Over the weekend, I read The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing by The Indie Voice, a group of wildly successful indie romance authors. I’ve been in awe of their success over the past few months, and also a little frustrated because I can’t imagine achieving those sorts of numbers. And then I finally read the book and realized those ladies worked their asses off. Like everything in life, to be successful, you have to put in the time. I’ve been pretty productive over the past year as a while, but the last couple of months sort of fell apart. Reading The Naked Truth was exactly the kick in the pants I needed. Everyone’s life and pace is different, and we have to stop comparing ourselves to others (a big Achilles heel for me). We (meaning I) need to work as hard as our individual schedules allow, and if we’ve given our endeavors everything we have, that’s something to be proud of. Kind of a “well, duh,” life mantra that applies to everything, isn’t it?

So here’s my public list of goals this year:

• I will make the best use of my time as possible without putting my family on the back burner.
• I will publish five books: ASHES and BONE (Delta Crossroads Trilogy #3), and the entire four book Lucy Kendall Series (titles still in flux). ASHES and BONE releases in February!
• I will focus on my own writing and production. Quality will always come first, but I recognize that to achieve the level of success I want, I’ve got to WRITE A LOT.
• I will take better care of my health. In order to fight off my sleepy spells, I will do at least 20 minutes of yoga in the morning (on day three of that, and it’s making a huge difference), and 15 minutes of cardio in the mid day.
• I will use relaxation techniques to help quiet my mind and sleep.
• I will be proud of my achievements and own them.

I decided to post this list because I wanted to own it, and I wanted to account for my blogging silence. I also wanted to thank all of my readers who’ve taken the time to review and let me know how much they’ve enjoyed the books. Building an audience is challenging, but the one on one interaction with readers makes it worth it. I’ve very lucky to have started my publishing career in the digital age with so many avenues available to authors.

Thanks for reading, and be on the look out for some cool posts in the next couple of weeks about the stories behind ASHES and BONE (Delta Crossroads Trilogy #3)

That’s the reason for the change in my blogging. I’ll be doing the occasional Thriller Thursday when it strikes me, but my time is very limited, and I need to spend it writing. And you know what? True crime isn’t the only thing I’m interested in. So when I do blog, I’m not going to follow any preset rules. I’m going to write about what I want to.

And to the point of this post: Twitter hashtags. Let me say first I speak from experience on this, as an author with only two books out. It is VERY easy to get caught up in tweeting about your book several times a day, or by joining a group who will do it for you in exchange for your pimping their book. But guess what? Nearly everybody does it, especially the newer authors, and the vast majority of those Twitter links are ignored, because they are nothing but white noise. I know this because I’ve used bit.ly to track my click-thrus, and despite many, many RTs, the click rate was dismal.

Even worse, I’ve used hashtags like #FridayReads, #bookworm, #mustreads, #Goodreads, and those hashtags, to my knowledge, were created for readers to talk about the books they loved. Not for an author to promote their own work. Same with many of the groups on Facebook. They’re supposed to be for support, networking, or just chatting up books, but they quickly become laden with desperate authors eager to get a sale or two.

It’s happened on Goodreads as well. I know authors get frustrated with Goodreads, but there’s a reason most groups are strict about promotion. The mods are protecting their online safe place, one of the few locations left to simply chat about books without a salesman coming in.

I say this pointing fingers only at myself. I’ve done it more times than I would like to admit. It’s only in the past couple of months I’ve backed off, and guess what? Sales didn’t change. August was lousy all around for most of us, but September is picking up. And I’ve done nothing differently because I’ve been working hard to write more books.

So here’s an apology to all Twitter users who just want to chat about books. I’m sorry for hijacking your tags and promoting, and I won’t be doing it any more. It’s bad business and not a way to build a following. When I do tweet anything about my books, I will be sticking to the appropriate hashtags: #amazon, #kindle, #nook, #indie, etc.

I’d love to take back my Twitter feed from the endless spam of links and be able to chat a few minutes every day. Leaving those hashtags alone is a good step. Easing off the link spam is another. Sending out conversational tweets and joining hashtag conversation is another–if I have time to do so, and simply for the sake of chatting about like-minded interests, not selling a book.

For me, the bottom line is this: my books will sell my books. Great word of mouth and praise like TIN GOD’s being a finalist in the Best Indie Book Awards will sell my books. Bombarding people on Twitter about it produces poor results, makes me look bad, and makes me feel less than professional.

How do you use Twitter? Do you believe it’s overloaded with links? Is that how it should be, or should it be about connection?

What’s Thriller Extravaganza? I want to help my writing friends and connect thriller and suspense readers to new, exciting authors, so I decided to go to the experts–the thriller writers who’ve been there, done that, and have hard-earned experience to back up their advice. R.J. Ellory, Margie Lawson, Kathy Bennett, Allison Brennan, and Vicki Hinze will all be visiting in August. Check out the original post for the line-up and awesome contest details.

But there are some amazingly talented authors climbing the thriller ranks, and I chose five great writers to contribute today–all in their own words. Enough of my babbling. Here are my Emerging Thriller Writers!

Diane Capri

Diane’s new Jess Kimball series kicked off with Fatal Distraction, opening as the #3 Bestselling Legal Thriller, behind John Grisham. Diane’s new Hunt for Jack Reacher series began with Don’t Know Jack, which garnered #1 Bestseller spots on Mystery, Hard-boiled Mystery, Police Procedural, Women Sleuths, and Legal Thriller lists, both in the U.S. and U.K. Don’t Know Jack was followed by two bestselling short stories in the Hunt for Jack Reacher series, Jack in a Box and Jack and Kill. Diane’s Judge Wilhelmina Carson mysteries were praised by Romantic Times and garnered the coveted “Top Pick.” Diane’s savvy, spunky character, attorney Jennifer Lane, stars in her own romantic suspense series, which kicks off with Annabelle’s Attack.

#1 Amazon Bestselling Author Diane Capri’s work is what the #1 worldwide publishing phenomenon Lee Child calls “full of thrills and tension, but smart and human, too.” Margaret Maron, Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award-winning MWA Past President, says: “Expertise shines on every page.” And Library Journal raves: “….offers tense legal drama with courtroom overtones, twisty plot, and loads of Florida atmosphere. Recommended.”

Diane writes mystery and suspense for the same reason she reads: to find out what happens, why people do what they do, and how to bring justice to an unjust world. Her books are translated in twenty territories. Diane loves to hear from readers. Contact her at http://dianecapri.com/contact/ to receive notice of new releases, subscribe to Diane’s blog, or simply connect with her.

Fatal Distraction

Jess Kimball’s Impossible Mission: Protect Crime Victims.

Relentless victims’ rights advocate Jess Kimball and Jack Reacher both deliver justice when the legal system fails. Reacher waits until trouble finds him and then he does whatever it takes. But Jess pursues legal justice and draws lines she will not cross. How can she win against killers who refuse to follow the rules?

Three years ago, beloved Florida Governor Helen Sullivan’s world shattered when her only son died in a senseless car crash, killing his best friend, too. Helen quickly discovered Eric’s crash was no accident and lured the killer to her son’s funeral to be caught. When the shooting ceased in the small country church, Helen believed her nightmare was over. Instead, she’d unwittingly escalated her duel with a cunning and patient assassin.

Now, investigative journalist Jess Kimball is driven to find the horrifying truth. Is the Central Florida Child Killer guilty? Or is the real killer still out there?

Helen and Jess together face the determined killer in a pitched battle of wit and nerve. Who will survive?

Buy it here now!

Cyrus Keith

Hi, all, and thanks for having me. Cyrus Keith here. Wow, what a ride. But I can say that my thriller series The NADIA Project is now complete. Almost. All three novels are on the market or established, and the final installment, a novella, is on the way.

I’m really a science fiction freak, but for some reason I can’t quite explain, I have more thriller projects on the burners than sci-fi. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I love to get my blood pumping with a good action scene. There’s just something about bullets flying, bodies dropping, and people running around in flames that excites the senses. Okay, let’s qualify that before the police show up on my doorstep: ON PAPER (or on my eReader display). When I started my series, I was originally intending more of a futuristic feel, but it just didn’t fit. Next thing I know, I’m swept up in this awesome adventure story about a nightmare of self-discovery, and I’m hooked. I might write something more hard-sci-fi in the future (fortuitous pun there), but for now, I’m along for an exciting ride with original thrillers. I have two more in the works, to be started after I finish one last task for Nadia’s story, a novella called Lies and Paine.

Becoming Nadia, my publishing debut, won Best Thriller honors at EPICon 2012 as well as a Top Ten Finisher in the Preditors and Editor’s Readers’ Poll (#6 Thriller). Book Two, Unalive, is available now, and this coming February, the series finale hits the digital shelves with Critical Mass:

Jenna Paine is a super spy, genetically enhanced to be more than human. Nadia Velasquez is a living weapon of mass destruction. When the secret organization who built them both decides they are no longer useful, two enemies are thrown together for the only purposes they could have in common: survival and revenge.

There’s only one way out of The Pinnacle, and that’s on a coroner’s slab. Jenna lives through a treacherous attack vowing to exact her vengeance on the people who trained her to be the most deadly agent on the planet. Wounded and on the run, she turns to the man who’s sworn to making her face charges for her involvement in the Pinnacle’s nefarious schemes.

After years spent hiding from the Pinnacle, Nadia runs into the one thing she never counted on: Shelf life. As her body breaks down, she realizes it’s only a matter of the short time she has left to redeem her existence and give her daughter a chance to live free.

In the final showdown, the two transhumans join forces against a common enemy, and the Pinnacle come to know the deadly significance of…Critical Mass

Rochelle Weber says, “His writing is as gripping, as complex, and reads as true as the masters of science fiction and Clancy’s early work.”

Zellakate Solomon adds, “…a fast-paced plot, great complex characters, and deep themes about identity…immensely readable.”

Rachel DiMaggio says, ” Nadia may be missing her memory, but this is one story you will never forget!”

Buy Cyrus’s books here, and don’t forget to check him out on Facebook.

Jenny Hilborne

Jenny Hilborne is a mystery/thriller writer and a native Brit in love with San Francisco, which is the setting for her first two thrillers: Madness and Murder and No Alibi. Her background in real estate and finance provides much of the inspiration for her stories, as does her love of travel and ex-pat status.

Jenny has practiced martial arts in the form of Shotokan Karate and holds six belts. She currently lives in Southern California, with frequent travel to England.

Her third thriller, Hide and Seek, also set in San Francisco, released in June.

Jenny is currently working on her fourth thriller, which is a break from tradition and set in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Hide and Seek

Can you tell us a bit about the mission of Fostering Success and how it came about?

Thank you for having me on as your guest today, Stacy. I’m really excited about Fostering Success.

The mission of Fostering Success is to pay-it-forward in the literary community in an affordable and effective manner. Authors needed a one-stop shop when they publish—self or traditionally.

Our courses provide what every author needs to know about social media, platform building, branding, author websites, self-publishing, and book marketing.

How did you come up with the idea of Fostering Success?

When I founded the World Literary Café, I did so to offer a way for authors and aspiring authors to learn how to cross promote and to build a community to bring together the entire literary community. At the time, I was teaching authors marketing, platform building, branding, and social media, both in groups and one-on-one. My writing time was slipping away quickly, and I never had enough time to teach as many authors as were approaching me. It was clear that I needed a better venue for teaching, a venue where authors could focus at their own pace, and where they could revisit the information and reflect back on it as needed. The Fostering Success courses are self-guided instructional videos and materials that authors can revisit as many times as they’d like. They can go through them at their own pace, and by taking any of the courses, authors are brought into my Fostering Success Authors group on Facebook, where I answer questions on an ongoing basis as they build their platforms, self-publish, and develop their marketing strategies.

There are several different courses offered by Fostering Success. What makes these classes so valuable, and what sort of resources can a user expect from them?

This testimonial says it all: “All I can say is that her protocol is a ‘necessary business system’ for any author striving to better their future. As a chiropractor, they teach you how to be a doctor, but not how to run a business. In the writing world, you have the author part, Melissa has the business side covered. Take it and learn.” Nick G. Giannaras, Author of The Relics of Nanthara trilogy

The courses are designed to be easy to understand, comprehensive, and affordable. I’ve sold almost 200,000 copies of my books, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’ve taken each step of the authoring business apart and made it easy to understand, fleshing out vital information in each class, from a step-by-step guide to self-publish, to creating an effective and branded online presence. The Effective Book Marketing course covers all aspects of marketing—from free and paid to driving traffic, harnessing the power of social media, and what every author needs to do each day.

How do Fostering Success and The World Literary Café work together?

The World Literary Café (WLC) is the cross-promotional platform for authors to connect with both their authoring peers and readers, and to promote their books. Fostering Success provides the knowledge to not only effectively market, cross promote, and build a brand through in all aspects of life, but also teaches how to get the most out of sites such as WLC.

Although Fostering Successes marketing course will work for any author, the courses are more geared toward the indie author. What benefits do you see with indie publishing over a smaller press?

I don’t really agree with that (sorry). I have had just as many traditionally published authors take the courses and they’re thrilled with the results and knowledge that they’ve learned. In fact, there are literary agents referring their clients to the courses because the traditional publishing field is focused on the craft of writing, but the marketing education is lacking.

Be that what it may, my view on small press is that it has its place, but its certainly not for everyone. Contrary to what most authors think, small press is not a stepping stone to traditional publication. Small press typically cannot get books into the brick and mortar shops (some may, but they’re few and far between), and they don’t do the marketing for you. Small press is really, in my opinion, for those who lack the funds to hire a professional editor and cover artist.

One argument is that authors want the name of a small press as their publisher, and what they fail to understand is that readers don’t give a hoot who publishes your book—they simply want a solid, well written, entertaining read. It is the author who brings their publishing status to the readers’ eye by branding themselves as “Indie”. Most readers don’t even know what an “Indie” author is.

If an author has a valuable editor and cover artist, they can learn all of the formatting steps, platform building, marketing, and branding techniques. No matter who publishes your book, it’s up to the author to market it. Fostering Success can help authors find their wings and understand book marketing in under a week.

ETA: I had the wrong link on the coupon. It’s now linked correctly for the 25% offer. 

What is the single biggest mistake you see indie authors making?

Without a doubt it is either marketing to only the indie authoring community or not marketing at all.

Your marketing strategy is different than some, and you, along with Fostering Success and the World Literary Café, are major proponents of authors helping authors. Why do you believe this works better than other approaches?

This is simple. We are all trying to make our mark—to reach readers. If you market alone, you have your own umbrella of readers, a pretty small audience even if you have 200,000 friends on Twitter or Facebook. If you are promoting other authors and they’re promoting you, you are instantly expanding that readership umbrella by their number of followers, and by the followers of those that share the other author’s updates. In addition, readers hate to hear people toot their own horns. What a drag it is to hear, “Buy my book!” Seriously, folks, stop doing that. Let others toot your horn, and you can toot theirs. Readers would much rather hear what you can recommend than how you want to earn a buck.

What’s the most effective marketing strategy out there right now? And with the constant changes in publishing, how can an author plan a marketing strategy 6-12 months in advance?

Everyone’s marketing strategy is different. Some are still relying on Amazon’s free days through KDP select to carry over a wave of sales afterwards. To me, that’s not an effective long-term strategy—it relies too heavily on Amazon’s ever-changing algorithms. It’s a marketing scheme that works sporadically, but it’s not a long-term solution.

The only strategy that one can rely on for a full 6-12 months in a market that changes hourly is to create an effective and branded online presence and keep that presence active throughout the year. If readers don’t know your books exist, they cannot buy them.

Your books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have scores of reviews–tell us a little about your journey as a successful author. Did it happen right out of the gate, or was it more of a slow burn?

Oh goodness no, it didn’t happen right out of the gate. I spent a year and a half marketing Megan’s Way and preparing to market Chasing Amanda, but didn’t get serious about marketing until May of 2011. It was a slow and painful process. I tried the high-feed programs, and lost the money. I hired a publicist, and quickly let her go because she couldn’t gain any headway for the indie author arena. I then got into the nitty gritty of marketing, evaluated where my reader were, and reached out to them—daily. Marketing is all about relationship building, and I love to build relationships, so for me, it was a win-win.

I think one of the biggest issues I try to drive home to new authors is to manage their expectations. KDP Select’s free program has created a mass of unreasonable expectations, and Amazon controls that. When their algorithms favored free days, authors could ride the free wave and gain 3000 books sales the days following their free days, but those authors have no clue how to market their books, so when the Amazon well ran dry (the algorithms changed), they’re left floundering and feeling ripped off.

Marketing takes time, energy, and dedication. You can plan until you are blue in the face and still the effectiveness of your programs will change from day to day. It’s imperative that you understand the complexities of book marketing and not just look for the magic bullets—because they don’t shoot straight and they change often.

I evaluate the marketplace on a weekly basis—it took me months to understand what would work long-term, and I work diligently (daily) to master and re-master the craft of marketing and branding. I wish the courses I’ve designed were available to me in 2009J

What things are you looking at when you evaluate the marketplace?

I evaluate what’s selling, price points, the Kindle shops/sites to see if their sales are going down or picking up, Nook outlets, etc. I watch Amazon to see what they’re recommending, the rankings and any signs of changes in algorithms.

Your bestseller, Come Back To Me, is a Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist–congrats! What are you currently working on, and when can we expect your next release?

Thank you! COME BACK TO ME is also a Readers Favorite award winner and a Semi-Finalist in the Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book awards.

I have one suspense manuscript out on submission through my agent. TRACES OF KARA is a psychological thriller about a deranged twin, separated from his sister. He believes that the only way they can be together forever is to kill them both at the hour of their birth.

Now I’m working on PETALS IN THE WIND, a story about a woman whose repressed memories of her childhood best friend’s disappearance come back to haunt her.

I’m not certain about release dates, because if I go the traditional route, it could take a while. I’ll keep everyone posted!

Thank you, Stacy, for sharing your virtual space with me today. I truly appreciate your time and energy!

xox M

Find Melissa on the web!

Website        The Women’s Nest         World Literary Café           Fostering Success

Twitter: @Melissa_Foster           Facebook

Award-winning, bestselling author Melissa Foster is a touchstone for the indie publishing community and a tireless advocate for women. She is the founder of the World Literary Café, Fostering Success, and The Women’s Nest. Melissa writes emotionally-driven contemporary fiction and suspense with passionate characters that remain with the reader long after they’ve read the last words. Melissa is a friend, mentor, brownie connoisseur, and book fiend.