Lack of Newsletter Love

 I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret. I hate newsletters. Hates 'em, my precious. Don't read them. Don't write them. Don't send them. I subscribe to exactly three and they are all people I know and care about. Do I open them and read them? No. I get what I need from the subject line and I move on.

Time is a commodity. It has value - possibly the only value - because it is the measure of your finite life. I begrudge no one reading a newsletter, if that's their thing, but in a world that competes for time and attention, the newsletter feels -- I don't know -- not my cup of happy juice.

This is a long way of saying I am absolutely the wrong person to talk to about how to increase newsletter subscribers. I am so bad at sending newsletters that MailChimp fired me as a customer. Seriously. I hadn't served a newsletter in so long, they deleted my database of subscribers. All 60 of them. S'okay. I know all of them. If they want to know what I'm up to, they call or text to ask.

Still. We want to reach readers. We want to let readers know how to find out what we're doing and what's coming up. For some genres, I feel like newsletters are totally appropriate. For scifi, I wonder. I'm actually thinking that I might be better served to leverage a Tik Tok format for a pseudo newsletter-y type of thing. Or Discord. Or some other place where my fellow geeks hang out. This could all be rationalization for the fact that I'm bad at newsletters.

Suppose, though, that I *did* start some 'contact readers' push. How would I draw people to consume my content? Cross pollenization. It has to be done carefully, but you can leverage one platform's content on other social media platforms. Link them all back to a single landing page with you pertinent info - new release, find me at this place at this time! Whatever you want readers to know. The key to success is the same as it in newsletters - offer value. Something silly. Something charming. Something that makes readers feel. Control that and ask for responses. Engagement equals reach. Reach means more eyes. Does it work? Don't know yet. It would have to be tried and tested. The level of effort has to be weighed against the return.

And that's on each author.

Noodling Newsletters

 Full disclosure: Having a difficult mental health day. So if this comes across as defeatist and maudlin, it probably is. There's a chance this is a side effect of a new migraine medication. Or it's just -- [waves hand around.] I'm frankly not sure how I'm supposed to know the difference, which is full on annoying.

Anyway. Newsletters. I subscribe to a few. Mostly friends. Aaaaand like others have already said, I don't read them. My time and attention are so fragmented. I cannot imagine that anyone else in this post modern apocalypse is any different. We have to pick where our shards of time are spent. If I have a few random seconds, I'd rather read your book. Not your newsletter. I'd rather write. I'd rather pet a cat. I'd rather plant flowers.

I do have a newsletter. After a fashion. I rarely send one out. My issue is that writing is already enough like screaming into the void that I don't need to add a newsletter to that mix. I realize that it's my life, so of course it's boring to me. But there's nothing in my life or in my writing process that is worth conveying to others on a monthly basis. My life is no different from anyone else's life. We're all doing the best we can. Yes, I could use it as a promotional tool. Could do. And honestly, that is about the only time I ship a newsletter. When I have something to promote. But a regularly scheduled product? Not currently my cup. I'd like it to be different. I'd like to be a different writer than I am. The best thing I could think to do with a newsletter would be to put outtake scenes or short-short stories in - make it some kind of value add. I could see doing that and hoping that readers would enjoy that. It would require a different life than the one I have, however. Because right now, about all I could offer would be a chronic daily migraine support newsletter with medication efficacy experiences, relief product reviews, and cautions for migraineurs that noise cancelling headphones are likely to set off an attack (but not if you turn off the noise cancellation.) And of course I could talk about cats. Endlessly. I just don't think there's much overlap between those audiences and the SFR audience. Some, sure. And maybe I'd convert one or two. But really, I'd rather just write stories and let those do the conversion. That's the goal, isn't it. Let the stories we love bring in people who might love them, too.

Author Newsletters

 

Is anyone else escaping into books this week? I’ve read some great reads recently—I share about them on Insta and Goodreads—and when I look back at the books, I realize most of them are because of follow book lovers. 

Which leads me to our topic of the week: share your newsletter info. 

And this is where I tell you: I don’t have a newsletter and I don’t foresee creating one. 

Why? Doesn’t every author how-to, agent, and likely publishers tell you to make one? 

Yes, yes they do. If you’re a writer you’ve undoubtedly see that advice splashed across the socials or heard it in any marketing panel you’ve attended. And yet, I resist. 

I’m a pretty voracious reader. I average between 80-100 books a year. If this boggles your mind: 

• I don’t game (I used to, but whoa addictive, so yeah) 
• I rarely watch shows (unless my husband finds something he thinks I’ll love and then we binge together—bonding time!)
• I attend my kid’s sporting events, but I always have a book or two in my purse for the waiting times 

And I never open any author newsletters.

So how do I find new books or know about new releases coming up? I believe I find them the same way most people add to their TBR piles: social media and word of mouth, Goodreads, and the library. The trick is knowing how to find my book’s audience where they hang out, and I don’t think newsletters are it. 

I could absolutely be wrong, but I’d be curious to find out how much cross-traffic an authors newsletter and social following has. Maybe there’s no way to really track that, but if you could know what percent of your newsletter follows you on Twitter or Instagram vs. people that do very little online I’d be very interested. 

Because for me it all boils down to mental bandwidth. Where am I going to put my time for the most benefit. If I’m putting energy into posting and sharing book content then I don’t have a lot left for crafting an interesting newsletter. 

Thoughts? Do you feel your newsletter benefits your author brand? Do you put more energy into promoting online? 

Grey Magic, Dark Wizard, and Storm Princesses - Oh My!

 

This week at the SFF Seven we're sharing newsletter info and promoting work. For those feeling hesitant to promote their books during this terrible time, I'll remind you - as I've been reminded - that art brings us joy and books open minds. When we're dealing with close-minded bigots, hatred, and war, we need stories more than ever. We provide the counterbalance. Please share about your books, because the world needs them.

So: Promo from me! Book Three in my Bonds of Magic series, GREY MAGIC, released on Monday!! 

      

This series is The Witcher meets The Selection. 

His Darkness, Her Brightness… Together They Defy the World

Lord Gabriel Phel at last holds his dream in his grasp—and faces losing everything. He’s finally won the love of his wife, familiar, and mother of his child, and she offers him a heartfelt commitment he can truly believe in. Together they’re building a true house, one with a growing family of friends and allies that can help them stand against their enemies. And he’s learning to master his magic, to use it as the powerful tool and weapon it should be. But old and new enemies array themselves to take it all away.

Lady Veronica, now fully of House Phel, is doing her best to embrace happiness. After all, she has her hands full managing her mercurial and powerful wizard as he navigates taking his place as the head of their house, and with learning her own extraordinary ability. But she fears whatever peace they win won’t last long. When their enemies inevitably strike—including, perhaps, her own father—they must be ready to defend all they hold precious. It doesn’t help that her idealistic husband insists on making foolishly noble decisions that put them at even greater risk, nor that she loves him all the more for it.

As Nic and Gabriel struggle to put their household in order, giving ill-advised safe harbor to Nic’s runaway sister and risking their lives to save Gabriel’s sister’s sanity, their enemies draw the noose tighter on their well laid plans. When the unthinkable occurs, it’s up to both of them to trust in the nascent, unknown magic they’ve woven together.

      

If you're into audiobooks, you can listen to the first in this series, DARK WIZARD. Books 2 & 3 will be out on audio soon! Comment on this post and I'll pick one person to receive a promo code (US only, not my fault) for a free copy of the DARK WIZARD audiobook!

       

Finally, if you follow me, you'll know that I canceled the preorder for THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING, Book Four in the Heirs of Magic series. Several things came together to force me to cancel, alas. BUT, this neatly segues into our main topic, the newsletter! Subscribe to my newsletter for news on when this book will release. There are also regular yummy giveaways. 

The President of My Fan Club

Suuuuuuure I have a fan club! This is the president. Look at those smoochable lips. Unfortunately, these fans aren't readers. At all. And it turns out, they really seem to enjoy impeding the work in favor of being held while they snooze. Negotiations are underway on that front. 

As for reader groups, in a way I have one - it's a pre-existing group of people in a cat group. You're surprised, right? They've known me and my writing since long before I'd been published. They pulled for me and encouraged me. That group are AVID readers and these days there are weekly conversations about what everyone is reading. We have at least three authors in the group. Each time one of us publishes something, the group descends upon it. It's amazing and lovely and heartwarming. It's nothing formal, of course. It's simply my friends being awesome and helping keep my cats in kibble. 

Other than that, there's a Facebook author page which I update once in a blue moon because I refuse to pay FB's extortion that would allow the people who followed that page of their own free will to actually SEE that page. I've done my best to shift those followers to my actual friends page because right now, that's the only thing that isn't being held hostage. There's also an Instagram account that has a bunch of followers, and while I'd originally set it up to be *my* author account, the cats took it over. Entirely. I think out of 300+ photos, one is a book cover. Maybe two. Regardless, that account generates a lot of conversation regarding feline rescue efforts, so when I do post something specific to the human behind the IG curtain, there're always a few 'hey cool!' comments. But if we want to be honest, that group are fans of my cats. Not me.

I had a Twitter account. It's still there, but I have had to accept the fact that Twitter doesn't work for me. My brain just handles information in a way that Twitter wasn't designed to accommodate. And that's okay. So I don't go out there much. Tumblr was fun until it got nerfed. Now it's just -- a sad shell, really. I have a terrible secret about social media, too. I'd MUCH rather talk to readers in person. I so much prefer the energy exchange of meeting someone face to face and getting to talk books and stories. Mine, anyone else's - it's all good. But trying to do that via a couple hundred characters or via a one way newsletter? Not my happy place. Maybe one day, I'll have so many readers, I'll change my tune because newsletters and Twitter are the best ways of letting that many people know what's going on. I would love to have that opportunity. Until the day I cannot possibly meet ALL THE READERS I'll keep doing my best to engage in personal relationships with the ones I do have. Cause they are wicked cool people.

Free and First - A Little Backlist Love

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is A Little Love For Your Backlist: Promo/Blurb from one of your previously published books.

I thought I'd share LONEN'S WAR, which came out in 2016. It's the first book in my entirely self-published Fantasy Romance series, Sorcerous Moons. It's also a free read if you have Kindle Unlimited, or you can request a free copy while signing up for my newsletter.

 An Unquiet Heart

Alone in her tower, Princess Oria has spent too long studying her people’s barbarian enemies, the Destrye—and neglected the search for calm that will control her magic and release her to society. Her restlessness makes meditation hopeless and her fragility renders human companionship unbearable. Oria is near giving up. Then the Destrye attack, and her people’s lives depend on her handling of their prince… 

 A Fight Without Hope 

 When the cornered Destrye decided to strike back, Lonen never thought he’d live through the battle, let alone demand justice as a conqueror. And yet he must keep up his guard against the sorceress who speaks for the city. Oria’s people are devious, her claims of ignorance absurd. The frank honesty her eyes promise could be just one more layer of deception. 

A Savage Bargain 

 Fighting for time and trust, Oria and Lonen have one final sacrifice to choose… before an even greater threat consumes them all.

It's an apropos time to mention this book because I (finally) came out with the fifth book in the series, ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT, on January 23, 2019, and book 6, LONEN'S REIGN is available for preorder at Amazon and Smashwords, scheduled for release March 20, 2019! (I will get it up for preorder at more retailers as the date gets closer, possibly even on my own store on my new website!)

Also, speaking of backlists, you only have 4 days, 11 hours and 44 minutes (as I type this) to get the SFWA Fantasy Storybundle. 16 books by 12 authors, and you can get the bundle for as little as $5, and support charity, too.

Help Viv name her fancypants new Facebook group. Win prize!

My blog-mates have posted about really thought-provoking things this week, haven’t they? Impressive. And on this fine Wednesday, I invite you to go back and read all their wise and insightful thoughtings.

Am afraid, however, this post will be the inverse of wise.

Which, of course, is panicky.

See, my poor brain is jammed completely full of info concerning the EU GDPR (European Union General Data Protection Regulation), which is a new set of laws designed to protect people’s privacy on the internet. Yay, privacy! Yay, Internet! Boo, VivBrain.

This regulation goes live May 25th, by which date everyone who has collected any user data via the web must be compliant. User data includes, among other things, lists of emails like folks use for newsletters. To become compliant, distributors of newsletters have to … okay, you really don’t want to hear all this. I promise. It's overwhelming. But it’s the reason why you’ve been getting all those “hey, if you still want to receive this newsletter, could you click the doodad below?” notes in your inbox. Look for such notes to become more frequent as we near May 25. (And be sure to click on the ones you do in fact want to continue getting!)

Like most writers, I have a newsletter, but frankly, it’s a big ol’ mess, and the task of bringing it into compliance has boggled my brain and made me grumpy. For the time being, I've taken down the subscribe forms, sent info to the folks who are already subscribed, and have put my newsletter on hiatus until I am absolutely certain no one will get an unwanted email from me.

So.

In the mean time, if you’re interested in hearing about my upcoming book releases or discounts/sales of books that are already out, you can

- Follow me on BookBub

- Follow me on Amazon

- Join my brand new, fancypants Facebook group

About that last part... It’s brand(ish). It’s new (true). It’s fancy (only true from a certain point of view). It may be ultimately be named after a cat, but the best part is YOU CAN HELP DECIDE.

Oh yes! This little group is so new it doesn’t even have a name yet.

We’re soliciting ideas for names right now, and in a couple of weeks (May 25th? too on the nose?), I’ll run a poll and we’ll all vote and pick a winner. The person who suggests the winning group name will get… I dunno, something cool. (Do people still like free books? Kittens? Cookies? Bespoke flash fiction?) 

At any rate, here’s the group link again: 

Viv Likes Kissing Stories and Cat Videos (Official Name in the Works)

Join if you want. Don’t if you don’t. Not gonna judge either way.

Regardless, I promise to clear the grumpy outta my brain and get back to putting good-hearted characters into mortal danger.

Reader Rewards - What's the Good Stuff?

THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is done except for the dotting of i's and crossing of t's - and the endless adding and deleting of commas. I don't know about you all, but I never did get the comma rules into my brain. I just accept whatever my copy editor does on those. If only Track Changes had an "accept all comma changes" setting!

Anyway, THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is the third in The Uncharted Realms and - as some who've already read the ARC (man, some of you are *fast*!) have noted - it's not the last. Too much story yet to tell! I'm tentatively titling book #4 THE ARROWS OF THE HEART and have it planned for next May or thereabouts.

If you wanted an ARC and didn't get one, use the comment form on the website and Assistant Carien will be in touch.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven regards Reader Rewards: What Do You Do To Reward Your Fans (newsletter free-short stories, discounts, special appearances, etc.)?

I have a newsletter and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that you can Sign Up For It Here. I don't do a ton of free stuff for the most part. My loyal readers and reviewers get early ARCs, of course, as evidenced above. And I do the occasional contest or giveaway - usually to get ideas for naming something!

There's also a private Facebook group for the readers who want to be able to chat with me about the books and I sometimes do fun things there.

The funny thing is, all of my readers are so amazing that they tell me they buy the books, too, even if they've read the ARCs. And they send ME stuff, like chocolate and toys and other fun things. Or take me out for high tea and lunch!

I think I probably have the best readers in the world, because they reward me all the time with their support and letting me know what they love about the books.

But hey - what would you all want for rewards???

All I Do Not Know

The cat is back. Her feeding tube is out and she's recovering really, really well. My heart, however, is now in for some serious stress testing, apparently.

Aaaand, had you been subbed into my newsletter, you'd know all of this already because I just sent out a newsletter (the third in like three years) this past week. This is to say that when it comes to email lists and newsletters, I'm a learner, not a master. My email list is tiny. As in double digits tiny.

Finding how to subscribe to my email list is probably more difficult than it should be. KAK's excellent write up made that plain to me. Also plain to me is that getting my sign up put up as easily as Marshall did his? Yeah. It's not a thing. I have no way to grab my sign up box and put it where I want it. I have to send you to the Contact page on my website. Not sure why mine is coded that way. Dumb. But there you go. I will be asking my web mistress, I assure you.

My main issue with the whole newsletter/email list thing is that I have no earthly clue what to say. Ever. So my newsletter subscribers are mostly people who already know me from other endeavors - the international cat fancier's list I belong to, for example. So yes. My cats star in my newsletters. Kinda like they do everything else. As a result, I haven't ever really pushed for email sign ups.

The other issue is that I am scattered across a wide array of genres. SFR. UF. Fantasy. Paranormal Romance. In no case have any of my series been completed past two books. Usually, in a push for email sign ups, an author has something to offer - a free book, short, novella, something. And I do. But it is the sole example of sword and sorcery that I've written. So it's an odd lead-in to the rest of my list, right?

Sigh.

I think if we want to be really straight here, this is me. Drowning in all I do not know.