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Book Marketing on a Shoestring

Valuable Tips for Authors – Don’t Miss This

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How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money 
Book Marketing on a Shoestring is  available: 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UAVL3LE
on Amazon Kindle for only $3.99.

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OVERVIEW OF THE CHAPTERS:
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PART ONE
Why Book Marketing is Important – and Rewarding.
How Readers Will Find Your Book.
Author/Entrepreneur – Do You Have What it Takes?
Marketing Possibilities Seem to Be Overwhelming!
The Internet is Full of Bogus Stories.
What’s the Difference Between Marketing and Selling?
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PART TWO
Evaluate Your Current Publishing Situation.
Let’s Start With the Basic Tasks.
Get a Professional Author Portrait.
Create Your Avatar.
Use Your E-mail Signature.
Join the Most Effective Social Media Sites.
Join Reader/Writer Communities — Online and in Person.
Start a Website and/or Blog.
Sell Your Books from Your Website/Blog.
Create a Business Card, or Bookmarks.
Outline an “Elevator” Pitch.
Start a Newsletter E-mail List.
Write Blog Articles as a “Guest Blogger”.
Write Prequels for Your Future Novel.
Contribute Content to Article Directories.
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PART THREE
You Never Get a Second Chance …
Write a Compelling Blurb.
Edit, Edit, and Edit Even More!
Increase Readership: Create an Audio Book.
Will Print Copies Sell More Books?
Get an ISBN Number.
Why do you Need a Copyright Registration?
List Your Book Worldwide.
Create Excitement with a Book Cover Poll.
Gather as Many Early Reviews as Possible.
Get Advance Book Reviews from Magazines and Newspapers.
Get Pre-Orders for Your New Book.
How to Deal With the Media and Book Bloggers.
Submit Photos of Your Book Cover.
Sign up on HelpaReporter.com. 
Create a Media Kit.
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PART FOUR
Marketing Steps Within Your Book’s Content. 
Choose the Correct Category/Genre.
Let Your Readers Pay With a Tweet.
Press Releases for a Review—are They Worth the Effort?
Create a Separate BOOK PAGE or AUTHOR PAGE.
Organize Your Book Launch Party.
There are at least 17 Online Book Retailers.
With a Little Help from Your Friends…
Get More Book Reviews.
Cross Promotions and Blog Tours.
Create a Slideshow for Your Book.
The Power of Book Trailers.
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PART FIVE
Book Marketing Strategies
Selling Books and e-Books to Libraries
Offer Your Book to Book Discussion Clubs.
How to Profit from an Award
Get Interviews on Radio and TV Shows.
Improve Visibility for Your Books.
Connect All Your Social Networking Sites.
Read from Your Books at Libraries.
Book Signings at Local Bookstores
Get Your Book Translated Into World Languages.
Sell Your Foreign Rights.
How About a Movie Deal for Your Book?
How Else Can You Leverage Your Manuscript?
Bestseller Tips from Trade Publishers.
Checklist for Your Book Marketing (Timeline)
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Book Marketing on a Shoestring  contains 103 pages, chock full of valuable tips for authors, and will be very affordable priced at US$3.99.  If you are a frequent reader of our blogs, you can already imagine how useful this new ebook will be for your own book marketing!
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Thanks for writing a review after reading it  : )
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Posted by on March 13, 2015 in Book Deals

 

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Less than Minimum Wage for Authors?

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Are you thinking about approaching an agent or publisher for your next book? Do you know what clauses publishing contracts usually contain? How do you read a publishing contract? What your income will be – compared to author-publishing? This blog post and the following two will help you to “take the con out of the work con-tract”.

Wikipedia explains: “A publishing contract is a legal contract between a publisher and a writer or author, to publish written material by the writer or author. This may involve a single written work, or a series of works.” And as with every legal contract, authors are faring better when consulting a lawyer that is specialized in publishing contracts – BEFORE – they sign it.  

 

Savvy Writers & e-Books online

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Justicia Justicia

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Traditional Publishing Contracts – Part One of a Series

You might remember an article How Harlequin Publishing Deceives Their Authors from last summer in this blog, about the planned class action suit against the publisher. Today I stumbled about a sequel of J.A. Konrath’s blog: Harlekin Fail, Part 2, where he explains the contract practices of the trade publishers in general, and how they deceive their authors. From today on we will look more closely into these practices.
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When offered the opportunity to publish traditionally, about two-thirds of self-published authors are interested. The supposed prestige of a traditional publisher, the wide distribution a publisher can generate and help with marketing, are the reasons, cited in surveys.
However the perception of traditional publishing is often not up to date in public, as the way of book marketing (and the whole traditional publishing business) has totally…

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12 Amazon “Countries” in One Link

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With the limited 140 characters on Twitter for example, character space counting is necessary.  To reach your potential worldwide readers, you have to tweet the link for each country separately. For some reason Amazon divides the world by countries and has separate platforms for each country, the wonderful Word-wide-Web seems not to exist for them…

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Great Amazon Link Shortener
A smart software developer created a program that lets you send out one link, and no matter where your readers are, they come to their own countries’ Amazon website, even though you give the link as viewbook …. It works great. Try it out with our own Amazon sales link. Just sign in with the developers site: http://www.booklinker.net/

Viewbook provides you with a link, which sends the customer to the Amazon site in your country, via their (viewbooks) site. It is a seamless process, and the customer doesn’t realize that it is happening. This is great for using on Twitter, as it does not matter where your potential customers live, because once they click on your link, they’ll be taken to the most appropriate Amazon store.
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Track the Progress of Your Link
Another great feature provided by Viewbook.at is the ability to track the progress of your book links.  Each link you post on Social Media gives you an estimate of how many clicks the books are receiving, and the countries they are coming from.  Two more companies currently offer a similar service: SmartURL and Georiot.

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Even if You Don’t Use Their Distribution Service…
Books2read.com
links to: Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo, B&N Nook, Google Play, ScribD, 24Symbols, Thalia, Inktera, Smashwords, Baja LIbros, Playster, Blio, Bookmate, Browns Books for Students, Casa del Libro, Family Christian, Hive, Buch.de, BOL.de, DriveThruFiction, Indigo, Angus & Robertson, Bücher.de, FNAC, Hugendubel, Libris, Livraria Cultura, Mondadori, Rakuten, WHSmith, BOL.com, Eason, eBook.de, Gandhi.mx, LaFeltrinelli, Overdrive etc.

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Pro and Con’s
Yes, the service is free, or at least almost, as  Booklinker.net is an Amazon affiliate and this way they receive a tiny commission from Amazon, for a $2.99 book about 6 cents.  If the customer orders more items within 24 hours through this initial Viewbook link certainly more.  However, if you are an Amazon affiliate, you will not receive small  commission on the sale of your book – will receive this tiny amount (approx. 6cents) for their great service.

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To Link or Not to Link?
On the other hand: you might even sell more, as more potential readers are learning about your book by way of the “translation” of your sales page link. Your royalties will not be affected in any way. This single global link to many countries is really a superb invention, reducing lots of customer barriers, and it might improve your overall sales a little bit. There is some discussion on the Internet about Viewbook’s affiliate programs, on the other hand, if customers order free or 99cent books through referral of BookBub and similar services.  BookBub receives a commission too – on top of the hefty ad fees they charge for sending out a newsletter with advertisers’ book campaign info with a single click. That’s all they do!  I have never heard someone on the net discussing these affiliate commissions.
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I personally think the “worldwide” link helps book sales a lot.  And you can certainly use both links, your “old” ones from Amazon for each country and the “worldwide” universal links.

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing:  We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,030 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
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Foreign Book Rights: Multiple Sales of Your Manuscript

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Europe
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Foreign Rights as well as translations into other languages can be a great way to leverage the value of your manuscript – but don’t expect big numbers right away. Revenue will be an advance and approximately 6 – 10% royalty of the retail price, minus percentage for the agent. It’s also a long-term project as it takes around 18 months until the book is translated and finally available online and in bookstores.

Foreign rights belong to your book’s subsidiary rights.  Like other sub-rights, such as audio, movies, book clubs, paperback reprints, electronic rights, foreign rights can be sold and separated from your book’s primary rights – which you totally own anyway as an independent author-publisher.
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Before you sign a contract: Always first contact your national writers’ association for further information and get legal advice from a lawyer who is specialized in copyright. This could save you several thousand dollars – if not more.

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Let’s Start With the Revenue You Can Get from Your Book’s Retail Price:
Earning possibilities for your book.

  • If you sell your book on your own website ca. 90 – 95%
  • Selling through Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple or other online retailers: up to 70%
  • Selling your manuscripts to a trade publisher, earns a (small) advance and ca. 8 – 10% royalties – but this will be subtracted from the advance and only if you “earn out” your advance, which means the book is really selling well, you receive royalties.
    For most authors the advance is all they really earn.

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If You Want to Let Your Book Translate in World Languages
You can certainly just translate your book and sell it through online retailers worldwide. Most spoken languages beside English (albeit not necessarily e-book readers) are Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, German, Russian, Russian, Portuguese, Bengali, Japanese according to Wikipedia.
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Start With Maximizing Your Foreign Presence – For FREE
To maximize your presence in overseas Amazon Kindle stores, just set up an Author Central account in each of those country-specific sites where your book is available.  As Amazon divided the world in single countries, announce your Countdown Deals, new book launches or Free Kindle KDP Days in several languages: Order at http://www.Fiverr.com a short translation of 10 tweets in Spanish, French, German etc. for $5 / 200 words. The countries with the most usage of eReaders, according due to a survey of Bookboon are USA, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark etc.
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A good idea would also be to join ALLI   
New rights services are growing up online to help authors meet rights buyers directly without having to travel to a book fair and using technology to extend reach. ALLi now has an arrangement with one of these, Pubmatch. Members have access to Putmatch’s premium service through ALLI (usually $79.99) at the deeply discounted rate of $9.99.  Pubmatch will facilitate communication, data warehousing and the simplification of rights marketing for publishers, agents, authors and others, making it the go-to place for the international publishing community to find new titles and new talent.
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International Book Fairs
Do not just turn up at an international book fair, hoping to sell your book. Meetings are arranged well in advance (4-6 months) with acquisitions editors at international publishing houses, to whom new projects are pitched, and new potential publisher customers can be discovered.  
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Top Publisher for French Foreign Rights
If you want to talk about foreign rights with a French publisher one of the biggest in the world, Hachette who are also partnering with Phoenix Publishing & Media Group in China and holds a 25% share of Atticus in Russia.
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Top Publisher for Spanish Foreign Rights – Good for U.S.A. too!
Planeta leads the world’s Spanish-language publishing markets in Spain and Latin America. The company has further strongholds in Portugal and France, where it owns Editis, the country’s second-largest group. Grupo Planeta is present in 25 countries, with more than 100 imprints and a catalogue of 15,000 titles.
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Major agencies, specialized in Foreign Rights:

http://knightagency.net/

http://nelsonagency.com/foreign-rights/

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Choose your foreign rights agent carefully!
Most agents charge 20% (or sometimes even 25%) on foreign sales. This 20% rate is justified because normally two agents are involved (the second one being in the foreign country), and they end up splitting the commission. If you are not represented already, why not try to find agents or even publishers yourself in other countries, especially if you speak more than one language?
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There are things to watch when negotiating foreign rights deals – hopefully an agent will keep an eye on these, but it’s worth knowing about it:

  • Term of the deal:  Five years is most common, anything longer then you should be expecting a premium from the publisher.
  • Country / Territory for the contract: You might sign away Portuguese language rights without realizing that it will include publication in Brazil (and Mozambique, Angola, Macau, Cape Verde etc).  Also, giving worldwide Spanish language rights could cause friction with any United States publishing deal, as there is a large Spanish reading audience in the US.
  • Tax situation in your and the potential publishers country: While there are now many treaties which allow for uninhibited flow of money between countries, you could lose some of your advance to a foreign government’s tax.
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Before signing a contract with an agent or a publisher, how can an author tell if the company is good with foreign rights? Ask about their previous sales!  Contact authors who work with that publisher or agent and ask them about their experience. It’s also possible to find out the name of foreign publishers and go to their web sites and see what books they have recently published.

Find out what authors the agency represents overseas, then ask those authors about their own experiences. Again, foreign rights are only a portion of an author’s income, so that’s something to bear in mind. Check your agreement with a translations rights agent carefully.  Never, ever! give world rights away as standard, and you should also insist in a large upfront payment.
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Read more:

How to Sell Foreign Rights
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/how-to-sell-foreign-book-rights/

In Gwen Ellery’s article are tips from foreign agents about the cultural difference – something very important!  http://www.gwenellery.com/your-books-foreign-rights/

John Penberthy, a successful writer, who searched the internet, found contact addresses of agents in other countries and contacted them directly.  http://axiomawards.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/selling-foreign-rights-around-the-world/

Morris Rosenthal gives also great, detailed tips in his article about book contracts. http://www.fonerbooks.com/contract.htm

Importance of Foreign Rights
http://www.columbinecommunications.com/articles/the-importance-of-foreign-rights/

How You Can Sell your Rights or Split Your Book into Single Articles: https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/why-you-should-split-your-book-apart/

John Kremer sells helpful lists and reports for authors and an e-book with an extensive list of foreign rights agents  http://www.bookmarket.com/foreign.htm

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Planning to Exhibit at a Book Fair? 15 Tips!

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Large book fairs in the U.S. and worldwide are geared toward booksellers and librarians. These shows offer big trade publishers, as well as smaller ones and author-publishers a chance to promote their books to bookstore buyers and librarians. See how authors can participate on a budget at small regional or national and even at major publishing industry trade shows.

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Major International Book Shows
Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Abu Dhabi and Leipzig Book Fair, not to forget the book show in Edinburgh, focus mainly on international book sales and the sale of foreign and translation rights of books. Non-fiction books might often have a higher chance of success at these fairs. National or state-wide book fairs, such as the BEA in New York City, or the Texas Library Show  are attended by both, librarians and bookstore owners.

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How to Learn About Book Shows
First of all, find as much information about these shows as possible on their websites. Study their list of exhibitors and the genres of books displayed. Learn which audience is usually attending these shows. Check out the website of the American Library Association ALA where the library conferences are taking place throughout the year. Ideally attend book fairs first as a visitor and talk to as many people as you can – visitors and exhibitors alike, before you decide to rent a booth. It will be a great learning experience. Notice what other presenters are doing. Bring a notepad and paper, taking notes on what you appreciated in certain booths and what you thought other booths could have done better.

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How to Save Expenses
A great way to share expenses is to get together with other independent publisher/authors you know, and rent a table or a booth together. If you divide the cost for a booth through three or four, your partizipation is suddenly not prohibitive anymore. Beware of companies that offer to show your books at International Fairs, such as the one in Frankfurt. Their fees run often from well over $200 to $500 and they will claim that hundred-thousands of visitors will see your book and you might even get a foreign language contract. Truth is, your book will sit with hundreds of others in a shelf, and no one will promote it to potential publishers. Save the money! There are millions of books displayed at these fairs and the chance that a foreign publisher discovers your book is smaller than to win the lottery.
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What to Prepare
It is never too early, but often too late, to organize such a complex venue, especially for out-of-town shows. Here are just a few ideas for your checklist:

  • Sign up early. Apply and pay any fees ahead of time, too.
  • Contact event organizers with any special requests.
  • Need lighting or electricity in your booth? Request it well in advance.
  • Choose a booth location on a high-traffic spot.
  • Calculate expenses, such as booth rental, electricity, travel, hotel, giveaways etc.
  • Make reservations for hotel, flight and rental car if necessary.
  • If you are the sole exhibitor, organize at least one more person to help.
  • Order your displays and signs, flyers & business cards for your booth well in advance.
  • Check out all equipment that they work properly: laptop, overhead projector, displays, cables, lamps, spotlights, charger…
  • Giveaways such as book marks, peppermints, stickers, pens, even totes with your books title or cover image (if you want to splurge) should be ordered well in advance.
  • Folding chairs, a step ladder and a cart or dolly are useful items that you will be glad you brought.

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How to Attract Visitors

  • Display and let your book trailer run throughout the day. All you need is a laptop and projector and a white display for the background. It draws for sure more people to your booth.
  • To stay in contact with interested visitors, bring a fish bowl to collect business cards and email addresses / contact information. Offer a really attractive prize for this sweepstake and you can be sure to get lots of cards.
  • Offer interested visitors to sit down for a moment, to have a cool drink while talking with you. They will be happy to rest their burning feet …
  • Have a well-lit booth to attract visitors, dress professionally and never, ever! eat at your exhibition booth.

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Partizipating in a book fair means a lot of organizing, and it should be done well in advance, especially when the show is in another state or country.  These are just a couple of tips, check out these three sites for comprehensive checklists:
http://avee-angel18.hubpages.com/hub/8-Guidelines-to-Attract-Visitors-to-Your-Exhibition-Booth
http://www.julienrio.com/marketing/english/checklist-perfect-trade-show-consumer-fair
http://www.toptenwholesale.com/blog/tips-organize-trade-show-booth.htm

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars  Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/  to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 980 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

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Interview With Three Authors of Legendary Christmas

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Legendary-Christmas

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A pleasure to meet today with Jan Scarbrough, Janet Eaves and Magdalena Scott. Thanks for telling us about your Legendary Christmas Past. We hear you have an e-book promotion going on at Amazon?
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Jan:  Our publisher Turquoise Morning Press has bundled six Christmas novellas that are on sale until the end of December for only 99 cents. It’s called A Legendary Christmas Past Boxed Sethttp://amzn.to/17luvoI

The six novellas were written by three authors—Janet Eaves, Magdalena Scott, and myself, Jan Scarbrough—and they were set in a fictitious town of Legend, Tennessee. The neat part about this bundle is that the novellas take place in the 1940’s, the 1960’s and the 1970’s. So they are “historical” even though they deal with very recent history.

These Christmas novellas are set in Legend, Tennessee

·         If Only In My Dreams, 1944 and 1945, by Janet Eaves

·         A Groovy Christmas, 1968, and Not Quite Christmas, 1969, by Jan Scarbrough

·         Under The Mistletoe, 1975, and The Holly and the Ivy, 1978, by Magdalena Scott
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How did you come to write stories set in the same fictitious town?

Janet:  Maddie James, Magdalena Scott, Jan Scarbrough, and myself, Janet Eaves carried on our friendship online via email. We mainly talked about our writing projects. After playing around and creating character names from our first pet and the first street we lived on, we decided to create a story about each of these characters, but as a twist, they all had to live in the same small town. And to twist it even further, we each took a season—fall, winter, spring and summer.

That was the beginning of months of collaboration as towns have their own personalities, peculiarities, and of course landmarks. But first, our town needed a name.

At the time I was sitting in my home office discussing this project via email, and I glanced up at the extremely large map of the United States on my office wall… and there, down in the right corner, was the map’s Legend. So I suggested Legend as the name of our town and we liked it… Now that our town had a name it needed a location, and it seems it took only seconds for us all to agree that Legend would be in Tennessee, sitting at the foot of the Smoky Mountains, which is an area many people recognize because if its tourist appeal.

Do you have other books set in Legend, Tennessee?

Jan: Yes. Our publisher has bundled the non-Christmas novels and novellas into a nine book set called Love in a Small Town. Again, it’s on sale until the middle of December for 99 cents. We’re so pleased it’s reached the top 100 Amazon Bestseller list in Romance.

Janet: Yes. The boxed set bundle of Love in a Small Town starts with the first four books I was telling you about. In Claiming the Legend, the opening book in the series, the town is detailed as my character rolls into Legend for the first time. Streets, businesses, and directions give a sense of place in this seemingly sleepy town. My heroine heads for the local Bed and Breakfast, owned by the heroine of Bed, Breakfast and You, written by Maddie James. This lovely home is also described as is Maddie’s character, and the B&B itself. So you see it took lots of collaboration between all four of us to pull off a series written by four different authors using the same setting and recurring characters.

But before all the details of our stories could solidify, we needed a detailed map of the town. This map took me weeks to build and is continually updated whenever one of us has a new story that requires their location to be land-marked.

Why did you choose to set your Christmas romances in the past?

Jan: A year earlier, we had already written a set of four Christmas novellas at the request of our publisher. These e-books are bundled in A Legendary Christmas Boxed Set.

Magdalena:  When we decided to do Ladies of Legend Christmas romances set in the past, we each chose a somewhat recent decade.

Jan: Maddie James was going to take the 1950’s but work commitments and other book deadlines didn’t give her time to participate the following year.

Janet, why choose to write about the 1940’s?

Janet:  Christmas near the end of WWII was all about love, struggle, fear, hardship, and remembrance. Gifts were hand-made items of necessity such as scarves, socks, and maybe even a sweater or blanket. Food and nearly every item one could purchase at the time was limited by the rationing stamps allotted to each family. Families leaned on their faith, each other, and awaited news from outside of their homes by word of mouth, or if they were fortunate enough, a radio.

But as hard as it was to survive, people persevered, they pulled together as a nation, and they fell in love. The two stories set in Legend during this period reflect the hardships and the joys of life as the war wound down, and the danger of falling in love when the life of the one you love could so quickly end.

Jan, why write about the 60’s?

Jan:  As a teenager during that time, I had seen it through the eyes of teenage angst. Going back to research those two years, I discovered that so much happened—the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, riots in Chicago, and a flight around the moon for 1968. In 1969, people were dealing with times that were changing even faster. In both novellas, I write about characters who confront the change. In A Groovy Christmas, the heroine is sorry she’s never burned her bra and comes face-to-face with her blossoming sexuality. In Not Quite Christmas, I flip it, making my hero straight-laced and my heroine a hippie who has been to Woodstock. I had fun weaving the days’ events into the stories while setting the characters in a typical, small town where nothing changes.

My two novellas in this boxed set are prequels to my other two Legend novellas The Reunion Game and Santa’s Kiss. I’ve created a mini-series within the main Legend series based upon my first two characters Jane and Graham in The Reunion GameJane’s sister Dawn appears in Santa’s Kiss. You’ll find the love story of Graham’s parents in A Groovy Christmas. Jane and Dawn’s parents have their own love story in Not Quite Christmas. I wasn’t aware of how much readers enjoy series until I wrote these. Now I hope to write more series. It’s fun to piece relationships together like giant puzzles.
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Magdalena, why did you choose to set your “historical” romances in the 1970’s?

Magdalena:  My husband graduated high school in 1970 and I graduated in 1978; I thought it would be fun to revisit those times. And it was! I pulled out my yearbooks to describe the clothing and hairstyles for the characters, and my husband’s for the times when the characters were looking back. I used Wikipedia to help choose songs to play on the juke box in Jim Bob’s Saloon. Music is so evocative, and I think the juke box adds an important layer to the scenes that take place there. In Under the Mistletoe, the first time Charles McClain goes into Jim Bob’s when he’s visiting Legend, Freddy Fender’s Wasted Days and Wasted Nights starts playing on the juke box, and Charles realizes that’s pretty much what his visit to Legend has been. Of course this is just minutes before he meets Dorothy Robbins, the pretty blonde waitress who wants to go back to college so she can get a good job and leave Legend forever.
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So the stories in A Legendary Christmas Past are prequels to your other Ladies of Legend stories? What was that like to write?

Magdalena:  It was fun, like when I introduced Martin McClain as a little boy back in the 70s. He is a hero in one of my contemporary Legend stories, Midnight in Legend, TN. And that saloon I mentioned before? It is the building that, years later, Midnight Shelby buys when she moves to Legend from NYC. She converts it into a beautiful store and the actual bar area serves designer coffee.

Writing the prequels also forced me to become more organized. Each of my Legend stories has a McClain as one of the main characters. Because of doing the prequels—Under the Mistletoe and The Holly and the Ivy—I now have a reasonably detailed family tree including birth years for the McClain family and some of the others who become involved in the stories, like Dorothy Robbins of Under the Mistletoe and her friend Jeannie Adams in The Holly and the Ivy. Having that family tree with notes to myself about who does what and in which story is very helpful.
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Do you have a favorite story in the boxed set?

Janet:  If Only In My Dreams (1945) is one of my all-time favorites. The novella is told through the eyes of the heroine. When she takes on a blind, wounded soldier to help him recuperate, she finds that life is so different from anything she had ever known before, and to break through his shell of pain and loss, she has to let him now see the world through her eyes. In the end, the message, if there is one, is that people are people no matter their disability. To treat them any differently takes away their identity.
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What else would you like to tell us about A Legendary Christmas Past Boxed Set?

Magdalena:  I love my McClains and Legend. I’m so glad the four of us created this little town where “romance lives next door,” and thrilled that so many readers are discovering it and learning to love it too!

The whole set of a Legendary Christmas Past is available for a short time for only $0.99
Amazon Kindle e-book, 392 pages:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GQ1WQIG
Link to Legend Website:  http://www.legendtennessee.com/

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or  Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 960 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
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Special Thanksgiving Book Offer: BREATHLESS

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Take advantage of a special Thanksgiving offer:
3 day Kindle Countdown starting, on Thursday 28th November
– Act quickly for a good deal – and a good cause.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DFOT5VI

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xBreathless
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A novel about a family struggle.
Mike the father has become obsessed with his silver collection and is ignoring important family issues.
Clare the mother is exhausted from coping without his support. She knows she must let her teenage daughter Hannah who has Cystic Fibrosis, take control of her own health, but is finding it hard to let go.
Edward their son is becoming withdrawn, guilt that he is healthier than his sister and the inability to be help her is overwhelming him.
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The reappearance of Clare’s childhood sweetheart brings the marriage to a breaking point.  The big question is, will the family ever be able to restore communication and support each other?
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xCaroAyreAuthor Caro Ayre: “A donation or £1 / $1 is being made to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust for every copy sold. Please help me reach my target of £1,500 to help with research into this genetic disease.”

For more information check out:

Visit Caro Ayre and see our interview with her:

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P.S. Actually it is not a countdown, what Amazon offers with its latest book sales campaigns, but rather a count-up, as the book price starts very low and then goes up to its original price.  See an example of a Kindle Countdown Deal with the clock running on Breathless’ Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DFOT5VI

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Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 940 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://www.111publishing.com
http://www.e-Book-PR.com/
http://www.international-ebooks.com/
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Posted by on November 28, 2013 in Book Deals, Self-Publishing

 

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