Trailer for Anticipation of the Penitent

Here's the link to the YouTube book trailer for Anticipation of the Penitent. Give a comment or a like if you do like!  http://youtu.be/Kz1hCMq3JTg

I've tried embedding the video, but it didn't work. Take the time and view this great trailer. You'll get your money's worth!

The book will be available from Amazon.com in November 2012.

Fun With Marketing and Promoting

Okay folks! I’ve been, and still am, researching, researching, researching!

Yep, just as I figured, marketing is key. Facebook, Twitter, even Google+ and LinkedIn (both of which I have yet to understand) help greatly. As well as YouTube. It’s best if you already have a book to link to for people to review and purchase. But, I’m learning that pre-publication promotion is just as helpful.

My editor has finished with my book and we’ll meet this coming week to go over it. So exciting!

Trailer Fun

I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a separate author’s page, but I don’t think that’s necessary. Not yet anyway. So this is the place for now. I’ve just made a trailer for the book. After looking at a site that makes them for $79 and up, and seeing their samples, I thought to myself, “I can do better than that.”

So, first I tried Power Point, but it seems you have to pay to send out your project to the public, and adding audio was difficult. So instead I used Paint, and transferred the slides to Windows Movie Maker. Adding audio was extremely simple. I think the trailer is good. I’m getting feedback before I publish it here, YouTube and link it onto Twitter.

Literary Agents

After being stunboozled (Yes, I made that word up. Like it?) daily by the number of writers there are who have written books and trying to publish them, and seeing how my book fits within such a relatively new market (again, that’s Christian speculative fiction), I’ve decided to send no more query letters. Agents want to know that you’ll have a definite market-base for the book. Although I believe Anticipation of the Penitent is marvelous, I’ll need to prove that in the real world by…you know…successful marketing.

Other Publishing Opportunities

I have been making other types of submissions: to anthologies. Anthologies are magazines or books that publish collections of stories, poetry, essays, art, etc. They often publish works within a particular theme for that series. It’s a good way to boost your writing résumé and get your name out. Some pay very little, some a little more, and some nothing. You just get the publishing credits, or they may send you a free copy of the publication as payment if they accept your work.

I’ve found a couple of sites that keep the calls for submission list to anthologies pretty updated. Here are a few:

http://www.newpages.com/classifieds/calls/

http://client.writersrelief.com/writers-classifieds/anthology-calls-for-submissions.aspx

http://www.pw.org/classifieds

It’s very important to submit in the way the periodical wants. Many of them will only publish pieces that have not been published before, including online. So, those publications won’t accept the stories and poems that have been published on my blog. That just means I have to write more! But there are some who will publish work that has already been published.

I’ve submitted stories to three anthologies so far, but won’t hear anything until at least December.

I’ll continue to provide updates on my research, and will place my trailer soon! 

God bless!

The book is written. Now what?

Today, Anticipation of the Penitent was handed off for its final editing job before I publish it through CreateSpace.com. In the contract, my editor, Rene’ Curry, states it will take 4-6 weeks to complete. Verbally, she says it may take less than 4 weeks. But, let’s say that within a month, by October 15, 2012, the editing should be complete.

So far, the people who have helped me with editing, in chronological order, are my brother, Anthony Johnson, my niece, Celeste Davila, and several folks on Authonomy.com who have given me great editing tips on the 1^st two chapters. Other people have helped by giving input on the story flow, including Elizabeth Pomada from the SF Writers Conference, my sister in Christ, Sherry Vonderheid, and my mom’s pastor, Rev. Frank Darby, Jr.

I will then finalize the publishing process through CreateSpace.

After about a couple of days for CreateSpace to approve the submittal, the book can be available to purchase immediately from their estore. It can take about two weeks to be available on Amazon.com, however. So, I’ll say that by the end of October, I will be a published author!

The reasons I’ve chosen CreateSpace over Lulu include:

1.                  CreateSpace is an Amazon company and marketing through Amazon is automatic and free.

2.                  Printing and shipping costs are cheaper

3.                  There is a great community base within the website

4.                  There are several inexpensive options to widen the market base.

The advantages that Lulu have are that they also print hardcover books, and they have a few more options in their cover design software.

Since I can often times be a slow learner, I’ve started researching on how to promote the book. I’m doing it the cheap way first – online search engines! Come on now, if you can learn what your medical diagnosis is by a search engine, why can’t I learn how to promote my book the same way?

Here are a couple of interesting sites:

1.                  First is the CreateSpace site itself, which has many articles on promotions, marketing, etc.

2.                  Then there’s http://www.promotingyourbooks.com/bm.htm, which has some great tips.

It seems that the most important things are to not be shy, communicate, find niches for your market, and never consider you’ve done enough.

As I find out more during this process, I’ll let you know. In the mean time, I am still sending out query letters to literary agents, and writing more on Michtam's Hubris. Keep praying for me!