Some Promotion Insights

Lately, so many loops have been talking about "what works" for promotion. Of course, the reply is usually, “Try lots of different methods!” And that's my approach. But in reviewing my website statistics the past few months, I've had some insights into some things that seem to be working for me, so I thought I'd share. I'm too new an author to track book buying trends and link them to specific promo successes, but overall, I'm happy with my sales, so something's working.

Before I get started, I should mention that so far I’ve been promoting e-books. My friends who have books out with NY publishers are doing pretty much everything I list below. But they also tend to do a lot more with paper promotion (book marks to give out at conferences, book signings, press kits, ads in romance magazines, etc.). Some of my e-pubbed friends have done a good deal of paper promotion, too, but I’ve opted not to at this point because of the added expense.

The following list of promo ideas and insights isn’t in any particular order. If I were going to prioritize, then I’d list websites first, since that’s the piece of promo every author in today’s market has to have. Also, I’ve added promo strategies bit by bit over time. If I’d done all of this at once, I’d have gone stark raving mad! And I’m still adding pieces, still learning.

My book trailer, which I just put up a few days ago. I put off making one because I thought they'd be really hard to do, and it's quite expensive to have someone make one for you. But I googled the topic, and read several author blogs on how to make one. Who knew I had Windows Movie Maker right on my computer? Here's what I came up with Click Here for Trailer. What's cool is that within the first few days of having the trailer up, I'm getting a significant number of website hits coming from You Tube (you can post your website link in your You Tube channel profile). I'm also getting traffic on my "trailers" page on my website, and more traffic to my MySpace page since the trailer went up. All very cool.

Blogs. I've had significant hits to my website coming from all three blogs I'm involved in as jumping off points. The group blogs tend to produce more hits than my individual author blog, but they all produce enough website traffic to make blogging worth my while.

Chats. Everytime I do a big loop chat with my fellow Loose Id authors, or with my writer friends, I get a big spike in website hits. Rock on! I've also met people on chats who have followed up later and told me how much they like my books.

MySpace. I've had fans who've already read my books friend me on MySpace, and I've had MySpace friends who haven't read my books yet buy them after getting to know me on MySpace. It's also a great place to post trailers and all sorts of other personalized info, promote new releases with event invitations and bulletins, and it's a lot of fun getting to know more people. I’ve also found it a great resource for networking with other authors I wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise.

Paid ads with romance review sites, such as Romance Junkies, The Romance Studio, Coffee Time Romance, and Fallen Angels Reviews. I've been especially happy with the results of my Romance Junkies Feature Ad (lots of website hits, plus a snippet of my review and a buy link and two cover photos posted with the ad, and it's really inexpensive).

Yahoo loop promo. Get on KyAnn's promotion loop schedule! It's a very helpful reminder of which Yahoo loops you can post to on which days, and has simplified promo for me immensely. Yahoo loop promo has been working for me, because every time I post to the loops, I get more people signing up for my author newsletter.

Author newsletter. I've had great interactions with people who've signed up for my newsletter, especially those who win my contests (which I use to promote my newsletter and gain new members). I use a yahoo announcement only loop for my newsletter, and everyone who signs up qualifies for all my future contests. For prizes, I’ve used things like a DVD related to my book, a gift card to a national book store chain, and copies of my books.

Oh, and this tip is for people at absolute square one in the promo game--your website will be the cornerstone of your promo efforts. I've had website traffic that comes from Japanese, Spanish, UK, and German search engines, plus from all the usual places you'd expect, such as U.S. Google and Yahoo searches.

Just thought I'd share, since promo's such a headache, especially when you're first getting started.

Have a great day!

Weighty Secrets

My in-laws called my husband yesterday about travel plans. They wanted to be here around my husband’s August 1st birthday. When they’ve been here over his birthday in the past, we’ve skipped our Lughnasadh celebration, so this news was met with a collective groan.

Lughnasadh is the summer harvest festival, and a family favorite because of the focus on bread baking, colorful garden flowers on the altar, and weather warm enough to carry some of the festivities outdoors. Living in Wisconsin, Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane, the other three major sabbats, tend to be indoor celebrations--unless we’re gifted with an unusually warm end-of-October or transition into May. Imbolc, in February, is guaranteed to be celebrated indoors.

In any case, today my daughters and I called a family meeting, and lobbied to come out of the broom closet to the grandparents/in-laws. My husband wasn’t any more inclined than we were to cancel Lughnasadh festivities two years in a row, so he agreed to make the call.

Secrets seem to gather weight over time, and really, it’s a call that should have been made many, many years ago. We’d toyed with the idea back in May, before their last visit, but at the time my father-in-law was having major health problems, and we didn’t want to stress them out more than necessary. With him doing well now, that no longer presented an obstacle.

So, shrugging off the burden of years of furtiveness--hiding pagan books before visits, making sure the photos of seasonal altars don’t go up on Snapfish with the other family pictures, and other secret-bearing actions that made us all feel generally “ick,” my husband shared the truth.

After a brief chat with my father-in-law about his health, my dear husband blurted out, “By the way, we’re pagan.” Growing tongue-tied when asked what that involved, he then shoved the phone at our 13-year-old daughter, who was lurking around to hear her dad’s side of the call. She calmly walked her grandparents through the basic definitions of earth-based religion, seasonal festivals, and such, and then handed the phone back to my husband.

My mother-in-law was very supportive. Wow. That means a lot. My father-in-law didn’t say much. He’s devoutly Catholic, so who knows what he’s thinking. But for us, the weight of years and years of not sharing a very basic part of who we are evaporated with one phone call. Again, wow.

After that, letting it slip that I write erotic romance will be a cakewalk! That will result in a whole realm of other objects (dry erase boards, appointment calendars, to-do lists, recent book contracts, and anything else lying around our combined office and family room that reveals my book titles and/or pen name) that don’t need to be tucked away before visits.

Eden
www.edenrivers.com

Torrid Teasers Vol. 47 Now Available

My latest release, Torrid Teasers Vol. 47, is now available from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid.

Three Nights with Adam

Determined to keep their sex life red hot, Paige plans a birthday surprise for Adam—his hottest fantasy come to life. But when she initiates a ménage with their friend, Lynne, she's unprepared for the emotional intensity of the experience.

The Ones We Love

Sarah struggles with her inhibitions as she prepares for a bacchanalian evening at her friends’ beach house. Within her close-knit circle of friends, the web of love and loyalties can get a bit—tangled.

Happy Reading!

Eden Rivers
www.edenrivers.com

Dreams as Inspiration

I’ve heard from several authors over the years that they’ve either drawn ideas or entire book concepts from their dreams. This fascinates me. I dream in vivid color, and I remember my dreams in the morning. But I can’t claim I’ve ever created a book out of my nighttime adventures.

Still, I believe there’s much to be gained in jotting down fascinating bits, keeping a dream journal, or simply remembering a dream setting or an interesting person to slip into a story down the line. Dreamed emotions can be a fertile source for writing, as well.

My 15-year-old daughter shared a series of dreams this week which could have come right out of an urban fantasy by Charles de Lint. In one, she created a host of trolls who loved bicycles so much that they stole them from people’s back yards. The writer in me delights in the image of blissful trolls pedaling down the street on their stolen rides.

In another, my daughter dreamed up a squirrel with fairy wings. “A flying squirrel,” I gleefully commented. “No, the squirrel couldn’t fly,” she replied. “It just had beautiful fairy wings.” Dreams seldom do what we’d expect. In that sense, they’re not so different from book plots or the characters we create and set loose in our fictional worlds.

And people in dreams seldom behave as we’d expect. Even ourselves. My daughter was delighted with a dream in which hummingbirds and butterflies surrounded her, and said she’d never seen anything so beautiful. She remains mystified, however, as to why she caught one of the hummingbirds, popped it into her mouth, and ate it. Any dream analysts out there want to take a shot at that one?

Some of the most fascinating dreams are the darkest. I had a friend during my law school years who, while expecting, had repeating dreams in which she and her husband ate their newborn. My own dark dreams often involve flight and pursuit, with the adrenaline charged escape set in eerie warehouses, dark forests, or over a series of perilously steep staircases which end halfway down and drop into nothingness. Often I end up flying (no wings, just flying) to escape my pursuers.

And then, of course there was the memorable night horror in college, where I awoke screaming at the top of my lungs because I’d dreamed there was a portal to hell in my dorm room closet. I a) scared the living crap out of my roommate and her boyfriend and b) convinced them I might have a mild psychiatric disorder. Both of us heaved a sigh of relief at the end of the year when we were able to go our separate ways.

I’d love to see a survey that addressed whether avid readers and writers have more vivid and elaborate dreams. I’m guessing we do. What about all of you? Writers, have you ever included dream elements in your stories? Readers, do you ever dream about what you read? Any especially humorous or frightening dreams you want to share?

Sweet Dreams,
Eden
www.edenrivers.com

Pagan Festivals in Strange Sabbats

As in Nature’s Pentacle, I’ve returned to my delightfully lusty, supernatural witches in today’s Loose Id release Strange Sabbats (Buy Link and Excerpt). Strange Sabbats is structured around seasonal festivals celebrated by the witches in my story--festivals which are dear to my pagan heart.

I’d like to share a bit more about the Sabbats celebrated by Aileen, Bryan, and Sylvie in Strange Sabbats, but first, here’s the blurb from my new release:

Aileen sacrificed her power for the sake of her marriage, only to see her husband die in a car crash. When childhood friend Jon appears on the scene for a Yule celebration, the sex is scorching. But jealousy gets in the way of true love, until Aileen's power returns--and so does Jon.

Aileen's brother, Bryan, still carries a torch for Jon, and fears revealing himself to humans. But when he includes his human friend Dallas in an erotic Beltane ritual, it's clear who holds the whip in that relationship.

Jon's Aunt Sylvie has the erotic relationship of a lifetime with Ty, a younger man--until she's offered a CEO position in New York. On the night of the summer harvest festival, Ty makes Sylvie's most wanton fantasy come true by inviting another woman into their bed.

For three witches related by blood and common circumstances, finding the men of their dreams is a supernatural ride through love, jealousy, kink with a touch of magic, and fierce, red hot witch sex.

Strange Sabbats starts with a Yule celebration, and concludes with a wedding reception on the Autumn Equinox (not telling which couple ties the knot, though!). The pagan calendar is called The Wheel of the Year, to represent the circular progression of the seasons. Here’s a bit more about the festivals, or Sabbats, celebrated by the witches in my story:

Samhain, October 31. A time of serious reflection, when the boundaries between the physical and spiritual world are thinnest. This is a day to honor ancestors, often marked with feasts in their memory.

Yule, around December 21. The shortest day of the year, the solstice marks the point when darkness will soon give way to the return of the light. Celebrations focus on the beauty of winter, and the introspection befitting a season of quiet and snow. Candles or bonfires symbolize the movement back toward the light half of the year.

Imbolc, February 2. This festival celebrates the first hints of spring, returning light, and fertility. The earliest flowers or budding branches are used to symbolize the movement into the light half of the year, when growing things will again cover the land in shades of green. Imbolc is Brighid's day, and the Celtic goddess is honored during seasonal rituals.

Ostara, around March 21. The spring equinox celebrates the greening of the land. It is a time of balance, when light and dark are equal. Symbols include flowers, eggs, baby animals, and the soft colors associated with spring.

Beltane, May 1. Beltane celebrates the fertility that comes with the warmer months, when the sun is high in the sky and days are long. Flowers, maypole rituals, bonfires, feasts, and joyous celebrations are associated with Beltane.

Litha (also Midsummer's Eve), around June 21. On the longest day of the year, festivals celebrate the bounty of the earth and bonfires mark the sun's highest ascent. Celebrations are playful and magical, for Midsummer's Eve is a time of myth, fairies, and dancing.

Lughnasadh, August 1. A harvest festival marked by festive meals featuring seasonal foods. Grains and breads symbolize the plentiful harvest.

Mabon, around September 21. On the autumn equinox, harvest festivals mark a time of balance, when light and dark are equal, and preparations begin for the quieter months of the winter ahead.

Happy Reading!
Eden Rivers
Website
Buy Link and Excerpt for Strange Sabbats
Buy Link and Excerpt for Nature’s Pentacle

Keeping My Head above Water

Some weeks, it’s harder to swim with the current than others. Some people seem to have captured the secret of getting through weeks like that with grace. I’m not one of them. I thrash around, spitting out mouthfuls of water, go under a few times, and then start swimming again, out of pure, obstinate determination. I also yell at my husband a lot.

Lately, I’ve been wondering how authors of 15 or more published books keep from experiencing burn out. I’ve completed four full length manuscripts, two novellas, and three short stories in the past three years. Promoting my first book (first out, third written) has been a job in and of itself. And while I’ve been promoting, I’ve completed the sequel and written an unrelated novella.

May 27, my paranormal erotic novella, Strange Sabbats (another story about lusty witches) will be released, so I’m heading into the promo cycle for that one now. At the same time, I’m working on a synopsis and cover letter for the recently completed sequel to Nature’s Pentacle (Broken Pentacle, Sky and Alec’s story), and editing that manuscript so I can turn it in to my editor.

So, how do authors who’ve published 15 or more books keep from losing the creative spark among the hustle and bustle of writing, publishing, and promotion? Because bottom line, the current moves quite fast, and authors have to swim in several directions at once.

And of course, many romance authors (yes, even erotic romance authors) are also moms. This week, one of my daughters fainted at school, so I rushed out to pick her up mid-synopsis. Today, the younger one’s home with a stomach bug. And then there’s my husband, who’s a constant work in progress (aren’t they all?). Social groups, errands, paperwork, appointments, household chores, homework help, and heck, my to-be-read pile, all take up their respective chunks of time.

With the sequel to Nature’s Pentacle finished, about ready to turn in, I’m mentally moving on to my next project already, swimming in yet another direction. Which is why I’m wondering, for all you multi-pubbed authors out there, how you keep up the pace year after year after year.

Okay, I know, we write because we love it. We write because we have to. But I’m curious about flotation devices for when we hit white water. Any thoughts?

Eden
www.edenrivers.com

In-laws, Erotic Writing, and Paganism

My in-laws are about to descend for a four-day weekend. So my husband and I have been scrambling to get the house clean, pick up extra groceries, and all the usual in-law type preparations. Fresh tulips on the mantle, fresh lilacs on the coffee table, and all that.

But as usual, I’ve put off the most important tasks till last. My husband’s parents don’t know I write erotic romance, or that our entire family’s pagan. They’re old. My mother-in-law has heart trouble. My father in law has cancer. And as my teenage daughter said when she took her Teen Witch and Living Wicca books off her shelf earlier: “I’d better put these away before grandma and grandpa get here. Grandpa’s such a snoop, and although I feel so ick hiding my books, I don’t want to give them a heart attack or anything.”

Like my daughter, I’ll put away my books on paganism, as well as the erotic romance and erotica titles in my to-be-read pile, and the dry erase board by the computer which includes a hefty amount of information about my writing. Incriminating details such as book titles, and all that. And like my daughter, I’ll feel “ick” when I put things out of sight till after the visit.

That’s why I always leave the task till the last minute. And I wonder how bad it could really be to just come out and tell them what I write. Well, not the details, of course. No one from their generation really needs to know the gritty logistics of m/f/m ménages with double penetration, or the art of including m/m sex within the context of a ménage scene. But I wonder if their hearts might just be strong enough to handle the erotic romance bit. And wow, as for being pagan, it would sure be nice not to get Christmas cards every December.

But they’re old. And sick. And stressed. So instead, I’ll put away my incriminating dry erase board, and make sure the manuscript my husband’s reading for me is tucked securely into a drawer. I’ll put away my erotica titles, along with my dog-eared copy of Circle, Coven and Grove and any other books likely to make a pair of devout Catholics fear for their grandchildren’s souls. And I’ll remind myself that they live far away, and we only see them once a year.

But I’ll still feel ick, because I'm an open sort of person, and don't make a habit of hiding either what genre I write in, or my spiritual inclinations.

So what about all of you? Anyone have personal details they feel they can't (or shouldn't) share with relatives?

Eden

www.edenrivers.com