Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Relationships

It's a word I hear more and more often.  As writers, we talk about building relationships with our readers and with other authors.  But how do you do that in a natural, organic fashion?

I've journeyed into this uncharted territory these last few weeks as I ask myself how to build an author platform.

What I have done:
1) joined Twitter under my pen name
2) joined Goodreads under my pen name
3) set up a website

So you do all of that and your followers and readers magically appear?  Of course not.

It takes TIME.  Maybe more time than I can give, in fact.

What works for me:
Twitter - I retweet versus new tweets.  I need to keep my real life separate so I find retweeting industry news and helping promote others is better for me.
Goodreads - I am working on ramping up author interviews for my blog on my author website

And I've suddenly found myself sharing about my book with people I don't necessarily want to read my book...like my boss' boss' boss.  (Um...you probably don't read romance novels...right?)  But you never know because she or he may know someone who does!  And what's important is to start building that connection.

Maybe they won't like your book.  Maybe they will.  And just maybe they will share your book with others.  Then you'll have built yet another relationship.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Under Contract!

Debut Romance Novel

I am so excited to announce I am now under contract with Soul Mate Publishing for my paranormal romance MARRY ME!

Some of you may remember that MARRY ME won 1st place in the Emerald City Opener 2011 in the paranormal romance category.  Submissions began late last year and early this year with a brief hiatus as life a my day-job got busier.  Then after RWA Nationals in Anaheim, I again pitched MM.

Responses have become less frequent and with the holidays, I hadn't expected as much activity.  In the past, I submitted to e-pubs after agents.  This time I decided to submit together.  There were several reasons for this.

1) fewer responses from agents and editors
2) longer response times
3) changing landscape of publishing
4) increasing fragmentation of publishing

It really is a "brave new world" these days...

Why Soul Mate

Soul Mate has beautiful cover art.  A lot of young publishers will tell you they have the best cover art in the world.  Covers sell books and as authors, we care how our story is portrayed.  I perused several sites and Soul Mate's cover art was attractive and PROFESSIONAL.  If I could and wanted to do the cover art, I would have self-published.  But I don't.  I want multiple sets of eyes to edit, I want someone to help with promotions, and someone else to help design a beautiful cover.  Obviously, I'm not at the stage of working on the cover yet, but so far, I like what I see.

Soul Mate is a budding enterprise.  In my "real" life, I have a MBA from a prestigious school and have worked in 5 different industries in my career.  I joined RWA in 2001 and I've been submitting books before there was the convenience of the Internet to do so.  I know corporate business and I know publishing.  And I want to grow WITH a business.

Soul Mate will allow me to do that!

New Pen Name

MARRY ME will be under my new pen name Jennifer Shea.  You can find my alter-ego here.  It will be cataloging the publishing journey for anyone interested.  She is also on Twitter under @jensheaauthor.  Follow me and I will follow back!