Buy My Book

Steve Nedelton asks me this morning how have I sold so many books... here is my public answer.

 from: Caroline Gerardo

to: Steven Nedelton

subject: re: Friends

I never pay for ads, submissions, or permission.

Be yourself but be fearless - expect failure but be ready to get up and be better. I'm working on my craft as my number one goal. I write seven days a week - work full time and am sole provider for my family... all that aside I am going to give you some input here and please put your turtle shell on and ears open (I have a desert tortoise who is the dearest).

Focus on three silos at max- you need to budget your time for the number one (writing and family) above.

Pick three different internet tools and one live face to face one.

Buddy up with authors not necessarily same genre ( but you will find kindred make the most sense if they are smart and understand we are not competing with each other).

You need to blog- you need to pour your writing practice warmups in the blog or do reviews of what you adore. Wordpress is fancier I use Blogger just because I'm a loyal Google brander.  Don't bother with writing things that bore you or are negative - people don't want that in short posts. Naysay will drag your heart down.

You MUST change your photo on amazon -it is GREEN and you need a haircut and a relaxed look. The glasses are good you have a cute face but the picture is awful and readers (like everything in the world) judge a book - and the author by its cover. Be you. Its fine to be quirky, authors never dress fashionable.

Think branding - your writing, your presence, your posts, are your whole soul opened for ridicule. Be fearless, I repeat. Link up your silos but don't link all four - link two and two because readers will get bored with "buy my brand." I started using twitter 42 days ago, and just love the flash fiction aspect of writing without self editing, this may not be for you.

Go fill out Listorious with all the definitions and details. You can add- tags. What are your brand's five tags? USE them. Mine are: literary, poetry, fiction, contemporary, books. Yours I'm going to poke here are probably: thriller, spy, nerd, smart, books.

 I don't like Facebook but many authors just love it and sell books there, try it maybe you will be better there than I. I'm on Linkedin and dabble in some writers and filmmakers groups (I've produced before but not where I'm headed today). Linkedin has sold books for me to business people- most authors will tell you linkedin doesn't work for them. Goodreads doesn't sell books but is an easy place to display covers, find those buddies, and read other work to push yourself to grow. Amazon is where your links all need to point to. Amazon sells the largest percentage of paper and ebooks. Amazon slam dunk beats them all. Go look at the big boys Amazon pages Follet Baldessari Crais - they aren't even getting close to what indie authors have figured out: a slick book trailer does not sell your book- content does. The content is you - so be fearless, bleed content, the world is starved for new. God they are so tired of T.V. if you are true to your "brand" you will succeed.

Other methods: indie bookstores go to readings, go to your local library and leave fliers - try different things, figure out what works for you.

I haven't done blog tours- some swear by this and physical tours J A Konrath is a master at the dog and pony show from the back of his car and he blogs about it. He and Locke know how to package and market on a budget with great success.

Authors Den, Agent Query, Bookcountry, a million others find the ones that you like.

Russell Blake said to me yesterday, this is a long haul not a foot race 

Read. Be happy. Pay it forward. Be kind. Let the trolls and negatives roll off like a duck.

Start now.







buy steve's books here:

while you are at it buy Russell's
 better yet buy all my books....

Second Draft Lucky

Monday morning I put the words "the end" to my first draft of Lucky.

Now comes the hard work. The second draft.

Revising is more than cleaning and grammerly.

This can be slow drip torture or I can choose to have fun.

Do you hear the starting gun?

I spent nine hours last night completing mapping behaviors.

I built a storyboard for the novel. I made a couple copies to redline.

I completed a new spreadsheet.

I wrote my to do lists:

Cut frivolous description

and landscape that does not lead the narrative.

Is time line right?

 Turn it around to start in the middle of his life or ending

Do I change ending: other possible endings?

Is a psychotic person likeable?

Is there too much whining about his childhood?

Temper the violence with tenderness.

The book is dark.

 Bum fights, stealing, homeless, murder, drugs.

Can humor lighten it up? Seth’s idea of love?

Are Plot line twists working?

  Plot: a crazy young man becomes the CEO of a Chemical Company.

 Despite all the bad, evil, dumb, negative events and choices in Seth’s life he decides to work his way up the ladder and makes it.

Characters: Seth deceitful, lacking in empathy, violent, ADHD, impulsive, lacking remorse, ear problems, brain problems, inventor, tinkers, athlete, acne

Dad/Doctor a cold inward man, selfish, shallow,

Rene the Mother is in pain is gorgeous is cold and selfish cruel

Sister is not described. She is 'mushball' now. Make her whole or cut her .

Amy – willful strong beauty driven What is her motivation? 
brothers Michael Cole need direction

Girl he kills- needs a full life

Her parents grieving angry

Seth’s success and marriage, rewards, fortune business, takes a path to become the CEO

What do the characters eat? How do they smell? How do they touch? What would they buy in the grocery store today?

Derrick Character, gentleman and a scholar

I'm back home the sunset was purple and yellow- go Lakers

I’ve been travelling for my book and will share stories of people I met.




He is huge. I don’t know all the Lakers anymore, but his physical presence is so graceful and powerful you can not mistake him as a Titan. I did not know who he is, but he was to kind to not laugh at me. I notice he is wearing the double hospital bracelets. The delivering room kind, where all three of you are tagged. The plastic wristbands are to identify the infant to avoid mix-ups and to avoid strangers in the facility.

“You had a baby?” I point at the blue and clear bands.

His face lights up slowly and builds the most amazing smile.

“Do you want to see her picture?” he answers.

“Oh yes. I still have those bracelets hanging on a jewelry rack.”

He opens his phone and shares images of an angelic dark haired infant in peachy soft pajamas.

“Do you have more?” He responds with sitting up straighter like a kid, excited. He bounces in his seat. He scrolls through pictures of the gorgeous newborn, Mommy, and himself. He is a lucky man to lavish in the joy of being a new father.

In the plane trip he tells me he thought he might have written a book or been a photographer if basketball did not work out. Then he tells me his life story.

Root with me for the happy conclusion to an American Dream story.

Derrick grew up in New Jersey in a tough neighborhood. His mother and grandmother raised him. He says nothing negative about his father, but I understand. As a young boy he had to stand out in a crowd – what is he now six foot nine? He played football and baseball but did not settle on basketball as his real talent until middle school. He went to a private Catholic High School, we have much in common.

Then the draft rules change, the NBA requires high school boys to attend a college for a year, then draft from that arena. He changes High Schools senior year to a prep school that will get him more academically on track to enter a college. He goes to Louisville. He does not say a single negative thing about Pitino, I know the news about him in Federal Court, but we don’t go there. Derrick is still basking in the choice to be a Daddy.

Hard knocks, yes Derrick has marched through them and going to a smaller arena in Texas might have been for someone else the end of my story. Raise the flag, the rally call. Derrick congratulations. I was proud to sit next to a man of courage. Now with a little beauty to care for and provide for I think his passion on the court will be unstoppable.

After a weekend of no sleep he says,“I am not complaining, I was happy to stay awake all night with my new baby.”

This gentleman is a gem.

If anyone says a single negative word about Derrick Character this season, I will box your chin, all 111 pounds of me. Derrick if you read this, remember all you need is one sentence, ten words a day and in a year you will have double the amount you need for a novel.

Epublishing + Smellavision?

If Borders goes out of business, I assume Barnes and Noble will pick up locations that don't duplicate their own map. Independent bookstores might
gain some speed as well. I believe that epublishing will out run the brick and mortar retail store, but there is nothing as wonderful as browsing a bookstore and looking at the covers. Epublishing needs to add the smell of paper to really get it right. Can you imagine a world without physical books?

Writing Like a Wheel

Not a Stone Age Wheel, but one where I have to grind as a mortar every day to produce more pages. Writing takes work every day. I am looking foward to a three day weekend to crunch out pages on my novel "Seth." Wish me strenght.

Ghostwriting

What do James Patterson, John Grisham, and Tim Geithner all have in common? They all have a ghostwriter in common.  To create novels, books and fiction as fast, you need a writer

I am working on my edit list and finding myself frustrated.

I have to change the whole complete novel all 389 pages from present tense first person to subjective tense with flash backs. I divided the Chapters on Screenwriter into index cards and am following the story line as scenes rather than a story with first chapter having murder number one in past tense without knowing who the killer is then telling the story from the main female character's point of view from beginning to end in present tense. The language and timing of the tension doesn't work as well with the tense I chose ( so I am told) so on a journey to rewrite and correct it all. I had trouble on day 19 when I lost the first 6 chapters and only God knows which file folder I put them in. Now I am diligently labelling each folder and completing in order. There are some editing programs out there and I looked at paying for that or paying an english teacher to get me cleaned up. Advice welcome.