Friday Book Spotlight with Nora Fleischer

Today we've got a special guest on the blog - Nora Fleischer! She's showing off a new cover for her book, Zombies in Love. (They need it too, amirite?) Check out all the action after the jump.

Pensacon Hotwash - Take 2

I realized today that the hotwash I posted yesterday wasn't really a hotwash. It was more a lovely picture-based summary. The hotwashes you crazy kids have come to expect should have lessons learned and all that fun stuff.

So here's the real hotwash.

Book Spotlight - Faery Marked by Mary Waibel

Hey you guys, my dear friend +Mary Waibel is back on the blog for a brand new feature - Friday Book Spotlight! Basically, it's my opportunity to showcase another indie author's book, without having to tie it to a review (although I will be reading this book this weekend)

Click on the cover to nab the book at Amazon, or check out Mary's interview below:

Execution

Of plans, dummies.

A few days ago, I finished formatting Alliances. The day before that, I finished version 2 of Empath (although it's more a first draft since the first first draft wasn't totally completed).

And all I could think of when I saw the two files side by side was, "Holy shit. I'm actually doing this."

Things that make me happy

---WARNING: MAJOR BRAGGING POST AHEAD---

---PROCEED WITH CAUTION---

*Contented sigh*

Things are going pretty damn amazing right now. 

I posted this on Twitter yesterday, but I wanted to share some incredible stats:

Marketing

I'm going to share some Sun's Golden Ray Publishing, LLC intellectual capital with you guys here.

Yeah, that's right. 48 hours old and we already have competition-sensitive intellectual capital. #consultant

In my day job, I do a lot of strategy and plans. Planning the strategy. Strategerizing the plan. Not so much executing the plan, but that's for another blog post.

If you haven't noticed, there's been a marketing plan since March for Double Life. There's a course of action, there's metrics, and the measurement of those actions for a course correction (if needed). For example, when I started out, I was focusing on Facebook and Facebook ads. I found that Facebook is not very effective - although a nice place to put my FreeBookFridays, I didn't see enough interested parties to warrant more cash going into it, other than the occasional boosted post. So I've moved to Twitter as my primary engagement source, and have found better returns on investments.

Beyond tool use, some of the other facets of my marketing strategy revolve around content, hashtag use and twitter chats, major events (like conventions), and helping other authors. Hell, even my trip home was a marketing opportunity (#sushergoeshome).

My #1 is to not be an annoying spambot, and to not overkill people with ads for my book, but provide content that I write with my voice. I'm a real person, and I think I'm pretty likeable (if not up my own ass), so I figure if I keep doing that, people will flock.

I've made lots of new friends on Twitter through twitter chats like #NewAgent and #NALitChat, which has been nice because it affords me the opportunity to share other authors' work. At the end of the day, people are going to get tired of hearing me talk - hell, even my Mom gets tired of hearing me talk. So I want to use my fledgling media empire to boost other authors - but I don't want to just spam people with, "This book exists!" because that doesn't help anyone.

That's why I've decided to start #FallfortheIndieBook2014. It's going to be a two-pronged effort:

Prong A is me hosting fifteen independent authors on my blog for a week at a time.

Prong B is crowd-focused: You guys can pledge to read and review fifteen independent or small press authors during the fifteen week competition.

I'm thinking there will be a giveaway at the end for anyone who completes the challenge of a gift card or something like that. But this post isn't about that, and I haven't finished developing that strategy yet, so stand by for more.

I got sidetracked.

One of the things I've realized over the past six months is that everyone else is not in my head. So they don't know that June was Release Campaign or July was #SUsherGoesHome Campaign. They just see tweets and posts as they come and forget about them.

For me, I wanted to have one thing going on at a time because I thought it would confuse people otherwise. And for the most part, I still think that's a good strategy. But I noticed that Twitter is a different audience (mostly other authors and bibliophiles) than Facebook (mostly people I grew up with and random thirteen year olds). So I can run multiple campaigns at once - I can do a GoodReads giveaway at the same time as #FallfortheIndieBook2014, and still promote #RaziaDoubleLife

In reality, everything I do is to promote Double Life. But you know, gotta be sneaky about it. I'm gonna make you fall in love with me the author, and then you'll fall in love with my book.

That's competition sensitive. :D

Fear

I had a bit of a reversion today in the form of a panic attack. Full-blown, "Oh-my-god-I-can't-breathe" panic attack. And I could not figure out what was bothering me.

Yeah, that's right. I can have a panic attack and analyze it at the same time. Because I am batshit crazy #duh.

I won't go into specifics, but the gist of it was that I was afraid I was going to get in trouble for something and it made me panic. I've gotten lots of criticism and "redirection", and for the most part, I've let it roll off my back. Ignore the noise, course correct where needed, and move on instead of drowning in it.

The most effective method for controlling this anxiety is actually apathy. If I no longer care about the thing/person that is disappointed in or criticizing me, then it no longer has power over me. I can react to the situation normally (Oh, I've misspoken, my mistake) versus having a complete and total meltdown over it (Oh God, please don't fire me). Part of that therapy is to vocalize what the worst possible outcome could be, and to recognize that even if that were to come to pass, it's actually not the worst thing in the world and I would adjust accordingly. Another tactic I use is to return to my "intention" - remembering that my life goals have changed and I no longer want to be an executive at 35... of a consulting company ;).

Today though, none of those techniques were working, and the answers that I was coming up with weren't ringing true in my soul. Which usually means that I'm worried about something else. It took me a while and a few anxiety-related Google searches, but I figured out what caused my panic attack.

Yesterday, I dropped around $400 on LegalZoom to set up SGR-P LLC, and then another $150 for some professional banners for the upcoming Baltimore Comic-Con, for which a table cost me $250. I also haven't been selling as many books as I thought I would be (although I haven't been going as hard and fast with the Double Life advertising). As you can guess, my little fledgling business is already in the red after being alive for 24 hours.

Intellectually, I knew that I wasn't going to make tons of money on Double Life. First book in a series by a debut self-published author? Gurl please. The fact that I've sold 121 in 2 months is a miracle. The whole point of the first book was to get my series into people's hands for crying out loud, which is why I've been giving (electronic) copies away like hotcakes. And why I've invested the money strategically in advertising and comic-book conventions and other "exposure"-type efforts.

But I think Suni thought differently. (She says she didn't, but she did.) She thought we'd sell a million copies on Day 1 (she doesn't pay attention to "facts" or "reason"). And so I think her faith is shaken a little bit from the slowing down of sales. When you see the uber-confident, shameless posts about how awesome my books are, that's her. She's my bravery; so when she's not sure, the panic of catastrophe fills the vacuum.

Ergo: Panic attack about getting in trouble at work was because getting fired (catastrophe) would ruin our lives (catastrophe) because publishing won't work out (catastrophe) and we'll have to abandon our dreams of publication (catastrophe) and have to be a consultant forever (catastrophe) and so on and so forth.

I guess the nice thing about being completely batshit crazy is that I have very interesting things to blog about. #silverlining

(In case anyone was wondering, I'm okay now now. During the course of writing this blog post, I've begun thinking of the money spent on goods as an investment and I've realized that I'm the CEO of my own media company at 28. And also I started a freaking company. And just like that, Suni's back to her normal confident self.)

The Universe Is Telling Me Something

My religious outlook is very similar to Lyssa's - I don't quite subscribe to organized religion and the church and all that, but I definitely believe that there's something out there. (Unlike Lyssa, however, I don't actively believe I have a bad soul)

Since my quarter life crisis, I've done a lot of "letting go." I work very hard to resist the urge to plan everything and just let things happen as they will. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing, but everything always works out. I've been using the mantra - "I am exactly where I'm meant to be" to help quell my frequent anxiousness about moving home and jobs and all of that.

So when I get a string of good news related to the book, all I can do is just smile and repeat, "I am exactly where I'm meant to be."

The book has been out for a little over a month now, and already reviews are starting to come in - almost universally positive. Thank you to all of my beautiful friends and family for reading my book and reviewing it and telling your friends. You are all so incredibly special to me.

And then, I got this beautifully written review from Zach Tyo yesterday (check it out here). He's an indie author book reviewer person, and so all I did was ship him my book and say, "Hey buddy, how's abouts you write me an honest review?"

And did he. Here's an excerpt of my favorite part:

"There's a certain laid back nature that comes across in Evans' writing. While the story gets deeper and more thrilling, there is a certain easiness to her writing that keeps you in that moment without being overwhelmed. There are a few places where the calm writing affects some of the places where you would expect some more emotion from either Lyssa or Razia, but both characters lean towards anger and Evans has no trouble portraying the fiery anger that emanates from this character."

I mean, yeah, okay my plot is awesome and all that, but this is the first review to actually say, "She writes good."

*dies*

Then, this morning, I got notified that my author interview was finally published over at Indie Author Land. I mean, I wrote/said all of it, but, you know. It's exciting none the less!

I've also gotten a couple of as-of-yet-can't-say irons in the fire. One thing related to not-Razia-publishing that I'm waiting to hear back on, and another thing related to being asked to help out with something. Sorry I can't be more specific, but just know that both things made me super happy. With the first, I submitted a short query to them about my not-Razia essay and they asked for the full. With another, they reached out to me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested.

Queries, for those of you unfamiliar with the literary world, are short pitches that give someone an idea of what you're writing about. I've also been submitting queries to literary agents for Double Life. Lit agents will take care of boring things like getting my book in front of a big-name publisher and quite possibly helping me knock out that cross-country book tour I'm planning next year.

I currently have submitted 11 queries to various agents and publishers. So far, four of them have rejected me, but one quite sweet editor told me that although it wasn't her cuppa, she thought the book would definitely sell.

On the Twitters, there's a bunch of literary agents who tweet all the time. Sometimes they even go through their inbox and do a #tenqueries - they'll read a query and say why or why not they've requested a full from an author. I'm stalking watching the twitter feeds from the agents that I've submitted to in hopes that I'll see mine soon.

The other Twitter thing that I'm playing with this week is the #NewAgent contest. Basically, you submit your query + the first 250 words, it goes through a review process through five different reviewers, and then it's put in front of a set of new(ish) literary agents and they get to pick from the set.
 Do I think I'll win? Most likely not.

That's not saying it's not a good book - it's just that this is not a contest where Double Life is very strong. The concept for the book is top-notch (if I do say so myself), but the first 250 words? That only gets you halfway down the first page in the prologue. Lyssa's with her father in Leveman's, and it's intentionally vague and strange. Good or bad, that's the way the story is.

The exciting/nerve-wracking thing about this contest is that the "pyrotechnics" (slush readers) keep posting hints about what they're reading and their thoughts. Every time they post something about, "Query was great, first two fifty not so much," I'm like, "GAAAH THAT'S MINE!"

Then again, someone posted about a sci fi that they fell in love with, so you never know.

I'm absolutely preparing myself that I won't win, just like with every literary agent response email, I'm preparing that it's a rejection. I know that's the business, and I never expected to get picked up on the first try. Deep in my soul, though, I know that one of these crazy lit agents is going to get my vision and fall in love with my Lyssa the way a bunch of other readers have.


But it will happen when it is meant to happen. If it happens any earlier, I won't be prepared, I won't be ready for it. So I have to let go of expectations and worry and trust that everything is as it should be.

I am exactly where I am meant to be.

Blog Hop - My Writing Process

Howdy Everyone! Well, aren't I just the popular princess lately. Lisa Voisin, the author of the award-winning book, The Watcher, invited me to be the next gal on the chain of blogs. ​Her book is a young adult paranormal romance (angels and demons and such), which looks totally interesting (on my list, I promise, Lisa!) Here's the full description here:

Fascinated with ancient civilizations, seventeen-year-old Mia Crawford dreams of becoming an archaeologist. She also dreams of wings—soft and silent like snow—and somebody trying to steal them.
When a horrible creature appears out of thin air and attacks her, she knows Michael Fontaine is involved. Secretive and aloof, Michael evokes feelings in Mia that she doesn’t understand. Images of another time and place haunt her. She recognizes them—but
not from any textbook.
In search of the truth, Mia discovers a past life of forbidden love, jealousy and revenge that tore an angel from Heaven and sent her to an early grave. Now that her soul has returned, does she have a chance at loving that angel again? Or will an age-old nemesis destroy them both?
Ancient history is only the beginning.

See? Doesn't that sound so cool?

In any case, she was so lovely to invite me as the next gal on her chain of blogging about my Writing Process. So, read on, dear reader, if you're interested in that sort of thing (come on, you totally are).

What am I working on?

What am I supposed to be working on? Razia Book 2. What am I working on actually? Well, I am working on Razia Book 2, but I've also got a couple of other fantasy-type books in the works. I jump around a lot.

Razia Book 2 (Have title, will tell later) is going to be more fast-paced, as it's a big mystery to be unraveled. Our favorite snarky pirate/scientist gets roped into helping a female government investigator who is looking into insurance fraud. As the two girls dig deeper, they begin to uncover a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the universal government - reaching back to the most painful episode of Lyssa's past.

Oh yeah - surprise kids! There's the synopsis.

(For more on Book 1, check out Double Life)

How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

The biggest difference, I think, is that the Razia series is less a science fiction, and more about a young woman struggling with self-worth and learning how to trust others. While the bounty hunting and the sassy one-liners are fun, Lyssa has some pretty severe inner demons and abandonment issues. And, here's the kicker - she's the one who saves herself.

Not to get all preachy, but I think what separates this series from others is that I see so many stories where a girl needs a man to "fix" her (romantically). I think that's a dangerous message, because it makes people dependent on their Prince(ss) Charming to make them whole. Personally, it took a lot of therapy and work on myself to get to a point where I wasn't depending on someone else for my happiness. There's great power in not fearing solitude - because then you don't allow yourself to be treated like crap because you're afraid of the alternative.

For Lyssa, she's obviously surrounded by men, as the only female pirate. Three of these men (Vel, Harms, and Sage) try very, very hard to keep her out of her own way, not because they think she's weak, but so she can succeed. They all believe she can be an amazing bounty hunter, but they also know that sometimes her ego gets her in over her head. She can only see that Sage, in particular, is meddling because he think she's weak, and so that's why she reacts so violently to his overtures. If you read what he says versus how she reacts, you'll see he's only trying to help (as poorly as it comes across to her).

That's one of the best and most frustrating aspects of writing this series -  because it's told from Lyssa's perspective, there are many MANY details that she doesn't notice. I love it because I can add in little snarky narration comments here and there and tap into Lyssa's inner monologue to discuss her intentions. The flip side is that it's hard for a character that is so emotionally unobservant to understand the motivations of other characters, so it's a balance between being truthful to her character and telling the others' motivations.

Why do I write what I do?

I write the stories that I do because that's what comes out. When I first wrote these books, I was a sucker for an underdog and a girl showing everyone what she's made of. Nothing against romance, but like I said above - I wanted to write a story where "romantic love" was not the healing process. People need to deal with their issues and then they can be ready to love - or at least, that's how it will be with Lyssa.

How does my writing process work? 

Writing begins with daydreaming.

I daydream everywhere all the time, even when I'm supposed to be working. Writing those daydreams down is a bit harder. I know what it is that I need to write, but I'm easily distracted by the internet, twitter, dogs, hunger, all of that. I write better at night because there's less distraction, but sometimes if I shut off the internet and all other distractions, put on the Pandora classical station and some headphones, I can write anywhere.

The nice thing is, most of my books have been written for years in the bowels of my computer. What I tend to do is dust them off and give them a second look, trying to turn them from some thirteen year old's random thoughts into a more mature, complex piece of art. Now that I'm older and more experienced in the world and life, I find myself taking the same situations and basic story and adding more depth to the characters.

[Double Life spoilers ahead]

In the first draft of Double Life, Lyssa always went back to Leveman's Vortex, but it was never about reconciling these two halves of her. When I decided to publish the book, I was in the midst of coming to terms with my own crazies, and so I took the concept of Leveman's being this "come-to-Jesus" place and used it as the therapy that Lyssa so desperately needed. In order to deal with her issues, I needed to put her in a position where she could not escape them - or else she never would have been able to grow as a character.

Now that I'm working on Book 2, Lyssa's growth centers on her ability to open up and trust other people. The interesting thing is that although she's allowed Vel into her life - she does not trust him, or at least, doesn't trust him not to hurt her. You can see at the end of Double Life where she won't tell him everything that happens in Leveman's Vortex, because she doesn't trust him.

There's a blog post coming tomorrow evening that will deal more with this concept.

Who's Next?

Next in the pipe is my ABFF Renee Meland and my other ABFF J. Leigh Bralick!

You all saw my squealing about Renee's book in our last author interview, and I'm happy to report that some of you have even gone out and bought her book because that's how awesome you guys are. Now you all need to go buy Jen's book too (here!)

Their posts will go live in 1 week, so stay tuned!

Amurica, Fireworks, and FREE BOOKS!

That's right, people. I got the fire of freedom in my belly and there's no stopping it.

That, and I've got a whole mess of

FREE E-BOOKS TO SELL!

As it says above, simply visit Smashwords.com and use coupon code: WL75S

Smashwords supports literally every e-reader under the sun - INCLUDING Kindle. So there's really no excuse why you shouldn't go download Double Life today.

Like right at this second.

I know, I'm excited too.

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

Holy Bejesus! What a day yesterday! Tim Howard can have my babies, first of all.

But what rocked my world mostly was over on the Twitters! So yesterday was #indiebooksbeseen tag day, and I posted my hilarious photo of me holding my book with the hashtag #indiebooksbeseen (it was national Indie Book awareness day or some junk)

I'm a bit excited about my debut novel, #raziadoublelife Buy it today! http://t.co/7zcdfkWqRa #IndieBooksBeSeen pic.twitter.com/vJ46WB4YHG

— S. Usher Evans (@s_usherevans) July 1, 2014

And it went viral*!

(*for me. It went viral for me.)

Here's the stats by the end of it:

• 22 new followers
• 52 retweets (Average is 0)
  
• 172,000 retweet reach (Average is 0)

So was the #hashtivism a success? Maybe, too soon to tell. Immediate results say no, because I didn't sell any books, and I only got a bump of about 13 visitors to my website (all brand new people, but still, most bounced immediately). So while I gained a whole slew of new followers and RT's, that did not equate to the primary objective (1: Sell books. Else, 2: Get Book in People's Hands. Else, 3: Get new followers).

Hrmph. Be that way. I'll win you over. Just you wait and see! (Ready to buy now? Check it out here)

You know, one of the things that scared me back when this whole roller coaster started was the idea of rejection. I'm normally terrible with it - my first instinct is to argue and tell you why you're wrong. But with the book, I guess I've mentally steeled myself for the onslaught of people who just aren't jiving with what I'm selling. I've been submitting my book to literary agents, and, so far, I've gotten two rejections (not surprising). But what is surprising is how not bothered I am by it. It's more, "Oh, cool, they responded. Oh, that was nice of them to add a personal note." And moving on.

I guess it's because my book is already out there, it's already making some kind of money. I'm already marketing my ass off, being a one woman show. I've done everything from planning my tweets for the next two months to designing the entire cover for my book to formatting my manuscript to planning how to use my cash inflow. I'm obsessively watching my marketing metrics (and marketing dollars) to identify where I should invest next.

This has become a super fun game to me, like a scientific experiment to see if I do X will Y happen. Today was another experiment - using the "hashtivism" to try and gain followers and notoriety, which will hopefully lead to book sales (as I said, none so far). Still, it was a lot of fun to see so many different people from around the world retweet me. I felt a bit famous :D

On a similar note, you also might have seen that I attended my first Comic-Con in Richmond over the weekend.

For realz; how cute am I in my Razia cosplay? Can we talk about those pants? AND THE POCKETS ON THOSE PANTS! (full of business cards)

While I only sold 1 book, I finally got over my fear of conventions. As usual, I was suffering from my fear of "otherness," worried that I wasn't "nerd" enough. In truth, people are actually nice - and they weren't going to laugh me out of there. I made lots of new friends, and made the terrifying decision to put in an application for Baltimore's Comic-Con in September - and the even more terrifying decision to fork over $250 of my own money (read: not book profit money) to reserve my table!

Basically, I'll need to sell around 50 books to make a profit. I'm going to bring (*terror*) a hundred? I think? Whit's worried we won't sell them, so she's trying to lower the number of books I buy. She's my nervous nelly, that Whitters. Still, I was able to sell a book at Richmond out of a bag using nothing but my boobs charm and charisma. So I totally think I could sell a hundred books over three days. Especially if I go into full-on marketing mode with a legitimate table.

I've got some great ideas for marketing, assuming I have a few volunteers to help me out. Something about you get to become a pirate, and fans can go out and hunt you to try and win a prize. Or something like that. Still working the details.

Of course, this also means I have to consider setting up a real business for my publishing (Thinking Sun's Golden Books, LLC? You know, because that was my nom de plume when I was a kid, and those kinds of meta-type things amuse me). I also have to get a tax number for the State of Maryland and all that jazz so I don't go to jail.

Hm...that would be a nice thing for a publisher to take care of. H'alas. Onward!

#FreeBookFriday

Short post here, 'cause all the action is happenin' on the Facebooks today!

Are you cheap? Can't spring $3.99 for Double Life? Feeling lucky?

Then enter my FreeBook Friday contest on my Facebook page!