Through His Touch Novel by Deborah Camp

Amazon Adventures

Welcome to "You're On Your Own" Authoring

Pardon me while I whine.

I've been trying to get Amazon to do a little "something-something" to help promote my books and it's like asking for water on the moon!

Yes, Amazon has been very good to me. Amazon, along with my brilliant and fierce literary agent, revived my novel writing career.  I also know that Amazon is very good to some authors because I see the bouquets of flowers and towers of snack food they've sent via Facebook posts. "Oh, look what just arrived from Amazon! These beautiful roses to congratulate me on my latest release!." That's an example of posts I've seen along with the photo of the gorgeous blooms. So, I decided to see if, in lieu of flowers, Amazon would maybe promote my first book in my series right before my second is released in September. The answer came swiftly -- nope.

Okay. Message received!

I scouted some of the "chosen" authors to see what they were doing that I wasn't. The answer, of course, is painfully simple. They sell more books and get considerably more reviews. I am ecstatic with my 26 reviews of "Through His Eyes." Or I was. Then I saw the reviews of the "chosen" authors. 950 reviews. 2,318 reviews. 1,009 reviews. 876 reviews.

Holy Cow! It's a wonder Amazon even bothered to answer me!

How do these authors manage to get so many reviews? It's astounding. I had to beg, plead, and barter for my 26 reviews! I hope those authors wake up every day saying, "I'm the luckiest so-and-so in the whole, wide world." Do it for us "little folks," okay?

I've recently worked with Amazon to do a boxed set of my "Too Tough" trilogy of western romances. Just to get a cover was a trial. I finally had to go look for one myself and buy it. Then my brilliant and fierce agent's associate (bless her darling heart!) added the lettering because Amazon just couldn't find a font that was readable on the book cover. We mentioned that we were probably going to offer my books on other sites (B&N) now that my exclusive contract was finished with Amazon and Amazon warned us that we couldn't use their book covers on other sites.

This was humorous to me because of three things:
1. Their covers are mediocre, at best. 
2. You can buy them on shutterstock.com
3. Even though I could buy them and use them, I wouldn't. I'll buy much better ones.

I repeat. Amazon has been very good to me. However, I'm certainly not on their radar, so they're not the least bit interested in promoting my books. That's all up to me and my checkbook and credit card -- and believe me, they're both getting work-outs!

The irony of all this doesn't just lie with Amazon. It applies to all publishing. The authors who are promoted by publishers are wealthy and could actually well afford to promote their own books. The authors who desperately need a bit of help promoting their books have little money to spare and get no or precious little help from the publishers.

It's survival of the best-sellers and the most-reviewed. You have to climb to the top of the mountain before you can be seen by the promotion gods.

Will You Cover Me?

Nailing the Right Look

I have just finalizing the cover for my next novel. This is still a new experience for me, although I have been lucky enough to see more than 45 of my books published.

To date, I've worked with two cover artists and both were very good. I'll probably use them again -- if they'll have me. It's a process that's both exciting and extremely frustrating. Back when my books were contracted by mainstream print publishers, I knew nothing about the covers until I received them in the mail with a short note from the editor: "Here's your cover! Enjoy."

Most often I enjoyed....sometimes I didn't. However, my feelings weren't important. The only time I could gripe was if the cover artist got something horribly wrong -- like a Scottish setting instead of a western one. (And sometimes not even then! I once had a contemporary romance with a Gothic cover slapped on it.) One time the color of the heroine's hair on the cover was entirely incorrect, but that wasn't changed. Too bad. So sad.

Publishing on Amazon means they will select a cover or I can do the whole cover thing myself. Having seen Amazon's versions of good covers -- pardon while I retch -- I have since chosen my own artist and paid for it all myself. By doing this I have learned a few interesting facts:

1. Just because you can picture the perfect cover in your head doesn't mean you'll ever see it for real. I had an idea of the cover art I wanted and I didn't think there would be a problem getting it. Looking high and low at the available photographs online, I couldn't find one image that was even close. The cover artist gave up and sent me some other ideas -- none of which floated my boat. I spent approximately 12 hours looking at photos over the next couple of days. I came up with six I thought would be okay for my book. None of them were what I'd originally envisioned.

2. Time is of the essence. If I'd been allowed enough time, I could have had the cover artist set up a photo shoot and get the cover shot I wanted. However, by the time she contacted me and was ready to begin work, it was already too late for that. I had to have a cover by the end of June for ads I was placing in magazines. She didn't start work on my cover until June 21. Although it only took her a few hours to complete the cover once a photo was chosen, there wasn't enough time for a photo shoot. I'll know next time to look for photos early. Then, if I can't find anything I like, I'll have enough time to pay extra for a photo shoot.

3. Getting several people to agree on a cover is impossible. Since I didn't trust my own judgement entirely, I sent two or three possible covers to a friend and my agent for their suggestions. There was no consensus among them, so I was more confused than ever and had to rely on my judgement. Yikes!

4. Lettering is important. On the cover before this one, I went around and around with the artist about the lettering. Fonts are so important. They can evoke feelings and they can (and should) command the eye. They should also be easy to read, especially when the cover is reduced to thumbnail size. Getting all of this right on a romantic suspense novel with paranormal elements is exasperating. To depict so many genres at once is darned near impossible! That we have come so close to it twice now is remarkable.

5. Everyone won't like it. Just as with your book, there will be detractors who defame your creation. I loved the cover of "Through His Eyes," but several people made a point in their reviews to say they hated it. I fully expect to experience the same wincing pain when this new cover is revealed. Of course, I like it or I wouldn't have paid for it! But I know there will be people who will trash it. I suppose that's better than trashing my writing . .  but still! It hurts.

Each time I go through this process, I learn something new. It's still one of my high points in the journey of creating a book. I like having the power to choose my cover. With that power comes new responsibilities and new worries. But, at least, I don't have to wait to have the cover mailed to me and be told to "Enjoy!" whether I like it or not. 

Adventures on my First Blog Tour

Taken for a Ride

After my first guided blog tour, I'm sure the tour guides who assisted me think I'm pretty dumb to have written so many books.

Let me apologize again for my missteps and mistakes. Yes, it's true that I paid for a "Cover Reveal" and then revealed my cover all over the place before the actual date of my "cover reveal." The perplexed blog owner wrote to me, gently mentioning that my cover was no longer a secret and couldn't be revealed anymore. Not understanding the blog community, I wasn't aware that blogs communicate with each other and band together to facilitate better coverage for a book. The blog owner pointed this out to me and said she would have been happy to work with the other blog owner who was conducting one of my tours if she had only known that I was "double dipping," so to speak. I'm a bad, bad girl. I offered to make it up to her by writing a post for her blog. Again, she was more gracious than she needed to be and allowed this.

I didn't offer any giveaways because I couldn't figure out what I could give away. It seemed that authors were having drawings to win an autographed copy of their paperback, but my book is an ebook. Hard to autograph those. Other blogs pointed out that I could give away bookmarks, tote bags, or key chains. I consider all of these, but how many of those items do you need, really? I'm considering my options for the next go-round and I'm leaning toward gift cards. I can always use a gift card -- especially to buy books! Can't you?

I must admit that I loved the ride! The tours were exciting and I discovered new and wondrous things around every curve in the road -- beautiful blogs, websites, and Facebook pages; voracious readers; thoughtful reviewers; and other authors and their fabulous books! The very best part was getting reviews of my book. Oh, my. The thrill of it all. I don't know how other, more popular authors feel about reviews -- do they take them for granted when their books receive hundreds or even thousands of reviews? -- but every single one I receive is cause for celebration. Even if the reviewer isn't all that enamored with my book, at least the person took the time to post a review!

Sure, I was sweating bullets when the first review copies went out, but I can't express in mere words the total and complete euphoria I've experienced when I read (and reread) the reviews of people who love my characters and enjoyed my story. I admit I cried a few times when I read those reviews. Happy tears.

Is it any wonder that I've booked another blog tour (a couple, actually) for Book #2 in the Mind's Eye series (Through His Touch)? I'm looking forward to the first two weeks in September when I'll be touring the blog world again, rubbing virtual elbows with other readers, and begging the blog owners to please review my book. Pretty please?

I hope I'm not such a novice imbecile this time around. If I stumble, though, I know the blog tour guides will be there to catch me and force me back upright. I love those gals at Enticing Journey Book Promotions and Bewitching Book Tours.  They know how to show a girl a good time.

Signings of the Times

Why I don't miss book signings

When your first few books come out, it's very exciting. Of course, the first one will never be topped. That first call from a New York editor or literary agent who tells you that the publishing house will publish your book and here's the advance they're offering . . . well, that particular numbing thrill can't be beat!

The first few autographings or book signing parties are burned into your memory. Relatives and good friends made up most of the crowd, sure, but there were also people you'd never met before. Very exciting and heady stuff.

If you're fortunate enough and energetic enough to continue selling your work, then the signings keep being set up, and after the fourth or fifth or sixth one, your relatives and friends begin making excuses for why they won't be able to attend or they simply stop coming to them without any excuse. The thrill is gone. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. Fewer and fewer well-wishers show up for your events and you start having "combined" signings with other authors to scare up a bigger crowd of readers and book buyers.

Naturally, I recall some wonderful moments during book signings. It was fun just to see my friends and fellow writers. However, just as I recall my bad book reviews more readily than I recall the glowing ones, I can vividly remember the insults and the agony of selling maybe three or four books in a three hour period. Talk about a humbling experience!

I recall people stopping by, picking up my books, reading the back cover blurbs, checking me out, and asking, "So, you wrote this?"

"I did!" I responded, proudly.

"Oh." Then setting it back down on the table and ambling away, totally unimpressed.

I can also remember having numerous people stop by the table sitting just outside the book store in a mall and asking me where the restrooms were located. That was the most action I got all day -- giving directions to people who needed "the facilities."

One lady asked a fellow author sitting beside me at one of these functions, "Is this better than your last book?"

"Better? Well, that's hard for me to say," the author responded, graciously. "I wouldn't say it was better."

"Oh." The lady dropped it back onto the table. "I'll pass then. I didn't like your last one all that much."

Gee, thanks, lady! Just what we all want to hear from our adoring public!

So, when people ask me if I'm signing my books anywhere, I'm so very glad to tell them that my new book is an e-book and there will be no autograph party. And no free bookmarks. Remember when we did that? Made up hundreds of bookmarks and sent them to anyone who asked? One time I placed an ad in Romantic Times magazine, instructing people to write me for a free bookmark. I was swamped with requests! I was thrilled. Then I realized from reading some of the accompanying letters that these people had no intention of buying or reading my book. They simply collected bookmarks! Who does that? Evidently, the readers of Romantic Times back then.

Book signings can be exciting. Especially when you're Nora Roberts, Stephen King, John Grisham, or Sylvia Day. For most of us, though, it becomes an exercise in humility. More often than not, instead of selling books, we end up listening to other people tell us about the books they want to write some day if they ever get around to it.

I've signed off on book signings for now. Doesn't mean I won't show up at someone else's. However, when I do attend a book signing, I actually purchase a book that I fully intend to read and enjoy! What's more, I will post a book review of it. It's a novel idea, I know.

 

Don't Know -- Don't Tell

POV Ping-pong

I'm reading a good romance by a bestselling author right now. It's an older one that was on sale, so I jumped on it and I'm glad. As I expected from this author, it's a great story with interesting characters and wonderful phrasing and dialogue.

It's been a while since I've read this mega famous writer's books and she does something that most writers get slammed for -- she pops in and out of character viewpoints and often leaps into "God's viewpoint" or omniscient. I find this extremely vexing, especially when I read a sentence like this:

"Neither one of them heard the front door open and close."

Okay. So, why write that? What good can come from jerking your readers out of the book and telling them something that no one in the story knows? It's just plain asinine. Yet, this famous author does it in almost every book she writes.

She also leaps from viewpoint to viewpoint -- and not just between her main characters. Nope. She hops into secondary character viewpoints, too, for a paragraph or two. Totally pointless.

For instance, the main couple will kiss and gaze longingly and tenderly at each other and Bang! We're in a secondary character's head (and sometimes it's not even a secondary character but a "walk on" character or "sword carrier" as they say in the acting profession) and we are told that this character is touched by the scene and hopes the two people make a go of it. Really? You jumped viewpoints to tell us that? Like we can't, as readers, experience this on our own? If the scene is powerful enough, then readers will be thinking or feeling this. Jumping into a character's viewpoint for two or three sentences to "tell" us something that was just experienced by us through the main characters is utterly pointless -- and jarring.

Luckily, the author is skilled enough to not confuse us too much about who is thinking and feeling, etc. as she leapfrogs from one point of view to another. Lesser skilled writers can give you whiplash with such maneuvers and make you read passages again to try to figure out what's going on.

I admit that I'm a point-of-view purist because it was hammered into me by every writing teacher I ever had and was also demonstrated to me why point-of-view should be handled skillfully and sparingly. So, it's surprising to me when I read a hugely bestselling author and find POV ping-pong games. It's especially annoying when I read that characters didn't feel, didn't know, didn't see, didn't taste, didn't hear something. That's just wrong. It's simply bad writing -- lazy writing -- pointless writing. And it doesn't matter if a multi-millionaire author writes it or a never published writer pens it. When I read it, I roll my eyes, gnash my teeth, and find myself thrust out of the fictive world. If that was the writer's intention -- mission accomplished.

 

Why Bloggers Are So Cool

Love Those Bloggers!

I confess....

I am a late-comer when it comes to blogs. Yes, I have one and have been plugging away here for a few years (believe it or not!), but I only recently dipped my toe into the pool of blog tour promotions. It's a fascinating environment and I have developed a keen appreciation for all the active bloggers who also happen to be ardent readers. Thank God for them -- one and all!

I confess....

My agent tried to horsewhip me into doing more blogging interaction when my last historical romance ("To Seduce and Defend") was published a year or so ago. I sighed and whined and rolled my eyes. I was still stuck back in the day when Harlequin and Avon did all of that promotion and publicity stuff (not that they ever did that much for me -- especially Harlequin). I just wanted to write and be left alone and I sure as shootin' didn't want to spend a bunch of money on ads and such. If my book was good -- which I felt it was -- then people would read it.

I confess....

I am an idiot and a dinosaur. My poor, old historical romance suffered because I did minimal work in getting the word out about it. It received a few good reviews, but it never took off. This made no sense to me since my previous books were selling more than my new one! Crazy. And that continues to be the case to this very day! What the heck was that all about? Well, I think it's because Amazon plugged my backlist and helped people discover it. They didn't promote my new one as much. In fact, recently, Amazon selected "Too Tough To Tame" as a daily deal and that book (an older one of mine) hit #1 on the romance bestseller list! So, given all of this, I decided I must jump on the promotion bandwagon and that's where I ran into active bloggers and blog tour guides.

I confess....

No matter how my new book sells,  I won't regret my interaction with bloggers and tour guides. It's thrilling to communicate with so many readers -- readers like me who love, love, love to discover new authors and to read new books by authors we already love. Although I'm a writer, I was first a reader and still am, so I never get tired of discussing books. My best friends get tired, however, of hearing me, so it was so nice to meet others who weren't tired of me! That's one of the great things about the Goodreads website -- lots of people talking about lots of books. I find it invigorating.

I confess....

I owe a great debt to bloggers. They set up their blogs and websites and toil away for the love of books. And they also do something that is beyond measure -- they post book reviews, not only on their blogs, but on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. BLESS THEM FOR THAT! I've done everything but sell my virtue (and I might even consider that) to get people to read and post a review of my books! I have sent out ARCs with the stipulation that they had better post a review -- even if they didn't enjoy the book all that much! And what happens? No reviews. Or maybe one out of 10 ARCs sent. But bloggers? They are champs! They read them and keep their word and review them. What's more, if they don't have time to read them or they don't like the kind of book you've written, they tell you up front and don't shine you on. Most of them won't post a review if they can't be encouraging about the book, but they let you know that's why you won't see a review from them. I love that!

I confess....

I'm hooked on bloggers and owe my literary agent a giant apology. I am no longer a happy and clueless dinosaur. I live in the land of Blogs and I am among my people once more!