Monthly Archives: October 2013

Oct 8 2013

Look into my Eyes

Eyes Pic

Look into my eyes.

They can hypnotize,

Make you fantasize,

You will be my prize.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

I will mesmerize,

See through your disguise,

Tell if you are wise.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

You’ll believe my lies,

You won’t realize,

I’ll be your demise.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

My look will chastise,

Cut you down to size,

Force your silent cries.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

Let me energize,

Make your spirit rise,

Lift you to the skies.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

I’ll antagonize,

Even terrorize,

To both girls and guys.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

My pair will be spies,

You I will surmise,

I’ll check out your thighs.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

Forget that time flies,

Stay here till sunrise,

Waste not all my tries.

▪ ▪

Look into my eyes.

Copyright (c) 2013 Chris McMullen

Oct 8 2013

Preliminary Read Tuesday Catalogs Coming Soon

It's going to be HUGE!

It’s going to be HUGE!

Misha Burnett wrote a nice article about the importance and ease of gifting in relation to Read Tuesday. We’ll be posting this article tomorrow. The article mentions the Read Tuesday catalog of books, so I’ll be posting a preliminary catalog on the Read Tuesday catalog tomorrow.

If you’d like to get listed in the preliminary catalogs (it’s free!) before I put them up, you still have a window of opportunity.

Link to enroll books in the catalog:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LlEzgrnBWsU0FMsEezTvlvczexv9o2nRN_93i0pJAh8/viewform

Link to enroll authors in the catalog:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13nXp9yRxtC-PUrV_D7zMqmlThUJSKGobKcCRNEtnEG8/viewform

If you encounter any issues with the forms, please let me know.

(There are also additional forms for any small publishers or booksellers who want to show their participation.)

The official Read Tuesday website: www.ReadTuesday.com

Read Tuesday: It’s going to be HUGE!

Give the gift of reading this holiday season.

Chris McMullen

Oct 7 2013

Your Muse and Murphy’s Law

Muse Murphy Pic

Murphy and your muse are surely conspiring with one another. At least, that’s the case with my muse. The evidence is in.

I didn’t have any writing ideas all morning. One minute after driving away from the house, my muse gave me a great idea for a poem. (I’ll probably butcher the idea when I try to write the poem, but that’s beside the point.)

Fortunately, I have a pen in the car. (Learned from experience.) But not paper. (Perhaps I didn’t learn my lesson well enough.) But we writers are resourceful; I have plenty of napkins.

Now I just need to wait for a red light, traffic jam, funeral procession (now there’s a poor soul whose problem is much greater than my own), train, road construction, or one of the many delays that I ordinarily encounter virtually every time I drive anywhere.

But this wasn’t any ordinary drive. I wanted a red light. I just needed a few seconds to scribble down some words.

Green light. Green light. Green light. Ah, finally a red light. Where’s that napkin? Hey, it’s green already!

Meanwhile, my muse is feeding me more and more ideas for the poem. Then I get an idea for my blog. Then I get another idea for my blog. I know if I don’t write these down, it will anger my muse. She doesn’t like to repeat herself.

Where are all the red lights? How is it possible not to get a red light when you want one? I once drove 70 miles, getting every one of several lights red in two different cities. Oh, but that day I had been in a hurry.

I did manage to reach my destination and jot down some notes on a napkin. Then I went into the restaurant, only to think of yet another idea, with my napkin and pen back in the car.

Very funny, muse. We all know that muses have a great sense of humor. They really put the muse in amusement.

Of course, this isn’t the only evidence. We have storage rooms full of it.

Your muse and Murphy’s law: They’re definitely in on it together.

What has your muse done to you lately?

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 7 2013

Better Readability at the Read Tuesday Website?

It's going to be HUGE!

It’s going to be HUGE!

For those of you who expressed opinions of the color scheme at the Read Tuesday website, thank you. A common concern was readability. I have tried to improve this without making any drastic changes.

I changed the background to white and the body text to black. I believe it’s more readable now. Please let me know what you think.

Read Tuesday: It’s going to be HUGE!

Give the gift of reading this holiday season.

The official Read Tuesday website: www.ReadTuesday.com

Chris McMullen

Oct 7 2013

The Fate of the Artist

30072011081 - Copy

He who creates, creates critics.

Oct 6 2013

Keywords and Visibility on Amazon

There are some ‘magic’ keywords here. It’s definitely worth checking out. 🙂

S.K. Nicholls's avatarS.K. Nicholls

key-to-success

If you, like me, have been having trouble categorizing your book in order to get better visibility for sells, this link might help.  I was using random keywords related to highlights of my book, but not coming up well in searches.

KEYWORDS

I had enormous difficulty in getting the correct keywords through KDP for visibility until I ran across this rather obscure piece on KDP’s site.  I was using all the wrong keywords.  The keywords that I was using were all related to my book, but they were NOT the specifically programed words and phrases that Amazon uses.  I was barely able to find my book in search results until I ran across this page.  Now, I have sold more books in the past two weeks than I had in the past two months, just by getting these correct keywords into place.

It seems that Amazon has specific keywords programmed 

View original post 272 more words

Oct 6 2013

Sign-Up Forms for the Read Tuesday Catalog—Now Available

It's going to be HUGE!

It’s going to be HUGE!

Enrollment forms are now available to add books or authors to the Read Tuesday catalogs. If you are an author or small publisher who would like to participate in the event, click on the links below to open and complete the sign-up forms. The first form is to enroll books, while the second is to enroll authors. You don’t need to sign up to participate in Read Tuesday, but you do need to enroll to get into the catalogs. Signing up also helps to show your support for the event.

These are Google Docs forms. Simply click on the link, complete the form (a few questions are optional), and press the submit button. It’s that easy.

If you have more than one book, after you complete the form for one participating book, you’re welcome to reopen the form and submit other books that will be participating on Read Tuesday. (But, of course, only add books that you have the rights to include in the catalog.)

Link to enroll books in the catalog:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LlEzgrnBWsU0FMsEezTvlvczexv9o2nRN_93i0pJAh8/viewform

Link to enroll authors in the catalog:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13nXp9yRxtC-PUrV_D7zMqmlThUJSKGobKcCRNEtnEG8/viewform

If you encounter any issues with the forms, please let me know.

Learn more about Read Tuesday by clicking the link below:

http://readtuesday.com/2013/10/05/read-tuesday-like-black-friday-except-for-book-sales/

Read Tuesday: It’s going to be HUGE!

Give the gift of reading this holiday season.

The official Read Tuesday website: http://www.ReadTuesday.com

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 6 2013

Idea for Big Read Tuesday Publicity—Need Your Help

It's going to be HUGE!

It’s going to be HUGE!

We’re building buzz for a huge Read Tuesday event like Black Friday, but for buying and gifting books, on Tuesday, December 10, 2013.

We have an idea for helping to publicize this event, but we need your help. (You can learn how in a moment.)

There is already much interest and anticipation, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Read Tuesday event has a huge audience:

  • Readers are preparing for the big sale.
  • Gift-givers are looking forward to sharing the gift of reading.
  • Authors see a golden opportunity to promote their own book sales while waving the Read Tuesday flag.
  • It’s also an avenue for small publishers and booksellers to generate more fourth-quarter revenue.

Since indie authors control their own prices and therefore can easily participate, the event should be of great general interest with e-book companies like Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Nook, and much more.

So here is the big idea: We need to contact these companies (and more), describe how wonderful this event is shaping up to be, and ask if they can mention Read Tuesday in a newsletter (like the monthly KDP newsletter) or on their websites (it would be a nice fit for Smashwords and many others).

Kathy Steinemann has already contacted Smashwords and suggested that I and others do the same. So give Kathy the credit for this great idea. 🙂

I will be contacting several companies from this list. You can help by also contacting one or more of these companies and placing a request. The more people who contact them, the greater will be their perceived interest in this huge event. There is much interest brewing, and it will be huge. We just need your help to show them.

In addition to describing what Read Tuesday is, why it will interest millions of authors and readers, and why it will benefit these businesses to help spread the word, you can provide a link to the official Read Tuesday website, www.ReadTuesday.com, Twitter site (@ReadTuesday), and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ReadTuesday).

The audience for Read Tuesday is also large enough to interest the media. The more we try to recruit the request of media coverage, the more the media will take notice.

There is also an opportunity here for anyone to write an article about Read Tuesday and get it published. Just imagine the bottom of your article, where it says Your Name, Author of Your Book. It could be a high traffic area relevant to your target audience. (In the absolute worst-case scenario, you can still post the article on your blog or website, so no matter what, your effort won’t be wasted.)

If you get any positive responses from businesses, please share the information here. We can help to spread the word about your success.

If you publish an article or post a video about Read Tuesday (even if it’s on your blog), let us know. We can find a place to post a link, may reblog your post, etc.

If you convince anyone with a big reputation (or have one yourself) to participate on Read Tuesday, please let spread the word. This would help to draw even more interest.

If you persuade any bookstores or small publishers to participate on Read Tuesday, tell them to let us know and we’ll be happy to advertise their participation the Read Tuesday website.

There will also be catalogs to show your participation and to enroll your books. The forms for these are coming soon.

Read Tuesday: It’s going to be HUGE!

Give the gift of reading this holiday season.

The official Read Tuesday website: www.ReadTuesday.com

Learn more about Read Tuesday here: About Read Tuesday

Follow Read Tuesday on Twitter @ReadTuesday

The Read Tuesday FaceBook page: www.facebook.com/ReadTuesday

Authors who would like to participate can learn more about Read Tuesday at Chris McMullen‘s blog: https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Oct 5 2013

Read Tuesday: Like Black Friday, Except for Book Sales (It’s Going to Be HUGE!)

Here is Read Tuesday’s first post. Check it out. 🙂