New Book: James Maguire Origin Story

Those of you who familiar with the James Maguire series will know that before he joined the NYPD he was a US Navy SEAL. I have had an idea sitting on the backburner for a few years and decided that I would pursue it and have enjoyed writing this new story.

This story centers around Maguire’s time in the SEAL teams and has him being sent to Mexico on a clandestine operation. I don’t want to give too many details away, so I’ll just attach an image and let your imagination run with it.

The book is about 80% complete and I hope to have it available shortly. I’ll update you on the progress as it gets closer to publication.

Once again, that you for your continued support.

If you are interested in learning more about my books, please check out my Amazon Page

The Life of an Indie Author - Tales from the Writing Trenches

Back in 2013, when I completed my first novel: PERFECT PAWN, I remember sitting there smiling or a moment and then the realization hit me: Now What? It seems funny to me now, as I look back on those dark times, but for me that was the moment when the creative rubber truly hit the literary road.

As I sit here formatting the print version for my soon to be released COLD CASE anthology, I realize a lot of you might be in the same ballpark I was in 2013. Despair not, you've got this. 

When your book is complete (it really isn't) you're left with two choices: Pursue a traditional publishing course or opt for the indie road. If you choose indie, you have a helluva road in front of you, because you will have to embrace the roles normally filled by the staff at publishing houses. So what does this mean? Well, here is what you can expect to do: 

1. Write Book

2. Edit Book (Then edit it again, and edit it again after you get reader feedback)

3. Format Interior Book (At least 2 versions: Print & eBook)

4. Design Cover Graphic (Both full-size and thumbnail)

5. Secure ISBN numbers

6. Submit to Publishing Platforms

7. Design Social Media Engagement

8. Advertising

Still want to be an author? Good. 

These might seem like monumental hurdles to overcome, but I assure you they are not. Having just released my fifteenth book I can tell you that you can learn these skills. Are they easy? No. You might master one area and feel like you are slogging through quicksand for the others. But each book will become easier if you commit yourself to listening and learning. I think every indie author owes it to their craft to help others. I’m a firm believer in the old adage: A rising tide raises all boats.

Of the eight things I listed above (you might have more), the most important are 1-4 and 8. To me the first four are crucial, because if you do not have a solid book, nothing else matters. Obviously your writing is paramount, but without an attractive cover most books will get passed over. Too many authors take a pass on this, opting to use templates and are left wondering why their books get no traction. You only get one chance to pull a reader in and the cover does it. If your book uses a stock template cover, readers may be less inclined to take a risk.

Once you’ve overcome that hurdle, and you have piqued the curiosity of the potential reader, you have another one to consider. When a reader looks inside the book, they expect yours to look EXACTLY like every other book they read, meaning it should be formatted like existing books. Open a book from a well-published author and copy that interior. You might think that edgy font looks cool, but have you ever considered that some readers have reading issues. Clear fonts should be the standard. It’s a book and should not be as difficult to read as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.  

The other important thing is advertising, and I cannot stress this enough. It sounds counterintuitive, but if you want to make money, you have to spend money. I know that is hard for someone on a limited budget, but it is the truth. Don’t believe me? Here is a graph for my debut novel. I think you can figure out exactly when I started aggressively advertising. This is also the part where I humbly admit my wife was right when she advised me to advertise sooner.

Now, should you do this right away? I don’t know. Personally, I would save this one until you have 2 or even 3 books under your belt, because advertising will correlate to sales over your entire span of works. Readers are much more eager to try a new author if they have several books they can read after the first one hooks them. 

I hope this helps you to understand where to go next. These are the areas that I have identified, but you might have others. The important thing is to keep writing and embrace your craft.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Challenges for Writers: Social Media

Social Media – It seems as if we are glued to it; both night and day.

Many authors, both legacy published and indie, immediately take to the social media scene and use it as a platform that consists of posts which amount to nothing more than: Buy Me, Buy Me, Buy Me.

Seriously - I’ve been on Twitter and Facebook now for well over a half dozen years and it has all blurred into the same thing. Now, I will be the first one to admit that I have previously used these platforms in the same way. Hey, we all make mistakes, but I can tell you, based on my experiences, these are really bad vehicles for promoting your book.

The problem is you are trying to read the tea-leaves and hype your book to a completely random audience. For example, even if you have an amazingly diverse number of followers, the reader who might be interested in your book has to be at their computer at the very same moment you post. What do you think those odds are?  There are over two hundred million Facebook users and nearly seventy million Twitter users in the United States alone. Something tells me you’re going to experience some type of scheduling conflict as you try to connect.

And it’s not just a matter of connecting; you also have to find them when they are in the mood and we all know how hard that can be……

The truth is, more likely than not, they are there looking for cute animal pics, inspirational quotes or to find out what they need to be offended by today. In fact, looking at sales trends on my books, I can’t recall any instance where anything appeared to be social media driven. Even when offering free or discounted deals, I didn’t observe any major uptick that coincided with social media posting.

That being said, do I think you should forego social media as a whole? No, not at all, you should make it part of your platform, but make it a well-rounded part. Don’t just use it for YOUR books, throw in the occasional cute animal photo and remember to promote your fellow authors as well. No one really likes that person who only pats themselves on the back and this is a bigger problem than you might think. If you have 5k posts on Twitter and 4.9k consist of ‘buy my book,’ you are going to want to re-think things. That strategy might work, if your James Patterson, but the average indie author is probably going to turn-off a lot more potential readers than they entice.

My social media platform consists of my website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. I also made sure to utilize the author pages available to me at Amazon, GoodReads and BookBub. 

Both Amazon and GoodReads are especially useful if you have a website / blog because you can also link those pages to show your most recent posts. Another nice feature of Twitter is that you can also ‘pin’ a post to the top of your page. I have a link to my books and this allows those who want to tweet me the opportunity to share it, without having to search through a ton of unrelated posts. I use this method when re-tweeting my fellow authors and let me tell you it is a blessing. If I have to scroll through dozens of tweets without finding one of your books, I simply give up. If you don’t care, I don’t care.

While I am on the topic of Twitter, let me provide some advice here. If you are an author, please, please, please: Reconsider whether you want to tweet that inflammatory political comment. Too often, many do not exercise caution or even good judgment when it comes to this topic. Mind you, I am not talking about re-tweeting things that are intellectually critical about a politician or a potential issue, but the ones that are downright mean-spirited. The reason for this is that there is a very strong possibility you will most likely alienate a potential reader.

I screen every new follower, to see what they post, when I am thinking about following them back. Often I see completely discredited commentary or inflammatory rhetoric. Not only am I not going to follow you, but I am certainly not going to buy your books. That’s not to say that I demand everyone to be like me, or to refrain completely from discussing issues, but I draw the line when it comes to crudely bashing someone simply because you disagree with them.  We need to return the word civil back to civil discourse. The literary world is tough enough that you don’t need to chase away any potential readers. 

Up next: Publicity - Fake it, Till You Make it.

This isn’t intended to be a complete list, but some suggestions as to what has and hasn’t worked for me.

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