Category Archives: Writers

Book Promo Sites: Ranked and Updated

Here’s my annual analysis of my marketing efforts. This is pretty much all that I do in the way of marketing: I run a promo every month in a different email/newsletter.

The bar graph is screenshot from my Amazon KDP reports. Each blue bar is the total number of books that were ordered that month. Since I have a five-book series, the full-series promo at Written Word Media always brings in the most orders. People tend to buy every book in the Waterspell series. I love my readers. 💙

In 2023, I branched out a little from my regulars (Book Barbarian, Fussy Librarian, Written Word Media). I added Hello Books to the rotation, and will continue to use them. EReader News Today was also new on my list in 2023, and it did well. GoodKindles, however, was a complete bust. They’re off my list forever. With BookRaid, I have seen diminishing returns over the two or three years that I’ve been advertising there. Not sure they’re worth the money any more.

A full-series promo at Written Word Media continues to deliver the best results. It’s pricey at $170, but cost-effective for promoting the five books in the Waterspell series all at one time. Written Word Media offers several promo options. I tried their “Readers’ List” promo for the first time in August 2023, with disappointing results. Even combined with a concurrent Book Barbarian promo, the $125 “Readers’ List” email blast failed to produce the number of book orders that the $170 full-series promo brought me.

To summarize, this is how I’ll rank the effectiveness of these sites, in terms of the book orders they brought me at Amazon and how much I paid for each promo:

  1. Written Word Media full-series (Fantasy/Paranormal Series Promotion)
  2. EReader News Today
  3. Hello Books
  4. Book Barbarian
  5. Fussy Librarian
  6. Written Word Media “Readers’ List”
  7. BookRaid
  8. GoodKindles (a failure, so I’m not linking to it)

To see how my choices and experiences have evolved over time, you can look at my earlier posts on this subject — 2022’s Book Promotion Sites: Ranked, and back to 2021 when I was Focusing the Plan.

Since I hate marketing and I’m really bad at it, running promos this way is the easiest and the most effective approach I have found. Most of these promos cost $45 to $65. I budget to run one promo a month (rotating among these sites, and sometimes doubling up with less-expensive ads at BookDoggy and ManyBooks). Occasionally I splurge on a $170 Written Word Media full-series promo. I was an election clerk in November 2023 and got paid $188 for the day’s work. That will buy a promo. 😁

What promo sites do you recommend? What have your experiences been with pay-per-click ads at Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook? I tried those, but I found them to be way overpriced and ineffective for my books.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books and Readers, Discoverability, Waterspell fantasy trilogy, Writers

The Joy of Book Signings

Readers who have followed my writerly journey will remember that I hit a dry spell between 2012 and 2020. I wasn’t writing during those years. Promoting my work was the last thing on my mind. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically unavailable for any kind of bookish event.

Which is why I was both excited and nervous about participating in an author event sponsored by the local public library. It wasn’t just a book-signing opportunity. The 10 participating authors also presented a mini-workshop on Getting Started Writing, Overcoming Writer’s Block, Avoiding Common Errors, and Getting Published.

Nerves and eagerness led me to over-prepare, as I do. I had new posters printed for my book table. I obsessed over what I should wear. I actually practiced—in front of a mirror—my five-minute talks on two of those topics.

It all went fine, of course. Book-signings and writing workshops are like riding a bicycle: once you learn, you don’t forget. I fell back into it like the old pro I am. Prior to 2012, I’d done a bunch of author events and writing conferences.

Here are a few pictures from my “comeback.” It was fun, and I’m glad to go back on the circuit.

The dress rehearsal of my table. I laid it all out in my dining room a few days before repeating the exercise at the library event.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books and Readers, On Writing, Writers

Self-Editing: Bringing Out Your Best

I’ve been invited to speak at an event for local writers and participate in a mini-workshop on “How to Fix Common Writing Errors.” As it happens, I published a little e-book on that subject, several years ago. The invitation reminded me to take a fresh look at what I’d written back then.

I’m pleased to report that the little book holds up. It’s aged well, and it offers solid advice: so much so, that I’ll be taking my own advice when I return to editing my work-in-progress.

The ebook is free at Smashwords:

If the Download button in the graphic doesn’t work, you can find my little book of advice here: 

Self-Editing: Bringing Out Your Best

I hope you find it useful.

My fresh reread and re-edit of my own advice has reminded me of things I need to watch out for, as I return to my WIP. Is it possible that I’ve grown a little complacent, maybe a little sloppy in recent years? I’m grateful for the speaking invitation that has motivated me to revisit the basics. Every writer benefits from a refresher course.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books and Readers, On Writing, Writers

What Makes Great Dialogue?

Dialogue should sound natural—like real people talking. Or more precisely, like really interesting real people talking.

Strive to write dialogue as the natural outcome of the characters’ needs, desires, thoughts, personalities, reactions, and relationships. Don’t use it to dump information on the reader or, even worse, use it just to break up long passages of narrative.

Avoid commonplace dialogue—characters taking up space saying empty things like “Hi, how are you?” and “Fine, how are you?”

Literary agent Noah Lukeman wrote in his classic book, The First Five Pages:

“The presence of commonplace dialogue means the manuscript as a whole will need a lot of cutting: if there is one extraneous line of dialogue on the first page, by the rule of manuscripts, you will also find one extraneous line on each page to come.”

According to Lukeman:

“Dialogue is a powerful tool, to be used sparingly, effectively and at the right moment.”

I greatly admire Ursula Le Guin. (If you don’t know her work, read the Earthsea books—you’ll be swept away.) For examples of pitch-perfect dialogue, see her Tales From Earthsea. Below is an excerpt. Study it and see all that it does, the many levels on which this dialogue succeeds.

We learn the personalities of father and son. The son is quiet, he doesn’t say much. He’s subject to his father’s will, but he’s hoping his old man will stop pressuring him. The father is obviously conflicted: proud of his son’s gift, but disappointed that it doesn’t make the boy suitable to follow in his dad’s footsteps in the family business. The father is also in awe of his child’s talents. We learn so much from this dialogue, and the whole exchange rings true. Believable personalities are revealed.

Also study this passage for examples of how to punctuate dialogue, and how to break up the speaking with a little action. People move around, gesture, pause. They don’t just stand and talk.

The next morning Golden told his son again that he must think about being a man.

“I have thought some about it,” said the boy, in his husky voice.

“And?”

“Well, I,” said Diamond, and stuck.

“I’d always counted on your going into the family business,” Golden said. His tone was neutral, and Diamond said nothing. “Have you had any ideas of what you want to do?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you talk at all to Master Hemlock?”

Diamond hesitated and said, “No.” He looked a question at his father.

“I talked to him last night,” Golden said. “He said to me that there are certain natural gifts which it’s not only difficult but actually wrong, harmful, to suppress.”

The light had come back into Diamond’s dark eyes.

“The master said that such gifts or capacities, untrained, are not only wasted, but may be dangerous. The art must be learned, and practiced, he said.”

Diamond’s face shone.

“But, he said, it must be learned and practiced for its own sake.”

Diamond nodded eagerly.

“If it’s a real gift, an unusual capacity, that’s even more true. A witch with her love potions can’t do much harm, but even a village sorcerer, he said, must take care, for if the art is used for base ends, it becomes weak and noxious … Of course, even a sorcerer gets paid. And wizards, as you know, live with lords, and have what they wish.”

Diamond was listening intently, frowning a little.

“So, to be blunt about it, if you have this gift, Diamond, it’s of no use, directly, to our business. It has to be cultivated on its own terms, and kept under control — learned and mastered. Only then, he said, can your teachers begin to tell you what to do with it, what good it will do you. Or others,” he added conscientiously.

There was a long pause.

“I told him,” Golden said, “that I had seen you, with a turn of your hand and a single word, change a wooden carving of a bird into a bird that flew up and sang. I’ve seen you make a light glow in thin air. You didn’t know I was watching. I’ve watched and said nothing for a long time. I didn’t want to make too much of mere childish play. But I believe you have a gift, perhaps a great gift. When I told Master Hemlock what I’d seen you do, he agreed with me. He said that you may go study with him in South Port for a year, or perhaps longer.”

“Study with Master Hemlock?” said Diamond, his voice up half an octave.

“If you wish.”

“I, I, I never thought about it. Can I think about it? For a while — a day?”

“Of course,” Golden said, pleased with his son’s caution. He had thought Diamond might leap at the offer, which would have been natural, perhaps, but painful to the father, the owl who had — perhaps — hatched out an eagle.

(From “Darkrose and Diamond,” Tales From Earthsea, copyright 2001 by Ursula K. LeGuin)

Leave a Comment

Filed under Magic, On Writing, Writers

How to Handle Mean Reviews

They’re inevitable. Every writer gets them. Even rich and famous authors get bad reviews.

Some of the best advice I’ve ever read, on how to handle the trolls, comes from Julia Whelan at Writer Unboxed. I excerpted some of her comments to give ’em the Canva treatment. But every writer will do well to read her entire post.

Julia Whelan quote 1

Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator of more than 500 titles. Her performance of her own debut novel, the internationally best-selling My Oxford Year, garnered a Society of Voice Arts award. She is also a Grammy-nominated audiobook director, a former writing tutor, a half-decent amateur baker, and a certified tea sommelier. Her new book, Thank You for Listening—about a former actress turned successful audiobook narrator who has lost sight of her dreams and her journey of self-discovery, love, and acceptance when she agrees to narrate one last romance novel—released in August 2022.

Julia Whelan quote 2

Leave a Comment

Filed under Audiobooks, Books and Readers, On Writing, Writers

Write Every Day: Bad Advice?

“Write every day” is standard advice to writers. We’ve all heard it. I used to feel guilty because I do NOT write every day. I regarded my failure to do so as … well, a failure.

Now I know better. After eight books with a ninth in progress, I know what pattern or schedule works for me. I’m a binge writer, an all-or-nothing kind of wordsmith. When I’m writing, I don’t want to do anything else except drink coffee, eat when I start getting the shakes, and sleep when I must. That kind of intensity is productive, but exhausting. I can only keep it up for three days. Then, I must have a break.

Today was my non-writing day of “rest.” I’ve spent it doing a bunch of things that writers must do:

  • Checked Goodreads for new reviews (and found a lovely one)
  • Checked on my audiobook sales via Findaway Voices (and found a good number of new sales)
  • Found a new link for my audiobook at Hoopla
  • Found a new link for all four books of the Waterspell series at Overdrive / Libby
  • Updated my Books2Read universal book links (UBLs) with those new links
  • Scheduled a December 16 book promo with The Fussy Librarian
  • Communicated with my local library about adding Waterspell to their catalog
  • Made a new Bookstagram graphic with the lovely Goodreads review
  • Wrote this blog post

Waterspell review at Goodreads October 2022Additionally, I fulfilled my obligations to a save-American-democracy group in which I’m active in the area of Communications. And: I watched the Jan. 6 Committee Hearing on PBS. Busy day!

Would I have wanted to break away from my work-in-progress to do any of these things? Absolutely not. I suppose there are writers who can write fiction for just 4 hours in a day, and then put the book out of their mind, to focus on such mundane tasks as I’ve listed above. I’m not one of those writers. A far more productive approach, for me, is to devote whole days at a stretch to my writing, and to nothing else.

At the end of three intense days, I’m totally ready to turn my mind to less taxing tasks. By the same token, after one or two days of necessary but boring administrative/business work, I’m eager to throw myself back into the world of my imagination.

“Write every day” is a recipe for burnout, in my opinion. If you’re really into the story and the people you’re writing about, your mind and psyche can’t keep you deeply “in character,” indefinitely. You need a break. You need to come up for air, and spend a little time away from the story so you can return to it, refreshed. And unless you’re able to afford a personal assistant who can handle all of your non-writing jobs, you need to set aside time to tackle your To-Do list.

Don’t cut into your writing time to do those boring jobs. Hold your writing days sacrosanct. Set your phone to Do Not Disturb and commit yourself to do nothing except Write.

But don’t “write every day.” You’ve got other things to do.

Leave a Comment

Filed under On Writing, Writers

Social Media for Writers: Why I Like Instagram

Deborah J. Lightfoot @booksofwaterspell on InstagramRecently I was asked if Instagram is good for writers. I believe it is. Or at least its “subsidiary,” nicknamed Bookstagram, works for me. I’m not on Twitter (I tried it but found it to be too frantically noisy). I’m suspicious of TikTok, which the FCC calls a national security threat. Besides that, I have neither the time nor the inclination to make a bunch of videos, not even bookish videos, and certainly not silly vids. As for Facebook: Fewer than 100 people follow my FB author page, and that number hasn’t changed in more than a year. Facebook’s algorithms work hard to keep your posts from being seen, if you don’t pay to boost your posts. And I don’t pay.

On Bookstagram, however, I quickly attracted 900 followers (for free!), and that figure increases weekly. They’re all bookish people, a curated population of readers, writers, teachers, librarians, publishers, and bookstore owners. The collaborative connections I’ve made there have resulted in several very nice reviews of my books, and in turn I’ve been introduced to the work of authors from all over the world. My ebook library now overflows with books I plan to read and review, to support other authors as many Bookstagrammers have supported me.

Bookstagram Pointers

Tips for Starting a Bookstagram covers nearly everything a newbie should know about launching a Bookstagram account and interacting with other book people. To that resource, I’ll add the following points, things I’ve learned in my year there:

Engagement is key. If you want people to like and comment on your posts, you must like and comment on theirs. Like all social media, Bookstagram can be an enormous time sink. You mustn’t let it take over your life, but you do need to set aside time for not only your own posting, but also for interacting with other people’s posts. I tend to peruse my Bookstagram feed during my coffee and lunch breaks, and sometimes in the evening when I should be reading.

Waterspell audiobook available at all audiobook retailersCanva is your friend. I’m not much of a photographer, and my aging Android phone doesn’t take especially good pictures unless the scene is perfectly lit. To get around that deficit, I use Canva heavily. I’ll spend an entire day creating Instagram posts at Canva, using the covers of my books and incorporating the nice reviews that I quote or screen-shoot from Amazon, Goodreads, etc. Creating Bookstagram content can take quite a lot of time, but I enjoy playing with designs at Canva, seeing how creative I can get. (Pictured is one of my recent designs, to promote the new Waterspell audiobook.) For me, Canva and Bookstagram together have become a fun way to showcase a different side of my creativity. If the words aren’t flowing during a writing session, I can go to Canva and play with pictures, and still feel like I’m being productive.

Katherine Paterson Power to Offend quoteMix it up. My pattern is to alternate promos of my own books with quotes from famous authors, or writing-related memes, or the occasional review that I’ve written for somebody else’s book or audiobook. Over the course of years, I filled thick notebooks with admirable examples of other people’s writing, or with the wise words of established authors. Those notebooks have been a rich source of inspiration for my bursts of creativity at Canva. My Bookstagram followers always respond warmly to the quotes I share. Every writer needs a regular shot in the arm, an almost daily reminder that what we do, does matter. And that we’re not alone. Even famous authors have bad days and get one-star reviews or draw the ire of book-burners. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see something inspirational on Bookstagram, something that validates me as a writer. The writers and artists who are active there support each other, celebrate each other’s successes, and commiserate with the setbacks.

Once a day is plenty. There seems to be a general consensus among Bookstagrammers that it’s poor form to post more than once daily. Which suits me fine. Only on rare occasions do I violate that unwritten rule. Many Bookstagrammers post only weekly, or 2–3 times a week.

Block the spammers and bots. Newcomers to Bookstagram are instantly deluged with “Promote it on” scams. Every one of those fake accounts uses the same wording — “Promote it on” — typically followed by some variation of “Writers Heaven” or “Writers Paradise.” (The bots aren’t imaginative.) To fend them off, go into Settings, find Privacy & Security, find “Edit comment settings,” and find Comment Filtering, where you can list Hidden Comments. There, paste the following list of terms that the scammers use. You’ll need to add new terms to the list from time to time, as the scammers tweak the wording (“Writers Heaven” becomes “Heaven of Writers”). As one of your first steps, however, when you create your new Instagram account, put the following terms in your “Hidden Comments” list, and you’ll vastly reduce the amount of junk that floods in from bots and scammers. Eventually, as they figure out you’re not going to pay them to “review” your book, the scammers move on to more gullible writers.

TheWriters_Heaven, _TheClassicWriter_, _thepoeticvalley_, author_paradise_, authors__paradise, authors_heaven, authors_paradise, authorsfam, empire.of.books, frozzenwhispers, frozzenwhispers_, heaven_of_author, inkpen_ig, paradise_of_author, penman, penman_ig, theauthorswarmth, thepoeticvalley, thepoetsvanity, thepotentatewriter, thewordrender, thewriters.paradise, thewriterswarmth, thewriterswarmths, writer.s_heaven, writersparadise._

It’s a Welcoming Community

As other thoughts occur, I may add to this post. For now, however, those are my main bits of advice for Bookstagram newcomers. I believe you’ll find, as I did, that it’s a welcoming community. Most of the writers and readers who are active on Bookstagram will follow you back, if you follow them. That reciprocity makes it fairly simple to grow your followers, in very little time, from zero to hundreds or even thousands.

I’ve been fairly selective about who I follow, being mostly interested in connecting with readers who might enjoy my books, and also with writers who work in my genre: traditional fantasy. I don’t follow many writers of urban fantasy, for instance, because I’m not trying to reach that specific audience. What works for them, in the way of promotion or reader engagement for instance, won’t necessarily apply to my efforts. From authors of epic or high fantasy, however, I’ve picked up many useful tips. I’ve learned about tropes and book blurbs and keywords. I’ve learned about online fantasy map generators, which is a new skill I really want to master.

Book Promotion Report CardIn turn, I’ve shared what I’ve learned about cost-effective book promotion. Pretty much the only time anyone reads this blog is when I share something on Instagram about my book-promo efforts, and I invite my IG followers to learn more at my blog. That’s when I get eyes on posts such as Book Promotion Sites: Ranked and its followup, Book Promo Overview. I’m glad to know that other writers are benefiting from my experiences in the often predatory and potentially expensive world of book marketing.

If you’re an author on Bookstagram, I’d love to hear from you. Please drop your comments in the box below. I have a huge amount to learn about that platform, and I welcome the advice of more experienced Bookstagrammers. Please comment, too, if you’re just getting started. I’ll do my best to answer your questions, or to refer you to more authoritative resources.

In closing: If you’ll follow me, I’ll follow you: BooksofWaterspell

Leave a Comment

Filed under Bookstagram, On Writing, Writers

The Waterspell Audiobook Is Live!

Releasing June 1, 2022
WATERSPELL: The Complete Series
Audiobook

WATERSPELL: The Complete Series (Books 1-4) by Deborah J. Lightfoot; audiobook narrated by Simon de Deney

Am I excited!? Just a little. Well, a lot actually.

This new audiobook is the culmination of decades of work. I started writing Book 1 of Waterspell so long ago, the story seems to have always been in my life. In a sense, I suppose it has been in my life since I learned to read in my childhood. Everything I’ve ever read has probably found its way into this series, in some fashion or other.

But that’s true for all writers, I imagine. We are products of the life we’ve lived, the people we’ve known, the education we’ve received, the work experiences we’ve had, and perhaps most of all the books we’ve read. We write what we know.

Waterspell is deeply personal for me, however. I remember my doubts and my uncertainty as I began the switch from nonfiction to fantasy. As a trained journalist and an award-winning author of history and biography, I wasn’t even sure I could write fiction. Did I know how? I had much to learn, and attentive readers can follow my learning curve through the series. Wordiness, for instance, was my painfully clear weakness in Books 1 and 2. That fault is less apparent in Books 3 and 4.

House in Mexico on Lake Chapala

Our house in Mexico on Lake Chapala

During my years of work on this story, I not only grew as a writer, I gained a deeper sense of my place in the universe. A huge amount of the writing was done while my husband and I lived in Mexico, in a house that I loved, prettily situated on the south side of Lake Chapala, south of Guadalajara. Our time in Mexico was a highlight of my life, an intensely creative eight years. Amid the tropical flowers and greenery that surrounded our house, I gave myself to my writing, tapping my deep subconscious during those quiet nights by the lake, disturbed by nothing, visited by only owls and inspiration.

Fuchsia in Mexican garden

My beloved husband holding a fuchsia for me to photograph in our Mexican garden

After we left Mexico, another seven years would pass before Books 1–3 of Waterspell were published. And then, to my horror, my husband died quite suddenly and unexpectedly, only two months after Book 3 was released. I have written elsewhere about the effects of my grief on my writing; I will not elaborate here, except to say that my husband’s death is, for me, inextricably woven into the very fabric of this series. It is chief among the reasons for my deep personal investment in this story.

The Gift That Started Things Off …

All of this history will perhaps explain why I’m so joyously, deliriously excited about the new audiobook. Readers had been asking me for an audiobook, but I thought the expense of such an undertaking would be beyond my reach. I resisted the idea of even investigating the possibilities, until my sister-in-law gave me an Audible membership for Christmas. The first thing I bought was Lord of the Rings, narrated by Rob Inglis.

What a revelation! A great work of fantasy was elevated, by a masterful job of narration, to a plane of perfection almost beyond my comprehension. That was when I knew I had to pursue an audiobook of my own series, and damn the cost.

… And Now Here We Are

Here we are, on June 1: Release Day! I can hardly wait for the world to hear Simon de Deney’s wonderful work on Waterspell: The Complete Series. I love how Simon connected with the characters. I am deeply grateful that he took on this big project, that he liked the story and my writing, and was willing and able to produce 51 hours of narration. Not a small undertaking! I feel honored to have an actor of Simon’s reputation narrating my novels. 💙

Simon de Deney in studio

Simon de Deney is a professional actor, playwright, director, and audiobook narrator with more than 25 years of broadcast experience and a wide range of acting credits, from feature films to shows in London’s West End. His audiobook work includes Flames Over Frosthelm (Dave Dobson), It Calls from the Forest (multiple authors), and The Story of Wine (Hugh Johnson), for which de Deney was nominated for Best Performance (Factual Audiobook) in the 2022 One Voice Awards (UK). As a writer, de Deney has had several BBC Radio commissions, including “The Way It Is” and “Future Perfect.” He has developed and directed new plays including “Broken Voices,” “Scotch and Water,” and “Late Fragment.” His acting credits include (theatre) “The Madness of George Dubya,” “The Prisoner of Windsor,” “Beneath The Waves,” and “Felix,” as well as television roles in “House of Elliot,” “The Upper Hand,” and “Rose Cottage.” His film credits include Damage, Shining Through, Another Country, and The Selfish Act of Community. Simon de Deney has a Master of Arts degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. He lives in London.

This being my first audiobook, I’m not sure what to expect. Will it suddenly just appear in the catalog of every retailer? It’s been available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble, Chirp, AudiobooksNow, and Libro.fm. It’s supposed to show up on June 1 at Apple, Kobo, Walmart, Overdrive, and many others including Audible. But I’ve been warned that Audible lags behind.

So check back here on my website for new links. I’ll post them as I get them.

I will have 100 Giveaway Codes to hand out. Drop me a note (below) if you’d like a free copy of this audiobook!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Audiobooks, Books and Readers, Writers

Book Promotion Sites: Ranked

Six months ago, in November 2021, I ran my first paid promotion for my novels. My first effective promotion, that is. I’d been experimenting with BookBub but getting nowhere. After concluding that BookBub is overrated and overpriced, I went looking for better, cheaper alternatives and found BookRaid. My single-day November 2021 promotion at BookRaid was far more successful than my ongoing, daily BookBub ads had been to that point, persuading me to drop BookBub entirely.

Waterspell by Deborah J. LightfootSince then, I’ve also run promotions with The Fussy Librarian, ManyBooks, Bookorium, and Freebooksy (Written Word Media). Additionally, I’ve done three smallish Reader Views giveaways of paperbacks, finished one big Goodreads Giveaway of Waterspell: The Complete Series (Kindle edition), offered a 50% discount on the series at Google Books, and made ARCs of the boxed set available free, for the month of April, on NetGalley. Looking ahead, I’ve scheduled a Book Barbarian promo for July 12. (Book Barbarian specializes in SF/fantasy titles.)

Which of these has worked best?

The Prize Goes To …

The hands-down winner (to date) is Freebooksy. At $170 (!) it’s the most expensive promotion that I’ve run, but:
You get what you pay for, as shown in this chart:

Book Promotion Newsletters and Giveaways comparedNot only did Freebooksy outperform all other newsletters by an astonishingly wide margin, notice that even Day 2 of the Freebooksy promo (when folks were opening their email late, on the day after) brought in more orders than The Fussy Librarian did in total. Evidently, Written Word Media has a vastly greater reach than any other book promotion service that I’ve tried. I also appreciate them promoting the entire series (not just Book 1), and continuing to list Waterspell on their website:

Waterspell fantasy series by Deborah J. Lightfoot

My Freebooksy promotion thrilled me by making Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock a No. 1 bestseller in a pair of Amazon categories, and vaulting it to a very respectable second place on yet another Amazon bestseller list:

Waterspell by Deborah J. Lightfoot is an Amazon bestseller

Freebooksy, obviously, must top my list of book promotion sites that truly deliver. I’ll save up to run another promo with them in six months or so. The $170 price tag becomes less of a shocker when I consider that The Fussy Librarian charges $50 for a one-day listing, Book Barbarian is $55, BookRaid is $60, and a one-month NetGalley listing is $50 (when arranged through a NetGalley co-op). A Goodreads Giveaway (if you get it on sale) is $99. A ManyBooks promo is $29.

While there’s no fee to put a book in the Reader Views giveaways, each paperback that I mailed out cost me $10 for the book plus at least $4 postage. I sent out 10 books (one to Canada for a whopping $21 in international postage), bringing my total Reader Views out-of-pocket to about $160 (spread over three months). I’ve no idea whether any of the recipients reciprocated by leaving me a review anywhere. I have no direct evidence that any of them favored me with a review or even a wordless, anonymous rating. Sadly, none of them communicated with me, despite the contact-info sheet that I included with each copy. In future, I’ll think twice before doing another unfiltered, unvetted giveaway of pricey paperbacks.

Book promotion sites rated for effectiveness

The not-knowing about their effectiveness is why I’m giving both Goodreads and Reader Views a so-so C for their giveaways. It’s been nearly two full months since Amazon sent all of the winners at Goodreads their free copies of The Complete Series. So far, only one of those recipients (that I know of) has reciprocated by rating the Waterspell series at Goodreads.

Waterspell by Deborah J. LightfootNetGalley gets a B-minus from me because the reviews there, although they are excellent five-star reviews (like Aria’s pictured here), are far fewer in number than I had anticipated. I was hoping (too optimistically) for 40 or 50 reviews. To date, I’ve received six. I’m deeply grateful for those six highly positive reviews (thank you, Aria and other readers!) but I’m somewhat disappointed that so few of the individuals who requested and received an advance reader copy (ARC) have posted their reviews.

ManyBooks gets a C average from me because my two promos there have not moved the needle very much. They’re nice people to work with though (they gave me a badge!). And they’ve certainly outperformed BookBub (ridiculously expensive and ineffective), Bookorium (useless and now defunct), and my experimental Google Books discount, which has not attracted even one taker. Half price doesn’t appeal? Huh. The 50% discount code expires on May 31. I guess I’ll extend it for another two months, since it’s not costing me a dime.

That’s my report. If you’re an author who’s researching the best promotional sites and methods, I hope that my experiences will help you decide where and how to spend your advertising dollars. May your sales rankings skyrocket!

7 Comments

Filed under Books and Readers, Discoverability, Writers

It’s Good to Talk Shop

Once upon a time I belonged to an in-person writing critique group. The group gave me valuable advice, and I benefited from participation in it. But times changed, and our lives changed, and the group drifted apart, gradually breaking up, or reformulating itself with new members in a different meeting location. I ceased to participate.

These days, I get feedback via email and text messages from my beta readers and reviewers. I also try to engage with other writers on Goodreads and Instagram. Writing is a lonely profession, but it’s not good to work in too much of a vacuum. Even the most introverted among us need to interact with our peers.

A Moment in Time by Martin DukesIt has been my pleasure recently to talk shop with Martin Dukes, author of the Alex Trueman Chronicles. It turns out that Martin and I have followed similar paths with our respective series: we were both away from our work for 10 years.

Coming back to a story after such a long break presents special challenges. I’m sharing our Instagram conversation here, for what it reveals about the issues involved and the concerns we both have as “long-haul authors.”

 


 

martin.dukes.wildest.dreams commented: Well done for writing four. How did this work for you? Has there been an obvious evolution in style during the series as you find your way with them? (Just going to Amazon now to get the first one ☺)

booksofwaterspell Thank you! I deeply appreciate your support and your interest. Books 1-3 of Waterspell are really the beginning, middle, and “end” of one continuous story. The new Book 4 is a coda, set five years after the events of the original trilogy. I’m not sure I would recommend that structure: A few readers have been really annoyed by Book 1’s cliffhanger ending. “Golly,” I think when a reader gets angry about it. “I’m giving you Book 1 for free, and several reviews have mentioned that it’s not a standalone, so why the outrage?” I guess I’m so accustomed to fantasy series that go on and on, it never occurred to me that readers would bristle at Book 1 ending on a cliffhanger. As to an evolution in style: I definitely became a more efficient writer. Rereading Books 1-2, I can see that they’re wordy in spots, and draggy in spots. Both would have benefited from a more ruthless paring than I gave them. By Book 3, I was writing more concisely. Partly, I imagine, because the scene had been thoroughly set (and described!) in Bks 1-2. But also because my style did evolve as I continued the saga. Many readers have commented that the series gets better as it goes. Oftentimes it’s the other way around (great first book, disappointing sequels) so I’m happy when readers say that I’ve avoided that trap, at least.

martin.dukes.wildest.dreams I’m surprised that anyone would object to your Book 1 ending on a cliff-hanger, unless it was not already apparent that this was the first in a series. From a writer’s point of view I’m sure such a device is useful in encouraging the reader to move on to Book 2 and a very normal strategy. TBF I could only see one such comment and your other reviews are universally enthusiastic. It’s constantly surprising how some reviewers will settle on one relatively trivial factor and use it as a yardstick by which to condemn the work as a whole! I’m interested to see that you recognise an improvement in your own writing style during the course of the series. I suppose sticking at it and writing them books in quick succession would help with regard to consistency. In my own series there was a gap of about 10 yrs between Books 2 and 3. I have tried very hard to keep things consistent but I’m sure readers will let me know if I haven’t! Did you likewise find that your characters matured and changed over time? (that is, assuming that some of the characters persist from book to book). For my own part, and since a central character is key to the series, I felt that there was a very real maturation as he aged with experience and as I came to know him better over time. Anyway, I wish you all the best with the series, which is evidently highly regarded and well-received.

booksofwaterspell A 10-year gap for you, too, huh. I’m working with the same: My original trilogy 2011-12, now the sequel in 2022. There’s a tension, I think, between achieving consistency but within a framework of growth, for both writer and characters. Like your main character, mine has matured, and her emotionally damaged “significant other” has (mostly) healed. One of my beta readers asked why I didn’t start Book 4 exactly where Book 3 ended (Bk 4 begins five years later). I replied that it wasn’t possible to pick up the story exactly where I’d left it. After my life took a sharp turn during those years, I wasn’t the same person who had written the original trilogy. My characters had also evolved. But I know those people and their story so well, I didn’t have as much trouble writing Book 4 as I thought I might. (Took me eight drafts, but that’s about right.) My beta reader commented: “Rereading the series, I realized your writing really hit its stride with the 3rd book. Not that there was anything wrong with the first two, but the 3rd had an ease about the writing. You’ve maintained that with this book.” I was relieved by her feedback. She confirmed that I’d achieved both some consistency and some growth, which is what a series should have, IMO. Regarding the grousing about Book 1’s cliffhanger: There’s more griping on Goodreads than on Amazon. But I served the story the best I could. If some folks dislike the structure, they have plenty of other books from which to choose!☺I’m looking forward to reading A Moment in Time. It’s up next in my TBR pile.

books of waterspell BTW, I love the cover of A Moment in Time. It’s great.

“It’s constantly surprising how some reviewers will settle on one relatively trivial factor and use it as a yardstick by which to condemn the work as a whole!” —Martin Dukes, author

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Books and Readers, Bookstagram, On Writing, Writers