Category Archives: Road to Publication

Road to Publication #5: The Marketing Plan

Today I received one of those big-scary presents from my publisher.  The Marketing Plan.

I don’t know if this calls for a squee or and EEEK!

I was a little surprised by the magnitude of it.  Everyone says writing the novel is the easy part.  Now’s the time for the work.  And this isn’t something you can’t put off.  Anything you do wrong (or right) now can affect how your novel sells.

I have a 20 week marketing plan leading right up until the release date of December 3rd.  20 weeks equates to 50 pages of reading.  Did anyone else just cringe?

The good news is a lot of this I have done already, or have already planned to do and it is on my schedule.  The bad news is, there is a lot of stuff that I haven’t done, and some of it is scary.

It’s time to plow ahead.  The good news is that I can draw on experiences of others, and I am not floundering in the dark.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Hey! Look at me! I’m a ROW 80 Sponsor!

Wahoo!  We are well into Round 2 of Row 80, and I am proud to be one of the sponsors helping out the lovely and talented Kait Nolan on her ambitious endeavor to keep writers writing.

Today, you can find me ranting about how to get started on a new work, or how to write your way out of writer’s block over at the Row 80 site.  (Just scroll down after Kait’s Wednesday check-in to see my words of wisdom)  Hop on over and give a look.

As for me?  Where am I?

I am struggling to keep my head above water… that’s where I am.  I was hoping to have a sports-free spring, but that didn’t work out.  Why do parents suffer when kids want to do sports?  My goodness… I want to support my kids, but what a time suck!  Don’t these other parents have writing to do after their normal workday?  Blogging?  Publisher’s deadlines?  Critiquing?  Oh… I’m the only one who does that.  Ergghhhh.

I am sticking with my one goal for 2012.

And guess what?  If you haven’t heard… YES!  I am getting published!

See that pretty little book cover to the right?  Yep, that’s my name!

But signing the contract does not mean the work is done.  I’m busy editing and reworking right now, and working through my marketing plan.  It’s tons of work.

I’m also playing around with a new idea in my head.  I need to get it outlined so I can start the fun of exploding things writing something new.  I guess that is my short-term goal… get through the outline so I can get to the fun part.

How are things in your writing world?

The Road to Publication #4: Meeting Other Authors

When the gads of information started coming in from my publisher, one of the “neat little perks” was the key to the background of J. Taylor Publishing’s Website.

No… not the part where I can re-program it, silly… the password protected part.  Grooving around there, I found a forum… and low and behold I saw “Welcome new Author Jennifer M. Eaton”

Hmmmm… 

Of course I opened it up, and there was an email string of all the other JTP authors congratulating me and welcoming me on-board.  [[Grins]]

It’s pretty neat, having informal conversations with authors whose novels I have read.  I’m also getting to know the other authors in the anthology pretty well:  (Lynda R. Young, Kelly Said, Terri Rochenski, and Jenny Keller Ford (Who I already knew) not to mention Headline Author J.A. Belfield.

Getting to know them is nice, since we are all “in the same boat” at the same time, struggling against exactly the same deadlines to get our anthology out on time.

Right now, most of us have done the required final author edit on our manuscripts and handed them in for review by the J. Taylor editors.  I can’t wait for the flurry of chatter when the editors’ comments come back.

The Road to Publication #3: The Bad News – More Editing?

Wait a minute… I just spent two months writing to a deadline.  Now I have more deadlines?  Yikes!

Wow, the day after the contract was signed, all the “stuff” came flooding in.  Tons of emails, and tons of information.  I knew that there would be a lot to do, but I must admit, when I saw it spelled out, I was a little daunted.

One of the emails contained a very long list of things that need to be done before the target release date.  Thank goodness, many of the things on the list are dates when the publisher needs to do things.  But there are things that I need to do.

***editing***

Ugh.  Editing.  I figured I would need to do a little work on it, but I was a little surprised when they asked me to go through LAST WINTER RED and look for about 50 possible things that the editors will flag, so it will be as clean as possible before they have to review it.
I am using a computer program to analyses my manuscript, and it’s surprising when a computer highlights possible problems how many things pop up that you don’t see when you read.  As always, I don’t agree with everything the computer says.  A computer does not, or instance, understand that you are looking for an emotional reaction when you purposely repeat a word five times in a paragraph, and that it was intentional…but in the instances where it was not intentional, I was able to make the changes, and the sentences are much stronger.

That is where I am now.  There are about six different reports to run like this.  Some of them overlap, but it is a lot to look at, and a lot to consider (see that… duplication of “a lot” for an emotional response… are ya feeling emotional?)

Anyway…tons to do, and now there is a new deadline, and five other authors in the same boat counting on me to finish in time.

No Pressure.

Make Believe Anthology: The back of the cover. Yay! Another Reveal!

Along with the book cover, and here ya go, in case you missed it.

Sigh… just don’t get tired of looking at my name on there…

Anyway…

Along with the book cover, we now have the back cover copy with details on all the cool stories about this little lady in red.

And no, It’s not Little Red Riding Hood.  It had to be about anything BUT that fabled character.  So without further ado, here is the back cover copy for “Make Believe”

Oh!  It would be great if you’d click on these lovely ladies’ names and give them a shout out on their blogs.  We’re all celebrating!

Back of the Book

Sacrificial Oath by Terri Rochenski

An impetuous act unwittingly makes Alesuela the fulfillment of the Sovereign’s Blood Oath to their Goddess. In five days, she’ll be forced to make the greatest choice of her life: become the virginal sacrifice already promised, or force the man she loves most to die in her place.

With an impossible choice in front of her, she searches for ways to undo the oath, and in her quest, finds not everything in her life is as she expects.

The Amulet of Ormisez by J. Keller Ford

There is only one way to save Elton Fletcher’s brother from an insanity-ridden death.

After years away from home, fighting for his people, Elton returns to discover his only sibling, Cayden, possessed by greed and malice, and responsible for malicious, unthinkable deeds. Cayden, though, isn’t the only one afflicted by the Amulet of Ormisez, and Elton finds himself in yet another battle, where the price of failure could be his own life.

Birthright by Lynda R. Young

Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible.

She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she’s never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her.

Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.

Petrified by Kelly Said

A mysterious storm has replaced summer with winter, devastating crops and smothering Castle lands in snow.  Prince Sterling August stands alone as a leader, lost in personal grief as well as a desire to help his people but with an inability to do either.

The answers he needs await him, but without Lochlyn, a woman who’s just as isolated as Sterling, he’ll never see what stands before him, cloaked in illusion.

Last Winter Red by Jennifer M. Eaton

Emily is a Red, a woman whose sole purpose in life is to produce offspring. When her husband dies and leaves her childless, she risks her life and forsakes the safety of Terra—a disease-free city born after the nuclear holocaust. Beyond its boundaries, she knows, survives a man with whom she can be properly paired.

The Outside, though, holds secrets the government struggles to keep, and what Emily discovers on her quest for a mate will change her life forever.

Escort to Insanity by J.A. Belfield

From a charity auction, to a stroll in the park, to the craziest night of her life. Nicole Harrington can’t help but wonder how a simple event went so drastically wrong.

Of course, the male escort she booked is wholly to blame. Not only charming but shrewdly intelligent, Benjamin Gold drags Nicole into a platoon of unimaginable problems—ones from which she’ll have to find the courage just to survive.

URL: http://www.jtaylorpublishing.com/books/17

So, Whattya think?

Are you Excited?

The Cover Reveal-Seeing your name on a book jacket for the first time.

***Woa.***

So, I was rattling through my email the other day, and my buddy Jenny Keller Ford sends me a message saying: “Did you see the cover with your name on it yet?”

So, yeah, I scrambled through all my emails, searching frantically, and low and behold… there it was.

The contract felt pretty real, but let me tell you—seeing your name in big bold print with cover art…

I called my kids in.  My five-year old said, “Oh, okay.  Can I have a snack?”

The Monomaniacal Middle Grade Reviewer looked at it, gave me a hug, and went on about his business.

My eight year old, Thank Goodness, stared at it with wide eyes and a big poop-eating grin on his face, saying, “That is soooo cool!”

Later on, my husband came home and finally got to see it.  I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something like, “Wow.  This is real, isn’t it?”

I think he actually needed something to validate it in his mind.   I tried to explain what an anthology was, but until he saw the cover, I don’t think he actually “got it.”

So, without further ado, here is the cover for the Make Believe Anthology.

So, what do you think?  Pretty cool, huh?

The Road to Publication #1: The Contract

Wow, did I TOTALLY not expect to be writing a heading like that so early this year.

This will be a series of posts, but it will most-likely not be weekly.  Honestly, I don’t know everything that’s involved yet, or how often I’ll even have anything I can tell you.

Why am I writing this?

I realize that I am in a position of extreme interest to most of you.  As always, my mistakes, or my good fortune in this case, are an open book for you all to learn from.

To start with… the contract.  Wow.  Nothing makes things more real than seven scary pages filled with very serious sounding words like “Breach” “Grant” “Term” and “Indemnification”

Yikes!

Luckily enough for me, part of my day job is reading contracts, so this wasn’t as scary as it could have been.  I would highly suggest that if you DON’T have a background in contracts, or have a clear understanding of the publishing business, to bring your contract to a lawyer to get it explained.

Luckily for me, J.Taylor is a great publisher.  Their contract is concise and fair, and there are things in there to protect me and my family, as well as them.  Everything that I wanted was already there in the contract.  Whew!

Be prepared that there is a lot of negative stuff in the contract.  This is because the document is made to protect both sides if something “bad” happens.  It can be a little daunting to read all the stuff that can go wrong, but don’t worry.  This is just part of business, and is standard for almost any kind of business agreement.

What I really liked is J.Taylor Publishing softened the blow of the contract with a pretty “Welcome packet” wonderfully written with an air of excitement outlining some of the things that they will expect of me, and all of the great services that they offer.

After all I have heard about publishers dropping marketing in the lap of the author, leaving them to flounder on their own, I am tickled to find out that My publisher will be creating a marketing plan, and will do everything in their power to make sure the work is a success.