10 Tips to Being a Co-Author

by Leslie Gould, @lesliejeangould

(with input from her co-author Mindy Starns Clark)

1. Find someone with a similar writing style and voice.
Thankfully our agent, Chip MacGregor, recognized that Mindy and I have a similar writing style and voice, and he suggested that we work together. That has been a big boost to our process. We can seamlessly edit each other’s writing and keep the continuity of the story going without any big hiccups.

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So You Want to do a Boxed Set

Lynnette Bonner, Author

Lynnette Bonner is the author of 7 novels and has remained consistently on Amazon’s best seller lists since releasing her first Indie title in 2012. Her latest book, Beyond the Waves, is part of a boxed set that releases today. The set contains 10 inspirational romances for only 99 cents – each is a complete story, and the first book in a romance series. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/RHSCR.

So You Want to Do a Boxed Set

by: Lynnette Bonner

Since participating in a boxed set is a technique more and more indie authors are incorporating into marketing plans (I know Brandilyn Collins blogged about marketing a boxed set here), I thought I’d tell you a little about how we put our set together and how we’ve gone about marketing. This will hopefully give some of you who try this in the future a guide to go by.

First, all ten of the authors in this collection are in a small group on Facebook. Hallee Bridgeman, author of Sapphire Ice in the set, posted to that group asking if any of us were interested in joining her in a boxed set. Nine of us responded that we were. And then discussion commenced on what focus we would give to the set. We settled on inspirational romance with each book in the set being the first book in a series.

Our two main goals for this set were:

1.   We wanted to introduce our own readers to other authors whose work we admire and hopefully gain some new readers in return.

2.   To see if we could hit some of the best seller lists like USA Today by combining our marketing efforts. (NY Times no longer posts boxed sets to their lists, from what we can tell.)

Step 1: Gather authors and decide on a focus – these steps could be interchangeable. You could decide on a focus first and then seek out authors you know have books that would work for that focus.

Step 2: Decide what your main goals for the set are. This will determine how you market down the line.

Someone needed to compile all ten books into one digital file, and we’d like to say thanks to Hallee’s husband Gregg who did a fantastic job on that part for us. Along the way we learned that unless the file is less than 3MB you won’t be allowed to charge 99 cents for it. So he stripped out most of the graphics he’d put in and the file was then just able to squeak under the limit.

Step 3: Find someone to compile all the books into one for you. If you want to price it at 99 cents, be sure to keep the size under 3MB. This step and step 4 really are happening about the same time.

At the same time as the book file was being created we worked on the cover and title for the compilation. We first decided to have a group chat which we accomplished via Google Hangout. The title we chose started out as a bit of a joke, but then we all liked it and it stuck. It’s catchy and memorable – who wouldn’t be intrigued by “Red Hot Squeaky Clean Romance?” ;) We had a bit of a difficult time coming up with a cover because even though the books in the series are all romance, they span from historical westerns, to swashbuckling pirates, to contemporaries. (There’s even a time-travel romance included!) So we finally settled on something a bit generic and came up with what you see here. It’s bright and vibrant and eye catching and we think it will do a nice job for us:

Step 4: Decide on a title and create or hire a cover design for the set. Make sure it fits your selected genre, and looks professional. This step and step 3 really are happening about the same time.

Once all that was done, and thanks to Amazon’s new policy offering preorders, we put the book up for preorder. (This is important because all preorder sales count toward the first day of release’s sales. So preorders can help us reach our number two goal.) From our research we learned that sales for the bestseller lists are counted from Monday 12:01am to Monday 11:59pm. So releasing the book on a Monday gave us our best chance at maximum sales to count toward our goal. For this reason, we launched the book on a Monday.

Step 5: Decide on a release date and list your compilation for sale.

After the set is listed for sale it’s time to go to work on promotions.

·      To encourage preorders we created a Rafflecopter giveaway with lots of prizes for those who preordered the set. (www.rafflecopter.com)

·      Before release we also posted to a few blogs, and Pinterest, and Facebook groups about the set being available.

·      We set up many paid promotions as soon as the book was available for preorder. So now, during this our launch week, we have paid promotions set up for many of the days. (We will be featured on E-reader News Today, Digital Book Today, Kindle Nation Daily, BookSends, FKBooksandTips, and several couponing sites.)

·      We also have blog posts like this one scheduled throughout the week.

·      Each of us contacted those we knew to contact for promotions and then we just reimbursed funds to each other as needed.

·      We set up a Thunderclap campaign (https://www.thunderclap.it/) to launch today and all of us worked hard to get people on board for that.

·      Each of us sent out our newsletters to our lists.

·      We of course announced the launch on our social media networks.

Step 6: Come up with a marketing plan that works for your group. You’ve come this far and put this much effort into it. Don’t give up now! And you must be willing to spend some money to promote. 

~Posted by Heather Day Gilbert

Find it here on Amazon

Ten best-selling Inspirational romance authors come together to bring you the Red Hot Squeaky Clean Romance collection! If you're anything like us, you enjoy reading various genres -- a cozy mystery, a thrilling suspense, an adventurous historical, a catchy contemporary -- we love them all as long as the romance is piping hot and the story is comfortably clean. For the first time ever, as you turn the pages of these complete stories, you will meet ten of the most recognized names in inspirational romance today and read their award winning, critically acclaimed stories all in the same collection. You're in for such a treat!

Red Hot Squeaky Clean Romance Authors: Christy Barritt, Lynnette Bonner, Hallee Bridgeman, Cynthia Hickey, Kimberly Rae Jordan, Tamara Leigh, Lesley Ann McDaniel, Amanda Tru, MaryLu Tyndall, Susette Williams

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The 12 Days of Christmas

The 12 Days of Christmas is a series of novellas releasing every two weeks as ebooks on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. An Unexpected Glory, by our very own Marcia Lee Laycock releases October 31st. Here is an interview with both Kathi and Marcia about this exciting series.

First of all, Kathi, please introduce yourself.

I’m Kathi Macias, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, author, abolitionist, former Harley-Davidson rider known as “Easy Writer,” and lover of chocolate anything.

How did the idea of the 12 Days of Christmas series come to be?

I’d actually been playing with the idea for several months when I mentioned it to Giovanni at Helping Hands. He jumped on it. We started chatting, and pretty soon I decided it would be a lot more fun to have 11 other writers come onboard and help me write this collection/series (one story each) than to try to do them all myself. I’m so glad I did because it’s turned into a really fun project!

Have you collaborated with other authors this way before?

Not exactly in the same way. I’ve been a part of similar ones Murray Pura put together, and I once co-compiled a women’s devotional with contributions from scores of women, but this one is the first of a fictional series I’ve launched—though more are in the works!

What did you enjoy about the process and what wasn’t so much fun?

So far I haven’t found anything that wasn’t fun, though the marketing aspect is always a bit stressful and time-consuming for me. Everything else has been a blast. The only downside was that the slots filled up so quickly I had to start turning people away.

Do you have plans to do it again?

Absolutely! When I found myself turning people away, I decided instead to add them to the list for future projects (two per year at this point—a Christmas series and a Mother’s Day series). We are currently filled all the way through 2015!

We’ll be watching for them. Where can readers go to find the stories in The 12 Days of Christmas series?

The first story (mine, titled “Rules of Engagement”) will launch the series on September 1st. It will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. Each new story will launch two weeks apart.

Thanks, Kathi.

Now let’s hear from Marcia. To begin, Marcia, please tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m a pastor’s wife, mother of three beautiful grown daughters and two great sons-in-law. I’m also the caregiver of two loveable golden retrievers. <grin> I’ve had the privilege of living a short distance from the Arctic Circle, in Dawson City Yukon and two degrees off the equator in Papua New Guinea. I began writing at a young age and now have two novels and three devotional books in print, one of which, Abundant Rain, is a collection of some of the devotionals for writers I’ve done for Novel Rocket. I also love doing a lot of speaking for women’s groups. My heart is to see women encouraged and brought closer to Christ.

How did you become involved in this series of Christmas stories?

A friend who had been contacted by Kathi emailed me to see if I’d be interested. I jumped on it right away because I had a Christmas story that I’d really like to get out into the marketplace. But God had a different plan. Another idea popped into my head and once I got going on it I realized this was the one to put into this project. It became An Unexpected Glory.

Is this the first time you have contributed to a series like this?

Yes, although I have contributed to several anthologies in the past, the most recent of which is the Hot Apple Cider books, two collections of thirty-some Canadian Christian authors. I also recently contributed to The Story for Scripture Union Canada – a series of devotionals designed to be read on an iphone or ipad that take the reader through the Bible in one year. Working on The 12 Days project has been great because I’ve been in touch with the other writers. We’ve been reading and giving feedback on one another’s stories. It’s been a lot of fun and I’m excited that they are releasing as ebooks, which makes them accessible to so many.

Do you have other projects under way?

I’m always working on something. The third expanded edition of my devotional book, Spur of the Moment will release soon on Amazon so that’s been exciting. Right now I’m putting together the first three chapters of a mystery novel for an agent in the US. Hoping that evolves into a fiction series.

Thank you ladies for being with us on Novel Rocket. We wish you great success with this Christmas series.

Kathi Marcias’ 12 Days of Christmas novellas can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online distributors. An Unexpected Glory releases October 31st with a Thirsty Thursday party on the Helping Hands Press facebook page.

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