I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is bad. Like, really bad. And yet, I still flew to New York and saw it on Broadway.
You guys. The show is so good.
The acting really does make the whole thing so much better. A lot of lines that seemed flat or off in the script were delivered so well and made it work so much better than it ever did on paper. The characters come to life and become far less flat, and Scorpius in particular1 was so well acted and portrayed. The screaming was a choice that I am totally behind, and his interactions with Albus and the other characters was fantastic.
Even the adults, while I don’t agree with a lot of the script decisions, were well done and I loved the way they were portrayed. They managed to retain enough of their book-selves in the portrayal that it didn’t feel too strange while I was watching.
And the special effects! There were some great magic sections in this show. It wasn’t just the wands lighting up, but the transformations of characters from one to another, to quick changes, to characters appearing from nothing, to that absolutely fantastic time travel effect. The sound and lighting are things I don’t normally think of when I’m watching a performance, but they did such a good job with the whole production.
The thing I expected the least were the dance numbers. No singing, but there was a bit of interesting choreography, and the fact that almost every robe swish was punctuated by this sound effect and, well, I really loved it.
It is a very long show, though. We were up in the nosebleeds, but for about 5 hours of show, $100 is not bad at all. We could see everything, even the pool that appeared on stage for part of the show. Honestly, it was such a good show. If you’re anywhere near Broadway, even if you didn’t much care for the script, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is still a show worth checking out!
I read this book first ages ago when I met the author at a conference. I could talk about my experience with her, but this is a book review and that is therefore irrelevant. She was smart, nice, and endlessly interested in the craft, though.
Indigo Springs is about Astrid Lethewood and finding out the legacy that her father left behind that she’s since forgotten. There’s blue magical water, vitagua, that she can use to enchant items that will produce a single spell, and a whole world of this water frozen in ice behind the chimney of her father’s house that she has now inherited. The blue water is melting and she and her roommates are all caught up in the mess that this creates.
I like the ideas in the book quite a bit. While there is a feeling of danger that there’s some outside force that may come after them if the knowledge of the magic gets out, that works more to keep the narrative contained to the characters and how they interact with the magic. In the end, it’s much more about how Saraha, Astrid’s best friend, manipulates the people around her for her own ends and how Astrid really doesn’t have enough of a backbone to stop her before it’s much too late.
There’s also a lot of interesting queer content. Astrid’s bisexuality is portrayed matter of factly, with mentioned of an ex-girlfriend that she lived with and how Astrid’s hesitation to stopping Sahara is rooted in large part in the fact that she has feelings for her.
Spoiler
And, of course, in how she chooses Jacks, her other roommate, in the end because he will actually love her back.
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I am not sure if I wanted more or less of Astrid struggling to understand her mother coming out as a transman, especially since there wasn’t much of a coming out so much as it just was at one point. The conflict all seemed to happen before that coming out point, and vanished after, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Spoiler
The climax also felt really messy. There was a big emphasis on the fairy world that felt like it could have been cut, but it might have just been because I am not interested in the fairy world whatsoever. The big bad that showed up felt like a plot device so that there could be a climax, since he was mentioned only in passing before this point, but he had no real character or build up. There was no real fear or tension, and I feel like instead they could have made it Jacks’ father instead of some guy melted from the vitagua ice who came in to try and murder everyone at the end. It just felt bloated and unnecessary.
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Overall, it’s pretty interesting and I do recommend at least checking it out. The way they treat magic as more of a chemical spill and how they deal with the switch from modern present to flashback with the tense switch is interesting to see, if nothing else, though there is plenty else to like about it.
I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf for ages. I got it entirely because I liked the cover, namely because it doesn’t have any of the things that I dislike about YA covers.1 I was a little iffy on it because it is a first person narrative, which I have been hesitant about, and I’ll get into that in a bit, but first, thoughts on the book!
Shadow and Bone follows Alina in what feels like a fantasy version of Russia2 as she discovers that she’s not just an orphan in the army, but one of the most unique Grisha3 alive. She gets whisked away to a place where she can train her magic while falling into the intrigue of the court and trying to learn as much as she can to help The Darkling, the most powerful of them all. The more she learns about the Darkling, however, the more she realizes that she’s in over her head.
There’s a lot of really interesting world building. A lot of it is done in the language, which just feels Russian somehow. The setting feels like a fantasy universe that’s not too far off from our own, more like what might happen if there was magic out there and it were a couple centuries ago. I’m not entirely sure what the Grisha are since it doesn’t really go into whether they get to choose their specialties or if they are born with them, but I did like how they structured a lot of the universe.
And I do find myself liking Alina, even if I wish she were less… well, less of a YA heroine. Unlike the rest of the court, she doesn’t care about how pretty she is and there’s a weird focus on how pretty other characters are in comparison to her. There was a nice break where she allowed herself to enjoy being pretty and dress up in clothes for fun, but there’s a strange focus she has on the appearance of other people that just rubbed me the wrong way. Other than that she was proactive and had a strong voice in the narrative that I liked, but there’s just a few things about her that bothered me a bit.
I also had trouble taking a few things seriously. The Darkling never gets an actual name, and it’s strange that I’m supposed to feel like this guy is anything but a kid who picked a title for himself. I found myself waiting for someone to try taking him down a peg by using his real name, but it never happened. I’m also about 70% sure the twist with Baghra didn’t actually make sense. Like, why keep her there? Why doesn’t she take a more proactive role given what she knows? Just… why?
But this book helped me figure out what it was about the first person narrative that bothered me so much as a kid. See, in the past I always felt that I was supposed to be that main character. Given that the stories I was reading at the time with a first person narrator were largely bland women that made it easy for the audience to slide into, and that these female heroines had mostly romance arcs, I hated the experience. In this book4 Alina has a personality of her own and it felt like I was being told the story instead of along for the ride and supposed to be part of it.
At some point, I think I will check out the rest of the series. Despite the issues I had, I still want to know what happens next.
I will rant at length about the female without a face standing there while vaguely interesting things happen around her covers at length if you give me a chance [↩]
I’ve mentioned this book to some people, but let me talk about how much I enjoyed it. I’m not just saying that because I happen to know Latimer and I’m very happy to have her book finally in my hands.
The story follows Bryony Gray, a young girl taken in by a family that doesn’t much like her but does appreciate what she can do for them. She’s been made to paint portraits by an abusive aunt and uncle who have taken her in and secluded in the attic where she can only look out at the next house and imagine she could be friends with the children who live there.
Well, until the portraits she has been painting are linked to a series of disappearances. Then she finds that not only have some of the things she’s been seeing are a real danger, but she gets to break out and actually meet the neighbours who help her deal with her paintings and find out more about who her parents really were.
Middle grade horror does not get enough love as a genre and Latimer does it wonderfully. There’s a good focus on the adventure with the horror elements being more of an addition. It’s also not that sort of horror that you find in the books for older folks. Not descriptions of blood splatter or gruesome murders but the more unsettling things that are different from the way they should be told through the lens of a character where these things are not entirely unusual.
Plus it’s got some nice queer representation! There’s nothing official, mind you. It’s middle grade, after all. And traditionally published. A fully realized couple was not going to happen, but there’s enough in there that I read it as very obvious, even if others are reading it as subtle.
I’d very much recommend it. It’s a lot of fun and, as middle grade, a pretty easy read. There’s a lot of interesting ideas in it, and it’s told fantastically.
This is not something I would have normally picked up now that I’ve read it, but I think I’m going to give more books like this a chance. RJ Plant paints a really interesting future, one controlled by organizations looking for a quiet domination of a populace via espionage and biological warfare in the most unpredictable ways.
It honestly took me a little to get into it. There is a whole universe that needs to be set up, from a world that has been changed by the war to the differences between what’s happened in Ireland and the US, and it’s done very well.1 But I knew the mind switching was coming up and I really love a two minds fighting for dominance over one body story.
Felix is a hard character to get behind once you meet Conor, the brother who’s been trapped inside Felix’s body. I will profess a preference to Conor, given that he’s spent his life watching everything his brother’s done and never been allowed to come out. When he does come out and we start getting answers that bring about more questions, particularly about just who is behind everything and what the purpose of his chimerism is. The execution of the chimerism and the reasoning behind it is fascinating and a spoiler, so I will refrain from talking in too much detail about it here.
Overall, it’s a really entertaining read with some good twists and turns. The world is uniquely set up to make Conor and Felix’s struggles that much more interesting and keep the stakes in the narrative high. I’d definitely suggest giving it a shot!
Alice only has one year left to win her bet with the Bandersnatch, or be trapped as a prisoner in his garden forever. And Alice isn’t the only one losing heart. The Queen continues to steal peoples hearts, and the refugees from Neverland are the latest victims. For some reason, Alice can’t put them back and Adam refuses to leave Wonderland until they stop her.
The pressure is on for Alice to keep the magic books from falling into the wrong hands. The clock is ticking and failure means none of the stolen hearts will be returned, Adam will remain trapped behind the mirror, and Alice will be forgotten in the Bandersnatch’s garden. Forever.
While getting your book into the hands of readers is a great way to convince people to take a chance on your books, there is one more thing that you have to still do in order to increase your chance at getting a sale. And it is by far the most frustrating part of publishing. More than dealing with all the files and distribution outlets. More than trying to set up your ISBNs, taxes, and banking information. Probably more than even editing.
Reviews.
Why you need them
This probably doesn’t even need to be a section, but let me tell you as someone who has been at this for a while. Getting positive reviews on the sale page, whether that’s Amazon or Kobo or wherever, will boost your sales. People will still purchase your book without them, but it is much easier to convince someone to take a chance on your book if they see that other people like it already.
For the most part, reviews are there to convince people who have stumbled onto the page to give the book a shot. This is less for the folks to have already gotten the free copy, which is probably the majority of the people.
How high you need them
You should try to keep your reviews above 3.5 stars in order to continue selling, in my experience, though you will get more sales if you keep them at least at 4.1 People will still buy books with no star ratings, but if you do have a rating, it is best to have it high.
White Noise had a noticeable drop in sales when it dropped below a four star rating.2After Destiny, on the other hand, has dropped from a sale a week to zero sales total upon getting the one two star review on Amazon. The rather perplexing one-star-that’s-supposed-to-be-four-star review on Return to Wonderland hasn’t had as much of an impact on sales because it’s been balanced out by the higher rating and free copies.
How you get them
This is tricky, because you also want to keep a generally high level of reviews. If the only review you have is a low review, then your sales will plummet. Which means you have to be sure to solicit reviews from people who are more likely going to like your book.
Friends and family
I don’t do this. If any of my friends and family want a free book, they are free to one, but it’s nearly impossible to get them to read the thing and leave a review. Some of them have,3 but for the most part it’s more like throwing a fish in the air and expecting it to fly. They might buy the book to support me, but most of them probably won’t actually read it. And even fewer will review it.4
Goodreads
So this exists. And I have had less than pleasant experiences with it so far. So here’s the thing: Goodreads is its own book reviewing platform. Many people don’t cross-post their reviews to Amazon. Which turns out to be a good thing for me, because they are much more critical of books on Goodreads than they are just about anywhere else, I’ve found.
When you can get them to actually leave a review at all.
Seriously, hundreds of free books given out, six reviews back from those. It was really not worth the time sink. And on top of that, Amazon tends to purge reviews that came from free copies, so it ends up being kind of a useless venture if you’re looking for reviews to boost sales.
NetGalley helps get your books into the hands of professional reviewers and is considered by some to be a test for how good your book is. It’s also hella expensive, so I got mine in via Broad Universe in order to give it a shot. It was… less than fruitful in the end. At the end, you get a sheet telling you the revies and there were not as many reviews back as expected. Those that did come back did not all get posted to Amazon, instead posted on their individual blogs.5
And at least one of them posted a lower star rating on Goodreads than they did on the feedback sheet I got and I’m still salty about it.
So what do I do?
Nothing. I’ve stopped trying to pursue reviews at this point. There are services out there that will help you get reviews in the NetGalley sense, or that will just give you positive reviews for your page,6 but I’m unwilling to pay for these.
In the end, I’ve found I get more positive reviews from people who have just come across the book on their own and decided to leave a review than from people I have solicited reviews from. Unfortunately, this means I have far fewer reviews than I probably should, but actively pursuing reviews is a part of marketing that I’m just not all that keen on continuing with given the experiences so far.
So if I don’t like doing the social media thing, what do I do for marketing? What is the thing I’ve tried that actually ends up selling me enough books to buy a coffee or two a month?
Paid services
Don’t. Just save your money.
I have tried a whole bunch of paid services over the years. Twitter campaigns, getting in with a bunch of authors to cross promote, Facebook campaigns, good old ads for authors, all sorts of things. Spent a couple hundred bucks over the years trying them. And do you know how much I’ve gotten back as a direct result of them?
Email subscribers that don’t open the email or click on the links. Four sales. Total.
Smashwords
Smashwords is fantastic for giving authors promotional options for their fanbases. You can create coupons for individual books and give them out to whoever you want for whatever purposes you want, which is fantastic. If you just want readers and to get your book into as many hands as possible, this is probably the easiest way to do that.
On top of that, you can also set books to free on Smashwords. I think I’ve mentioned this in the Smashwords post, but I don’t set my books for free on Smashwords. I instead have a few books available where the reader can set the price, and that price can be free. In most cases, folks will just take them for free, but others will still offer you something that they can afford for them.
Contests
You know what? If you’re just looking for numbers of people to sign up for a mailing list, a contest is fantastic and you don’t have to arrange to sent too many books out to people. But from my experience, a contest is not how you build followers. The ones I’ve run and participated in have only earned me temporary followers with no sales boost, and a lot of unsubscribes and bounces as soon as I sent out the first newsletter. Getting people to your newsletter is great, but a lot of them don’t decide to stay.
I’ve only been doing Instafreebie1 for a short time, but this has actually resulted in a good number of sales since being part of the program. I have a mix of first books in series and previews of other books, and enroll in a bunch group giveaways. A lot of people download freebies and I see an increase in sales across all the channels I distribute to.
The thing to remember with Instafreebie is that they require an ePub and do not offer a conversion service. Because of this, and because of how I use it, I use the ePubs from Draft2Digital again, because those have links to other books presented to the reader when they finish reading. If it’s a preview, I have to open up Calibre and manually add a link to the download page for the book they are currently reading.
And, for the most part, that’s what’s worked. Except for that one last thing: Reviews.
You do not talk about heroes, villains, or powers. You do and you will disappear.
The Welcoming Committee was a success. New students continued to pour into Larkdale Secondary every week, now all able to easily find their classes, join the clubs they wanted to, and had a support system in case they needed anything. And they nearly stopped getting killed by the city. Nearly.
Many of them were restless, unable to even speak freely outside of the club room, and new transfers came with new ideas about how to deal with the problem of Whitten. With Matt still not recovered from last semester, Indira is hesitant to try anything, but she knows that it’s only a matter of time before one of them decides enough is enough and when they do, they will be killed by the Speckled City.
Okay. So. Marketing. Let’s get one thing straight.
I am not someone to come to for marketing advice. I am awful at marketing, largely because it makes me very uncomfortable. There’s plenty of places that will tell you that these people want your book and you are just helping them find it.
See, I’ll walk into a store to look for pants, but I don’t want the sales associate to help me find them. Get me?
So yeah, marketing is not my strong suit. Still, I have to do some of it. You can come up with a much better plan than I have, though I can at least help to give you a starting point and tell you what’s worked for me without making me feel too terrible.
Okay? Okay. Let’s get into this.
The 10% Rule
Ten percent is not the firm number, mind you, but it’s a good general rule that I’ve found. One in ten people on average will take an action. One in ten people will click on a link to a book. One in ten of those people will check out the excerpt or summary. One in ten of those will actually purchase. One in ten of thosewill go to see a second book if a link is presented to them. And so on.
As someone who wants to sell books, this means you want to get as many people as possible to land on your book page so that eventually you will hit enough people to result in a purchase. In many cases, this means spam, and this is why I am not good with marketing.
Twitter, Facebook, and the rest
I have all of these things, but honestly do very little in the way of marketing through them. My Twitter sometimes has me talking about the projects I’m working on. Facebook is mostly an author page that has the blog cross-posted to it and the occasional book announcement. I have never been comfortable using these platforms for marketing, but I have them. Mostly because I did use them properly at some point.
And by properly, I mean I spammed the hell out of people. And it did get me sales, don’t get me wrong, but I also hated doing it. So now I use them like a normal person and occasionally tweet out something about a promo happening or post about an upcoming book. Most of anything that might be considered marketing happens on the blog.
Author Blog
This thing you’re reading! I read all the articles at one point about what to post and how often. You want to provide helpful-but-related materials to what you’re currently working on. Throw in a bonus scene! Do character interviews! Release a soundtrack! Do cover reveals and sneak peeks! That’s how you attract people who will read your work, by appealing to people who are already interested in your work.
This didn’t work for me. At all.
The posts that gained the most traction for me were the ones about writing and publishing. These were the ones that got interaction, shares, and feedback. And the reason for that is very obvious.
The Indie Author Problem
Look. I’m an indie author. I feel for them. I’ve read the same things they have, I’ve done some of the same things they’re doing, and I know that they are doing what’s been recommended. But I hate other indie authors on social media.
When you state you’re an indie author1 most of the people randomly following you are going to be other indie authors. And that sounds great, right? Nice support group? Nope.
About 90% of the folks who follow you are following you exclusively to get a follow back and so that they can then promote their books to you. Their feeds are all retweets of other people and advertisements of their books. The actual person is not there, it’s just an automated feed. Sometimes they will post something, but it will be something generic and non threatening, something that a bot could have come up with to try and make them seem like a real person. Something to maybe capitalize on a trend or hashtag.
The reason is simple enough. The theory is that enough eyes mean that eventually someone clicks. And if enough of those eventuallys happen, then someone will actually purchase their books. And honestly, it does work if you are persistent enough. But it makes your own social media unusable at a certain point.
If this is fine with you, go ahead. Just be warned. I opted to stop, though, and go back to being a person occasionally shouting into the void between drafts.
I do my mailing lists on Mailchimp and it’s been pretty painless, honestly. Once a month now, I send out a newsletter that includes whatever freebie giveaway I’m participating in at the moment, news about any book releases and upcoming events, and anything else that might be interesting.
I get a lot more traction and action out of the mailing lists than anything else because most of the people who sign up for it are actual readers who want to know what’s coming next. Every place I have a sign up for my mailing list is optional so I hope that the only people who join it are actually interested. Which helps me feel like I’m not actually spamming all these folks.
I’m also planning to give out some extras, so if you wanted to join the mailing list, there’s a box over to the left there…
Well, it was worth a shot.
Or put the keywords “novelist” or “writer” in the description [↩]
