarter for Dragon Business & Skeleton in the Closet, and his campaign funded almost immediately. By the time I checked in around noon, he already had double the goal that he’d set. I was definitely doing something wrong. I was still stalled at 34%, which might as well have been 0%, because if mine didn’t fund and reach my $500 goal, I wouldn’t recieve anything. Of course, it could still fund, but there was only 13 days left, and I wasn’t even close to halfway there.

I took a look at KJA’s successful Kickstarter campaign. His covers are very colorful, his story is humorous medievil fantasy, and one must keep in mind that his fan base is huge and he has worked to build it for many years. The campaign Dragon Business & Skeletons in the Closet gained 200 backers in two days. Mine was 20 days in and I had a total of 12 backers.

The one that I followed from behind the scenes for Double-Booked and the Dan Shamble P.I. series also featured colorful covers for humorous tales of fantasy or speculative fiction, and Delilah and the Women in the West covers are almost montone, with a minimal amount of color, and then they are westerns. Perhaps I picked the wrong project for my Kickstarter campaign. At the very least, I wasn’t getting it in front of the correct target audience.

Heading this section “Heavy Competition” is a bit misleading. It would be a joke to compare my Kickstarter campaign to Kevin J. Anderson’s. His has multiple support levels, with a variety of rewards such as personalized messages from the author, and mugs and tee-shirts featuring the very cool artwork connected to the cover art, with a numerous variety of add-ons available. Once his campaign funded on the first day, he began adding stretch goals, which means backers get even more more cool stuff as he reaches each one, if I understand them correctly. And his video attains a level of professionalism which I can’t hope to reach with my very limited skills in this area.

My three support levels and rewards couldn’t compare in any manner. My campaign goal was $500 and I couldn’t hope to launch a campaign the caliber of his, which was earning literally thousands of dollars, well exceeding his $2000 goal. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn from it.

Desperate Measures

On the 20th, I sent out an email blast manually to other authors I have worked with, asking for their support. I just came out and said that I was stuck at 34% funded and asked them to help me reach my goal. I had to do something to find backers for this project. It is a good project, (I think), but I needed a little over $300 still to reach my goal. And the next morning, I woke up to find I had 2 new backers from the email of the night before, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. I still wasn’t fully funded, but it brought me over the $200 mark (41%), and got things moving in the right direction once more. Later that day, I gained another backer, pushing it up to 43%. It seems those $5 pledges add up. It wasn’t a lot, but I was quite happy to have made even this much progress. Yet, I also knew I still had a long way to go and the clock was ticking. There were only 10 days left in which to find enough backers.

The email blast brought out at least a few more backers. It was the best results I’d had from everything I had tried so far, so on the 22nd, I sent out another blast to folks on my other email contacts. This email was older, and had people in the contacts who I hadn’t contacted in a while and may not have made the switch to my new WordCrafter email. I knew each one of them, so even though it might be coming out of the blue, they weren’t cold calls. I got a couple of new backers out of that, bringing the project up over the half-way mark, (51%), but with only eight days left, I had my doubts that it would bring enough. It just didn’t look very promising.

I did have one recipient who recieved a message from the second blast, from my older email, who promptly notified me that I’d been hacked. Since I don’t usually send out form letters in email blasts, she was sure someone else must be behind it. She was looking out for my best interests, and I appreciated that. Even though I wasn’t asking something for nothing, and I was offering some appealing rewards, or at least I thought I was, this was beginning to feel like a I was just saying, “Hey, give me money.”

The 24th brought some excitement, with a second $50 pledge, bring the campaign to 63% funded. I was getting closer to my goal. I’d still need to find backers for another 37%, but I was closer. It was a brighter outlook than I’d had recently, as I was thinking I wouldn’t have a chance to make it. Now, it suddenly seemed more of a possibility again. This up and down Kickstarter rollercoaster was crazy. It seemed it might be easier to just send out posts and emails saying, “Buy my book!” Buy my book!”

Waiting for something to happen to raise the bar toward the goal was excruciating, and the days drug out as nothing significant happened. I knew I needed to make something happen, so I sent out one last blast on Facebook to see if I couldn’t muster some more support. I still saw no growth.

In the end, being stalled at 63% wasn’t that much better than being stalled at 34%, because neither of them can make a successful Kickstarter campaign. It’s 100% or nothing, and with only two days left, it was looking more and more like it would be nothing.

On the 30th, I put out a last ditch effort to fund this project by putting out a plea in my WordCrafter News post. And I sent out another small media blast with a ticking clock. There was only one day left in the campaign, but it could fund in that time. It’s not likely that a rush of backers would show up at the last minute and save the campaign, but it could happen, so I put it out there. At this point, things looked bleak.

At the 36 hour mark, I recieved another pledge at the top tier, which brought it up to 80% funded, leaving only $99 to go. With 36 hours left, it was possible, but not probable. But this was really close to the goal. Closer than I thought it would get as I watched of the past couple of weeks. I allowed my hopes to be raised a little, but deep down, I feared that it wasn’t enough.

Final Outcome

It came down to the final day of the campaign and the campaign was still stalled at 80%. It was close, but close doesn’t make a successful campaign. I intentionally did not check my Kickstarter pages again until we were down to the 3 hour mark. When
I finally did check in, I was pleasantly surprised to have moved up to the 90% mark. Now this was exciting.

The last needed $50 pledge came in with 2 hours left to go, and the campaign funded. I think I was in shock, at first. I’d been resigned to it not funding, and now here I was fully funded. I had an additional pledge come in My Kickstarter campaign was successful!

Acknowledgements

A successful Kickstarter doesn’t happen without the people who believe in it enough to back it. These are the external backers, which means they were not generated within the Kickstarter platform, but their support was the result from something I did to promote the campaign. I believe most of these backers were generated from the email campaigns which I sent out. In other words, I know these folks in some capacity, some in person, and others across vast distances over the internet, and that makes it more personal. These are the people which I’m lucky to have in my corner.

A big thank you to:

Cheryl Boyd – my best friend from junior high
Kevin J. Anderson – my friend and mentor
Robbie Cheadle – blog teammate, WordCrafter Press author, and multiple anthology contributor
Nancy Oswald – author friend
Christy Burmingham-Reyes – blog follower
Sara Wesley McBride – an anthology contributor and writing friend
Kieth Hoskins – an contributor to multiple anthologies
Ligia deWit – anthology contributor
Amy Cecil – anthology contributor and author friend
Mark Leslie Lefebvre – anthology contributor and author friend
Marie Whitaker – WordFire Press contact and author friend
James Richards – a WordCrafter Press author
Avily Jerome – anthology contributor
Tim & Wanda Ward – friends and neighbors
Miriam Hurdle – blog tour host and anthology contributor

Also, a big thanks to those who supported the campaign in non-monetary ways, such as spreading the word to garner support for the campaign. In promoting the campaign, I said repeatedly that all support was appreciated, and I meant that, including social media blasts, retweets and sharing on social media. Although I don’t have names for all of you, since these things went on behind scenes and there are probably many who I don’t even know about, but I thank you all so much for your support. I could not have done it without you.

Lessons Learned

Kickstarters are a lot of work. I knew that going into this, after watching behind the scenes for KJA’s campaign, so that was no surprise. Most of the people I know who supported the campaign are not big western fans. But enough people believed in me, and believed in this project, that it was able to fully fund in the end.

There are many things which could have affected negatively on my campaign: choosing to run a Kickstarter at the beginning of January, on the heels of the holiday season; chosing a project in the western genre; not spending more on paid advertising, etc…

But my analysis leads me to believe that I failed to reach my target audience effectively for this cross-genre series, which should appeal to lovers of westerns, and women’s fiction and even those who enjoy historical ficton, but it seems I missed the mark in the promotions. I thought I would reach a wider audience, since this series has strong female protagonists, bringing it into both the women’s fiction and historical fiction realms. Maybe, I don’t know how to find my target audience, but I will keep searching for them. An author friend of mine thinks I may be using the wrong social media channels, and suggested that I launch myself on Tik-Tok to tap into my target audience. Maybe I’ll consider it in the future, but for now, I must continue on my planned path and give things time to work out.

Kickstarter can be a successful way of direct selling. Not all campaigns will be as successful as KJA’s campaigns, but this proves that even the little, unknown, independent authors like me can have a successful campaign. Maybe my audience wasn’t big enough? Maybe I wasn’t reaching the right audience? Perhaps a different project would have done better. Maybe I’ll try again in the future with a different book, different genre and see what happens. Maybe…

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The release date for Delilah is March 21, 2023. You can preorder a digital or print copy from your book distributor of choice here: https://books2read.com/DelilahWIW

Delilah is a woman haunted by her past.

Her homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance when she is brutally raped and left for dead, and her fourteen-year-old ward is abducted. Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws to Leadville.

Can the colorful inhabitants of the Colorado mining town work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence?

If you like strong and capable female protagonists, you’ll love Delilah.

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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER will sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.

Writer’s Corner: What I learned from NaNoWriMo

Posted: February 6, 2023 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Books, Fiction, Writer's Corner, Writing, Writing Challenge | Tags: Kaye Lynne Booth, NaNoWriMo, The Rock Star & the Outlaw, Writer's Corner, Writing Challenge, Writing to be Read | 3 Comments

November is National Novel Writing Month

The first time I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo was back in 2010. I had only recently discovered the opportunities for authors and writers offered on the internet, and had decided to try once more to make a go of writing, so I was exploring my options, but didn’t really know what I was doing as a writer at that point. And I had no idea how to go about writing a book, or how to go about writing a book very quickly, and I failed miserably.

Since then, I’ve put an M.F.A. and an M.A. under my belt in the creative writing arena, and so I gave it a second shot in November of 2022. I chose to write The Rock Star & the Outlaw, a western time-travel romance adventure. This time I was better prepared, with my project outlined and actually had a 21,000 word start before the writing challenge began. I also had recently read Booked to the Gills, by Aisley Oliphant, which offers strategies like time blocking and reserving out time for self-care in order to be easier to live with during the challenge, and prioritizing, and I was anxious to see if I could apply some of these strategies in my own writing. You can read my full “Review in Practice” here.

The challenge, for those who do not know, is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, which is no easy task. I figured if I succeeded, I would have a 71,000 word novel, but even if I didn’t complete it, I wouldn’t be far from a completed novel. What you’re about to read is a summary of my experience with the 2022 NaNoWriMo and what I learned from it.

Lessons learned

Time blocking – this was a strategy suggested by Aisley Oliphant in Booked to the Gills. It involves planning out your schedule and making blocks of time specifically dedicated to the writing of your story. It’s good advice, which is helpful in getting the story written in the allotted amount of time. I found that with my busy and unpredictable life, it was better for me to block out shorter time frames, sometimes only 15 minutes, to squeeze writing in between everything else. It was nice when I could dedicate a few hours to a stretch, of course, but that wasn’t possible every day, espesially days I had to work my day job. I tried blocking out writing times during different times during the day, and I didn’t hesitate to create an unscheduled block at three a.m. when I couldn’t sleep.
Prioritze self-care – also highly suggested by Ms. Oliphant in order to maintain friendships and family during and following the challenge. Self-care should be a priority and not allotting time for tending mental, physical and spiritual needs can make one cranky and unbearable to be around. I made sure I took time out for personal pleasures, such as going out to dinner, allowing myself to clear my mind and gather my thoughts, along with all the other activities I have going on in my life. This was another reason that shorter time blocks seemed to work better for me.
Get adaquet sleep – This is a necessity. While I could write into the wee hours of the morning when I was younger, I find that these days, I can barely stay awake past 10 p.m. I now find myself falling asleep at the keyboard. Also, I find that when I’m tired, my thoughts become muddled and I have difficulty focusing. This was another reason that I wasn’t very productive on days when I worked the day job.
Be prepared – This one wasn’t a strategy offered up by Ms. Oliphant. This was one I learned on my own. Going into a writing challenge like this, with a 21,000 word head start, I assumed I was ready to do this. But on November 1, I realized that I should have matched up what I had written with my working outline. When I did that on the first day I found a couple of places where it didn’t match up, creating plot holes which needed fixing before I could move forward, so my whole first week was spent smoothing those out and it wasn’t until Day 8 that I was able to exceed the daily goal of 1,667. To truly succeed with the NANoWriMo challenge, I think it is important to be ready to hit the ground running.
Choose a project you are passionate about – This may be the most important lesson for me, because I don’t think I would have done as well as I did, had I not been so exciting about writing this story. Inspired by the music of my favorite rock band, The Pretty Reckless and other artists, I had began writing this story two years prior, and was writing on it full speed ahead when I ran into a road block concerning music copyrights. But I never forgot about it. In fact, over the past year I came up with a work-around to my roadblock, so it was never far from my mind. Even two years later, pulling it out still stirred the excitement within me, and that’s how I knew this was the project I wanted to use for this challenge. To write prolifically, such as the 1,667 words per day required for this challenge, I believe one must have this passion for the project to be properly motivated.

Final outcome

There were good days, when I was able to exceed the daily word count, and there were days when I didn’t even come remotely close. Although I tried to clear my November schedule as much as possible, scheduling blog posts a month ahead of time, etc…, I still had to struggle through life’s trials, and go through the motions of daily life, making the blocking of writing time tricky at times. At the end of November, when all was said and done, I had a manuscript of 52,000 words, but I did not truly meet the challenge, because of my original 21,000 words. The NaNoWriMo gang congratuated me when I hit the 50,000 mark and gave me a winner’s certificate. My real word count at that point was 29,000 words, and I knew that, but I claimed the winner’s certificate anyway, because in my mind, I was a winner in my own challenge. I was walking away from this challenge 29,000 words closer to having a completed story, and I managed to bang out another 2,000 words before the month came to a close.

I kept working on the story through the month of December. Although I couldn’t dedicate as much time to it, as I prepared for the Kickstarter for Delilah in January, I finished off the month with 59,000, but the story still wasn’t finished. I hope to have the first draft done by the end of February. Of course, even then, it won’t be publish-worthy. It will need to have a first edit by me, then go to beta readers,then another editing pass by me with revisions, then to another set of eyes for an edit, then back for a last pass by me. The idea for NaNoWriMo wasn’t to produce a polished manuscript, but just to get the words down on the page. The polishing comes later. I’m estimating a release date for The Rock Star & the Outlaw toward the end of 2023.

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Writer’s Corner: Writing strong female protagonists

Posted: January 16, 2023 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Books, Character Development, Fiction, Western, Women's Fiction, Writing | Tags: Character Development, Delilah, Kaye Lynne Booth, Strong female characters, The Rock Star & the Outlaw, Women in the West adventure series, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 4 Comments

We are well into the swing of the Kickstarter for Delilah and the Women in the West adventure series. One thing that stands out with the books in this series are its strong female protagonists and female historical characters which make appearances in each one. But it takes finesse to create a tough female character that is believeable.

So how do you write a strong character? According to the Six Figure Author Podcast’s (episode 108 “Are Your Craft Choices Hurting Your Booksales?”) Jo Lollo strong characters are well defined, but not necessarily one who can win a fight, but they must be an imposing and vital character to the story. Andrea Pearson adds that strong characters should have inner strangths, which can become weaknesses in certain situations. Lindsay Buroker says that they need to be believeable, especially with female characters.

I’m as big a supporter of women and women’s rights, etc… as the next guy or gal, but let’s be realistic. Readers are not going to believe that an average woman isn’t going to beat a man in hand to hand combat, because females are naturally smaller and have less physical strength than men do. That’s not realistic. Don’t make your female character go to walk into a biker bar and kick everybody’s butt unless you’ve given her superpowers, or magic, or some reason, like being a Karate expert or an Amazon warrior, that she can do such incredible things. And of course, your characters need to be flawed so they have room to change and grow by the end of the story.

I gave Delilah a background which explains why she is so tough and gritty, after growing up with abuse and surviving two years in the territorial prison, readers know she doesn’t take things lying down, so it comes as no surprise when she sets out after the two men who raped her and left her for dead, and abducted her 14 yeaar old ward, Sarah. In the first chapter, she is practicing with a handgun, because she knows this is a weakness which needs to be turned into a strenghth for her to survive. So when, later in the book, she makes an amazing shot, we know she earned that ability through hard work and practice.

The other women in the series, Sarah and Marta, are introduced in the first book, but they too are flawed in ways which allow them room to grow stronger. Sarah is fourteen when she is abducted, but by the time her story is through she will become a strong woman who readers will root for. Marta is a mild mannered Mormon woman, travelling across the Colorado frontier when her family is killed and she is taken in an Indian raid – all experiences which will change her life and make her stronger for when she is the protagonist of her own book.

The protagonist in the book I’m working on now, The Rockstar and the Outlaw is also a female with strong inner strength and many flaws. She is a singer, a rock star, with an addictive personality, which includes adrenaline as well as drugs, who finds herself in a situation which she knows she can’t win. Amaryllis escapes with the help of a time-traveling outlaw from the old west, but finds that trouble awaits her, no matter where or when she goes, and when the tables are turned the outalw can depend on the rock star to have his back. She also has a backstory, living a life od drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll, which makes her strengths and weaknesses both realstic and believable. Her inner strengths allow her to save herself and do what is needed when called upon, in a fashion that readers can buy into.

So, you see, a character’s flaws can be used as building blocks to make the character’s actions believable, or you can give them a backstory which validates their strengths, in order to make their daring feats more believable. It is the inner strengths we are referring to when we talk about strong characters, although characters may need to be physically strong to back up their inner strengths. But you do have to take care that the strengths that you give them are realistic and believable. Of course, if you’re writing fantasy, giving her superpowers or magic might be believable. But if your protgonist is an ordinary woman, you shouldn’t give her extrordinary abilities. Readers are smart. They won’t buy it.

You can still join in to support the Kickstarter campaign for Delilah and the Women in the West adventure series here, if you haven’t already: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kayelynnebooth-wcp/delilah-women-in-the-west-adventure-series

Your support is greatly appreciated.

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Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.

Writer’s Corner: Great Beginnings

Posted: December 19, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Anthology, Beginnings, Books, Excerpt, Fiction, Short Fiction, Stories, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing | Tags: Excerpts, Julie Jones, Kaye Lynne Booth, Leah Cutter, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Story beginnings, Visions, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 2 Comments

Some opening lines are so well known as that the story can be identified just by them and nothing more.

“Call me Ishmeal.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – George Orwell, 1984, 1949

Memorable opening lines like these are strokes of brilliance on the part of the authors, perhaps with a little luck and a bit of literary magic mixed in. But for the common author, the trick is to find the best opening possible, especially with the growing numbers of books and authors that are out there competing for readers. We need to find words that will make our work shine above the rest, words that will catch readers attention and draw them into the story, words that will be unique and memorable.

The beginning of a story can serve many purposes, only one of which is giving us a place to start. The opening sentences of paragraphs also need to draw readers’ interest, stirring questions that will make them want to read further, but they can also introduce the characters or offer a senseof place and time with vivid descriptions of setting. All my life I’ve heard about how important the opening lines of a story are, but it never really took root until I compiled five short fiction anthologies over the past two years.

My regular readers will remember that I sat on the editorial team for the Gilded Glass anthology and compiled a volume of Weird Tales to earn my M.A. in publishing. For new readers, who don’t know the story, we had over 600 submissions to comb through for Gilded Glass, and toward the end of the initial readings, if the beginning didn’t grab me right away, it was gone. There were just too many submissions to waste time on ones that I couldn’t engage with from the very beginning. This was rather painful for me, believe it or not, because I knew there were probably some good stories in there that just needed to be reworked a bit to become gems, and I didn’t have the time, or energy to find them.

On the other side of things, there were so many really good stories submitted that there was no way we could include them all, so many of the stories I truly loved didn’t make it into the anthology, and I felt it was a shame to have to turn them all away, so I kept a list of stories that I had fallen in love with, and after the final selection for Gilded Glass were made, I invited each author to have their stories included in a WordCrafter Press anthology. Not all of the authors accepted my offer, but enough did that I had material for three anthologies, and Once Upon an Ever After, Refracted Reflections, and the Visions anthologies were born.

Although I’ve strayed a bit in telling you all this, my point was that many of the stories included in those three anthologies got there because they had beginnings that were good enough to make me continue reading. Let me share with you three of my favorite story beginnings from the Visions anthology.

“I followed the two men down the beach for over an hour before I realized they were kidnapping me. I noticed howm far we’d strayed when the sun touched its reflection on the Carribean horizon, forming a perfect figure eight that shot rays of gold in all directions. The failing light and my primitive camera meant an end to the day’s photo shoot, so I decided to let them take me.
Julie Jones – “Tourist Trap”

“Tourist Trap” is one of my favorites because it not only does a great job of giving me a sense of place with its setting description, but also leaves me with several questions, which now must be answered because my curiosity has been picqued. The nonchallant delivery of the words gives the impression that our character is not concerned by what most people would consider to be unusual, and maybe even alarming, circumstances. Why? Come on. Be honest. Now that you’ve read the above paragraph, don’t you just need to read more?

“He came toward her. His body moved lithely and confidentely, muscles rippling under tight-fitting jeans and white T-shirt. Thick, black hair covered his well-shaped head with its tawny skin and lightly stubbled jaw.

She peeped at his eyes. Those mysterious eyes she’d heard about. Her stomach dropped, lips numbed, and a strange ringing started in her ears.His eyes shone amber in the late afternon sun, like a predator before the kill. Even if she hadn’t known who and what he was, those awful eyes with their many sides like a diamond, would have filled her with terror.”
Roberta Eaton Cheadle – “The Bite”

This visceral opening comes from the winning story from the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest, “The Bite”, which is feaatured in the anthology. It sets the tone for the story, while offering hints about the characters, and stirring up just enough questions to make readers want to know more. Cheadle describes some very unusual eyes, and hints that this character is more than what he appears to be here. Who is this guy?

“I was staring out across the darkness of space, ignoring my hunger and isolation, when an alarm blared, startling me out of my meditations. I pulled my thoughts from where they’d wandered, sinking once again into my real-time brain, just as I pulled in my two-dozen tentacles in toward my body. Instead of presenting a sprawling mass, I was now a streamlined bullet.”
Leah Cutter – “The Survivor”

The opening for “The Survivor” offers up a lot of information about the setting and situation, and enough about the character to make readers curious, and make them want to read more. Who is this lone character in space? Obviously not a human. Why is the alarm blaring? Has Cutter picqued your curiosity as much as she did mine?

It wouldn’t be fair to use the openings of others without taking a look at one of my own, so let’s take a look at my contribution to the Visions anthology, as well. My story was “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, which was originally published in The Collapsar Directive anthology, by Zombie Pirates Publishing in 2017. Give it a look and see if you think I did my job well with this opening.

“The way everyone was acting, you’d think it was a crime to be happy. And looking back, maybe it was, or at least, it might as well have been.

I think it started on a Saturday, or maybe a Sunday, so no one really noticed at first, including me. Everyone had recieved their regular allotment of S-Dopa for the weekend, so if they noticed anything, they would have assumed I’d just recieved a double dose, which didn’t happen often, but it did happen. On Monday however, when I sang along with the radio which ws always playing in the background at the computer factory as we slaved away everyday, the others gave me sidelong glances, as if, perhaps, I’d lost my mind.”
Kaye Lynne Booth – “If You’re Happy and You Know It”

You can hear an audio excerpt from this story here: https://youtu.be/2X-7XiL3uHg or you can purchase a copy of Visions here: https://books2read.com/u/49Lk28

Which beginnings make YOU want to keep reading? I invite you to share your favorite beginning in the comments below. It will make it more of a conversation, (as Joanna Penn says).

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Writer’s Corner: Writing Communities & Tribes and more…

Posted: September 12, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: WordCrafter, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing Communities | Tags: Kaye Lynne Booth, Writer's Corner, Writing Communities, Writing to be Read | 2 Comments

I often say that I am a one woman show at WordCrafter Press, and for the most part, that is true. I write stories and books, edit, publish and promote. But if I’ve learned only one thing throughout all of my writing and educational endeavors, it’s that there is just too much for a single person to handle it all. Especially when you are as over-ambitious as I am, and try to produce three different anthologies simultaneously.

One thing that I’ve found to be great about the independent author community is that most everyone is willing to extend a helping hand to others who are on the same journey, if perhaps at different points along the way. I have admired this in other authors whom I’ve met along my own journey, and aspired to do the same in my own writing endeavors. I do it by offering reviews on my blog, by doing author interviews, by running a newsletter swap group where members promote other members work in their newsletters, and by offering affordable editing and social media book promotion services.

A lot of this is just a way to pay it forward, and I’m a firm believer that it all comes back to me, in one way or another. Kevin J. Anderson refers to his writing community, which is growing with every cohort he takes in at Western Colorado University, his tribe. I was a part of that tribe and I guess I still am, although at a distance.

As I and my cohort members hang up our student hats and go back to our own individual writing lives, that network that we built during our course studies relaxes and becomes much more loosely knit, but I know they are all still there. Heck, I’m still in contact with most of the members of my original cohort, from my M.F.A., and some of those from my second emphasis cohort, too. Some drift away in time, but others have been, or will be, incorporated into my own tribe, the tribe that I’ve created right here, on Writing to be Read and social media channels. You, my friends, are a part of the writing community that I’ve created over a decade.

And that’s not a bad thing. This is the writing community which I have worked to build and create, and it’s filled with some really great people, who always seem to be there when I need them. (And hopefully, they can say the same about me.) Let me tell you a little bit about my tribe and the great people that make up my own writing network. if you’ve followed me for a time, you may know or recognize many of them.

First on the list is Robbie Cheadle, who puts out three different blog series on Writing to be Read, and coedits the Poetry Treasures anthology each year, is always willing to host tour stops for WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, and participates in WordCrafter Press anthologies and the resulting blog tours, and occasionally finds time to edit some of my works.

Next, is Jeff Bowles, who was in my second emphasis cohort. Jeff currently runs one blog series, but he has produced several others on the past, and he’s always willing to throw up a fill in post in a pinch. He has also participated in WordCrafter Press anthologies and the resulting blog tours, and in WordCrafter writing events.

Arthur Rosch has been a member of my blog team for many years, has participated in WordCrafter anthologies. D.L. Mullan has provided cover design services and helps with WordCrafter book events, and currently hosts tour stops and provides reviews for WordCrafter Book Blog Tours and has a story featured in the up coming Visions anthology.

Just as I depend on my blog team, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours couldn’t exists without my wonderful hosts: Miriam Hurdle, Patty Fletcher, Annette Rochelle Aben, Victoria Zigler, Carla Hicks, Barbara Spencer, James Cudney, and Jessica Bakers, in addition to those mentioned above.

My tribe is growing. I’ve recently added new friends, including Mark Leslie Lefebvre, who graciously joined in as a contributor for Ask the Authors 2022, and Sara Wesley McBride, who has two stories featured in the upcoming Visions anthology, and got her husband, Wes McBride, to design the fabulous new cover for it. And I am blessed with the opportunity to work with some truly talented authors with every anthology WordCrafter Press publishes, and every writing or book event WordCrafter hosts. And if you are a follower of Writing to be Read, or someone who pops in occassionally to see what content is offered here… You, dear readers, are all a part of my tribe, too. Without you, there wouldn’t be a blog.

So, you see, while my claim of being a one woman show is true in one sense, I really couldn’t do any of this without the members of my writing tribe. The world of the writers and authors is filled with marvelous writing communities from which we can all build and grow our own tribes.

Who’s in your tribe?

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Writer’s Corner: Direct Selling on the Kickstarter Platform

Posted: August 15, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: book marketing, Book Promotion, Kickstarter, Writer's Corner | Tags: book marketing, Direct Sales, Kaye Lynne Booth, Kickstarter, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 1 Comment

Kickstarter seems to be the latest platform for direct sales of your books. They aren’t new to the scene, but they have changed considerably since they first made their appearance. (Look here if you’d like to see a 2012 guest post about Kickstarter by author Tim Baker when they were first starting up.) Up until recently, Kickstarter has been looked upon like a platform where you would go ask for money from people, similar to Go Fund Me, but with , the spectacularly successful campaign that Bryan Sanderson did recently, which everyone seems to be talking about, it looks like that impression may be changing.

Platforms like Kickstarter and Patreon form what Joanna Penn refers to as the “creator economy”, which is similar to what artists did during the Renaissance to survive. (You can listen to Joanna’s interview with Bryan Cohen, author of the Sell More Books Show podcast, on the subjects of Kickstarter and multiple streams of income on The Creative Penn, here.) Renaissance patrons would fund artists and support them so that they could survive while creating their art. Likewise, authors today cannot be expected to survive on just their book income. Most of us would truly starve if we tried to do that. According to Joanna, there are readers out there who are not only willing, but eager, to support your work, you just have to find them.

No. Today’s creators must have multiple streams of income, and many have day jobs to support them, only indulging their craft on a part time basis. Kickstarter provides a platform designed for creatives, including authors, where we can sell our creations directly to our reading audience without the middlemen distributors, such as Amazon, and by selling direct, we receive more than our 70%, allowed by Amazon, or whatever percentage we get from other distributors, but there are a few things we need to prepare for a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Make no mistake. Kickstarter is not a platform where you beg for money, as some may believe. It’s method of direct selling, and when you run a Kickstarter campaign, you have to put in the work for your money. I learned this by following the Kickstarter campaign of Kevin J. Anderson from the operations side of things.

As his student, I was allowed an inside look into the workings of a Kickstarter campaign, and a quite successful one, at that. KJA ran a Kickstarter to fund his latest Dan Shamble Zombie Detective novel, Double Booked. He showed us how to set up the project overview, set your overall campaign goal, set up with Stripe and attach to your bank account so you can get paid, create a video to tell people about your project, set up incentives for the different tiers and stretch goals, etc… Let me tell you, there is a lot of work involved.

Kevin also gave the whole Dan Shamble series eye-catching new covers, which are absolutely fabulous. Then, once the Kickstarter campaign had run its course, the author must make good on their promises and provide the deliverables. For Kevin’s campaign, that involved doing print runs and signing each print copy of the book and mailing them out to his supporters at the appropriate level, (he actually ended up hiring someone to mail them all out, there were so many), as well as following up to be sure each supporter fills out and returns their Kickstarter survey.

KJA’s overall goal was $2,000, which he exceeded. He started at the $5 level, which provided a digital copy of Double Booked. This was the lowest tier of support, so anyone who subscribed to the campaign, at any level, received this. The tiers went all the way up to the $10,000 crazy super fan level, where Kevin promises to narrate an audio book, which he did anyway, then offered as a $25 add on during the campaign. I don’t know how likely it would be for him to actually get a $10,000 crazy super fan to jump on the campaign bandwagon, but either way he narrates his own audio book, and either way he makes money. (You can see just how well KJA did with this Kickstarter here.)

Advice from the hosts of the Six Figure Author podcast (https://6figureauthors.com/ Episode 048 – July 23, 2020) was to never do a Kickstarter for something which you can’t fund on your own, in case you don’t meet your goal. Kevin had Double Booked written before he began the Kickstarter. He knew he could deliver all the rewards promised at every tier. Doing this assures that none of your supporters go away disappointed. Satisfied readers are what is important here, because satisfied readers come back for more. They also suggest setting a lower goal at first, as low as $500, so you’ll be more likely to be able to meet the goal, then raising the bar for subsequent campaigns, building gradually.

Kevin’s campaign was not as crazy successful as Bryan Sanderson’s, which ran right around the same time, but both are examples of how an author can use Kickstarter to sell their work directly to their readers and make decent money. (You can see how crazy successful Bryan Sanderson’s Kickstarter really was here.) Granted, not all authors are Kevin J. Anderson or Bryan Sanderson. While some followers come from the Kickstarter community, it does help to have an existing following, people who already love and admire your work. I think it also helps if you are an established author with a decent backlist, otherwise you would have to make all the rewards new works, which would be even more work for the author.

U.S.A. Today bestselling authors Russell P. Nohelty and Monica Leonelle coauthored Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter, which talks about reasons to sell direct through Kickstarter, how to sell books on Kickstarter, how to budget and market your Kickstarter project, and more. This book takes you step by step through setting up your Kickstarter campaign, and even though I watched KJA do it, I must admit I was intimidated by the sheer number of steps which must be taken and the things which should be included, and of course, it helps to illustrate everything visually, which adds even more to do. It is really a bit overwhelming. This book reinforces the idea that while Kickstarter does have a community of followers who are looking for campaigns of interest to support, your chances of success will be much improved if you already have a flowing to bring with you to to the platform.

From the author side, there’s a lot involved, but from the supporter side, it’s pretty cool because you get all kinds of goodies. For my support, I received a digital copy of Double Booked, plus a new short story in the series, “Bump in the Night”. As well as stretch goal rewards of digital copies of Kevin J. Anderson’s Selected Stories: Fantasy; from his most popular epic space opera series, Saga of the Seven Suns: Two Short Novels; and a government mystery thriller which he coauthored with Doug Beason, PhD, Virtual Destruction. I’ll be posting reviews for all of these down the road, but there were so many that it’s going to take me a while to get through them. (For now, you can read my review of his Selected Stories: Science Fiction here: https://writingtoberead.com/2019/03/01/kevin-j-andersons-selected-stories-science-fiction-volume-2-a-must-read-for-science-fiction-fans/)

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Writer’s Corner: What? I’m a business?

Posted: July 25, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Book Promotion, Indie Publishing, Promotion, Publishing, Self-Publishing, Writer's Corner, Writing, Writing Business | Tags: Independent authors, independent publishing, Kaye Lynne Booth, Publishing, Writer's Corner, Writing Business, Writing to be Read | 6 Comments

Often it seems like everybody wants to be an author, and with the rise of digital publishing and print-on-demand, everyone pretty much can. After all, all it takes to write a book is an idea for a story, a general idea of story structure, and a basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation, right? Well… yes and no, but that is a discussion for a different post. For our purposes, we’re talking about writers who have what it takes to become an author.

However, many authors don’t realize how many non-writing tasks are involved in being an author. Because we aren’t just writing books, we want to sell them, too. And as soon as we start doing that, we become a writing business. That’s right. And we have market and sell our books, pay for websites so fans can find us, find reviewers, engage with readers, as well as putting out a newsletter and other types of advertising to sell our books. And we must keep track of expenses and earnings so we can properly pay our taxes. Yep. Authors really are a business.

As soon as you write your first book, (or story, or poem), you’ve created what they call IP (Intellectual Property), and you are faced with deciding how you want to handle it. In the past, an author would pitch their book to an agent or editor in the hopes of landing a traditional publishing deal, and if they were fortunate enough to land one, then they would sign a contract giving some, or all, of their rights in exchange for royalties, possibly with an advance of reasonable size against future royalties.

Traditional publishing is a traditionally slow business, so then, the author would sit back and wait from two to five years for their book to be published and then, wait even longer until their royalties are enough to pay back their advance, before receiving royalty checks, generally about 15% of sales, twice a year. So you see, by traditional publishing methods, most authors really were starving artists. Add to this that many traditional publishers required you to sign away rights that they never had any intention of using, but they just wanted to cover all of their bases, and would only allow their authors to put out one book a year, and you can see why many authors assumed pen names in other genres just to try and make ends meet.

Fortunately, with the rise of independent publishing, all that changed. Now days, authors who are more prolific and can produce more than one book per year, can write and publish as many as they want. And they can also sell or maintain whichever rights they want to. Independent authors are now dealing directly with book distribution platforms, or they can choose to give an additional percentage to an aggregator, who then places their book on the various distribution platforms, but they still receive a bigger percentage of their royalties than traditionally published authors do.

As explained in Dean Wesley Smith’s Magic Bakery, the IP for your creations are your products, which you can give away or sell in any way you wish, as long as you maintain control of your rights and manage them smartly. That is how successful authors today manage to keep their backlists working for them.

The flip side of this, is that independent authors don’t have publishers to edit and hone their books to perfection (editing), provide a cover (cover design), or get reviews (business) and market their books (marketing and promotion) for them. (I wrote a post about the many hats an author must wear today back in October of 2016 here, but I really had no idea at that time.)

So, these are other skill sets today’s authors must have or learn, or hire out and pay someone else to do them. If they chose to hire them out, then these things become additional business expenses. (The bold emphasis is to reiterate that authors are indeed, a business.) While much of the paid advertising works with numbers and data, authors better brush up on their math skills or hire someone to keep their books and figure their taxes, too. And when you chose to become an author, there are no employers to provide health or dental or vision insurance. The author is responsible for providing these things for themselves as a self-employed entity, because they are a business.

I hate to keep driving on that point, but it’s one which keeps slapping me in the face. Just when I think I’ve done my homework well and gained all the necessary skills to be a successful author, there it is again. At first, I thought that all I’d need was English, grammar and storytelling abilities. One I’d earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, I found that I needed marketing skills to peddle my wares. With almost a B.A. in marketing, and a M.A. in publishing, it looks as if may need a degree in business, as well. ( Okay, maybe not a full degree, but general business knowledge and a good understanding of the publishing industry are needed, because… yep, you got it, you’re a business.)

As a business, authors need to act as professionals, and do what they can to keep up to date on industry news and changes on social media channels and digital platforms which you use on promotions and advertising.

Another thing that I have learned is that even bestselling authors with a large backlist, need multiple streams of income to make their writing business work. It is just good sense in the rapidly changing world of digital technology, where the owners of digital platforms you use for promotion and distribution can change the rules without notice, to not place all of your literary eggs in one basket. The rapid changes to digital industry also mean that there is an abundance of helpful digital tools out there to help you in your writing business. But then, that just means that I need to learn new skills (tech skills) so I can use them!

And to think, I just wanted to write stories.

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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.

She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.

When not writing, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. In addition to creating her own very small publishing house in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. As well as serving as judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Kevin J. Anderson & Jonathan Maberry.

In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.

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Writer’s Corner: 6 Reasons I chose to go wide with my books

Posted: June 20, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Books, Indie Publishing, Publishing, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner | Tags: independent publishing, Kaye Lynne Booth, Publishing, Wide vs. Exclusive, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 10 Comments

I chose to go wide with WordCrafter Press books. Let me tell you why.

Although many authors use KU to increase their income from their books, since page reads may be more of a metric than sales are, but the price may be too high. Going exclusive limits what you can do with your Intellectual Properties. So even though I’ve maintained my rights for a book, I can’t include that book in a story bundle or box set elsewhere, if it’s in KU. I can’t even sell the book direct from my own website. Likewise, audiobooks published with Audible must be exclusive for at least one year and can’t be published elsewhere, not even on my own website.
An author wants to reach as many potential readers as possible, increasing the chances of their book being discovered, so to me, it just makes sense to place your books with as many different book distributors as possible. This can be done on each individual platform directly, but the process is very time consuming, so an aggregator like Draft2Digital or Smashwords, (which have merged into one company), can be helpful in getting your book offered on multiple platforms.
There are some readers who just plain despise Amazon, feeling that they are a monopoly, pushing the smaller companies out, so they won’t buy from them. there are also folks who use readers other than Kindle. By publishing exclusive, authors are not reaching readers who can’t or won’t buy from Amazon or their partners.
Brick and mortar bookstores and libraries hate Amazon. And why shouldn’t they? Amazon is their biggest competitor. So, chances are, that if your book is only available on Amazon, you won’t be able to get these entities to even consider making your book available to their customers. If they check you out and see that you are advertising “Available on Amazon”, you aren’t going to make it through the doors. (That’s why I use the Books2Read links offered through D2D, where you can set it up so potential readers can find you on their favorite book distribution platform. Amazon is in there, but so are the other platforms like Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Scribd, where my books are available.) Even if you have your books on multiple book distribution and library platforms, you still must put in the work to get availability in physical locations, which are excellent opportunities for discovery and gaining new readers.
It just doesn’t make sense to me to “put all my eggs in one basket”. By going exclusive with Amazon, I would be excluding a large portion of potential readers. Publishing with D2D places WordCrafter Press books with most of your favorite book distributors, including Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Apple, Scribd, Amazon, Thalia, Indigo, Mondadori, and Vivlio, as well as Baker & Taylor, Overdrive and other library lists. Of course, being on the lists for libraries and bookstores don’t get your books into the brick and mortar establishments, you still have to work to build relationships with the real people who are found there, but without being on those lists, there isn’t any chance. And if I were to publish exclusive with Amazon those paths would be closed to me.
As Derek Sivers – author, musician, entrepreneur and publisher – says on the May 16, 2022 episode of The Creative Penn podcast, “De-centralization is good. Amazon should not be the only bookstore.” And Sivers suggests that the way to work toward the goal of de-centralization is by training readers to look for your books in other places; other bookstores, libraries, or even direct from the author’s website.

Wide vs. exclusive is an ongoing decision among independent authors. Amazon has become the monster conglomerate that they are, because they are doing all kinds of things right. Most of us are not as anti-Amazon as Sivers, who instructs to send potential readers “anywhere but Amazon”. I can see the value in including Amazon in my wide distribution. Just as it doesn’t make sense to me to go exclusive, neither does it make sense to me to exclude the biggest bookseller on the block.

The fact is, even though I don’t like the pedestal Amazon has raised itself up on, and I don’t like the fact that their TOS isn’t always in the author’s favor, I can’t deny that shopping on Amazon is easy and convenient. Also, I read digital books on a Kindle device, and I hate learning how to set up and use new devices, so Amazon is where I get most of my digital content.

Now that I’ve told you my strategy, you tell me yours. Do you choose to have your books wide or exclusive? Why? Tell me your thoughts in the comments. Let’s make this more of a discussion.

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In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.

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Writer’s Corner: Five things you may not know about the publishing industry

Posted: April 4, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Books, Publishing, Writing | Tags: Hybrid Publishing, independent publishing, Publishing, Traditional Publishing, Writer's Corner, Writing to be Read | 9 Comments

Since the beginning of this century, the publishing industry has undergone many changes at a very rapid pace due to the rise of digital technology and ebooks and the resulting swell of independent authors which has reshaped the way the industry operates. Traditional publishing houses have had a difficult time in adapting to these changes, which are transforming the playing field from being favorable to publishers into one more fair to authors. Trad. publishers are slow to adapt and their numbers are dwindling as they hang on to traditional practices that make little sense in this day and age. Just in the past five years we’ve seen the big 5 become the big 4, and in 2021 they merged into the big 3.

Many authors struggle with the decision of whether to self-publish or try for a traditional publishing deal, which could turn into an endeavor spanning years and your book may still not be published. Traditional publishing offers status and esteem when you can get it, but the road to a traditional publishing deal has many pitfalls and often ends in wrong turns and dead ends. It’s not easy to land a trad. publishing deal and there are no guarantees. This is nothing new. It has never been easy, but I think it’s harder than it used to be

When you take a good hard look at today’s publishing industry, you may find a few things which surprise you. I know I did.

Did you know…

Advances offered by traditional publishing must be paid back before the author sees any of their royalties? That’s right. An advance is just that – payment of royalties in advance. And the royalty percentage offered by trad. publishers is considerably less than what indie authors receive, so it may take a very long time to pay out that advance, and if s book does not sell well, it may never pay out. Many self-published authors have opted for smaller royalty payments over the long haul, rather than one big chunk of money in the beginning that may never pay out any more than that initial advance payment.

While a traditional publishing deal may still carry an advance with it, it seems the advance amounts have gotten smaller, as traditional publishers grow more unsure of your book’s ability to sell? While book publishers have always taken risks when signing a new author, with the rise of independent authors and publishers, there’s a lot more competition and publishers may be less confident of a book’s success, so they aren’t as willing as they once were to cough up the cash before the book has been proven. What’s more, they aren’t as willing to provide as much effort for promotion. In fact, trad. publishers today are looking at the reader platform, or fan base, that an author brings with them as well as their social media platforms, etc…, and they may expect authors to perform much of the marketing and promotion for their book. A small independent publisher which published my western novel, Delilah, but they did very little as far as marketing goes, and of course, there was no advance. I felt I could do better with it myself, which is why I chose not to renew my contract and will be re-publishing the book myself as part of the Women of the West adventure series.

Traditional publishing created a return policy for bookstores and retailers that allows them to return print books at the publishers expense, which still applies today, effectively preventing independent publishers and authors from having their print books carried in brick and mortar bookstores? While print-on-demand has revolutionized the publishing industry, making it no longer be necessary for authors to create large or small print runs and stockpile books I’m their basement or garage, it is still a challenge for independent authors to get their books into bookstores due to the ridiculous return policy trad. publishers created for bookstores. Today, bookstores have played by these rules for so long that they have no desire to change the rules even though they should. You can read about the options when you publish through Ingram Spark here. There may be a work around if you can find an independent local bookstore willing to take your books on consignment, but for the most part, indie authors are limited to selling their print books online because of an outdated policy that never made sense in the first place. I mean, what other industry allows to retailers to return unsold products after a number of years for a full refund, potentially devastating the maker when the charge blindsides them unexpectedly?

The time that you must wait for your book to go through the traditional publishing process could be two to three years or more from the time of signing, if you do manage to land a traditional publishing deal? Even after you have a contract, that doesn’t guarantee that your book will actually be published, and the publishing process is so long and tedious that your book could potentially be in limbo for years. Of course, that is not what happens most of the time, but it has happened. Children’s books take even longer to go through the publishing process. They can take up to five years or more. Imagine the disappointment of not being published after waiting years to get a trad. deal, and waiting even more years to go through the publishing process. This may be even more of a possibility with the instability of the traditional publishing industry today.

Traditional publishers often ask for rights they never intend to use, and if you give them to them, you can no longer do anything with them? Traditional publishing contracts are not traditionally author friendly, often asking authors to throw in many rights that are unnecessary for the author to give up. For example, many publishing contracts ask for audio rights, even when they have no intention of publishing your book on audio. If these rights are maintained by the author, they can be licensed separately or used to produce their own audiobook through one of the many audiobook platforms available to authors today, but if they are included on your contract, the publisher can sit on them and the author will make nothing from them. That’s money left on the table that the author can’t touch. It is very important that authors know what they are signing and don’t sign away rights that they don’t need to.

Authors today have choices which authors of the past did not. We no longer have to go through the submission-rejection-resubmission grind for months or years to find someone else who likes your writing and might want to publish it. Today we can publish our works ourselves because we like it, and hopefully find others who like it too and will become fans and loyal readers. There are many authors today who choose to try the best of both worlds in some sort of hybrid combination that fits their needs.

I can’t see trying to beat a dead horse, and for me, I think that is what traditional publishing would be. Although making money from my books is always a goal, as I pointed out above, there are no guarantees that I would ever find someone who wanted to publish my book and, even then, there are no guarantees that it would actually happen, or that it would sell. I want people to read my books and that will never happen unless they are published. That’s why, for me, independent publishing will be the course that I choose. Which course is right for you?

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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.

She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); and Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”). Her western, Delilah, her paranormal mystery novella and her short story collection, Last Call, are all available in both digital and print editions.

In her spare time, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. She’s also the founder of WordCrafter. In addition to creating her own imprint in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. When not writing or editing, she is bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.

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Sign up for the Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Newsletter for and book event news for WordCrafter Press books, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of Kaye Lynne Booth’s paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, just for subscribing.

Writer’s Corner – Five reasons it makes perfect sense to become an independent author

Posted: March 14, 2022 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Indie Publishing, Publishing, Self-Publishing, WordCrafter Press, Writer's Corner, Writing | Tags: elf-Publishing, independent publishing, Kaye Lynne Booth, Publishing, Writer's Corner, WritingtobeRead | 2 Comments

Traditional publishing is fast becoming a dinosaur, being slow to adapt to the rapid technological changes which have arisen along side the rise of digital publishing within the industry. Independent authors and publishers have been flexible, creative and quick to adapt to digital technology which makes it possible for aspiring authors to test the waters without waiting around for years or even decades for traditional publishers to take notice and grace us with their attentions, while traditional publishers have been resistant to change, turning their noses up at self-published authors until their value as professional authors with the ability to produce books that sell by independent industry leaders like Hugh Howey, and been generally inflexible and unbending, continuing to follow publishing and marketing models which are no longer effective. The adaptions that they have made have been forced and have made the traditional publishing model even less appealing for authors.

Better Royalties: Royalties on traditional publishing which the author receives are usually around 15% of sales, while independently published authors receive anywhere from 30-70%, depending upon which platforms they choose to publish on. And don’t forget that independently published authors who go wide rather than exclusive can always sell direct from their site and make even more.
Negotiations: Traditional publishing contracts are awful and getting worse, according to Kristine Kathryn Rush, (https://kriswrites.com/2022/01/05/business-musings-contracts-traditional-publishing-the-year-in-review-4/). Deals may offer the author an advance, even this is not guaranteed anymore. And the ones that are offered are for lesser amounts than were previously offered in the past. Of course, traditional publishing deals have always been skewed in the publishers’ favor, and the book must earn back the advance before the author ever sees any additional royalties and an author whose book doesn’t sell well may never see any royalties past the initial advance. As Rusch points out, all things are negotiable and the publishing house no longer holds the reins. Smart independent authors manage their own Intellectual Property (IP), and they don’t EVER sign away all of their rights and leverage their writing to the author’s benefit.
Decrease in Publisher Responsibilities: While in the past, traditional publishers were willing to invest in the marketing and advertising of books, it seems they have grown more reluctant to do so in today’s book market. Even if you do manage to land a traditional publishing deal today, you may still need to take on a large part, if not all, of the marketing tasks to sell your book. So while it is true that indie authors have to spend a large portion of their time on administrative and promotional tasks, publishing traditionally does not guarantee that this will not be necessary.
Improved Product Availability: With the availability of ‘Print on Demand’ publishing, authors no longer need to make large expenditures on big print runs or make space to house vast numbers of book in their garage or basement, as was previously necessary with offset printing. Audiobooks are also becoming more affordable to produce with the rise of AI narration, which is now offered for free on Google Play Books. Lower prices and better availability of services for independent authors on a budget, make independent publishing an even better option than it has been in the past.
Control: Independently publishing puts the author in control. Of course, with control comes responsibilities. I won’t deny that indie authors must wear many hats; author, publisher, self-editor, marketer, and maybe even cover designer, as well as “The Boss”. One lesson I’ve been learning recently, is that I can’t do it all, and I am having to wear “The Boss” hat more and delegate some of the other tasks to those better suited to do them, so that I can have time to put into my own writing. Marketing is a matter of trial and error a lot of time, and changing the cover or the blurb can make a big difference in how well a book sells. Independent authors are “The Boss” and when they see their book isn’t selling as well as they think it might, they have the ability to go in and change the cover or the blurb and see if they can’t turn things around, while if with traditional publishers, they may have their work cut out for them convincing their publisher to change something up to see if it sells better.

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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you. In her spare time, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. She is also the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services, providing editing, social media copywriting & book promotion, and online writing courses. When not engaged in writing activities, she is bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.

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Writing to be Read

Author's Blog – Book Reviews, Author Profiles and Reflections on Writing

Writer’s Corner: My First Kickstarter

Writer’s Corner: What I learned from NaNoWriMo

Writer’s Corner: Writing strong female protagonists

Writer’s Corner: Great Beginnings

Writer’s Corner: Writing Communities & Tribes and more…

Writer’s Corner: Direct Selling on the Kickstarter Platform

Writer’s Corner: What? I’m a business?

Writer’s Corner: 6 Reasons I chose to go wide with my books

Writer’s Corner: Five things you may not know about the publishing industry

Writer’s Corner – Five reasons it makes perfect sense to become an independent author

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