New Beginnings

Hellllooooo good people! I know it's been a while, and I apologize, but the fourth book is done and ready for your consumption. Long Night is the fourth book in the Good News Series and features Terrence as the main character, although as always, I do update you on other characters you've met in earlier books. I also want to take this time to thank and congratulate Ronda Shula, who won my first "Become a Good News Character" contest. Ronda followed the contest rules on my website and her name was picked as the winner. Ronda is now immortalized as a Good News Series character in Long Night. The contest is now open for the next book, Even Me, which will feature Sidonna, the sister we first learn about in book #1, Enough Good News.

I hope that, like me, you've made up your minds to have a fantastic year. Of course we can't know everything that we will face in 2012, but we can be assured that if God allows it, it will work for our good. 2011 wasn't the best year for me, but as the new year approached, I felt hopeful. And a few days ago, I just decided, I mean flat out made up my mind, that 2012 was going to be a FANTASTIC year for me. I was thinking it should be, and hoping it would be a great year, but it made all the difference in my own posture when I decided that it would absolutely be, without a doubt, one of my best years, EVER. I hope you join me in believing that.

I pray God blesses you with your own revelation about your future and the good things He has planned for you. (Jeremiah 29:11)

P.S. don't forget to keep an eye out for Even Me, coming Summer 2012
xoxox
Audrey

Believe Again

First, let me apologize for the long break, but you will be happy to know that I put the time to good use. I finished my script (yay me!) and I'm plowing away on book #4 in the Good News Series, LONG NIGHT. I hope to have the book ready for the holidays. Pray for me. And I've got a couple of other projects I'm working on but I was worn out. I'll be honest with you, I was starting to feel like there was no use in any of it (writing) but God gave me my second wind and now I feel like I can focus clearly and move ahead. If you're feeling the same way, I wrote a little something the other day that might encourage you to keep pushing.(see below) Whatever you're going through, hang in there. Know that God has your back and has already gone ahead of you to prepare a better place.
"For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord. Thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

God Bless
xoxox

Believe Again

Whatever didn't work last time, whatever you stopped in the middle of because you came up against too many obstacles, whatever mountain didn't move out of your way...try it again. It CAN happen. Pull yourself together then pull that dream out of the back of the closet and get reacquainted with it. Spend some time with it and fall in love again. Clean it up and place it where you can see it. Then, take a deep breath and listen...you hear it? It sounds like the wind blowing through the trees but it's really God breathing life back into your dead thing. I know it didn't work last time but try it again. I mean full out - GO FOR IT. I didn't say it would be easy or quick but it is POSSIBLE.
Believe Again.

Copyright 2011 Audrey McKay

Just Checking In

Hello readers! Well, it's official. I have my Master's Degree in Entertainment Business (yay me!) I finished the program about the same time that I finished my book, BLIND JUSTICE, the 3rd book in the GOOD NEWS SERIES. I took a little break and then it was back to writing. Im just getting to the end of my second draft for my first screenplay, and I've also started working on the fourth book in the series LONG NIGHT. (No rest for the weary) For those who are interested, this 4th book will focus on the character Terrence - because I've had a few requests to find out more about him. This book should be ready by the holidays (Nov/Dec) Other than that, not too much is going on. I hope you're enjoying your work too. If not, it may be time to make some changes, hmmm? Just a thought. Until next time...
xoxox
Audrey

Expect the unexpected

Hellloooooo!

I feel like I'm finally coming out of a long tunnel and I see a small but bright light. School will be done this month (Yay me!) The third book in the Good News Series will also be done this month so now I can get started with some other things like finishing my script, finishing book #4 (for all of you who've been worried about Terrence) and making some money.

So, you're probably wondering about the title of this post. It sort of has to do with an update from the last post. I mentioned last time that my sales had gone down for B&N and I just wanted to give you an update. It turns out that I wasn't the only author whose sales were affected for several weeks. According to reports I've read, B&N decided to shake things up a little in order to get some erotica titles off the best-sellers list. They shifted these books (along with a lot of others) out of their normal categories and into new ones. I for example was switched from "African-American, Christian Fiction" to "Peoples and Cultures". Of course the people looking for my type of books would be looking nowhere near "P&C" so sales decreased dramatically. The one good thing I can say is, I wasn't terribly affected because I don't sell that many books (yet). I read several cases though where people were greatly affected by the loss of income, one lady said she lost $11,000 for that month.

I said all that to say, yes you guessed it, expect the unexpected. Someone you don't know could be making a decision that will affect you tomorrow and you're just going to have to roll with the punches. If you are a Christian you can join with me as I stand on the promise that "All things work together for the good of those that love God and are the called, according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) No, I can't truthfully say I see any good coming out of that situation right now, it was more of an annoyance than anything else but I will trust God and keep moving. There's a good life lesson in there somewhere too. That's it for now. ;-)
Ciao bellas
until next time
Audrey

Branching Out

Hola! Sorry for the long break but I'm trying to finish the third book, a screenplay and school all at the same time. Whew! Things are going well but I've had to cut back on some other things (i.e. blogging and social networking) but I did want to let you know about two new companies I found. I'm at the point now where I'm trying to determine the best pricing strategy and methods for me. To that end, I did a little experiment where I dropped the price of my 1st book from $2.99 to $0.99. The results were very interesting.

First let me explain that if you self publish, Amazon and Barnes&Noble are set up so that you can make a 70% royalty, which is HUGE in the publishing world, but your book has to be priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Anything below or above that and your royalty rate falls to 30% or 35% depending on the company. That means I would have to sell six times as many books @ $0.99 to make what I was doing for one book @$2.99. The results? (drumroll please) Well, I sold six times as many books on Amazon. If I count how many books I sold during the experimentation period, based on what I had been selling, sales were steady. Meaning, if I divided the number of books sold during those two and a half weeks by six, it equalled out to what I had been selling. The benefit though, is that six times as many readers purchased the first book which will hopefully lead to them purchasing the second and third (I'm working on it) books in the future. Remember, those results were for Amazon only. Here's where it gets funky.

Sales for Barnes&Noble decreased. Go figure. Not sure how or why that happened but it looks like it has continued for at least a couple of weeks afterward. Unless for some reason, B&N aren't reporting their figures correctly, I'll be down in sales on that site for this month. That's mostly why the experiment only lasted two and a half weeks. The good news is, Amazon more than made up for it. For one thing my ranking for that book jumped approximately 50,000 places in the Kindle store and even after I returned the book to the regular price, sales are now higher for that book than they were previously. All in all, it was a good thing to do, I believe. I still can't figure out what happened on B&N but I guess somethings aren't meant to be understood. #movingon

So...my experiment got me to thinking that I don't want my financial gain to be at the whim of B&N readers or even Amazon readers only. I figured I should open myself up to other markets, hence the title of this blog. I'm trying two new companies as I branch out (another experiment). The first is BookBaby. For a one time fee they will publish your book on Amazon, B&N, Sony Reader Store and the iBookstore. Of course, I only used them for Sony and the iBookstore but after the one time fee, you can keep 100% of your royalties. The second company is BookBrewer, which is affiliated with Borders. They charge a much lower fee but they also take a cut of every royalty payment you receive that's not from Borders. They also sell in the iBookstore but use Borders (Kobo) and not Sony. The one slightly annoying thing for me is, I've been spoiled by Amazon's hourly updates of book sales. Barnes&Noble also has a system where you can see daily updates but these new companies only report in 3 month (BookBaby) or 1 month (BookBrewer) increments. I don't know how I'm doing on those other sites yet but I will definitely let you know how it goes. So, that's it for my update. If you self publish and are trying something new, let me know what's working for you.
Take care of yourself (no one else will do it like you) :-)
Ciao bellas

Marketing and Negotiaing

In a post I wrote a few weeks back, I mentioned that I used a short cut of sorts when promoting my books. I also mentioned that marketing was a necessity to authors, especially those who self-publish. My “short-cut” came in the form of a Christian Bookclub who emails its’ members to let them know of new releases.

Marina Woods is the owner and force behind the GoodGirlBookClubOnline. She’s the person I turn to when I want to market my books. GGBC was started when Marina grew tired of reading books that compromised her beliefs. She reasoned that there were others out there like her, so she put the wheels in motion and has now amassed several thousand names of people who like to read the kind of books I write.

I spoke to Marina about what it takes to run GGBC and she was kind enough to answer a few questions. I’ve summarized my conversation with her below. Hopefully, her insight and time in the PR industry will help you in your future endeavors.

As well as promoting products on GGBC, Marina also takes on new clients/authors and pitches them to media outlets. She negotiates deals between those clients and the outlets based on what the client needs or is even budgetary concerns. She states that often times, she will offer an exclusive if the outlet is willing to offer her client a feature story. When she buys ads for her clients she looks at the media outlets ‘rate cards then after assessing her clients’ budget, she tries to negotiate a deal. She contacts an outlet letting them know of her ‘serious interest’ and proposes an offer within her clients’ budget that she hopes the outlet will accept. It’s at that point that the outlet will tell Marina what they can or cannot do for her and the client. She tries to negotiate with them, attempting to get the best rate for her client with a deal the outlet will accept. She notes that she has had to walk away from a deal when neither party could come to an acceptable agreement.

Finally, she stated that thorough research, kindness and fairness go a long way in negotiating deals. Whether you hire someone to do this for you or you begin, marketing and negotiating for yourself, the advice Marina gives here, should help you in reaching your goals.

Rich Writer, Poor Writer

I was recently re-reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and the main point of the book, to me at least, is to have money work for you instead of you working for money. Since we’ve touched on self-publishing over the last few posts, I’ve decided to do a quick step-by-step guide. After the initial time investment of writing your work, you can sit back and let the money roll in (assuming people want to buy your work)

1. Complete your work and get it reviewed, if not by a paid editor, then by family or friends or a social networking group.
2. Pick a service. (We’ll use Amazon for this post)
3. Answer all the questions to set up your account and desired royalty options.
4. Price your work appropriately. ($2.99 and lower is best -See previous post)
5. Upload your work to the Kindle Direct Publishing website.
6. Publicize, network and market, market, market!

It’s been a little over a year since I self published my first book and the second book was just finished. I’m just now getting to the point where I’m receiving a monthly royalty check and I believe writing another book helped with the increase in sales. It’s still not a lot of money yet but the potential for growth is unlimited. With no overhead costs, I’m in the position to have money work for me. As seen in the last post, there are many authors who’ve established a large platform and are earning more than $1,000.00 per month. There are also several authors who currently earn more than $10,000.00 per month from self-publishing. With no publisher taking money off the top, these writers have set up a great future for themselves.

So the choice is up to you. Are you ready to take the leap and use the skills you have to help secure your financial future?

I say come on in, the water’s fine
Take care until next time.