Tag: self-publishing

How May I Entice You to Buy My Wares?

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s the time of year again. The days are getting shorter. The leaves are turning from green to yellow, orange, red, and brown. It’s getting cooler (in theory; it’s been in the 90’s the past several days). And money is getting tight.

For the past few years, no matter what the state of my income, the late summer/early fall has been the time when the fates have conspired to drain my bank account.

This year it has been the residual effects of a laptop crash followed by an unexpected bill and further hampered by inconsistent income due to the lack of a day job. Follow this with contributing to hurricane relief efforts, an impending trip (half-work/half-fun) to Seattle, and my yearly eye exam, and baby, I really need to make some money.

So, indulge me a moment, won’t you, while I remind you of what goodies I have to offer.

-If you check out the Read Me page, you’ll find all of my self-published works. Everything is available in eBook form and a few are offered as paperbacks. Prices range from 99 cents to $2.99 for the eBooks and $5.99 to $9.99 for the paperbacks.

–Murderville is my Patreon project. I’ve just finished with the first season, The Last Joke, and the second season starts in January. For $1 you can read the whole first season right now and get early access to the teasers about the second season. For $2 you get all of that, plus bonus material released every other month in the form of other writing projects that either have yet to see the light of day or are paid materials. There’s a paid episode coming up on October 10th that will give readers an idea of what’s to come for Season 2 and when the new season starts, your pledge is per episode. And, we’re only a few dollars away from hitting the $25 goal, which means a mini-mystery! That’s not a bad deal for less than $10/$20 a year.

–The Storytime Jukebox is a pay-what-you-want venture. Drop a buck or two in my PayPal and get the story/stories of your choosing. Right now there’s quite a selection and several options for ways to read them.

-And you can always buy me a coffee. If you like the blog posts, or you dig the freebies here or on Prose, or maybe just want to support me without feeling guilty about not wanting to read any of my stuff, Ko-Fi allows you to kick a little cash my way in $3 increments.

-If you’d rather go strictly garage sale, I’ve got a bunch of books listed on eBay that might interest you. I’ll also be doing a huge re-list of jewelry on Etsy in the next few days, probably with a huge discount. I’ve also got a tiny Zazzle store with a few trinkets.

And remember, sharing is caring. Passing the word helps me tremendously. This might not be for you, but it could be for someone you know.

Much appreciated.

How to Support Your Local Writer

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Rainbow paper**Though I’m speaking as a writer and talking specifically about writers and writing, these things can be applied to any artist, really.**

Writing can be a lonely gig. It’s a lot of time spent in your own head, trying to capture the things you see in your imagination and translate them into words that you then put on the page. There’s not a lot that other people can do to help you get your work done (aside from leaving you alone and letting you work, maybe picking up some of the chores or fetching dinner once in a while). But there are many ways that you can support your local writer.

Buy their work. This is the most obvious way, and yet, it still doesn’t happen as much as you think, for several reasons. Not having the cash is one. Or the work might not be to your taste. You have no idea how many times I get told that people would like to read my stuff, but they don’t dig horror (and that’s the majority of what I write). I don’t take it personally, but it still sort of bums me out. But even if the work isn’t to your specific taste, it might be to someone else’s. You can rec it to them (more on that later) or, if you’re feeling bold, buy it for them. Force it upon them. Maybe they’ll never read it, but you still gave your writer a little coin and tried to get their work out. That means a lot.

Read and REVIEW their work. If the work is to your liking, buying it is great. But reading and reviewing it is HUGE. Notice the emphasis on reviewing. Naturally, the writer’s fragile ego is boosted to hear directly from your mouth how much you love their stories, but leaving a review tells LOTS of people. And the more reviews, the better. Places like Amazon and Goodreads give priority to books that have more reviews and makes them easier for customers to find. By leaving a review, you give your writer a shot at getting noticed by someone else. And it doesn’t have to be a full-on book report either. A rating accompanied by a couple of sentences about what you liked (or didn’t like; I’m a writer that digs honesty) is adequate.

Give them money anyway. Okay, maybe this one is just me and just because I’m currently without a day job, but I actually started doing this earlier this year. It’s not easy for unknown writers and/or self-published writers like myself to make much money off of their work. It’s a competitive market out there and carving a niche takes time, effort, and low low prices. This year I decided to no longer make it difficult for people to give me money. In addition to my self-published body of work, I’ve got the Storytime Jukebox and Patreon. I’ve also set up a tip jar of sorts through Ko-Fi. If you like what you read here or just want to give me some monetary encouragement without the commitment of owning any of my words, you can buy me a coffee. Three bucks doesn’t sound like much, but just the act of being acknowledged in such a way is a real boost. If you’ve got the money to give, find a way to give it.

Spread the word. Whether you buy their work or not, whether it’s your genre or not, let other people know that it exists! That your writer exists! I’ll say it again in bold and all-caps: SPREAD THE WORD! This is the most valuable yet inexpensive way to show support to your writer. Share their Facebook posts, retweet their tweets, link to their blog/website/author page, recommend them to friends and family and co-workers and strangers, surreptitiously add their work to people’s wishlists. Don’t keep your writer or their work a secret. Word of mouth is how fanbases get built. The bigger your writer’s fanbase, the more support they have.

The more support your writer has, the happier your writer will be.

And when the writer is happy, the work is a little less lonely.

March Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

green flowerConsidering the loss of my only day job, my plans for March haven’t really changed that much. Probably because I didn’t have any real solid plans to begin with.

Last month, I finished my latest round of revisions on (Vampires) Made in America, wrote the first drafts of two short stories, “Grandma’s Funeral” and “A Girl’s Best Friend”, and formatted Murderville: The Last Joke into an eBook novella. I also ended up writing the first draft of a short story called “Suicide Paris Green” (I told you I’d do something with that eventually) and published The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys as a stand alone novella eBook. And finally, I began writing the first draft of a story called Come to the Rocks, a story I thought would be about 4,000 words, but is now over 10,000 and headed straight for novella territory.

February was surprisingly productive.

This month I plan to finish writing the first draft of Come to the Rocks and start the first draft of another story that I really don’t know if it will be a short story or a novella. I love those kinds of surprises.

I’m also going to work on the Storytime Jukebox, try to make it a little more user friendly. I’d like it to be more popular, for obvious reasons, but I realize in order for that to happen, it has to be better.

Of course, anything I can do to boost my writing career will be happening this month in earnest. The ball, as they say, will start rolling.

The next episode of The Last Joke comes out on the 7th. Don’t miss out! Read teasers for episodes one and two and then become a patron.

(Sort of) New Release! The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys

Okay, so this isn’t exactly a new release. You can find this novella in Ghostly. However, Ghostly isn’t selling well and I really like this story and I want it read. By releasing it as a stand alone, I’m hoping to a) get more people to read it and b) convince more people to purchase Ghostly and give all of those stories a read.

You can get this eBook on Smashwords,  Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks.

June Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Yellow flowersLast month I finished the first draft of Open Christmas Eve, which makes me less of a cheat in terms of the script contest. It’s really short (too short), so I’m thinking a revision will definitely be happening at some point to reduce my feelings of being a cheat even more. But that probably won’t happen until later this summer.

More importantly, I finished the last revision and polish on The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys and, after days of agonizing, finally put together the ghost story collection lamely titled Ghostly. It was the best I could do which is probably why I’ll never make a living doing this. But, so long as self-publishing can be done, I’ll at least be making some change. So this is all a round about way of saying that Ghostly will be out at the end of the month.

For June, I’m going through with my plan on writing a short novel for the summer. It’s called (for now) Suicide Paris Green and it’s quite a bit different from the stuff I’ve been writing (read: not horror, not paranormal, no fantastical elements). It’s kind of dark, so to counteract it, I’m going to be writing a fun story at the same time as a kind of palette cleanser. I have no idea how long this story is going to be, but it’s also VERY different from what I’ve ever written in terms of original fiction. Right now it’s called 99 because even my fun stories aren’t immune from my shitty titles.

At any rate, June should be a good month for some laid back writing in terms of deadlines and demands and bottom lines and I sort of need that kind of thing right now.

Let’s do this, summer.

December Writing Projects and Other Tidbits

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

SnowflowerIt’s December! And December means that I don’t do as much writing work because I’m too busy wading through all of the holiday cheer to get much done. And yes, that was sarcasm because this has long been my least favorite time of year and I think I lost what precious little Christmas spirit I might have had back on November 1st when I inhaled about a pound of artificial snow during a floorset.

Anyway. Writing projects.

I’m going to continue working on The Haunting of the Woodlow Boys novella. Just writing 500 words a day, taking it very easy. I’m also going to start revising Voice, again taking it very easy. I have almost nothing made for Grinchmas so that’s where most of my energy is going to be directed. Making little bits of progress on writing projects is better than making none or stressing myself because I’m struggling to write and make Grinchmas. I can go full blast again in January.

Tidbits and News:

The distribution of The Ivy Russell Novellas paperback has hit a snag because that book is jinxed and/or I am terrible at my job. So for the foreseeable future, it will only be available on Lulu. Sorry for any inconvenience, but there shouldn’t be much because Lulu is just as good as the more popular marketplaces.

Speaking of other not so popular places, I’m doing a couple of holiday deals through Smashwords (which is compatible for most all eBook platforms) for my two 2015 eBook releases, The Ivy Russell Novellas and People Are Terrible.

Use the coupon code CW86C to get 15% off of The Ivy Russell Novellas.

Use the coupon code DS99F to get 15% off of People Are Terrible.

These coupons are only valid at Smashwords and the deals end on Christmas, so don’t miss out!