Let’s talk about magic for a little today. Let’s sit down together, and talk about everyday magic.

I love writing about everyday magic, practical magic if you will. (I freaking love that movie.) Witches who keep potions in mason jars right along with pickled eggs. Amulets that help a modern witch keep away computer hackers built into a screen saver. I eat that shit up!

I think I do eat it up because I believe in a certain degree of magic in real life. I think all of us but the most depressingly rigid do.

There are certain things I do that make no good sense. Silly traditions and talismans, like Dumbo’s magic feather, that I depend on if I’m tired or stressed out. I don’t think there’s anything really to these things. Of course, I say that as I sit here on my couch, relatively comfortable. Ask me about any of these things when I’m tired, hungry or trying to avoid a depression spiral,

My lucky stone

I have this chunk of amethyst that I carry with me all the time. Amethysts are supposed to do all kinds of great things for you, like cleaning your crown chakra, increasing your creativity and help keep you calm.

I know that there are people who actually believe all of that. I believe that everything has the power I chose to give it. So if I have this amethyst and I’m stressed out, and I believe that this amethyst is going to help me calm down, then it does.

Really, though, it’s just that I’m choosing to focus on the stone instead of whatever duchbag just cut in front of us without his damn turn signal on!

The magic in meditation

Before you start in on me, I’m the first person to tell you that there are hundreds of good, logical, scientifically backed up reasons why meditation is really good for you.

But I don’t think that I really have to sit in strict Padmasana with my hands in Gyan Mudra for meditation to be effective. It’s part of the experience, part of the tradition. That’s it. Once again, it’s the power I give to the actions.

Freewriting/automatic writing

Here’s my personal favorite form of magic. Have you ever heard of automatic writing? It’s the theory that some mediums can write words that aren’t their own. Either the words of the dead or of the spirits.

I don’t believe this is a real thing. I don’t mean to offend anyone who does. I honestly why people think this because I’ve experienced free writing when I’m in a real groove.

I’ve written realizations that I’d been searching for. I wrote out story ideas that never touched the forefront of my brain on the way from the subconscious to the pen. I don’t know if it’s just that I put away my inner critic, or if I really always knew the answer. Maybe God sees me putting in the time and decides to reward me. I don’t know. I know that free writing works like magic.

The power of rituals and habit

I really enjoy coffee, but caffeine doesn’t really have that much effect on me. I’ll swear to you that I can’t start my day without a cup. I have happily had a cup of decaf and had no issues being awake.

Think about the rituals we’ve set up around going to bed and getting up in the morning. We’ve trained ourselves that these things mean sleep. The washing of the face, the dimming of the lights. The white noise or lack of any noise.

What about the rituals we use when we write? The same pen, the same place, the same drink or snack. Even the same music. All of these things can shut us into the worlds that we’ve created. This is a powerful ritual to me.

What powerful rituals or talismans do you have in your life? Tell us about them in the comment section below.

I mentioned last week that I didn’t know how to write a horror novel. I’ll try, eventually. I love horror too much to never try.

But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know what scares people. Years of reading and watching, endlessly devouring the horror genre have taught me what works and what doesn’t.

It’s not blood and gore. It’s not the monster lurking in the dark. It’s not spiders, deep caverns, escalators or under-cooked chicken. (All fears of mine.) This is what people really fear. And if you can stay away from the knife carrying psychopath and steer toward more psychological horror, you’ll write a pretty good horror story.

The unknown

My husband doesn’t watch horror movies much. But I talked him into watching one. I’m not going to tell you the name because I’m about to trash it hardcore.

It’s about these women who go spelunking in a cavern. This is a scary as hell premise for me, I’m super claustrophobic. Then, something starts killing the women off one by one. What is it? It’s gruesome and jumpy. It does everything I want a horror movie to do. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what was killing them.

Finally, we saw the monster! And I started laughing. It was floppy, pale, not scary at all.

To be fair, though, I don’t know what would have lived up to my expectations. Not knowing what happens, what was killing these women, was scary as hell.

Stephen King feels the same way, by the way. If you’ve ever read Dance Macabre, he clearly said that you should wait as long as possible to show the monster. Because we’re all scared of what we don’t know.

The ‘bad death’

This is another lesson I learned from Mr. King. No one’s scared of dying peacefully in bed, with your husband of fifty years sleeping next to you. We don’t fear the heart attack that makes it quick, right after a BBQ celebrating your 87^th Fourth of July.

We fear the car accident that grinds the victim’s body up before they die. We fear the house catching on fire, burning the homeowner alive. We fear a death full of pain and fear.

Losing the ones we love the most

I don’t fear dying. I fear my husband dying. I fear my mother dying. I fear my children dying most of all.

Many of us see death itself as the end of a journey. Some of us, like myself, believe that there’s a reward for a life well lived waiting for us. So our own death isn’t as frightening as living on after the death of our loved ones. I fear the day that I have to continue on after I bury my husband. I can’t imagine what I would do if I lose one of my kids. That’s what scares me.

Innocent deaths

It’s not just the deaths of our own children that we fear. We don’t like to see the innocent die. I think that’s why it’s so common for guilty people to suffer and die in horror movies. We want to think that the good will be rewarded and the evil will be punished. Because we generally feel that we’re in the right, that we are innocent, it makes us feel far more vulnerable to see another innocent person suffer.

This one makes my skin crawl. But it’s realistic. Terrible things don’t just happen to the sinful. Terrible things happen to everybody. Even the innocent. Even children. And that scares the hell out of people.

Being helpless

This, I think is the fear that’s at the core of our soul. We fear having control of our lives taken away from us. We fear being unable to control our own lives. We fear not being able to protect ourselves. We fear that no matter how good we are, how hard we try, how much we work, we’re going to fail. We’re going to suffer. We’re going to lose.

It’s not true, really. There are a lot of things that we do have control over. But if you’re writing a horror book, you should make your character as helpless as possible. It works better when you have a competent character who should succeed with no problem who finds themselves failing anyway.

So what do you think? What really scares you?

Who’s doing some serious horror movie watching this year? We are in my house. I can’t even list all of the movies we’re watching. We love them.

Well, we love them for the most part. There are a lot of things that I don’t love about the horror genre. Actually, let me be clear. There are a lot of things that I loved just fine the first two or three times I saw them. Now that we’re on about the nineteenth time, they’re played out.

I write horror, and I know I’ve fallen into these pits myself. There are so many horror stories, and so few plots. I’m endeavoring to write better, more unique horror stories. I hope you can avoid them, too.

Overdone characters

The screaming dead blond. It was quite unique when the master Hitchcock slaughtered Janet Leich in the first twenty minutes of Psycho. By the time Scream came around, Drew Barrymore’s death was no shocker. Also not surprising, the scrappy brunette character who manages to use her wits to win is done and dead. As a brunette I love it, but it’s still done!

Let’s have some real people in horror books. I know it sucks, because we’re just going to kill them. Probably brutally. But an honest character is always a better choice.

I’ll be right back, Is someone there? And other stupid character traits.

It used to be that horror movies relied on a strict set of morality clauses. We can see that in the three rules of surviving a horror movie from Scream.

Don’t have sex

Don’t drink or do drugs

Don’t say ‘I’ll be right back’.

Bad people almost always died, while the good people generally survived. Recently, there’s been a growing trend of characters acting stupid. Walking into the dark yelling, “Is someone there?” Wandering around in the woods in bathing suits. Locking themselves into creepy ass houses that are probably haunted. Or at least structurally unsound and dangerous. Just saying, a demonic spirit is one thing, but falling through a floor and landing in a basement is no joke.

Can’t we see smart people? Genre savvy characters, who die anyway?

Think about it, that’s so much scarier! No one’s freaked out by some dumb blond running into a freak with a chainsaw. We all think that we’d never be that person, and we’re probably right. But what about a smart person. Someone who snaps some pics with their smart phones, locks the damn door, keeps with the group, and keeps a firearm nearby. How much shorter would some of these slasher movies be if the main characters were packing?

This is why I loved the first Nightmare of Elm Street movie. There was no escaping Freddy! He haunts the dreams of the children who killed him. Even better, they were right to kill him, he was a child murderer. These people were in the right, morally speaking, and their children still suffered. (By the way, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is my favorite horror movie. The actors, including Robert Englund, being haunted by Freddy? Wes Craven’s my hero.)

The dark creature in the creepy house, creepy forest, creepy dark place. Did I mention it was creepy?

Let me tell you about my favorite haunted house book. It’s called The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons. It’s about a couple who lives next to a brand new house, beautifully built. No one’s died there, it’s not born on cursed land. It’s just evil. It just wants to destroy people who live there, physically and emotionally. It’s a dark, horrifying story.

It’s not set in a place where the floor creeks. No mass murders have happened here. There’s not blood on the wall. There’s no rotting bodies under the floorboards. Sometimes horrible things just happen, and that’s so much scarier.

Anyone can write a good horror story in a haunted woods, creepy supper camp or terrifying train. Write a story that terrifies people set in a brightly lit shopping mall on a random sunny Saturday. Write a story that makes people afraid to finish the book that takes place in a prep-school. A well taken care of prep school.

Predictable beginnings, middles and endings

Let me outline the vast majority of horror movies and books.

A terrible origin story, either how the monster was born or how the place became haunted. Lots of blood, lots of screaming. Lots of gore.

Now we meet our MC. Poor smuck, down on her luck. High school student, broke gal or guy. Someone who’s life is kind of shitty.

Let’s throw them in with a group of people who are all kind of bad. Drug addicts, wrecks. Maybe one or two who are actually responsible for the whole nightmare to come.

Now we’ll see people drop off, one by one. In increasingly gruesome ways. Until we are left with just one or two people who rely highly on Deus Ex Machina to survive. Suddenly their shitty life doesn’t sound so bad.

But the creature isn’t really dead, bwahahahaha!

Can we shake this up a little? Really, do literally anything else!

Look, I don’t know how to write a successful horror novel. I write short horror stories that I feel are pretty creepy. Even the king, Stephen King, doesn’t know how to write endings until he gets to them. So I can’t tell you how to write a great horror novel.

But I can tell you that if you want to write a bland, overcooked novel, with all of the flavor and pleasure of an overcooked steak, then write a novel just like all of the other horror stories.

I don’t feel like I do enough personal essays here. So here’s one that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. It came up in a free writing session, my love for thrift shops. My memories of them, from my childhood into my adulthood.

This might seem really weird to some people. Maybe the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes grosses you out. Maybe you think there’s nothing there but old outdated clothes with other people’s sweat stains in the armpits.

Maybe you grew up with expendable income. Good for you.

I grew up broke. Hell, let’s be fair, I’m still broke. We’ve got four people, a dog, a cat, one income, and I’m a self-published author. Sometimes, in order to have money to print my books, I have to get some jeans second hand. When I was growing up with a single mom who was a waitress, it was a similar issue.

But it’s really hard to feel like I was ever deprived. I always had nice things, quality things. I had Areopostal hoodies, Abercombie t-shirts. Even to this day, I get some awesome name brand stuff. My first pair of Clark shoes were from a second-hand store. They were $2.50. I also found a Thirty-One bag once. So, you know, maybe give the second-hand stores a little more credit.

Getting things at the second-hand store, you have to remember that this item lived a whole life with someone else. Sometimes, people leave reminders behind. Especially in books. I’ve found bookmarks, old shopping lists, coins, sticks of gum. For some odd reason, I also find that people like to hide things inside of yarn balls. I’ve found ashtrays, figurines, rubber balls. I have no idea why people make yarn balls around these things, but it makes things interesting.

I often find just what I need at second-hand stores. I mean, it’s kind of eerie. When I’ve needed clothes for my ever growing daughters, I never come away disappointed. When I needed good work shoes, I’ve found them. When I needed a coffee pot after my old one broke and I couldn’t afford to buy a new one, there was one left there for me. I even found the exact Thirty-One bag I’d been drooling over, for way cheaper than brand new. I can’t think that’s a coincidence. I absolutely believe that God stocks thrift shops.

I’m not the only one who’s had this experience! My best friend once found the exact decorative plate her grandmother used to have and was horribly lost in a move.

The best thing that ever happened in a second-hand store actually involved said best friend. We were hanging out just a few days after I was fired from my old day job. I was depressed as hell, and she was trying to cheer me up. I’d gotten my severance pay, and I was just hoping to find some nice Christmas gifts for my girls.

What we found was a copy of Elements of Style by EB White and William Strunk. I wasn’t going to buy it. I didn’t know when the next time I was going to have any income.

“I’ll buy it for you,” my friend said. She wasn’t in a much better situation. She was a college student with a little one, living entirely on grants.

Then, the lady who owned the store refused to take any money for it. Apparently, it had been there too long for her liking. Or maybe she’d just overheard us talking about what that book meant to me. One way or another, I took it as a sign from God that I was on the right path.

See, I knew I could bring this back around to writing.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever found at a second-hand store?

A long time ago, when I started Paper Beats World, I didn’t worry overmuch about graphics for my blog posts. If you’ve been following me for that long, you’ve watched the evolution of my graphics. I’ve gone from allowing my crappy logo be the image for every post to some slick looking graphics.

I’ve found that, since I’ve started creating good looking graphics, I’ve gotten more traffic. People click on my posts from social media more, because the posts catch attention. And, of course, I love creating images for the short fiction that I sometimes share.

Today, I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned. So that you as well can up your graphics game.

Watch for copyright infringement!

Please be careful about this! There are all sorts of great images and pictures that are fair use, but millions are not! Check where you’re getting your images from, do not just do a google search! I don’t want to see any of you sued.

Pablo

Now that my PSA is taken care of, let me tell you about two places to find good stock photos. The first is Pablo. This is fantastic for creating blog images, social media pictures and anything like that. I think I’ve talked it up a few times before. But seriously, it also is part of Buffer. So you can create an image and toss it right into your buffer queue.

Canva

I’ve used Canva to create two book covers. I used to use them all the time to create blog images. They’ve got a ton of graphics, fonts, and styles. You can pay for some, but I’ve never needed to. You can also upload your own images, and mess with them. So if you don’t have photoshop, it’s a good way to go.

Taking your own pictures

I generally don’t post my own pictures outside of Instagram, because I’m not good at taking them. All I have is my tablet, and it’s not the best equipment.

But if you take decent pictures, and you can invest in a nice camera, this is probably your best option. It’ll cost some money on start up, but might be worth it in the long run for you.

If you’re going to go that route, I suggest taking a look at By Regina’s website. She talks a lot about taking unique, creative pictures for your blog.

I challenge you this week to create some graphics for your blog posts. See how it impacts your social media reach.

Holy moley, I’ve never been nominated for anything before!

First off, I can’t thank Mercedes Prunty enough for nominating me. I love her blog and her writing, so it’s a real honor to be nominated by her. Here’s a link to her blog. I highly advise you check her site out, especially if you’re an inspiring writer.

I always love talking about how I started writing Paper Beats World, because it’s a story of how badly I needed to be a writer. And how blogging helped me achieve that.

I’d been a writer when I was younger, but when I had my daugther stopped writing. I’d write some short stories, start on crappy novels. I wrote a whole novel, then shelved it. I got a job I hated, got divorced, met a great guy, got another job I hated that paid better. Moved in with the great guy, became a step mom.

I was miserable! Mostly because my job (retail management) blew. But also because I wasn’t writing.

Finally, I realized that I neded to feel like a writer again. I started writing a story about a boy who weaves visions. I prayed that this story wouldn’t die. (If you read PBW a lot, sorry. I know you’ve heard this story before.)

Then my daughter said the worst thing in the world to me. She said, “I want to be a writer when I grow up, but not as my job. I want to do it as a hobby, like you.”

Shut. the. front. door!

I am not a hobbyist. So, I started chronicalling my journey to publication on PBW. I figured it would keep me accountable. I kept writing what became Broken Patterns. I posted about writing and nerd stuff. I worked my crappy job, and I was a little bit happier.

Then my daughter was kidnapped from school by her biological father.

Then I was fired from my crappy job the day after Black Friday. Did I mention that my great guy is a homemaker, and mine was the only income?

Then my great guy ended up in the hospital with a sever heart condition two days before New Year.

It was the closest I’d ever come to losing my mind. I’d lost, or come close to losing, everything that was important to me.

Except for my writing. The writing saved me.

It gave me the confedance to go for a better day job. I got it, and I’m still there. It gave me the courage to go into court and fight to get my daughter back. (I just imagined what my female lead, Lenore, would do. She doesn’t take any shit.)

This blog, and writing, saved me in my darkest hour.

So because of that, here’s my advice to new bloggers.

It doesn’t matter if anyone’s reading your writing at first. You aren’t a writer for other people. You’re a writer for yourself. So write what makes you happy. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Here are the people I want to nominate for this award.

• Gunroswell
• Diane Morrison
• Write Naked
• The Giant Squill
• SimplyMarquessa
• Scifan Magazine
• Traveling Light
• The Protagonist speaks
• Ruff Drafts
• SA Gibson
• Graceful Coffee
• Lawpoems
• Health from one heart to another.
• Kimknightauthor
• Mediabias/factcheck

Rules for accepting the AWARD!!!

• Thank the blogger who nominated you.
• Write a post to show off your award.
• Brief story on how your blog started.
• Advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 bloggers to nominate award to.
• Comment on each blog so they know they have been nominated.

Xxxx

We discussed earlier this month that I wasn’t thrilled with my launch for Starting Chains.

I don’t think I mentioned then that, despite messing up the paperback, I did things that I had never done before for this launch. And they turned out really well. I was on two podcasts (one of which hasn’t aired yet) I did interviews for several websites.

And I hosted a Facebook Launch party. Which had been a completely foreign concept to me a few months ago.

Now that I’ve attended quite a few, and hosted one of my own, I’m ready to share what I’ve learned about them with you. This is what I did, and what I saw others do, that worked exceptionally well.

Invite other authors to do takeovers

If you’re confused as to what an author take over is, it’s a time during your launch party that you allow another author to post about whatever they want on your event page. I’ve done a few of these, and they’re fun.

I suggest getting a crew of people to take over your event for an hour or half hour at a time. This means that they’ll invite their fans and friends to come check you out, and help get some people excited.

Promote it

Obviously, no one’s going to know this is happening if you don’t talk about it. But don’t just talk about it on Facebook. Make sure to share it on Twitter, on your blog, on Instagram. Tell people you meet on the bus about it. (I’m kidding.)

The point is, get the word out, and keep reminding people! A Facebook party is one of those things that are easy to forget about.

Have some nice graphics

I made some graphics that matched the ones I’ve been using for the last three months to promote Starting Chains to announce each new author as they join the party. It’s something small, but it’s a nice touch.

They were pretty straightforward to make. I just used Pablo. By the way, if you’re not using Pablo, I can’t suggest them enough for social media graphics.

Games

I’ve played some legitimately fun games during these launch parties. One that I made up, and had a lot of fun with, was this.

Tell me your favorite cereal, and I’ll tell you how you’ll die.

Of course, these were just made up off of the top of my head. But everyone enjoyed it.

I’ve seen several other games that are similar. One launch party had everyone make a wish. Then someone would grant the wish in a horrible way. And, of course, name generators are always popular. Use your imagination with these games.

Get people involved in the conversation

When you’re hosting a launch party, or if you’re doing an author take over, don’t forget to get people engaged! Ask questions, ask for people to ask you questions! Get people talking not just about your book, but about things that are related to your genre. What was your first favorite fantasy book? Who do you think would win in a fight, Mal Reynolds or Captain Kirk? That sort of thing. (Feel free to answer either one of those in the comment section, by the way. Personally, I think Mal would win. He’d pull an Indiana Jones and just shoot him.)

Giveaways

Just like with a physical launch party, you want to have some party gifts. I gave out a free copy of Starting Chains during this last party. When I took part in a cyber con earlier this year, I made a free wall paper for Station 86. Think about what you enjoy getting for free online, and see if you can make some nice downloadable items, especially for people who come to your launch.

Do something original.

I attended a launch where everyone who did takeovers was asked to appear as characters from their books. I attended another where the theme was that we were on a space station that something malicious was crawling around on.

Have some fun with this, it’s a party! It should be a fun time.

If you’re having a book launch, I definitely recommend hosting a Facebook party. Let me know in the comment section if you’ve done one or attended one that did something cool.

It’s finally Fall!

Actually, I’ve been in a Fall frame of mind since September first, but we won’t get bogged down with the details.

I love this time of year more than any other time. Every day from September first I wake up with anticipation, looking forward to all the exciting, wonderful things that are happening.

That’s a damn lie, and you know it. The holidays are coming, and my kids are freaking thirteen years old. The pressure to make the holidays magical is real. I also suffer from seasonal depression. So if we’re to compare the holidays to running a marathon, the holidays when you have seasonal depression are like running a marathon with a fifteen-pound bobcat perched on your back.

Even so, I do genuinely love Fall. I love the holidays, even if they are stressful. I want to have a good holiday season. I want to even be productive this time of year because I’m trying to run a business.

More than anything, I want to be ready to face January second. It’s my least favorite day of the year, no lie. All the excitement of the holidays is over and I hit a wall hard core. But I’ve learned ways to avoid that hit.

So I want to share with you today how I’m transitioning my schedule and my habits into Fall and prepare for the dreaded January 2^nd.

18 before 18

What’s the best way to avoid feeling depressed? Feel productive! During the holidays I’m busy, but I’m also able to keep myself mostly happy (or at least faking it) because there’s a lot of activity. So, I’m knuckling down on my 18 Before 18 list. -Link to post-. If I can get these things done, then I’ll feel successful. Or, at least not as lazy.

Self care

I’ve said it before, but I feel that it bears repeating. If you have depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness, talk to your doctor about the best way to manage it.

I find that often I’ve dropped self-care during the holidays. I’ve disregarded my good eating habits, forgotten to drink water, not taken time out for myself. None of this leads to a happy Nicole. And if I’m not enjoying the holidays, none of the rest of my family is. So what’s the point of it all?

Hygge

I discovered Hygge in the Summer when it’s not quite as fun. So I’m actually pumped to start practicing it full on now that the weather is cooling down. Starting with lots and lots of crocheting. Anyone who follows me on social media should prepare for pictures of blankets. Lots of blankets.

Mediation

Are you tired of me telling you to meditate? Too bad, because I’m not tired at all of telling you to do it. At very least, use it to drown out the Christmas music that’s going to be playing everywhere in about three days.

Careful planning

I set out a plan of action for the holidays on September second. When I’m working on Halloween decorations when I’m buying cards and gifts. When I need to start crocheting Christmas presents. (September third was when I started that, by the way.)

I just refuse to put myself into a panic by delaying things this year. I refuse to be blindsided because I wasn’t thinking ahead. The holidays are not an emergency, they’re the same time every year. So I’m going to plan for them, damn it!

Putting family time first

I think that it’s just crazy how stressed out people get over the holidays. First off, the whole point of the holidays is that they’re supposed to be fun! They’re supposed to be a nice break from the every day, something to look forward to. They’re not supposed to upset us so much.

And if they do upset us, then maybe we shouldn’t do them! Or, at least we should only do the parts we like. We’re adults, after all. If having your family over stresses you, don’t do it! If you don’t like writing Christmas cards, don’t! You don’t have to celebrate the holidays unless you damn well want to, and that’s the honest truth.

If you’re going to celebrate, do it in ways that make you happy. Spend time with your family doing things you all love. My family has so many traditions for every holiday (most of which revolve around tv shows and movies). They don’t cost money, they just require us all to spend time together. Yes, we buy gifts and go trick or treating and bake a turkey. But we all actually like doing these things. We wouldn’t do them if we didn’t.

The next three months can be the hardest or the best months of the year. There’s a chance they might be a little bit of both. It’s entirely up to us.

Ten days ago, Starting Chains came out. I’m still kind of recovering from that. It was a hard launch.

I mean, it was a really freaking hard launch. When I published Station 86, everything seemed to go like clockwork! All of my e-book launches have run smoothly, and I haven’t had a worry with them.

I don’t know if it was because Starting Chains was bigger, or if God decided I’d had it too easy, or if it was because I got cocky. But this launch went sideways really, really badly.

And to be honest, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.

So I wanted to share with you what went wrong with my launch for three reasons. The first is that I want you all to know that I’m not perfect and that I mess up hardcore sometimes. The second is that I want to be able to print this out and stick it somewhere visible so that I remember what I’ve learned the next time I’m going to launch a book. The third is that I’ve learned a lot from this botched launch. Hopefully, you’ll learn from me, and not make these mistakes to start with.

I also want to point out that, as dumb as I was, I did manage to get the book out on the date I announced. So I’m also going to list the ways I kind of righted the ship.

What I did that was stupid

I announced the launch date before everything was ready, and really most of my issues stemmed from this mistake right here. I said the book was coming out on September 8^th before I had things like a cover or a solid plan to publish the physical book. Before I had a cover turned out to be the big thing.

I had a friend make the cover for me. Unfortunately, that friend, well, life happened to that friend. It’s not in any way his fault, and I don’t blame him for not being able to finish the project. But I was left, two days after the due date he and I had discussed months before, with no cover at all.

Fortunately, another friend stepped up and made the cover for me. But he couldn’t do a graphic image, which meant that it didn’t look good when rendered in print. Which means that the cover, if I had printed the book, wouldn’t have been a high enough quality.

I didn’t do hardly any of the promoting that I wanted to do. I wanted to do a Thunderclap, and do a launch kit for a ton of blogging friends. I wanted to create some wallpaper images to give away, and maybe even make one of those cool book trailers I see people do.

But all of that should have been done months ago before I even announced a freaking launch date! Once again, I didn’t give myself enough time to get done what I wanted to get done, largely because I didn’t have a cover ready.

I planned the launch for a time I had to know I was going to be busy. Like, the second freaking week of school! Which means that I was promoting while I was on vacation, shopping for school supplies, getting my kids back into the swing of things. Even if I had gotten the cover in time to properly promote, I don’t know when I would have slept.

I didn’t research my plan enough. I thought that, because my first book had been inexpensive to print, this one would be, too. I was wrong. The cost of printing through Amazon was going to be almost $16.00 per copy! Which meant I would have been charging at least $17.00 just to make a profit after shipping. I couldn’t do that. So now I’m going to be researching printers.

I didn’t have money set aside. Especially not after back to school and vacation ate up all of my money for a while. So I wasn’t able to really order copies of the book, even if I did print them because I couldn’t afford to!

What I did that was smart

I got the e-book out, instead of scrapping the whole thing. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but I did do it. And I think the cover that my friend made turned out really great. It took some late nights, but I did manage to at least get the damn book out.

I kept my cool, for the most part, which is why anything got done at all. Now that the dust has settled I’m looking back kicking myself. But while I was in the thick of things, I just did what I could every day, as much as I could, and let the rest go.

I didn’t go complaining online. And I’m not really complaining now. I’m not bemoaning about how terrible this was, I’m learning from what I did wrong. Admitting that you screw up isn’t bad. Bitching online is, especially when launching.

I upped my social media presence before the launch, even if I didn’t do as much as I wanted. I was on a few podcasts, had a few interviews. I was posting a lot more on Facebook and Twitter, to make sure no one forgot that the book was coming out. I put in the time, and hopefully, it got the word out.

I made some neat graphics months in advance, which you might have noticed. These took a little time to make, but I used them for two months!

I bowed out of my launch event as gracefully as I could. That wasn’t a fun call to make, but I made it. I explained to my contact at my local book store that I couldn’t justify putting an expensive book I wasn’t happy with on their shelves, and that I hoped they would allow me to reschedule. They took it well and agreed to reschedule with me.

What I learned from this experience

Don’t announce a launch day until everything is damn well done. I can’t stress this enough. I will never, ever, announce a launch date until every damn thing from the book to the cover to the graphics is done!

Work with professionals. Which isn’t to say that my artist didn’t do a good job. But I need a graphic artist to do a cover. I might even hire someone to put together my e-book and physical book for me, just to give me more time to advertise and write. I think that the money would be worth it.

Schedule life first. Don’t schedule launches during busy seasons. It’s a simple as that.

Start promoting as early as possible. I started three months early, but I started without proper tools in hand.

Give people lots of time to help you. I had a launch squad of willing people to help, but I couldn’t get the info to them fast enough. Many of them had to bow out, and I don’t blame them.

I can always promote when the books already out. Which is what I’m going to be working on the next few months. I’ll be doing some major promoting during the holidays, for instance. I’ll be getting the book into the hands of some critics, and hopefully making that book trailer I wanted.

Keep calm, and it’ll work out for the most part. This is probably the biggest lesson I learned. I messed up, but the book’s out there now. No matter how bad you mess up, you can always make it right.