SO...YOU THINK YOU WANT TO SELF PUBLISH

This is great news!

Many authors take this route and I am not one of them. I don't have the patience nor do I want to do it.

A lot of people do this because they don't want to
1. Wait for their book to come out
2. They want to keep all of the money. After all you do make a lot more if you do it yourself.


Now, I've already said why I don't want to self-publish. Don't get me wrong, I've done it before and it was WAY too much of my time. I didn't know how to format, I didn't know how to create a nice cover and I didn't want to spend time doing it.

Some of you don't mind all of that.

Now, point number two is real tricky. Yep, you do get to keep all of the money but let's just see how much money you get to keep. Since I did self publish a long time ago; I know what I paid.


I would need to pay at least $400 for editing. Anything less and well let's be honest, it will look like you paid less.
I will then need to pay for a cover. As I said, I'm not a graphic designer and can't do it. So that's  at least $400.
I will then need to pay for proofing. PROOFING and EDITING are NOT the same thing. That's gonna cost me at least $200.
I will then need to pay for formatting. I would spend at least $200 but if I learned it would be FREE
I will then need to order some books for myself. Let's say I want reviews. I need at least 20 copies at $5.00 a piece. That's another $100
Oh, but I forgot about mailing them. So that's another $60-70 because it depends on the distance. (who knew that?)
Now I need books for that book release party. Let's buy 100 because I know I will be able to sell those quickly. That is $500

In total I have spent about $1,660 and this is not counting formatting. But if I didn't learn than I would need to spend an additional $200

Now, if I sell my books at $15 a piece, I'll make a whooping $1,500 yippee...oh wait, no I won't. I'm still negative $160 because you can't count profit until after all of the money you spent is accounted for. Now I need to sell at least 10 more books to break even but to do that, I need to buy more books.

And the cycle begins again.

So for those of you that say, you are self publishing, I applaud you but let's be clear you aren't going to start off making a lot of money initially but if you keep at it, you will.

JUST WRITE DONE JUST RIGHT

In the past couple of weeks, I have attended a conference, attended a book launch at the Jamaican Embassy and given a class on marketing at the Harford Public Library.

Bethany Hacker was the organizer of this great event and let me tell you; her staff was on the ball!

 

From the time I walked in I was greeted like someone special. I checked in a little past 8 am only because I went to the wrong place. Instead of me ending up at the library I was sitting at the ‘administrative office building” for ten minutes before I decided to pull up my email and check the address against what I had plugged into my GPS.  Wouldn't you know, I was 11 miles PAST where I should have gotten off at so I had to go back.  See, even WITH a GPS I still get lost.

So I arrived and was greeted by a very friendly young woman who gave me my name tag, my notebook and my assignment for the day. I said a quick hello to Bethany and just like that another staff member, asked me if I needed help. I said yes and he first showed me the all-important breakfast table with the coffee, teas and assorted bagels for my eating pleasure. He then took me to the room where I would present my Marketing class.

He then showed me to the ‘presenters’ room where I got myself mentally prepared for my panel. I was on time to the room, since he had already given me directions to it and I was greeted by another very eager young lady who was going to introduce me. Wait…this is big time…I actually had an introduction and once she was finished applause (so I really didn’t need to include the applause on my PowerPoint)

I wowed the crowd…all 27 of them…yes I counted them because I was shocked! Utterly shocked that they wanted to hear what I had to say. I worried that I wouldn't have enough material to fill an hour but boy was I wrong. Not only did I fill the hour, the class went longer because they had some great questions.

Afterwards, they thanked me with even more applause. Lookahere people! I love applause and unsolicited applause it the BEST I tell ya! They followed me back and talked to me, they have started following me on Facebook and Twitter and I made some great connection.

The first ever Just Write Conference was Just Right! 

Thanks Bethany for putting on such a classy event. Can’t wait for next year! 

Thriller Fest is coming...among other things

I am so excited that the conference season for authors is upon us.

Yes, that means that #thriller13 is just around the corner and that also means that the #C3Conference will be right behind it.

Thrillerfest was my introduction to conferences and I have been hooked ever since. They put on a class act show and the banquet dinner is where big publishers and small publishers sit down, share a meal and talk about the great accomplishments of great authors.

Last year I shared a table with Steven James, author of Queen, Pawn and Knight. I also got to talk with +Eriq LaSalle and even got a picture with him. You should check out my website, and I also brought home lots of books.

In September, I will then be a presenter at the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference in Baltimore and I am so excited! The conference is the first of its kind and we are all excited to be a part of it. +Jeffery Deaver, +John Gilstrap and many others have already signed up for it and we hope that you do to. If you want more information, please click, http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com and all of your questions will be answered.

I hope to see you at one of these conferences. You will be able to spot me, I'll be the one in the stilettos!

Interview with Austin S. Camacho

What have you learned about yourself as a writer from your first book to your latest novel?

I've learned that no story is ever quite as good as I want it to be... and that the next story will be better because of what I learned wrestling with the last story.  Also, I have learned that creating great fiction requires more than talent - you need to study your craft and never stop learning how to do it better.

Why did you make Felicity Irish in the Stark and O`Brien series?

I wanted to play with the concept of opposites attracting.  I started with the most familiar character for me - an inner city African American man with military experience.  When I reached in the other direction I ended up with a white woman from another country who had been an outlaw.  She needed to speak English of course, and aside from Scandanavians the Irish have the lightest skin of anybody so that's where I landed.
 
 In the Hannibal Jones mysteries, are the characters that help Hannibal anyone that you patterned them after?

Hannibal's posse all started out as stereotypes but I expanded them from there.  So none of them was based on any individual... except Virgil, who is loosely based on one of my uncles, who came back from WWII Army service hooked on heroine.
 
Your latest novel deals with a very sensitive issue that a woman would face. How were you able to capture the emotion of her feelings towards what happened to her?

That is the essence of writing fiction.  I have to be able to put myself in the emotion shoes of each character.  Emotionally women are different from men, so we men have to observe them very closely during moments of extreme duress and capture those emotions for later use.  Once you've seen a woman go through being really hurt, you can portray it in words.
 
In the age of e books how are you making your novel stand out from the rest?

I believe good writing will stand out regardless of the format.  I hope my novels stand out because of their well-developed characters - people you are happy to get to know and keep up with.

Do you listen to music, watch television or need total quiet when you write?

Definitely music!  It blots out distracting noises and amplifies emotion, making it easier to put the right emotional content into my writing. 
 
Since this blog is about shoes, books and writing...tell me what book you like the most, whose writing style you mimic and who is your favorite show designer.

I don't have a favorite book but I do have favorite authors: Raymond Chandler, Ellmore Leonard, and Walter Mosely of course.  I dream of writing Chandler's poetic prose and Leonard's real, troubled characters, with Mosely's perfect sense of social setting.  But I can't even name a shoe designer...LOL...
 
Tell my audience where you will be next.  I will be reading at the Art and Lit event at Watermark Gallery at the Baltimore harbor on April 7th.  You can read all about it at https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/513941071981686/ 

Conferences...Should I go or stay home?

That is the question I used to ask myself and I used to say, I'm not going. What would I have to gain by going anyway? Besides, I could keep that money in my pocket.

Well, let me tell you. Going to conferences should be on your list of things to do. Why? Well I'm glad you asked. What, you didn't ask? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Conferences not only prepare you for what you will deal with when trying to promote yourself and they also make for great networking opportunities. Yes, you need to be able to tell someone about your book in less than 15 minutes and at a conference you are asked that question hundreds of times. Great practice.

Austin Camacho plans his schedule a year in advance. He then checks the schedule of the conference he wants to attend and the panels he wants to see. It also gives him a way to get his personal copy of the novel signed by the author. "I used to go to learn about the business and to improve my writing. Now I go for the networking and the charge I get from being around great writers."

See that is what I'm talking about! He has a plan and he sticks to it. Now quiz time. How many of you have a plan to attend conferences? (hearing the birds and crickets) Well, do you see my hand waving around in the air like a flag? I plan on going to as many conferences as my purse can handle. Like, the C3 conference in Baltimore in September 2013 and Love is Murder in February and Thrillerfest in July.

So I already have three on my schedule and now I need one or two more. Hmm, should I go to Romfest in June or maybe it will be Bouchercon in October. These are just a few that I can choose from.

Which one will I see you at? Drop me a line and let me know so that I can meet up with you. I'd love to see you.