Great Review for TFR
Thanks to all of you who joined in on my COVID book launch for The French Revelation! It was a great success. I read this statement somewhere along the way, which I use to sign some books: Every reader is an author’s best friend. That is the truth! Without readers, where would authors be? I appreciate your participation in the launch. If you missed the 99 cent special, the eBook is still only $3.99. Since I just received a 5-star review from Readers’ Favorites you may want to try it. I’m going to post their review later today. Thanks again! Gerri
THE FRENCH REVELATION BOOK LAUNCH
It’s finally happening! I’m announcing the launch of my romantic suspense novel, The French Revelation! This book is a fun thriller in the gorgeous setting of Honfleur France. Honfleur is a small city in Normandy, France, and one of my favorite places. The book has humor, tension, danger, spies, and, of course, romance.
It will land on Amazon in a few days. The eBook will be priced at 99 cents for about two weeks. Hope you will pick it up and enjoy. I’d be so grateful if you would review it.
Book Description:
When Audrey takes her surprise anniversary trip alone, a man on the plane forces a pocket watch into her hand, warns her of its danger, then dies. Striving to make her visit to Normandy, France, a new beginning isn’t working out. Besides her husband being unfaithful, it seems he has many more secrets. Finding herself in the middle of political intrigue with Russia and the United States seeking the watch she won’t give up, Audrey understands what she doesn’t know about her husband may kill her.
COVER REVEAL
I have heard that most writers are introverts. Many people believe introverts are quiet, shy, non-social. But the true difference between introverts and extroverts is how we get our energy. Extroverts gain energy from others. They go to a party, come home stimulated, and wide awake. An introvert goes to a party, uses their learned social skills, and nearly falls asleep on the way home. Introverts need time alone to keep their energy level up. Thus, sitting alone at a computer, making up stories fits an introvert just fine. Thus, being sequestered by this awful virus, a writer suffers less.
During all this free time, I have worked with a designer on a new cover for my romantic suspense novel, A Marriage to Die For. In my marketing classes, I found my wonderful previous cover wasn’t similar to other novels in my genre. We are helpless conformists. I love the book’s new cover because I can see Livia, my kitty/muse, in the cat carrier. And the woman running is more in line with my story.
In honor of the new cover, I am giving the eBook away for free for five days. So, if you haven’t read it, hop onto Amazon and get the free eBook. The promotion runs from:
APRIL 1, 2020 to APRIL 5, 2020
You would be a FOOL to miss it starting on April Fool’s Day!
Here comes the begging part. Please review the book. Do an honest review. It’s easy, peasy! Go back on Amazon, search for A Marriage to Die For, click on it, which will bring you to the book’s page. Scroll all the way down to CUSTOMER REVIEWS on the left. Below the stars ratings is a gray button which says: WRITE A CUSTOMER REVIEW. Click it! I would truly appreciate it!
Be an introvert. Stay home. Stay safe!
Novel-T Ideas
I am not going to blog about the virus. There is a plethora of information about the pandemic available. But I do have some suggestions on how to deal with cabin fever.
How about growing in your bangs? You would give up the process when your bangs became as long as your nose if you had social engagements or even errands to do. You would stick in a clip to hold the hair back, but you would know you look like a five-year-old. You might even give up and hack the bangs off. But now you have weeks to grow those bangs to a manageable length in total privacy.
You could scrub out the grout between the tiles on your kitchen floor. I suggest you lay a rug after so that you don’t have to do this chore again for a while.
Take the money you save on the makeup you’re not wearing (this for women – mostly), and purchase chocolate, dark chocolate, online. It’s necessary to keep your serotonin level high enough to maintain a good attitude for those in the cabin with you.
Use that new gadget you bought months ago to dust your Venetian blinds. Oh, that was me. I’ll let you know how it works. It looks like a duckbill with fuzzy lining.
Take some time to write old fashioned letters. The ones for which you use paper and envelopes and stamps. Send one to Trader Joe’s and beg them to open a store in your area. Change a few lines and send the same to COSTCO. Or the Cheesecake Factory.
Remember how you say all the time that you don’t have time to read? Fill up your Kindle or Tablet with good books. Mine preferably. Or listen to audiobooks while you paint the ceilings. Or scrub the grout. Or dust the blinds.
Most of all. Stay safe. Stay well. This will pass. Rainbows will be back!
Help Please!
As I muse over my muse, Livia, sipping pool water, I note how dipping her little tongue in the water makes ripples that span much of the pool. This is a metaphor for my own, reaching out to find information on how to bring readers to my novels. Ripples! So many ideas, plans, giveaways, classes. So many generous people giving their time to share knowledge with the rest of us.
One nugget of information I mentioned earlier was how to make an audiobook through Amazon’s company, ACX. Since I love to listen to audiobooks myself while I walk, it seemed like a great idea.
ACX allows you to pitch your book to available narrators who may contact you with an audition. The least expensive option is Royalty Sharing. You both split royalties 50/50. I started there, but the world went quiet. So, I raised my offer to the next level, Royalty Share Plus. When I received an audition, I was excited. The narrator had the perfect voice for my protagonist! And it was amazing to hear MY words put into action. Wow…
The price. Expensive! Yet an audiobook could attract readers, who could turn into buyers, who could turn into reviewers, who could bring in more readers . . . If so, I would make my other two books audible. I could release an ebook, a paperback, and an audible book of The French Revelation, all at one time.
Meanwhile, another ripple: the cover of A Marriage to Die For—which I love—doesn’t conform to other romantic suspense novel covers. Fiverr.com has a group of designers who would show me new cover suggestions, more appropriate for suspense. A woman running away? Escaping?
And what if the title is not capturing the spirit of the book? A marriage to die for could mean a couple wonderfully in love with each other. He brings her breakfast in bed every morning. She cooks him gourmet meals every evening. Should I change the title while I’m at it?
I would LOVE your opinions!
Should I grab the great narrator and take a chance I’d sell more books?
Should I consider changing my cover to look more like other suspense novels?
Does the title give you the impression of scary marriage or happy marriage?
Help!
Researching Best-Selling Self-Published Authors
I began my research on what best-selling self-published authors did to become a best seller. I went on Amazon and asked for the bestselling self-published books. The first one had terrific reviews. It was a memoir of a sort of Job character. It was the second book that stopped me, though. It was number 149 in Writing/Publishing category. It was just what I needed. My research ended while I bought the book.
I’ve read enough of it by now to determine it contains similar advice that I’ve read before. Obviously, I’m looking for a golden egg, aka easy peasy. Every self-help book I’ve read, every course I’ve taken, every blog I’ve read says the same thing. You must build a following, a Tribe. You must build an email list. Not to try to sell your book, but to get a group of people who like you. There is a myriad of ways to do this; one way I’ll discuss today is Giving Content. That could be: If you sign up for my email list, I will send you my short story. Or: you might give a gift of some kind. In fact, the writer of the book I bought, Breaking Orbit by Jonathon Green (I recommend it!), gives you a gift on about the second page. And it stopped my research again. It was knowledge. Who knew Amazon had a program to make your book audible? Jonathon did, ACX.com, and he gave a blow by blow, screenshot description of how to do it. I shared the information with my critique partner—author and entrepreneur Sandra Fontana—and on Friday, we followed the instructions and set it up. We are now waiting for a group of narrators to send us auditions. If they check my stats, they will probably ask for money upfront, but there is a program that some will agree to that is a 50/50 share of all royalties. I’ll let you know.
Since I am not brilliant like Jonathon, or techie savvy, I would have to opt to give away a story. Here are two questions for you: 1) Would YOU sign up for someone’s email list for a short story? 2) Would you do it for this story? A woman falls into the dark web (whatever that is). She can see her husband through a tunnel of light. He’s sitting mournfully in a chair—or having a drink with another woman? My protagonist is surrounded by drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists plotting evil together. Will she stay, hiding in a black corner, or will she don her super cape and rise? She fell into the dark web; there must be others like her. She’ll find them! Take a risk, form a Tribe. Clean up the dark web, shine pure light into it with her own pure will-power.
Would that work?
A WRITER’S CHOICE OF SETTINGS
If you have never visited the coast of Maine, you should add it to your travel dream list. I have traveled to or lived near many coastal areas in the United States. The ocean is magical everywhere, but Maine is special. No other seashore can match the rocky coast of Maine. The combination of spruce/fir fragrance and the salty/seaweed smell of the ocean is unmatched in my experience. You must go. The little island of Southport, Maine is the setting of part of my novel, A Marriage to Die For.
Write what you know. In the case of Southport, I lived there for two glorious years. I knew it well. When I reread that novel, I can hear and feel the beauty coming out in my descriptions of the area, and it still gives me pleasure.
My next book, The French Revelation, takes place in Normandy, France. I had the plot sorted out in my head before I traveled to France with my husband and good friends. I carefully noted each detail of the setting during the time I spent there. The old seaport town of Honfleur, Normandy is another place anyone would be fortunate to experience. Besides the lure of the French language, the fabulous food, the seaside—no ocean smell to match Maine, I must say—the ancient churches, wonderful architecture, and great shops are all in this town. It was such fun to be living the footsteps my protagonist would walk. And again, as I revise and polish the novel, I relive that fabulous trip.
Photo by Luca Garnerone/Pixabay
I have always admired the amazing settings other authors have created from their imaginations. But for me, I write what I know.
What are some of your favorite settings in books you have written or read?
The Secret Violence
I had two poignant experiences when I began writing A Marriage to Die For several years ago. I was in a writing group at my local library. We exchanged pages of our manuscript for critique. On the way out of the library, after the group read my pages of AMTDF, a man wordlessly handed me a sheet of paper. He had written me a poem called, Even Though She Didn’t Know, She Wrote. The gist of the poem was the deep pain of his own experiences as a battered husband. I was shocked.
The second incident came later. A person I had met at a different writer’s group sent me an email about a death of a woman in Provincetown, whose killer was never identified. (at least, at that time). Someone anonymously wrote a poem about her death and posted copies all over town.
Here it is:
THE UNDEFENDED VICTIM
For me, no gavel hammers
The scales were never weighed
My crime was that of a Victim,
My life was the price I paid.
And when my life was taken,
Why weren’t my rights read?
And the statement “Overruled”
When they pronounced me dead?
I’ll never hear my rights
Nor take the witness stand
No attorneys to defend me,
My fate was in a killer’s hand.
But oh, that I could take the stand
If they could witness my last breath,
Could they live with the terror
That I want through in death?
If they could hear my pleading cries
And see the hatred in that face,
At last, we would know,
The scales had been balanced in this case.
If I could, I’d tell the jury
Exactly how it was.
The fear and the pain that I went through
Struck down without a cause.
I have had other encounters since the book was published. My editor wrote:
“Gerri LeClerc shines a spotlight on a silent but deadly epidemic in our suburbs and townhouses all over our nation.”
I can only hope this novel encourages any person in an abuse situation to seek help.
Writing is Good for You
You may remember my Yellow Dress blog. I took quite a sabbatical to regroup after my sister left us. But now I can laugh again about our times together. I am becoming active in the writing world again, currently in the process of revising a book called, The French Revelation.
As part of this renewal intended to regenerate my creativity, I recently attended a class. The instructor told us she was compressing a semester on writing into a two-hour session. She told us to think of it as a mammogram. (I’m assuming most of my readers are women, and that you all groaned just hearing the word.) The class, even the men in the group, laughed out loud at her joke.
Then today, I was compressed! Three or four women at a time came in and went out of our little waiting room. All of us wearing soft pink tops. It occurred to me that this was an opportunity to study humanity for my writing. I put my book down and began to watch. Posture. Facial expressions. Gait. Anonymity attempts. I engaged in conversation with one woman. I noticed her accent, her curly, silver hair, the size of her purse.
And then it came to me. I am back! And every word I write or revise makes me happy.
Novel-T Things 