Tag Archives: Kindle

Bound by Life FREE on Kindle today!

Bound by Life: Expectations and Reality

Expectations

I’d sell 10 paid copies in the first month. Ten isn’t that big a number, is it? Should I set a higher count? 20? Nah, what if I don’t reach 20? Then I will feel bad and wont be able to concentrate on anything else. So 10 it is!
A week before the release of Bound by Life, I post a message on Facebook asking my friends if they want a copy of my book. Over the week, I give away around 50 copies free to people I have known from school and college days and ask them for reviews through email and Facebook. I expect at least half of them to write a review. Fairly reasonable, right?
I’d sell about a hundred copies on the free promotional days.

Reality

From June 20 to July 31, Bound by Life has sold 2 paid copies. Yeah, you read that right. Only TWO! That’s 80% below my expectations.
Of all the copies I have sold or given away for free, I only have three reviews on Amazon.in and one on Amazon.com. Turned out many of my friends who were willing to review were not eligible for reviewing on Amazon as they had not bought anything from the website before.
On the free promotional days, July 1-2 I sold about 25 copies. I won’t even get into percentages now!

When I was writing the book I was in the middle of my final semester. When my friends were perhaps studying for exams, I was busy writing and editing in MS Word. I was planning all sorts of things I could do to promote my book. It was like a dream, thinking about the book all the time.

Now, one month removed, how do you think I am faring? Am I sick because I sold so less? Am I depressed? Sad? Numb?

Well, here it is: I am absolutely fine! I took two blogging courses from Blogging U. of WordPress recently. I am reinventing my blog. I am writing guest posts. I am reading, I am interviewing other authors. And I am trying to outline my first novel. I am enjoying every bit of my personal life.

But that said, I haven’t given up hopes on Bound by Life. I DO NOT intend to be rich by selling the book, but this book is out in the world to help me be a better writer. So, I still want reviews and for that, I need to sell. And I NEED YOUR HELP to do that!

HOW CAN YOU HELP ME?

For those of you who have not downloaded my book, here is another opportunity for you to do so. Yes, Bound by Life is FREE again on 5th August! Mark your calendar, add a reminder! Do whatever you wish but do not forget to download it on the 5th! Click here to find the book on Amazon or bookmark the following URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X6VG3B0
Have you downloaded my book in a previous giveaway? Great! Then please leave a review for me on the same link. Don’t fret that you’ve never reviewed anything before. All I want is your honest opinion, something you’ll tell me face to face if you had read my book. If it’s two lines, I am up for it! If you want to say what a pathetic read the book was, go ahead! Not only I care for sales, but I also want to know how I can better my writing. And your criticism does just that! So please, please, please leave a review for me on Amazon.
Share this post! Reblog it! Email to a friend. Share it on your Facebook page. Start the hashtag #BoundbyLife on Twitter. Any platform you’re comfortable sharing, I am happy! Help me reach more people, so that more people download the book on the 5th.
Help me spread a word about the book. Do you host author interviews on your blog? Then shoot me your questions and publish the interview on the 5th. Ask me out on blog tours.
Enlighten me on other ways to promote my book! Have you marketed a book before? What helped boost the sale? I am open to all kinds of suggestions.

For any questions, please feel free to contact me through the form below. I am excited to hear from you!

Two Kittens and Two Important Announcements

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I came home yesterday on a long break after four long years. I was away in Kolkata completing my engineering degree. I will be starting my work-life in October. Until then, I am looking forward to a blissful holiday season. And guess who welcomed me to it? These little babies!

Kitty No. 1: “Ain’t I pretty?”

kitty No. 2: “Don’t you mess with me!”

“Look! I am so big.”

I found these sweeties on my way to the market with my mother. They were lurching under some shrubs in my neighbour’s garden. I wish I had a better camera to capture their playful moments.

Two Important Announcements!

Okay! Now moving onto the important announcements that I promised.

First and foremost, my book Bound by Life is available for FREE on Kindle on 1^st and 2^nd July. And since it’s already 1^st, you can directly hop onto Amazon and download it for FREE on your Kindle device/app. I have worked pretty hard writing it and nothing is more fulfilling for me than having more and more people read it. If possible, share this information with as many of your friends and acquaintances as you can. As the saying goes, sharing is caring. I’d be grateful to you all for this huge favour.

Here’s the Amazon link of the book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X6VG3B0

Second, this month in Saturday Specials, one of the regular features on my blog, I have decided to revive the guest post concept once again. I had done it earlier in May and it was a great success. Unlike last time, this time I am introducing a specific topic. The topic for July Guest Posts is:

Re-living the classics

I am sure you all have your favourite books from the good old era. Are you an Austen fan? Is Hemingway your way? Or is it Dickens? Whatever it is, bring it on. Re-read your favourite classic (or read the one you’ve always meant to but have put off for a long time) and write a review of it. I will publish that review on my blog as a guest post. I am also open to reviews of classics in languages other than English.

You’re wondering now, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Let me tell you what is.

You’re going to read a classic either for the first or the umpteenth time. That in itself is a big catch. I know you’re busy at school/work. But hey, you love reading, right? So, come on! I challenge you.
By guest posting you increase your audience. Along with your post I will publish links to your blog in the guest post. My readers are likely to be different from yours, so by guest posting you have a great chance to widen your readership. Maybe someone will love your writing and click on the link to your blog and start following you!

If you’re willing (which I hope you really are because the success of my Saturday Specials this time lies in your hand and I trust you), please note the following:

July has four Saturdays, so we have spots for four guest posts. Hurry or someone else might snatch your place!

Image Courtesy

The review must be previously unpublished on your blog. It’s okay if you’ve reviewed it on GoodReads/Amazon, though. In that case, it’d be nice if you add something to the old review.
Use the contact form below to mention your name, email and which book you wish to review. Remember, the name of the book you wish to review is crucial because we don’t want the same book to be reviewed by all.
After your post has been published on this blog you will be notified of the same through email. I ask you to reblog the post then on your blog so that your readers/followers can get a taste of it.

Since the first Saturday might be way too soon for you to write a review, I have a backup plan of placing my own review of a classic this Saturday. But I’d love nothing more than you surprising me with one of yours this weekend.

So, my dear bloggers, are you ready? Jump to the contact form and start filling! Hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,

Arpita

Five Lessons that My First Book Taught Me

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Bound by Life, my first book, an anthology of short stories based in India, is nearly complete. I started it in March, and am publishing it through Kindle on June 20, 2015. In these three months, I have learnt a lot about the writing process in general, and my own preferences in particular. In today’s blog post, I share those lessons with you.

1) Deadlines are both bad and good: I started Bound by Life as if on a dare. I discovered Kindle Self-Publishing and thought this genie was daring me to write and publish a book as soon as I could.

At that point, I was in my final semester of engineering, and had a lot to do besides writing stories. I had never really considered this fact while starting the book, and selecting a deadline. As the days progressed, I started to panic. I had finished five of the ten stories I intend to publish in Bound by Life by 5^th May. By the end of May, that number had only increased by one. I mean I had other stories in the pipeline too, but those were half-way or quarter-way through. And lesser time with the stories means lesser time with editing, which can often be a bad thing.

Then again, I had never been a disciplined writer. I have written since I was eight. But it was only recently that I found out that what I wrote were mostly poems, blog and diary entries when what I really wanted to write was some great fiction that would change people’s lives! If I didn’t use that deadline, I would perhaps still be writing what I usually wrote. Since that deadline, I have not only written stories for my book, but sent a few to magazines as well. One of my stories, I am Mala, was published in the May edition of eFiction magazine this year! Hurray!

2) Writing is important, but editing is much more important: Now, any author knows this: we can’t stress editing enough. Every time I went back to one of my stories, I found I could tweak some sentences to make them sound more interesting, or erase entire paragraphs that added nothing to the story. I wish I had more time with the editing process for Bound by Life. But I am doing the best that I can.

3) There are going to be creative ups and lows: While I was writing stories for Bound by Life, on certain days I was sure my stories were awesome and I was over the moon, smug and all that. On other days I was just panicking and thinking my books would never sell any copies.

Then, I realized all this was quite natural. To wave off these mixed feelings, I tried to be more involved in my real life. The fact that I had my final semester exams helped, because at that time I was distracted and too busy to think that my book was trash or too good. I spent more time around people, read books, and discussed those books. I wrote reviews for stories. Mostly, I wanted to come back to the stories with a fresh mind and a more positive outlook.

4) Each story is different, and has to be handled differently: if you have ever worked on an anthology, you’ll know the feeling. There were some stories I wrote in three hours while others stretched on for weeks – these were the ones which appeared interesting to me when I first thought of them, but then didn’t know how to get them down in words.

There was this one story which I had high hopes for. It had a character, an elderly lady, who I was interested in. But I wasn’t familiar with the state of mind of a woman of her background and age to pen it authentically (as a writer, I tend to draw inspiration from real life quite heavily). Finally, after sending the first draft to a couple of acquaintances (a process which made me see the flaws in the story all the more clearly, and I kept telling them that it was a first draft and they shouldn’t judge me by it), I realized I should put away this story until I felt mature enough to deal with its characters. There is a right time for everything, and for a writer (as with anyone in any other profession), it is very important to know your shortcomings, and accept them gracefully.

5) Your first self-published book is perhaps really not going to be the best-seller you were hoping it to be: Hell, perhaps it will not even sell fifty copies. The publishing industry today has changed a great deal in favour of indie writers, especially thanks to Amazon. But writing your first book and making it a publishing success are two different things. And the process is especially difficult if you are a nobody like me, with a meagre Twitter/Facebook/blog following (not that I am saying that those are the only necessary criteria to sell your book).

When I first began writing this book, I had these dreams of selling so many copies and making lots of money. But in the last two months I have read lots of articles on publishing to know better. Finally, I accepted that I wasn’t going to make any money from Bound by Life, and that made life easy. Thanks to that acceptance, I have different marketing ideas now to pitch Bound by Life, but that is going to be another blog-post.

Until later, have a nice week and keep blogging!

In conversation with Doug Lance, Editor-in-chief, FictionMagazines.com

The Pilgrim’s Journey – Part One

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Welcome to a new series at Scribbles@Arpita. But before I start, let me ask the old-timers something: When you landed here today, were yourself confused about this blog’s identity? Were you about to hit the close button when you suddenly found the interview with Tammy L. Gray on writing and self-publishing from last Wednesday and realized what was different?

Yeah, I know. Scribbles@Arpita is changed! Big time! I promise there won’t be such a drastic change again in the near future, but please do let me explain to you why that this change was necessary.

Oh, before I do that, a warm hello to my new visitors! For context, here’s what my blog used to look like before it underwent The Great Transformation!

Earlier version of Scribbles@Arpita

Now, jumping on. Throughout my college life I have wanted to publish a book by the time I graduated. By the time I got serious about it, it was March 2015, only three months short of my graduation. There are a number of steps that I have started to take since and that is going to be the subject of ‘The Pilgrim’s Journey’. It’s going to be a long series in which I will pen out my wayward journey into the creative world of writing and the difficult world of publishing.

Why do I think this series will be a help to you? That’s because I research a lot about writing and publishing. And in doing that, I often come across awesome tips from various people in the writing and publishing business which I believe will be of much help to those who are starting off like me. I am sure you do your research well. The aim of this series is not to replace that; it is here to help accentuate it. Oh, you have something to add on to my experience? I’d be happy to host you as a guest in my blog. Just leave a comment below if you want to share your experiences here and I will get in touch with you.

So, in the first installment of ‘The Pilgrim’s Journey’ let me tell you what I have done since March this year.

The idea to get myself published coincides roughly with the birth of this blog. I believe a blog is a good way to garner readership and build your brand. It’s a great medium to carve out a relationship with your readers, letting them know what you write and also see what they want to read. I was recently reading Jane Friedman’s Guide on blogging. Do read it and you’ll know why my blog underwent this huge plastic surgery.
Then all of a sudden I came to know about Amazon KDP, where you can self publish your books at no cost at all. I published a story as an experiment. Let me tell you here that it has sold no paid copies so far, and even the free copy sales were meager. But it taught me a great deal about how to publish my second book, Bound by Life, which will come out on June 20, 2015. So, mark your calendars!
After I published the story on Amazon KDP, I created my author page at Amazon Author Central.
While I was on this creating spree, I stumbled on Facebook, and created my official Facebook page to reach out to readers. It doesn’t have many followers yet. But I just started!
I started looking for free Kindle books and came across this beautiful novel on YA by Tammy L. Gray. I wrote to her on Facebook, asking her to do an interview with me. Luckily, she agreed, and I happened to have the very first interview on my blog, which by the way has many good tips for beginning self-published writers. I hope to do more of these interviews in the coming months. So, if you know an author who cares to be interviewed by a beginning blogger, do let me know.
Since I started to write seriously, I have checked out various online contests (read, free online contests – I have this strong policy of investing money in writing only after I have got some initial monetary return through my ebooks. Call me a miser, if you like but I refuse to budge!). I participated in a Flash Fiction contest and was even shortlisted, but well, did not make the final cut.
I have also been checking out magazines which publish short stories. I sent out my writings to a few like Out of Print, eFiction and StoryShack. But then I realized that I was yet to match their standards. Plus, I have my own project (Bound by Life) to tend to which consumes all my creative energy these days. So, I am going slow in the magazine sector as of now. But as soon as I am done with my book, I will be sending out new stories to the magazines.
I started to read more since March. I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘The Lowland’ recently and loved it! Currently I am reading a book on Indian history, ‘Freedom at Midnight’ by Dominique Lapierre.
I signed up for free newsletters from some of the veterans in the publishing industry: Jane Friedman and Chip McGregor. I LOVE Jane’s website! It has just the right tips and suggestions for me.

I don’t know when I will hold my first book in my hands (a real book made of real paper). I don’t even know if what I am doing right now is going to help me do what I want to. But I have a feeling it will. Either way, I am allowing myself a year to fail. To fail and to learn: that’s the motto for me in 2015.

See you around in the next part of The Pilgrim’s Journey, and I hope I shall be able to share some good news with you by then.

Before you leave, please let me know how you like the new look of Scribbles@Arpita. Does it attract you and make you want to read on? Or is it too cluttered and distracting? Your feedback is my guide, my compass.

On writing and self-publishing: An interview with Tammy L. Gray

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The world of publishing has been revolutionized by the digital domain. No longer does an author need to go door to door of the traditional publishers begging them to read her work. Online bookstores like Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and Apple have brought to the fore fresh talents through self-publishing.

Today, I give you Ms. Tammy L. Gray, Kindle best-selling author for her Winsor series and Mercy’s flight. She self-published her first novel of the Winsor series, Shattered Rose, two years back on Kindle. Her genres encompass Romance and Young Adult. In her books she says that her mission as a writer is “to provide clean, culturally relevant romances that incorporate messages of hope and healing.”

Shattered Rose is available for free on Amazon Kindle, and it was through that I came to know Tammy. With the very first few pages she had hooked my attention, so much so that I finished to novel in a single day. I intend to go back to it from time to time, for such is my love for Avery, Parker, Jake (that’s the one I loved best, in spite of all his flaws) and Issy. Y

You can imagine my delight then, when after hardly much convincing, Tammy agreed to be interviewed for this blog, which is also the first interview on Scribbles@Arpita. Thank you so much, Tammy.

So, read on as Tammy talks about the writing process in general and gives out these great tips on how to be successful in the world of self-publishing.

When did you first decide to write a book and publish it?

For the last ten years, I felt a call to write a book about self-esteem and how Christ is at the center of our worth as women. I didn’t know what it would look like, but I just knew I would write it one day. In November 2012, after a very hard weekend, I felt absolute surety that it was time to write my book. Only, instead of a non-fiction memoir, I decided to write a fictional story about a young girl who suffered from a terrible sense of self worth. I published that book in April 2013, and the response was so positive that I kept on writing.

You first self-published your books 2 years back.Tell us about the journey so far.

After I finished writing Shattered Rose, I did go through the process of trying to find a literary agent so I could get a publishing deal. What I found what that the window is very small when it comes to traditional publishing. They are looking for very specific types of books. My book really didn’t fit within any of the boundaries. So, I decided to self publish at that point. It’s been a fantastic experience for me. Amazon makes self-publishing easy and I’ve been very successful in sales through the eBook market. Now, I am considered a hybrid author. I have books that I self publish and also books that were published through a publishing house.

What have you learnt in the process of self-publishing? Any tips for new self-published authors?

Look for high quality, freelance cover artists and editors. This is the biggest thing. You want to produce a high quality book with a great cover. That will get readers to pick your book out of millions on Amazon. Once you do that, use the price marketing tools to bring in new readers. I highly recommend you have 2-3 books ready to go before you self publish. Amazon likes quantity, so the more books you have uploaded, the better they are seen. After the first six months, put your first book out for free. You will have thousands of downloads.

Do you edit your books yourself?

No. I have beta readers and also editors that I hire out.

What are the required skills to be an author?

We all have different talents or skills, so I can’t say there is any one type. But I will recommend that you get some training or education on writing craft. Margie Lawson academy is very good. Also, there are great plotting and characterization books on the market. Your first book will not be your best one, but with each new novel, you learn and grow and get better and better.

Do you think the promotion that an author has to do today (especially on social media) takes a toll on her creative self?

No. It takes a toll on your time, but if you are careful to organize your time, then you should be able to write and market effectively. Marketing has always been a must. It just looks different in this technology era.

Most of the published fiction books these days are novels. Is the short story dead?

I really don’t know. I don’t read short stories or write them, but I’m sure with research, you can find a way to do it effectively. There is a website, WATTPAD that is good for uploading stories. It’s free, though.

Does the process of writing get easier with time, as one writes more or does it depend on the topic/genre the author it writing on?

Yes and no. Yes, the process gets easier. As a writer, you find your voice and feel comfortable in your skill. You know what works for you and what doesn’t. You have a trusted circle that can help you stay focused. No, because the more you learn, the more you realize you need to learn. So as you get better, you continue to see flaws and challenge yourself. If writing ever stops being a challenge, an author should probably take a step back and see if they are growing.

Tammy can be reached at her Facebook page. Also, do check out her website for all the latest news. Picture Coutesy: Facebook