Ways to Support Indie Authors: Goodreads Recommend It Feature

Did you know that you can recommend a book to your friends list on Goodreads? If you’ve read a book by an Indie Author and enjoyed it, the ‘Recommend It’ link is like gold crusted diamonds for our reach. And it couldn’t be easier to do.

Open up the page for the book in question by clicking on its cover from anywhere – search, your bookshelf, etc.:

And click here:

Now that’s my book in those graphics but Authors aren’t allowed to recommend their own books on Goodreads I learned when I clicked the link. That was cool, I just started a friend’s book – Words Falling Like Water by Sonya Vaughn – and was going to suggest friends read it anyway. Perfect timing!

I followed the above steps once on the book page and clicked the Friends tab to get a screen that looks like this:

I erased the names of my friends & replaced their faces with my face to protect their identity. Now it looks a little creepy but you get the gist.

I checked the friends I wanted to send the suggestion out to and unchecked those I didn’t want to send it to. Then all I had to do was press the send button and my friends were alerted of Sonya’s book’s awesomeness.

There’s also a way to send the suggestion through Facebook through the facebook tab:

And as you can see there’s also a way to manually send to friends.

This small step takes just a moment of time but can really help to increase the reach of an Indie Author with a book you enjoyed. So open up those books you liked and don’t forget to tell your friends!

Supporting the Boston Marathon Relief Fund

It is with an extremely heavy heart that I'm writing up this post today. Readers will know that I - Jenn Flynn-Shon - am the writer behind this blog for my self-publishing house Writesy Press. And anyone who knows me knows I was born and raised as a Boston girl. After watching the tragic coverage of the explosions that occurred at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, my heart is on the floor.

My first book, Ripple the Twine, is set in the immediate outer suburbs of Boston and I put all of my heart and soul into that book. The main character is a runner. I actually considered having her train for the Marathon in the early stages of planning.

As a kid I went to the Marathon with family to watch my cousin run and cheer him on to the finish line. As an adult I never went to the event but I always enjoyed having Patriots Day off to go and enjoy the festivities in the city during the afternoon and evening. Boston can really be a fun place even when it gets a little rowdy because "Scrappy" is Boston's middle name. And if there was ever anything I learned about Boston after living there for almost thirty-eight years it was that you don't mess with Scrappy because it'll come back and kick your ass every time.

I want to do something. No, I need to do something to help in the city. My hometown that, despite the fact I've moved away, will always be a place I'm proud to have come from. Boston is a great place to grow up, to live and to experience. It's full of culture, pride of place, and amazing nooks and crannies that make it one of a kind.

But I'm just a self-published Author, I spend more than I make most of the time just trying to get a book published and it's a long road between books. So I'm going to let my book do the fundraising this time.

I will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of my paperback, Ripple the Twine, to the Relief Fund set up to help the families of the victims called One Fund Boston.

BUY RIPPLE THE TWINE HERE AND $4.04 OF EACH SALE WILL GO TO ONE FUND BOSTON
Please note that this is ONLY for sales of my paperback copy of the book as sold through Lulu, not eBook or print formats sold on Amazon. I hope you'll pass on the word and consider purchasing a copy or two of Ripple the Twine. I'll be tracking sales through April 27, 2013 and anything sold during that time will have profits donated to the Fund.

At checkout use code POURING (through April 19, 2013) for an additional 15% off your total purchase.

My Author Interview on Justin Bienvenue's Blog

Recently I was given the opportunity to be interviewed by Justin Bienvenue for his blog. With an extensive number of Authors already sharing their books I felt honored to have my interview included! Justin's interview post format is different from those I've done before in that he doesn't post separate links for each Author so in an effort to share the interview as well as link back to his blog I'm posting the transcribed version of it here on my own site. Please take a minute to read it and then visit Justin's blog and thank him for the effort he gives to promote so many Indie Authors (like me!) for free! Thanks Justin!

 

Interview with Jenn Flynn-Shon
1. What can you tell us about your latest novella, “Reckless Abandon”?
The action packed story centers around Shaw McLeary, a YA fiction Author who returns from the grocery store to discover her husband, Danny, has taken off in a hurry. On his way out the door he grabbed their cash and Shaw’s wedding rings. She’s devastated and calls the cops but just when she thinks she can get some help in tracking him down for answers, she witnesses a murder in her home and has to flee. Desperate for answers, Shaw turns to the one person she knows isn’t involved, JJ Anderson. Both her ex-fiancé and Private Investigator, JJ agrees to help with the search though he’s still bitter about how their relationship ended two decades ago.

They start in Phoenix but are chased all the way to Manhattan in somewhat tight quarters and neither of them can deny they may still feel the same as they did twenty years ago. The pursuit has Shaw spooked but her renewed feelings for JJ might scare her more than the bad guys with guns hell-bent on chasing them out of Manhattan. Will Shaw find what she's looking for when they reach upstate New York, or will dirty cops catch her before she figures out what, or who, that even is?

2. What kind of genre do your books fall under and what genre are you most comfortable writing?
“Reckless Abandon” is a Romantic Suspense, heavier on the suspense than the romance. For many years I focused on writing girl-meets-boy love stories. With Reckless I decided to try something slightly new and it was so much fun I’m planning to series out these characters and write more with mystery, intrigue, adventure and suspense. But there will always be a little bit of a romantic edge or happily ever after in everything I write.

3. How did writing at a young age mold you into the writer you are today?
I penned my very first lengthy story at age fourteen. It was a fiction piece about a young girl who goes on vacation with her family. She’s bored stiff in the town she visits every summer until she meets the new boy. They hit it off right away and have some witty banter that leads them into a summer romance. Just the kind of thing that every fourteen year old girl dreams of happening. The story is handwritten in blue ballpoint pen in a spiral bound journal. It couldn’t be more grammatically challenged or predictable but it’s over 100 pages and I think a solid effort for a fourteen year old. I never had a chance to finish it but I like it being open ended like that. I always wondered what happened to that girl after her summer in Maine where she falls in love for the first time. Now I write the girl after that first innocent love - plus a few heartbreaks and a little bit thicker skin - ten to fifteen years later.

4. How has it been to be accomplished and have your writings published?
I’ve dreamed of having a book published since I was so young that it’s almost surreal to have two books in the world with my name on the cover. The day my first proof copy of “Ripple the Twine” showed up at my doorstep I danced around my apartment for hours! I am thankful every day that I have the opportunity to do this for a living.

5. When writing how do you develop your characters and plot?
Generally characters will come to me in the back of my head somewhere and beg me to tell their story. Some stories work and others don’t. Some are good to support a novel while others aren’t. With the plot I tend to base it on what those characters try to tell me about their lives. I figure out what the challenges would be in their life, the toughest thing they’d have to deal with, and then force them into it so they can figure out how to learn from it and grow. I’m a pantser for sure though, many times I won’t know how I’m ending a story even when I’m in the middle of writing it and only figure that out when I’m nearing the end.

6. What can you tell us about your success with NaNoWriMo?
My very first novel, “Ripple the Twine”, came out of a novel I wrote during NaNo in 2009. I won the challenge that year and it was thrilling to have more words to work with for one story than I had ever written before. The next challenge was to further develop and edit the story into something readable that made sense. Many of those original words were redlined and exchanged for tighter writing over the course of the two years I spent editing the book. The book was both expanded and reigned in, plot lines adjusted, and some characters were nixed for better or worse. I was thrilled to release the book in April of 2012. I also took part in NaNo 2010 and got another jumble of character and storyline. However, I couldn’t get into it after November ended even though I “won” NaNo. That manuscript is still sitting in a drawer. It may never again see the light of day or be published but doing it helped me to grow as a writer.

This latest release, “Reckless Abandon”, was started during CampNaNo in August of 2012 but I didn’t push myself to win the challenge that time. My main goal was to come away with good characters and content I could expand and turn into something viable even if it wasn’t over 50,000 words. That story felt better as a novella and I finished editing for release in October of 2012; it came in at only 35,000 words. The story was tight, suspenseful and fully developed in its shorter form. NaNo was helpful to give me that initial push I needed to see if I could even get a book out. The challenge was fun and I’d do it again if I felt I needed the accountability.

7. What is it like for you to contribute and get your writing out there?
There are many ways to answer this question – from a writing perspective, as a perfectionist and reader, from a marketing standpoint – so I’ll just say that the writing is the easiest part and marketing is an uphill battle. I love talking about my books but don’t love the selling aspect. Most of us writer types don’t but it’s a necessary piece of the job if we want to attract a larger audience. I like to blog and share my story through interviews or guest posts, it can be more personal than posting a “buy it now!” link on Twitter and more satisfying to help out a blogger as well as allow them to help me promote.

8. Do you prefer publishing or self-publishing?
Though I’ve never been represented and traditionally published, I’d be very interested in giving it a try sometime. Both of my books are self-published through the house I set up, Writesy Press. I don’t publish anyone but myself at this time but I wouldn’t say I’d never take on another Author’s work. Most traditionally published books are self-marketed these days anyway so the leg work in spreading the word and getting out there are still on the Author to make happen. Of course with the backing of a bigger house comes the pressures and strings of that side of the industry so that’s something to consider. I like that I have infinite freedom to publish what I want to write without outside influence but at times it would be great to see my sales go up due to early marketing efforts of a deadline-based house.

9. What was the hardest part in the writing of your novella “Reckless Abandon”?
Figuring out how I wanted the story to end! There’s this unsuspecting wife who comes home to her mundane life only to discover that her husband’s life might be anything but mundane and she gets thrust into the wrath of that quite quickly. When she has no other choice but to rely on someone she ran away from for help and it turns out to be her first love – a man she never stopped loving despite the circumstances – she has tough choices to make. Her husband abandoned her and left her to deal with a big mess so she’s mad but was Shaw the type to cheat just to get revenge? And would JJ let her cheat just to satisfy some of his own latent feelings of hurt and rejection? Then what happens if she finds Danny and has to rescue him? Will she be able to face him? What if nothing was as simple as a happily ever after marriage? I had to work out lots of answers to those questions and more before I could decide just what would happen to these three people and I think I did them proud by answering them honestly from the character’s point of view and not necessarily my own.

10. Do you think a writer has to go all out in their work or at their own pace and let it speak for itself?
A part of me wants to say that for a story to be successful I think it needs both. My first book is much slower than my second because of the nature of the story and the characters. If I threw too much caution to the wind I wouldn’t have done any justice to the main character because she’s very guarded and developed this neat little box for her life. But at the same time if she didn’t face some insecurities or challenges to force her out of that box who would really care about her and her journey? There were times writing her that I had to force her into facing things that made me uncomfortable and that was tough to swallow on a first book. I wanted a happily ever after ending but had to decide if life is always like that and if she deserved one. By the time I got to “Reckless Abandon” I was ready to throw it all on the line and speed it up. It’s Suspense so there are times Shaw has to deal with more than is comfortable for me or for her. But it had to happen. All the while writing it so it didn’t sound forced. That’s where the balance comes into play. The pacing could allow the work to settle in a bit.

When it comes to an overall question of ‘all-out or on the Author’s time frame’, that’s the beauty of self-publishing. I can release as much or as little as I choose. Last year I released two books, this year I might be lucky to get one out there, next year it could be four. I listen to my creative side and will only release something when I feel it has been finished to the best of my ability regardless of how fast or slow that might be.

Thanks Jenn!

Thanks to you Justin!

Ripple the Twine on eBookRipple the Twine in paperback

Reckless Abandon on eBookReckless Abandon in paperback