Submitting Short Stories

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about submitting short stories to writing magazines and anthologies. There are a lot of places out there that are willing to accept work from authors, no matter if they're published or not. Like querying, I thought I would list some dos and don'ts. 

Do. 

Be polite. 

Make sure your cover letter is polite and pleasant. Anything offensive or arrogant will end up rejected. 

Read the submission guidelines. 

Make sure your story is within the specified word count and is a genre they are looking for. If it's not, find somewhere else to submit it. There are a few places that will accept writing that is a bit on the longer side.

Edit your work. 

Don't send a first draft, unless it's immaculate. Like with everything you write, make sure you edit it for simple mistakes. For a short piece places will expect minimal errors so keep that in mind. 

Be aware of fees. 

A few places will require you to pay a small fee to submit. First, check it's within your budget and be sure that you want to spend it. Second, research the place you're submitting to. Is the price worth it in your eyes? 

Be prepared to wait. 

Like querying agents, these places get a lot of submissions. While some might get back to you if you've been accepted or rejected, others won't. Submit to a few at a time and wait a few weeks before submitting to a few more. 

Read the fine print. 

Some places will ask for first publication rights and ask you not to publish elsewhere for a certain amount of time. Make sure you're okay with this before submitting. 

Don't. 

Send nasty emails. 

If you don't get accepted, don't send them nasty or rude emails. You will be blacklisted and they will not accept another submission from you again. Don't burn bridges just because you're upset. 

Trash talk them on social media.

Not only will it make you look bad, but it's also a sure-fire way to burn bridges in the publishing world. Magazines and anthologies talk to each other, and you will find yourself unable to submit to many places after your outburst. Think before you post anything. 

Steal work. 

Don't steal someone else's work and pass it off as your own. Even if they don't catch it straight away, someone will find out eventually and expose you. Use your own merit to get your achievements. 

Pay too much. 

If the cost is exceptionally high for a short piece, don't submit. Chances are you won't get your money's worth and you'll be out of pocket. 

Chase them constantly. 

An email asking for an update after a few weeks is fine, but don't bombard them. It's a quick way to get your submission rejected. 

Ignore submission guidelines. 

Your story will not be the 'one-off' they accept. Not adhering to the genre will get you rejected almost instantly. Going above the word count won't work either, as especially in magazines they only have a set amount of space to fit stories in. 

Give up your rights. 

Don't sign over the rights to your story without thinking. They should only ask for publication rights for a few weeks to months. Don't sign over the whole thing and let them use it as they please. 

Let rejection get you down. 

Rejection is rife in the publishing world and its inevitable that you will receive one at some point. Don't let that put you off however, keep trying and you'll get there eventually! 

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week! 

PS: do you like book bundles? Check these out:

Escape Into Fantasy This June

Joyful June Books

Summer and Sci-Fi Fantasy KU

Why Authors Need Reader Magnets

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to be talking about reader magnets, and why authors need them if they have an email list. 

For those who don't know, a reader magnet is a free gift you give to people when they sign up to your email list. They can be as follows:

Ebook.

Enovella.

Writing/Marketing Tips.

Online book merch.

Character profiles. 

Poster. 

For subscribers to my email list, I offer a free enovella that can't be downloaded anywhere else! It follows the stories of four dragons in the Elemental Dragons universe, you may even see some familiar faces! Link here: https://www.subscribepage.com/jessicaturnbull

I will also be writing reader magnets for other series, such as Celestial Plague, Damaged Goods and Curse of Anubis.

The cover for my reader magnet, the prequel to Elemental Dragons

So, why do you need a reader magnet? 

It entices readers to sign up. 

Readers are not likely to sign up for your email list unless they get something in return. Only hardcore fans will sign up for nothing. If you don't offer anything, you're not likely to get many subscribers to build a substantial list. 

It can be anything you want. 

You can decide what to give away. It doesn't have to be a full ebook, it can be a short prequel to your book or a collection of short stories. It's up to you to decide what you think readers will be interested in and how big a gift you want it to be. 

You'll get more subscribers.

Although some will only sign up for the freebies and then unsubscribe, you'll have a few who will stick around. 

Your email list can be used as promotion. 

The more subscribers you have, the more people you can promote to when you have a book coming out or on sale. The problem with using social media is that when you first start out it can be like screaming into the void. So many people are promoting their work that you will struggle to stand out. With an email list, you have a group of people who are waiting for news on your next release! 

You can offer more than one magnet. 

If you like to write across multiple genres, you can create a reader magnet for each one. For example, a Sci-Fi enovella and a horror ebook. 

More to add to your writing portfolio. 

It's another piece of work to add to your collection, and knowing that people are downloading it can be a real confidence boost. 

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week! 

My Experience With NaNoProMo

Hi all!

This week I'm going to be talking about NaNoProMo, or National Novel Promotion Month. Every year in May BadRedhead Media run this free event, which is full of blog posts by guest writers and resources to help you with promoting your book. There's also the opportunity to win loads of great prizes! 

Website here: NaNoProMo.

I heard about it through joining the BookLinker Facebook page, where a post about it starting soon just happened to be put up when I joined. I looked into it and thought it was a great idea, so I kept an eye on the website for launch day. 

This year they had a launch party where experts were engaging with authors and sharing their tips and tricks with chances for prizes to be won. Due to the fact that I'm in a different timezone and I also worked that day, I missed most of the event but was still able to catch up later. There were great posts about what the experts were working on and engaging authors. Once this was over blog posts were added daily to their website.

My favourite blog post throughout the event was this one: How to Safely Choose Colours for your Author Website. I've always struggled with colours for my website and this post has given me a lot of thinking to do! I think I my colour palette sorted, I just need to adjust my website a bit so it fits.

I also won a prize during week one which I was not expecting! I can't wait for my consultation about marketing.

I will participate again next year as it was just so fun and informative. Even though it's over this year, you can still read all the blog posts and posts from the guests on launch day by going on their website. There's also the posts from 2019 and 2018 as well, so there's a lot to read!

With events such as NaNoWriMo and NaNoEdMo I'm pleased that there's a month for marketing and promotion. A lot of people, like me, struggle with promoting their book so events like this are amazing. I've learned a lot just from reading all the posts and engaging with the organisers. Everyone has been so lovely and the prizes that were available were amazing, such as free consultations on marketing tips and website colours to magazine subscriptions. It's such a great collection of resources and I would definitely recommend authors look into it and participate.

I also just wanted to say thank you to the organisers and the guest bloggers who put their time, energy and heart into making an event like this. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm so grateful that an event like this exists thanks to their efforts.

Before I say goodbye I wanted to announce that Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth came third in Cover Wars, thank you to everyone who voted!

That's it for this week, next week I will be revealing the cover for Elemental Dragons Book 3: Glass and Ice. It will be posted on Facebook and Twitter first with a blog post on it a few hours later! See you next week.

How to Sign Books

Hi all,

I haven't seen many blog posts on the subject so I thought I would offer a bit of advice.

Your author signature needs to be different to your normal one.

Why?

Because, unfortunately, although most fans will keep signed books as a keepsake, others might try to forge your signature and pretend to be you. This is why your signature needs to be different, in order to protect your identity, brand and finances.

Your signature can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it's different to your usual one. You can make it as large or small as you like, add symbols or drawings. It's entirely up to you!

Make sure you practice writing it beforehand so you can get into the habit of using it. The more you practice the quicker you'll get and the less messy it will be.

You should also have a few messages that you can write in your books. For example:

I hope you enjoy my book! (Signature)

Thank you for supporting me! (Signature)

Most authors prefer to sign their books on the title page - example of Venom and Earth

I would recommend three or four messages that you cycle through when signing to keep it fresh and ensure you're not writing the same thing in every book.

If the reader wants the message addressed to them, make sure you check the spelling with them first. Even if it's a common name, it can have loads of different spellings. The last thing you want is to spell someone's name incorrectly in their own copy of your book.

If you want inspiration check out how your favourite authors. See what they write and what their signatures look like so you can get an idea of what you would like to do.

I've signed a few books and having everything ready beforehand really helped me lessen my anxiety. It still worries me when people hand me their books to sign and I find myself writing really slowly to make sure my writing is clear and free of mistakes. My regular handwriting is hard to read so it's important that I slow down so my writing is readable.

That's it for this week, hope you enjoyed! See you next week.

How I use Mythology and Folklore in my Writing

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about Mythology and folklore and how I use it in my writing. A lot of my work is greatly inspired by ancient myths and folklore, so I thought I would go through some of my series that contain it. 

Elemental Dragons. 

This series, of course, has dragons of all species in it. From hydras to Wyrms. I spent a lot of time researching which dragon species I could use for this series. For example, in Elemental Dragons the hydras will regrow heads when cut off, just like in the Greek myth. I've always been fascinated by dragons and wanted to make sure I wrote them the correct way, with a little bit of wiggle room to change them as I saw fit. Even in this universe they study myths through Dragon Mythology classes. I

Years.

I'm currently writing this Young Adult Sci-Fi for Camp NaNoWriMo. The characters all pray to Mother Earth and build machines to sacrifice people to keep her alive. The machines are named after goddesses that represent Earth or are linked to it in some way. They are Sif, Terra, Pachamama, Prithvi and Gaia. I'm still writing this one so I'm sure I will add more as I go along, depending on what the story needs.

Damayanti - by Danielle English @KanizoArt on Twitter

Damaged Goods. 

I have yet to start writing this series, which will be a Young Adult Historical trilogy. The first book is set in ancient Greece, where belief in the Greek gods are rife and people mould their lives around them. Then the next two books are set in more modern times, but people still believe in the Greek gods and it shows how that has changed society. Greek Mythology has always been my favourite and I knew at some point I would write something about it.  

Curse of Anubis. 

As you can probably guess from the series name, this set of books will contain Egyptian gods. Most notably Bastet, Thoth, Anubis and Set. I haven't started writing this series either, but I can't wait to get into it. It will be a Young Adult Horror/Dystopian about a zombie apocalypse. Some Egyptian gods will descend to try to help people during the outbreak, while others are trying to prolong it. After Greek Mythology, Egyptian would come second for me and I still want to do a bit more research before starting this series. 

Mute. 

I'm planning on starting this book during July 2020 Camp NaNoWriMo. It will be my first attempt at New Adult and Horror. This book centres on university students making a video game. They accidentally summon a wendigo, a creature that feasts on human flesh. I'm in the final stages of researching wendigos now as I want to make sure I write them scary enough for people to want to continue reading. 

Elemental Dragons Book 2: Venom and Earth is out Tuesday 14th April. If you haven’t purchased a copy yet but want to - please visit my ‘Books’ page!

That's it for this week! I hope you enjoyed reading, see you next week! 

Pros and Cons of Giving Books out for Reviews

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about another marketing tool, giving out copies of your book in exchange for reviews. Although I've never done this myself, I have been given a few books in exchange for an honest review. It's good to drum up reviews when you need them, as many promotion sites won't advertise your book unless you have a certain number of reviews. 

Pros. 

More reviews. 

This is the obvious one. The more reviews your book has the better it looks to prospective readers. Not all of those reviews have to be positive either, having a few different reviews shows that it's not just your friends and family rating it. 

Advertising. 

You can use these reviews to advertise your book. As I said earlier, a few promotion sites won't even look at you without a specific number of reviews. Some even ask for 25+ with an average of 3.5 stars. Giving your book out can help you get some of those reviews. 

Getting a range of opinions.

Your book will look more professional to new readers when it has more reviews. Some readers buy books based on reviews alone, so having a range of them can help you. 

Extract of a review from entering the Wishing Shelf Book Awards

Cons. 

You may not be able to afford it. 

Especially giving out paperback copies. Ebooks are easier to give out than paperback, as you can just email it straight to the reviewer. With paperback you have to purchase an author copy and mail it to the reviewer all out of your own pocket. 

There's a chance you won't get a review. 

Despite giving the book out, the person may never read it. If they do, there's a chance they won't review it. Then you've given a book away for free and received nothing in return. 

Not all the reviews will be good. 

Asking people to give an honest review means what it says on the tin, honest. If they don't really read books in your genre or don't like of they are required to say so. Be prepared to get some reviews that not are glowing five stars. 

People who love freebies are more likely to be receiving books than regular readers. 

People who only seek free books are more likely to approach you for a free copy in exchange for a review. Just be careful as these people usually receive books in bulk and rate them lower due to the tiniest things. 

That's it for this week! I hope this has helped those who are considering giving books out for reviews. See you next week! 

Paperback Books for Indie Authors

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about indie authors printing paperback books. Is it necessary? Does it boost sales? 

I chose to print in paperback as I wanted to be able to hold my work in my hands, my years of hard work contained in one book. I also did it for my Grandfather, as he was desperate to read my book and show it off to his friends but doesn't have a Kindle.

First off, is it necessary? 

Short answer, no. You can publish a book without paperback and purely stick to ebook. Some authors choose to do this, some don't. 

Does it boost sales? 

I've found that although ebook pulls slightly ahead, a chunk of my sales are paperback. Some people, like my colleagues, prefer holding a book in their hands rather than reading it on a screen. Most of these sales have been friends and family, while readers I don't know tend to lean towards the ebook version. 

Do I need a separate cover for paperback? 

When I had Blood and Water designed, it was originally just ebook. Then a few months before publication I added it as paperback. You can still use the same cover, but you will have to go back to the designer to get the back matter and spine designed. For a paperback cover you will need the following information:

• Trim Size. 

• Page count (including front matter and back matter). 

• Interior colour. 

Mishka hijacking my paperback photo

Are paperbacks better for book signings? 

Although I haven't held a book signing yet, I can imagine that readers would prefer to get the physical copy of the book signed. 

Do I need to bulk buy a certain amount of copies?

I'm not sure about other publishing methods but with Amazon they use print on demand. That means they only print what's needed instead of printing off a certain number and making you buy them to resell.

Traditional authors have them, shouldn't indies too? 

Again, it's up to the author. Most traditional publishers will publish ebook and paperback, but I have noticed a few in the past just doing ebook for their debut authors. Only the author themselves can decide whether they want to do paperback. 

Is it worth it?

In my eyes, yes. I can reach a broader audience and it always makes me smile when I see a physical copy of Blood and Water and now, Venom and Earth. I am keeping a paperback copy of each of my books to put on my bookshelf. 

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading. See you next week! 

Pros and Cons of a Book Trailer

Hi all! 

This week I'm going to talk about book trailers. A book trailer is kind of like a film trailer, except it showcases a book or a series of books. I don't have a book trailer myself, but I have looked into getting one. However, then I heard about how other authors got on with book trailers. 

Pros. 

Not many authors have them. 

There aren't many trailers around for books, so having one done could make you stand out. It can also drive more traffic to your YouTube channel if you post it there. 

It can get more clicks. 

Facebook especially favours video ads over picture ones. A video is more likely to catch someone's attention. Your video ad will get shown to potential readers more than picture ads. 

You can get more post reactions. 

Whether it be likes and shares on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, you can get more attention with a book trailer. If other people like or share it, it broadens your reach to new customers that might not have known your work before. 

It can drum up excitement.

Posting a book trailer for a new release can get readers excited. They may also share the trailer with their friends and family.

Cons. 

They don't convert. 

Although you might get more attention from a video ad, the likelihood of someone buying your book is a lot lower. A video catches people's attention, but it doesn't turn them into readers. 

It's costly. 

Unless you're good with making trailers already you will have to hire someone to do it for you. This can be an unnecessary extra cost, especially if you want the entire thing to be an animated scene or extract from the book. It may be better spent elsewhere. 

There's not a lot you can do with it. 

Apart from using it on YouTube, social media and Facebook ads, there's not really much else you can do with it. You can't easily show it at book events or signings, it would just be for advertising. 

It's better to just get your cover animated. 

An animated cover can be used for more than ads, you can post it all over your social media with links to your book or quotes. This is more likely to get sales than a trailer. 

That's it for this week, see you next week! 

My Writing Toolbox

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about my 'writing toolbox', the resources and websites I use to help me with my writing, editing and publishing. Before I start, I just want to point out that I'm merely discussing these resources, I'm not being sponsored to write about them.

Writing.

Lenovo Laptop.

I write and edit all my books on my laptop, which is currently a Lenovo. Although I now write more often on my phone, I still use it for short stories and editing.

Huawei Phone.

Because I can take this everywhere with me it's what I use to do most of my writing and jot down ideas. I also use it to put all my writing events in my calendar so I can keep track.

Microsoft Word.

All of my books are in Microsoft Word. This is an industry standard for most agents which I why I started using it in the first place. For me it's easy enough to use and it isn't much hassle.

Evernote.

I've downloaded this on my phone and kindle to jot down ideas on the go. Eventually I started using it to write for NaNoWriMo which gave me enough flexibility to write on my lunch break and while on my commute.

Storage.

OneDrive.

All of my books and resources are stored on my OneDrive. It's easy for me to link everything up and I can download it onto my kindle. I have everything separated into neat little folders which keeps everything organised.

Editing.

Findaproofreader.com.

This website was recommended to me by a fellow writer on Twitter. I used it to post an ad asking for an editor for my book and got plenty of replies. I eventually went with my editor, Nicola.

Root-and-branch-editing.com.

This is the website of my editor, Nicola. She's helped me out a lot and cares about my story. I hope to work with her again in the future.

Cover Design.

Derangeddoctordesign.com.

I discovered DDD through another author's blog and booked them right away. I have booked them to do all the covers in the Elemental Dragons series, the two I've got back so far have been gorgeous.

Fiverr.

I've used Fiverr to find someone to write a blurb, create posters for my books and design the cover for the Elemental Dragons Short Story Collection. The people I've worked with so far have been lovely and I would love to work with them again!

Cover Animation.

@byMorganWright.

I recently asked Morgan to animate the cover for Blood and Water and the result is gorgeous! I'll be posting them more often on my Twitter.

Formatting.

Reedsy BookEditor.

I found this online tool while looking up ways to format my book. The best part is that it's completely free! The interface is easy to use and it takes no time at all to upload my books.

Website.

SquareSpace.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, my website is created using SquareSpace. Despite not knowing what I was doing I managed to create my website quite easily, though I'm still learning and adding new features!

Mailing List.

MailerLite.

I use MailerLite to send emails and build my mailing list. I find it quite easy to design emails and create templates, which saves time when sending my newsletter out every month. You can sign up here: 

https://www.subscribepage.com/jessicaturnbull

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! See you next week.

My Favourite Book Series

Hi all,

On Twitter I asked what you wanted me to write about this week, and my favourite book series won! (Spoiler alert - it has cats in it).

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of Warriors by a group of authors who write under the pen name of Erin Hunter. It is by far my favourite book series, one that I continue to read today.

It's about cats who live in a forest in one of four Clans. The first book is 'Into The Wild' and has carried on going since then. 

My Warriors book collection - with my ‘published works’ shelf at the top

Each series follows the perspective of one or multiple characters. My favourite is the 'Dawn of the Clans' which is technically a prequel to the first series. My least favourite is 'The Power of Three'.

My top three favourite characters are as follows:

Russetfur.

Hollyleaf.

Tallstar.

I started reading the books in 2005, when I was about eight years old. Although I took a break for a few years when I turned eighteen, I rediscovered them last year and caught up with all the books. At the time of writing this there are over eighty books in total, with more still to come.

Warriors really inspired my writing, as most of my original stories were about cats. I used to go on the Warriors Forums under the name RussetstarOfCloudClan (inspired by my favourite character - Russetfur and my made up Clan, CloudClan). Although most people just called me Russet. I wrote about my OC, Russetheart and had a spin-off series called Like Lightning, Disaster Strikes. Although reading those stories back now makes me cringe, writing about Warriors really helped my writing to grow and improve while I was trying to find my style.

Mishka wouldn’t make a very good warrior…

Warriors fanfiction inspired me to keep writing and I hope that one day people will love my books as much as they love the Warriors series. I've laughed and cried so much reading these books, and certain character deaths still pull on my heart strings when I re-read some books. I want people to feel that roller coaster of emotions when reading my work too.

I will keep reading Warriors until the authors stop writing books. I absolutely love the series and nothing has matched up to it since I started reading it.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading and will check out Warriors if you haven't already.

See you next week!