Author Olivia Boler

writing is fun
February 14th, 2012

Hey, all you Nook & iPad peeps!

It’s my duty to tell you on the blogosphere that The Flower Bowl Spell is now available through Apple’s iBookstore and/or iTunes. To answer my aunt Deetje, yes, you can buy books through iTunes. Movies, TV shows, and podcasts too, as well as other stuff that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with tunes, but there you go. If you are an iPad or iPhone or iPod user, go crazy! It is also available in the Barnes & Noble online store for all you NOOK fans out there. And yes, it’s still just $0.99 in both stores. As my author colleague, the talented Tina Boscha, would say, “WOOT WOOT!”

Sooooo…FYI, I’ve received some feedback from friends and family who have finished the book. And of course all the things they say are very nice. Some have even written reviews on Amazon. OK, two have, plus there’s another review on Goodreads. Thank you, readers! I know I’m starting to sound like the dreaded broken record, but please do post your thoughts about the book after you’re done because the more reviews there are, the more new-reader interest there will be. Yay, fun! And if it helps, I’ll tell you something sad: I haven’t had any new Kindle sales in days. Days, people! Clearly, I need to do more promo work, I hope without spending any money or as little as possible. Is this possible? Must I break those eggs to make an omelet?

Well, before I get out those eggs, let me wish you and yours a Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 10th, 2012

Create Space for Me

I feel like I’ve been neglecting my blog, even thought it’s only been a few days. Tweeting and Facebooking about The Flower Bowl Spell have been taking up my writing time, and I get the feeling I need to stop spinning my wheels and make something happen—namely the paperback version and reviews. I know the latter must be done ASAP, but here is where I truly feel I need some kind of road map. I’ve done this review hunting before, and it’s really time-consuming with no guarantees of success. Kind of lot publishing!

I did spend an afternoon looking at the Create Space website, feeling a little more and more daunted by what I have to do on the technical side. What’s holding me up? The cover. I have a lovely cover designed by a lovely artist, but I need to figure out the “bleed,” that is the size it’s going to be. The thing about ebooks is they don’t have true page counts, but I need to figure out my novel’s page count now so that I’ll know how wide the spine will be. Blah blah blah.

Create Space also gives you a nifty calculator to figure out what your royalties will be. I was planning on making the book really inexpensive—like under six bucks—but the profit margin is so dismal, I think it’ll be more like $14 or $15. You’d pay that for a nice paperback, right? The royalties are best if readers order from Create Space directly. They’re slightly lower if the book is ordered through Amazon, and then they’re really, truly, madly, deeply bottom of the barrel if ordered through the Expanded Distribution option (meaning, if I make the book available for order from local bookstores and for libraries). I am so going to make it available this way—money is not the main issue—because I want readers who don’t want to order online to be able to support their local independent bookstores. Heaven knows, they need all the help they can get. My neighborhood is down to one general interest bookstore. Yikes. So, I plead with you, dear readers and bloggers: Go out and buy a book this weekend. You’ll be happy. Trust me.

Oh, and speaking of being happy, have you bought my ebook yet? Well, what are you waiting for?

Happy weekend, people.

 

February 7th, 2012

Olivia’s author interview with Dina Santorelli

Blogger Dina Santorelli, who is a fellow freelance writer working on a novel, posted her interview with me this morning on her blog, Making ‘Baby Grand,’ the Novel. I have been following this series of author interviews as well as Dina’s weekly writing tips, which I think are just so helpful. You can read my interview by clicking here. Cheers!

February 3rd, 2012

Premium Status and Kindle Love

The good news: The Flower Bowl Spell got Premium Status approval from Smashwords. Whoo hoo! [fist pump] That means they will ship it to Apple (iBooks/iPad/iPhones), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Sony (Sony eReader), Kobo, and Diesel for purchase through those channels.

The bad news: It won’t be up for sale at those places for two to three weeks. Boo hoo! [pout] Smashwords has the book in its shipping queue, they only ships on Thursdays and Fridays (today is Friday, and it didn’t ship), and then it takes another one to two weeks for the book to be available with those purveyors of fine e-lit.

The good news: You Nook, Kobo, and iPad users can upload the book NOW from Smashwords‘ website. You can then download it to your readers. You can find directions on how to do this here. Even Kindle users can do this, although I did upload it separately with a different ISBN (actually, it’s just Amazon’s ASIN, but what do you care really?), so Kindle users can get it NOW on Amazon.

Did I mention it’s 99 cents everywhere! That’s $0.99, in case you missed it the first time.

Next on the agenda: Uploading the paperback version to CreateSpace, wrestling with my website, and drumming up interest from readers/buyers other than my family and friends. Oh boy.

 

January 31st, 2012

Flower Bowl Spell up on Kindle

Mission accomplished! My goal back at the end of 2011, was to get The Flower Bowl Spell up for sale as an eBook in January, and I did just that. (Pat on the back.) The book went live on Amazon yesterday. I downloaded it, noticed a couple of glitches (e.g. my author photo wasn’t showing up), and got some help on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) forum. People  in the community were really great, patiently walking me through how to create a zip file on Word (I’ve often opened zip files, but never knew I could make one without special software. Sometimes I’m an unintentional Luddite).

Anyway, my next goal, to be accomplished in February, is to get the book on CreateSpace so those who don’t have eReaders can buy it. I’ll look into the Expanded Distribution plan, which means bookstores and libraries could order it too, as far as my understanding of it goes. Also, I’ll need to start promoting it, looking into book bloggers and reviewers who might give it a chance. If you know of a reviewer, website, blogger, etc., who might be interested, please share!

In the meantime, if you have already bought a copy, thank you so much! That’s $0.99 well spent, to be sure!

January 26th, 2012

Welcome to Olivia’s new website

This has been quite a day, an up-and-down day. I uploaded my first eBook this morning on Smashwords. It’s called The Flower Bowl Spell, and you can buy it for $0.99. What a bargain, right?

A little bit about me. When I was about 28 years old, in 2000, I published my first novel with a small press. The book is called Year of the Smoke Girl, and you can find used copies on Amazon. I thought I’d hit it big! I wrote more novels, short stories. Even a novel-in-stories. I quit my day job as a paralegal to write full time as a freelancer. I queried agents and publishing houses. None wanted to represent or publish my new work. In the meantime, my editor passed away and so did his publishing house.

Flash forward to 2011. Ebooks are hot. Self-publishing is no longer considered a one-way ticket to Loserville. Some of my writer friends have made it. Some are still keeping their day jobs. I’m about to turn 40, and it seems time to give myself a very big gift—the gift of publishing one of my novels, one that I think has a chance to be successful.

So today, 25 January 2012, I did just that.