Splash into Summer Giveaway Hop

I have decided, since I'm such a huge fan of summer and all things beachy, to participate in the Splash into Summer Giveaway Hop.  My giveaway is to get your summer started with my YA eBook collection--The Reaping, Wiccan and Blood Like Poison.    The winner will be drawn at midnight on May 31st and notified June 1st.  I'll post the announcement of the winner here as well.

To enter:

• "Follow" my blog
• Leave a comment with your e-mail address
• +1 if you follow me on Twitter
• +1 if you tweet my blog address

After you enter here, hop on over to some of the other blogs and enter there, too.

"Hop List"

Enjoy the hop!  Let the giveaways begin...

Interview with Catie and a note

Catie over at Forbidden Passions Interviews posted her interview with me today.  You can check it out HERE.  Go by and give her new blog some love.  She reviews books over at Coffee Times Romance.  Now she's branched out, doing interviews with *cough cough, wink, wink* fascinating people :D

On another note, I cannot seem to post a comment to any of my blogs, so I'd like to answer @Dani's question here.  Yes, I have every intention of revamping (no pun intended) the 2 completed manuscripts that I have here.  I've always loved the storyline, especially of the first one.  They are both vampire novels, though, so I'd like to space them a good bit away from BLP.  Dani, I always love to hear from you, so when I get those suckers fixed up nice and pretty, I'll give you copies of both, on the house.  Deal??  Thanks so much for all your encouraging comments.  Very often, they make my day:)

And, again, for all those who haven't heard me say it and a double dose for all those who have, THANK YOU to every single person out there who reads my book(s).  I'm humbled and thrilled and eternally grateful.

My first blog hop starts tomorrow, so y'all come back and bring some friends (and get them to buy a book while they're here).  Just kidding.  Well, not really.

Megan's Interview and Giveaway

Megan McDade is a newcomer to the YA Sisterhood and she's posted an interview with me followed by a giveaway copy of BLP on her blog HERE.  Stop by and show her blog some love, and while you're there, sign up for a free copy of BLP if you haven't already read it.  If you have, sign up anyway and have your winning copy sent to a friend.  Nothing like a random act of kindness to brighten someone's day:)

The Mystery of Amazon Ranks

Most writers, especially those of the self-published variety, watch their Amazon ranks as they fluctuate from day to day, hour to hour with some degree of frustration and puzzlement.  I think a common misconception is that rank is directly tied to X number of sales.  That is true to a certain extent, but it is a very fluid tie.  On Monday you may sell 10 books in one hour and that might bring your rank down to # 4,500 for that hour, but then, the next hour you might sell 15 books and your rank will take an unwanted dive to # 5,100.  What can we possibly glean from that?  Can we look at any author's rank and tell exactly how many books they've sold to achieve that rank?  No!  No, no, no! 

Amazon's ranks are simultaneously indicative of how many copies of your book sold in the previous hour AS WELL AS how many of your competitors' books sold during that same hour.  If you are lucky enough to have been one of only a few who sold 10 copies in that first hour, then your rank will shoot up.  If you sold 10, but someone else managed to sell 25 in that same hour, your rank will likely drop as a result.  The rank is not just a measure of your sales, but a measure of your sales in comparison to other books' sales. 

I know a very popular and wildly successful author once posted that in order to achieve X low rank she sold Y number of books in Z period of time.  It's unlikely that that would ever happen again, for in order for that to be the case, every single component of that time period would have to be repeated identically.  You see what I mean?  Good ranks on any given day, at any given hour are the result of the perfect storm of great sales on your part and similar or not-so-good sales on the part of your competitors. 

Some days you might sell 2 books and see a 10K rise in rank, depending on how high or low your rank is to begin with.  Another thing I've discovered is that the lower your rank, the harder it is to make a significant move forward.  The lower you get, the higher your sales.  And the higher your sales, the greater your competition.  When you drop below #1000, you are competing with some pretty heavy hitters.  That's even more the case when you drop below #500.  Needless to say, when you drop below #100, you're in the shark tank.  You're in the company of such authors as James Patterson, John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Michael Connelly and Nora Roberts.  Rank fluctuations in those esteemed positions tend to be very tight.  They're also very hard to maintain.  You have to be raking in some serious sales to hang with those guys.  But can it be done?  Absolutely!  It's just a frustrating, nail-biting, hair-pulling ride to get there.

All in all, when you look at a rank, it doesn't really start painting a very telling picture until you get pretty low.  It's safe to assume that when you see someone in the low hundreds or, even better, below #100, they're really selling some books.  Around #200-300, you can expect that they're selling hundreds per day, a thousand or better per week.  But when you get even lower, like below #100, those lucky people are selling possibly thousands per day.  Those are the ones I look at and say, "Wow!"  Take John Locke for instance.  Though he has 9 books, he sells a copy every 7 seconds.  That's roughly 9 per minute, 540 per hour, 12,960 per day, 90,720 per week, 362,880 per month and roughly 4.5 million per year, give or take a few thousand.

I think, armed with that knowledge, we have to congratulate all the authors who see the low ranks on Amazon for their amazing success.  The hard work that got them there is nothing to sneeze at and neither are the results.

The Fabulous Bo

To get in the mood, I think first a little exercise is in order.  For those of us who have read Blood Like Poison, let's take a moment to just think about Bo.  Close your eyes.  Go on, close 'em.  Well, maybe not, because then you can't read this.  DUH, Michelle:)  Well, anyway, do your best.  Ok, now picture Bo.  Maybe he's standing in front of your bedroom window, looking at you.  The moonlight's pouring through the glass, bathing half his naked chest in silver.  Picture his liquid brown eyes, eyes that you'd swear could see into your very soul, eyes that paint a vivid picture of the passion that he's feeling, passion that's all for you.  Picture his silky black hair brushing his strong neck, his square jaw, his perfect mouth.  Picture his super wide shoulders and trim waist, his tight, flat stomach.  Now breathe him in--that tangy, clean scent that's all Bo.  Savor it.  Savor him.  Ahhh!

Now, if you had to pick a song that best described him, what would it be?  Right off the top of your head, what did you think of?  Before I write, sometimes I like to listen to songs that remind me of scenes in my book, the ones I'm about to write.  They sort of set the mood for me, if you will.

For scenes that are heavily Bo-laden, I tend to lean toward sultry songs, like Bloodstream by Stateless.  Damon got me hooked on that one:)  It's a phenomenal song, though, and now I can't help but think of Bo. 

Another is Feelin' Love by Paula Cole

Maybe something more...classic rock, something Bo might like?  I'm curious what you guys think, how he makes you feel, what he inspires in you.  Post a comment, e-mail me, tweet me.  Tell me your thoughts.  I'd love to hear them...

Happy Manic Monday!

How to Support an Indie

Wren Emerson stumbled across a great post by fellow Indie Karen McQuestion where she discusses some things that you--as readers or other writers--can do to help an Indie's career.  Wren put into list form, so here it is, an awesome list of awesomeness:

So you read one of my books and you loved it. How can you help my Indie writing career and show your support of my book? Let me give you a list of ways.

• Word of mouth- The best thing you can do for any product you love is tell your friends. Tell them in forums, on your blog, Twitter, in person. Any way you can communicate your love for something works great.
• Write a review- Reviews are like currency for indie writers. It lets other potential readers know that people are reading and enjoying the book and makes it easier for them to decide to buy the book. You can post a review on your blog, the book seller’s site (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc…), and reading sites like GoodReads. Or, you can cross post your review on all of them. It’s an awesome gesture and so, so, SO helpful.
• Rate, tag, and like my book on Amazon- Amazon has a bizarre way of ranking books that nobody seems to really understand, but doing things like tagging or rating a book only takes a second of your time, but helps get the book into the hands of the people who will most enjoy that type of book.
• Give me feedback- If the book doesn’t work for you and you don’t want to hurt my sales with negative feedback, but you don’t feel like you can give honest positive feedback, please know that I’m open to hearing whatever it is that you want to say about it. I want to know what’s working and what's not. I am not the temperamental artist type so don’t fear my crazy wrath. And if you have nothing but good things to say, feel free to let me know that too. I’ll never turn down a little feel good.
• Offer to host me on your blog- If you really love the book and you feel like I might be a good fit for your blog readership, ask me to do a guest post or an interview. I won’t say no and we both get something from the partnership- I get access to your readers and it’s a day that you don’t have to come up with a post of your own. Wins all around! Yay!
• Put an excerpt of my book in the back of yours- Have a new book coming out and think that the first scene or two of one of my books would appeal to your readers? Shoot me a note and we’ll work something out.
• Recommend the book- This goes along with the whole word of mouth thing from way up the list, but it bears repeating. If you see an opportunity to recommend any (or all) of my books to someone who will enjoy it, it would help get the word out. Book bloggers, reading groups, friends and family members. A sincere recommendation can sell a book to almost anyone.
• Read books by other Indie authors- If you like my book then buy books by other Indie authors. We’re all in the same boat as we struggle to promote our books. Buying a book from an indie not only helps them pay the bills, but it gives them a sense of validation to know that someone wants to read what they’ve taken the time to write. Buying Indie helps to support our little community and without my Indie writing friends, I might not have even heard about Indie publishing.
• Buy the book- If you truly loved the book and want to show support, buying the book would help out a lot. Of course there is the money that I’ll see from your purchase, which is awesome and appreciated, but buying the book has the additional benefit of raising my rankings on the site where you buy it, which will increase my visibility to other buyers.
• Gift the book to your friends and family- Gifting the book not only counts as a sale (which benefits me as stated above), but it also introduces my book to a new potential fan who can then do all the things in this list.

A special thanks to every single reader who has taken a chance on an Indie and then gone on to do great things, like show how the power of one can move mountains. 

Y'all ROCK!!

BESTSELLERS

Y'all, I'm so excited to announce that today, for the first time since I published them, all four of my books are ranked on 3 BESTSELLER LISTS with Amazon.  Each!  At the same time!  I know that might be, like, "same ol', same ol'" for some authors, but to me that is HUGE beyond huge.  Amazing.  Exciting. Humbling. 

Which brings me to you--readers--the ones who buy my books.  The ones who support my work.  The ones who dare to help a girl make a dream come true.  You can't possibly imagine, won't ever know, how much this means to me.  Thank you.  From the depths of my heart and soul, THANK YOU! 

Now, let's celebrate!  Virtual chocolate and diamonds for everyone!!  I'm still just starting out, after all.  Virtual is all I can afford:)