We Pause For This Brief Commercial Message

… and I can get away with it, because I'm not pushing my own book this time. About the same time I tossed Mountain Lion King out into the cold, cruel marketplace, an old writing buddy of mine, Laura (writing as L. Woodswalker), self-pubbed her own work. I switched from SF; she didn't. Tesla's Signal is a SF steampunk thriller starring scientist Nikola Tesla. Damn thing's doing great, too. A brief sales promo netted her enough sales to bump her up to #23 on Amazon's Steampunk Fiction bestseller list. She's getting rave reviews for it, too. If steampunk's your thing, check it out here.

I'm going to have to read it this weekend. Got a library book to finish first; those puppies come with a deadline.

As for my book, well … the less said, the better. Maybe I shouldn't have switched from SF. Maybe I should try writing erotic SF romances. Oh wait, that was my last one. Or maybe …

# # #

I was on a publisher's web site, reading samples of their books to get a feel for the kind of things they publish. I try this every now and again, but usually end up skimming the excerpts. Poor attention span. I blame TV. That, and sometimes I don't find the excerpts very compelling. Or they have typos or poor sentence structure or something. Or there's not enough sex, or they don't get to it fast enough (we're talking steamy romance books here. If a Western snippet didn't include a shootout or a cattle stampede, it would amount to the same thing. There's no excuse for typos. None at all.).

I feel about book excerpts the same way I do about movie previews: what you're seeing or reading is supposed to be the best the book/movie has to offer. This is its selling point, the teaser that's supposed to get you to plunk down your hard-earned bucks.

For example, the upcoming Jurassic World has been promoting the hell out of the scary dinosaurs, and Chris Pratt commanding a squadron of velociraptors. (After Guardians of the Galaxy, they had me at Chris Pratt. But the dinosaurs don't hurt.)

Therefore, if the excerpt is less than compelling, it makes me call into question the quality of the rest of the book. That's all you got, bubbie? That's the best scene in the book? Well, I won't be forking over my pennies for this piece of drek, and you can—

That's when it hit me. Sometimes, when pimping my own stuff, I have a hard time picking the right scene. Does it catch the reader's attention? Is something interesting going on? Did I put enough sex in? (Romance, remember.) Is somebody going to skim over my excerpt and think, that's all you got, bubbie? On the publisher's site they want two excerpts, a bit of the story and a sexy teaser, and they'd both better grab the reader's attention, or …

That's it. That's the answer. That's how I can get myself onto the bestseller lists. All I have to do is write a book made up of nothing but the best scenes. No crap. No filler. An entire book comprised of the equivalent of all the high points in a movie trailer. Lots of dinosaurs. Lots of Chris Pratt.

But not Chris Pratt doing it with dinosaurs. I have limits.

Boo-yah! I've finally figured out the secret to writing a blockbuster! Don't put any of the dull scenes in. If it's a romance, make the whole book page after page of foreplay leading up to the most explosive orgasm ever. Metaphorically speaking. These people do have to eat and sleep, after all. And readers seem to like characterization, for some reason. Make it sexy characterization. Jasmine walked like sex on display, an orgasm in a dress that clung to her curves like a desperate horny teenager. Brent ducked behind the counter to hide his reaction. Of all the days to wear briefs. Bet she wasn't wearing anything under there. Where would she have the room for it? Yeah, I know people who'd buy a book with that as the blurb. They might even read the other chapters.

And that's how you write a book that flies off the shelves, ladies and germs. Write only the good parts. How can you tell the difference between the good parts and the bad? Oops, we're out of time. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.

AKA

A couple of updates today—some good, some not so good. Let's get the negative news out of the way first. Sales of The Mountain Lion King haven't exactly been record-breaking. There could be several reasons for this. I didn't do any promotion. I don't have a following on social media. I don't even bother with social media. Times like this are when my antisocial tendencies come back and bite me in the butt. The romance market, and the ebook market in general, is glutted beyond belief. Anyone with Word and the Smashwords style guide can format and upload a book, and thousands of people are doing so. This is the sea I tossed my novel into. I shouldn't be surprised that after a month it's already sunk out of sight.

Or maybe I just wrote a bad book. It happens to the best of us. More often to the worst of us.

I hope that's not the case here. But I have to look at my track record. The last book I wrote that had significant sales was Belonging, and that was a long way back. None of the books I've published since have set the world on fire, unless people are burning them.

New books are supposed to spur sales of previous books. According to theory, at this point my backlist sales should be picking up and providing a satisfying passive income. 'Tain't happening. The new books have been going belly-up while the old books just sit there.

Clearly I am doing something wrong.

I tried a blitz of publicity a while back. Sales stopped dead. I'd better develop some marketing skills, pronto.

While I'm at it, I'd also better develop much better writing skills. If I'm writing bad books, I need to stop that and start writing good books. I wish there was some magic storytelling software I could use to punch up my plots. I firmly believe the ability to tell an exciting story is more important than actually being able to write. Most past and current bestsellers support this theory. Look at John Grisham's early output and you'll see what I mean, after you've stopped turning the pages.

While I work on improving my craft, there's a quick and easy thing I can do to improve my chances. If I'm writing bad books, then my rep's already shot. Anybody spotting my name on the new-this-week lists will make a face and click elsewhere. Solution: use a pen name. The books won't be any better, but the readers will think it's someone else. I might pick up some first-time sales before readers wise up and move on.

Whoever I end up being this time around, I'd better be consistent. So far my romance output has jumped all over the place. I started with M/F, switched to M/M, wrote a couple M/M/F ménages, and took a break to write a YA novel with no sex. Mountain Lion King is M/F, with a single tame sex scene. The book before that, Jessalina's Pets, was a threeway with a couple steamy encounters, and side action between the two guys. All of this happened under a single byline. Any readers I may have started out with must be confused as hell by now.

So I'm going to try an experiment. My current WIP will be marketed to a different publisher, under a different name. If it does well, I'll follow up with more of the same. Fortunately I've got enough ideas in this particular niche to keep things going for a while. Maybe I can build a brand along with a readership.

If this doesn't work, I'll switch genres again, along with the byline. I haven't made my mark on horror or mystery yet.

# # #

I checked under the sink again this morning. No signs of mouse habitation. So far the only dead body I've found was the one under the stove. Earlier in the week I finally gathered my courage and looked under the couch. All clear. Ditto for under the bed, the bureau and the chair in the living room. When the maintenance guy came to clean my furnace, I warned him what to expect. He reported finding no dead mice. There could be rotting corpses behind the furnace, but neither of us was going to move the thing to check. I have no sense of smell, so I'm covered. Let the next owner worry about it.

# # #

Finally, a panic moment. Last week, one of the two bulbs in my bedroom ceiling light burned out. These are those new halogen lights, which supposedly last longer and use less energy while costing a lot more money. I can't tell whether they last any longer or not. I do know the one burned out while I was sitting in bed. Last night the other one—well, it didn't exactly burn out. It exploded. I was walking right under it at the time. There was a CRACK and the light went out, leaving light bulb shrapnel all over the rug. In my entire life, I have never had a bulb explode, though it happens all the time on Supernatural. Maybe I'm a demon. It could explain my lack of sales if I really am writing bad books.

So this morning I changed the bulb. It was manufactured in China. Ah, that explains it. China's the country that puts lead in everything, including children's toys and reusable grocery bags. China is trying to kill us. Well, you missed me last night, nyah nyah nyah. I'm going to retaliate by writing a truly horrible book that Chinese hackers will pirate. Then it won't sell and they'll all go out of business and starve. Vengeance is mine.

My Sexy Saturday ~ The Mountain Lion King

Sexy Saturday kisses, everyone.

This week I'm featuring Pat Cunningham's debut, self-published novel, THE MOUNTAIN LION KING. Check the sidebar for Pat's previous books.

Like my romance, HER MIDNIGHT STARDUST COWBOYS, this is a ShapeShifter Seductions Presents novel, and takes place in our fictional shifter/supernatural town of Talbot's Peak, and the surrounding Montana territory. We authors at SHAPESHIFTER SEDUCTIONS have a whole, ever-growing community of  werewolves, werebeasts, and various shifters of every type and stripe, and, yes, including the herbivores. As well, other paranormal beings inhabit the Peak, including gods/goddesses, witches, fae beings, vampires, just to name a few -- and all of them take turns starring in our flash fiction pieces.
~~~~~~

First seven paragraphs from Chapter 1 ~

Nilambari ran as if her life depended on it, because it most definitely did. If her pursuers caught her, she would die, at the hands of her husband-to-be.

She had not said a word since she and her escorts had boarded the plane in India, or during the car ride from the small private airfield to the town of Talbot’s Peak. Shock, she figured now. She’d caught only a glimpse of the town itself before the car turned off the main road onto a long, paved drive. At the end of the drive awaited the destiny Mother had groomed her for her entire life: marriage to a powerful tiger lord, a man she’d seen but never met. Zhere Ghan.

It wasn’t the prospect of marriage to a stranger that finally shook her free of her torpor. It was the wall. Eight feet of solid stone surrounding the palatial compound. Sight of that wall turned her insides to ice. This was no dream, no illusion. This was reality. Once that iron gate closed behind her, she would never emerge again.

With surprisingly steady hands she silently removed her jewelry, gifts from the man who had purchased her. She let the expensive bracelets and necklace and earrings drop to the floor of the car. Her escorts paid no attention. They were Ghan’s men to the core. They had treated her with politeness but no special caring the whole trip. To them she was a package to be delivered to their lord and nothing more.

The car passed through the open gate. Nilambari quietly toed off her slippers. She sat barefoot with her hands in her lap while the car rolled up to the house.

A figure stood before a second-story window, gazing down at them. Nilambari stiffened. Zhere Ghan? One of his minions? A son? She didn’t know, and didn’t care. She gathered her resolve.

Her chance came almost at once. Her escorts held her arms to help her out of the car, but released her for a moment to get her bags out of the trunk. It was enough. In those seconds of freedom she bolted for the wall. Halfway there she shifted to tiger. Adrenaline fueled her desperate leap. Her paws caught the top of the wall. She scrambled up and over and landed running. Her sari unfurled, fluttering to the ground behind her like a discarded bridal train.

~~~~~~

For more of MY SEXY SATURDAY ~mysexysaturday.blogspot.com~

~~~~~~ 

BLURB: Cougar shifter Rick Donnelly is happy living alone on his mountain and isn't looking for company. Then company literally falls into his lap, in the form of tiger-shifter Nilambari, who's fleeing from her arranged marriage to the vicious Ravi Ghan. Rick has no love for tigers, but for this terrified tigress he's willing to make an exception. Provided he can defend them both from Ravi, who's not about to let his bride-to-be go without a fight.

AVAILABLE at Smashwords Premium Catalog ~ http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/541980

AVAILABLE at Amazon ~ http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Lion-King-Pat-Cunningham-ebook/dp/B00XIQ2DQM
~~~~~~

I Dood It!

It's alive! My first-ever self-published novel, The Mountain Lion King, is now available through Smashwords and Amazon! Smashwords has already started distribution, so it should also be available through Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a ton of other ebook vendors. I'm focusing on Smashwords and Amazon because they have the name recognition, and those are the places where I uploaded.

Brief blurb: Mountain lion shifter Rick Donnelly lives alone on his Montana mountain and likes it … until he finds himself defending a Bengal tiger bride who ran away from her intended husband. Hubby is a piece of work who's out to kill them both. Rick and Bari fall in love. It's a paranormal romance of the shapeshifter variety and yes, it does have a happy ending, psychotic tigers notwithstanding.

This book began as random posts on Shapeshifter Seductions. Click on the link to hop over there and read the full commercial. The blog you're on here is my Author's Notes, continuing my account of how and why I ended up self-publishing.

I believe I've mentioned the reasons before, but here they are again: I self-pubbed as a legal courtesy to my fellow Shapeshifter Seductions authors. We've created a shared world over there, and this book is set in it. I used concepts and a couple of characters in my book that were created by others. If I'd gone to a regular publisher with this, copyright problems might arise, lawyers would get called in, and everybody loses. Therefore, by mutual agreement, any book set in Talbot's Peak needs to be self-published. Sorry, Matlock, no court case for you this week.

Last time I blogged I was wrapping up the formatting. I ended up skipping the linked Table of Contents because I couldn't get the damn thing to link correctly. If done right, you click on, say, "About the Author" and it jumps you to the back of the book and the author bio. Mine wouldn't jump. After wrestling with it for a good chunk of the morning, I decided just having a ToC was enough. A lot of readers don't bother with all that stuff in the back of the book anyway. If they want to read it, it'll be there when they get to the end of the book. If you can't wait, well, that's why keyboards have a "Page Down" key.

With formatting as done as I could manage, I went to the library, got on Smashwords, set up an account, and sent my baby into the world. Forget what I said last week. Uploading was surprisingly easy. Far more easy than the formatting, but that was my first time. I think I spent more time wrapping my head around the instructions than I did actually formatting. If you're going to self-publish, follow the instructions in the Style Guide. They work. At least, they worked for me. My file shot right through the system with no reportable errors. Good thing I decided not to link the Table of Contents.

And that was that. The book went live on Smashwords almost immediately. I enjoyed about twenty minutes of first-page display fame before other people's books knocked me off, but that's how it goes. The book has been manually checked and approved and is being shipped off to vendors as we speak.

I'm hoping there are no problems. I couldn't check my Epub file because even though I installed the Adobe Digital app, my laptop wouldn't open the file. I'm sure if there had been problems Smashwords would have told me. If you get an Epub version and it has issues, drop me a line, okay?

Uploading at Amazon was similarly smooth and problem-free. It took me longer to fill out all the paperwork than it did to upload the book. That one I was able to preview, and it looked okay. I now officially recommend skipping a linked Table of Contents.

My book was up on Amazon in less than 48 hours. I already have an author page over there, so I've added it to my backlist. Now all I have to do is market like crazy, which includes promo like this blog. Then sit back and watch the money roll in.

Yeah, right. Since I hit "upload" back on Monday, I've sold exactly one copy, and that was to fellow SSS writer Rebecca. Thanks, Rebecca, I do appreciate the support, and when your novel comes out I'll buy a copy because I've read your excerpts on the blog and it's damned impressive. You can write, woman! Thanks also to Savanna and her editing assistance. Savanna gets her plug in the Bonus Chapters. There is no link from the Table of Contents. Sorry, you'll just have to scroll.

I don't know at this point how my sales will go. I could do okay, or sink without a trace. Even if you go with a regular publisher, that's the chance you take. Right now it's way too soon to make predictions. Remind me in six months and I'll give you an update.

# # #

Since this wouldn't be a proper blog by me if I didn't bitch about something, I'll leave you with this: Amazon is only paying me 35% royalties. It used to be 70% for a self-published ebook, but that changed on January 1 of this year. Something to do with tax laws in Europe. Amazon still offers the 70% option, but only if you're exclusive to Kindle. If you want to sell elsewhere, as I did, you have to sacrifice your percentage.

And what, pray tell, does Amazon do to earn the Lion King's share of your money? They display your book on their virtual shelves. That's it. Amazon does not pay you for the right to publish your book. They do not provide editing. Their upload system does provide stock art and the means to create your own cover if you don't have one already. They will do some promotion, but only if you're selling exclusively through them, and only if you're selling a lot. The more you sell, the more they make, so the harder they'll push your (or is it their?) product. Self-fulfilling prophesy again.

The rest of us are basically paying to have our wares displayed on the world's biggest retail site with the most name recognition. My largest percentage of sales do come through Amazon, so I can't discount it out of hand. But a 65% cut of the take when I did all the heavy lifting and they're just providing a venue? Over at Smashwords, the author can earn royalties of up to 80%. Trouble is, even Smashwords admits not many people buy from their site. Smashwords sales come mainly from their distribution outlets. Those royalties are still higher than Amazon's grab.

My final recommendation: if you choose to self-publish, go exclusive with Amazon for the first few months, until sales start to drop off. Then switch to the lower royalty rate and self-pub with Smashwords for wider book distribution. That's what I'll be doing with my next self-published novel, which may not happen for a while. My next book will be through a regular publisher. Let somebody else do the editing, marketing, and cover artwork. I'm a writer, not a small business.

Or maybe we should be a small business. I'll have to talk it over with the other Shapeshifter Seductions writers and see if we want to be publishers. Ellora's Cave is practically extinct, so there's a void someone could fill. But then we'd have to call in lawyers. Never mind.