Indie Life: How I keep from going crazy. Uh, crazier.

I'm not gonna lie, the last six months of my life have sucked. 

My dad had a massive heart attack and an emergency quadruple bypass. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a couple of surgeries and radiation. I'm getting divorced. I owe more taxes than I used to make in a year. My dog Chief, my last pet, is on the verge of dying.

Yeah, I qualify for country song status for sure.

So, why haven't I taken to my bed with a gallon of ice cream and all twenty-seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy?

Four reasons:

1. I have two kids - a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. They need me to do my mom thing. They need me to feed them, and force them to bathe and brush their teeth. They require hugs and kisses, and dance parties, and for me to know what Minecraft and Dog with a Blog are. My kids keep me dependable.

2. My friends, both IRL and on the interwebs, and my family. They've watched my kids, taken me out to the movies, spent hours chatting about nothing on Facebook, helped me do yard work, and above all else, listened to me. My friends and family take my burdens away.

3. Exercise. Author Angela Carlie somehow managed to get me to sign up for a relay team even though I've never run a mile in my life. This summer, I'll run three, six mile legs in a race from Seattle to Whidbey Island. Another friend of mine talked me into joining her CrossFit gym last August just before my life imploded. I cannot tell you the value of lifting heavy things and doing burpees until your mind is blank. Exercise keeps me physically and mentally relaxed.

4. Work. Writing is therapy that I don't have to pay for. FOUND (Penny Black #1) distracted me with the intricacies of building a future world and creating a main character that is very different from myself. The two pen name short stories I wrote were pure fun - decadent writing just to write. CROSSING, the novel I'm working on now, has been an altogether deeper experience. It's semi-autobiographical and it is helping me repair my self-esteem. I've been able to cry and laugh and remember...and move on. Writing gives me whatever I need. 

My wish is that your life is a little less hectic, but if it's right up there with my vida loca, I hope you have some good ways of dealing too. If not, I highly recommend weight lifting and writing romance. :)

                                                                                                                                                                 

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, FOUND,  the Day of Sacrifice series, the Toilet Business - a collection of humorous essays, the upcoming CROSSING, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel or Reina Stowe, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her kids and her dog and a lot of clean laundry that always needs to be folded and put away.

                               

Defining Success

Defining Success

(Elle Strauss here. I recently posted this on Indie Elite, but I thought it was worth repeating.)

I've officially been an indie author since September 2011, so about a year and a half. When I put my first baby out into the world all by myself, my idea of success was simple. To sell enough books to pay for the cost of self-publishing.

I mean, I couldn't justify losing money on my venture, so if I could just break even... I'd be a success.

It's funny how my view of success has changed a million times in just a few months. Now with self-publishers hitting all kinds bestseller's lists and dominating Amazon's top 100, and doing it in record time, the definition of success, or at least our perception of what success is, can be all over the map.

-if I break even, I'll be a success
-if I make enough money to pay the heating...
-If I make enough money to pay the rent/mortgage...
-if I make enough money to quit my day job

At some point it moves from making money to survive to this:

-if I make the top 100 Amazon
-if I make NYT bestsellers list
-if agents start calling me
-if I get a publishing deal AND I get to keep my e-rights
-if I become a household name in the industry
-if I have a zillion fans
-if I get a movie deal

(Even Trad published authors get caught up in this. One well-known YA author actually tweeted about how HARD it was for her to keep getting asked when her book was going to be made into a movie. She felt like a barren woman who was always being asked when she was going to have kids. Yes, she REALLY said this!)

Let me tell you, this is a recipe for crazy making.

So, what is the definition of success?

I don't know. It's different for everyone. I actually have a hard time seeing myself as successful because I've placed a high bar in front of me that I haven't yet reached.

Sometimes you need to lower the bar.

I got this email recently. It made me smile. It helped me to lower my bar.


"... I've bought all of the clockwise series, Seaweed, Perception, and the Jars of Clay series, ... your writing is amazing, and I can only hope that one day I will be a success like you (:"

(emphasis mine)

Sometimes we don't see ourselves the way other people see us. I'd say, most of the time.

Are you a success? I bet you are. Just lower the bar and keep smiling.

Elle Strauss writes fun, lower YA fiction (time-travel and fantasy). She is fond of Lindt’s sea salt dark chocolate and hiking in good weather. Elle is married with four children and divides her time between British Columbia, Canada, and Dresden, Germany. She also writes upper YA (historical and science fiction) as LEE Strauss. To find out more about Elle and her books check out her facebook page, and follow her on twitter. To find out about new releases sign up for her newsletter at www.ellestraussbooks.com .

Starter Covers

Hey there, Elle Strauss here.

You know that term, starter home? It's the cute little house built for two that you buy when you're young, maybe have a child or two and feel totally squished in when you get the family pet? By then a few years have gone by and (supposedly) you have some equity with which you can buy a bigger house? One you can live in for the next many years and raise all your children?

Yeah, it didn't work that way for me either. But, that's a long winded segue into my topic of Starter Covers.

A starter cover is the first cover a book receives before getting a makeover cover.

My book Clockwise had a starter cover.

starter

makeover

Why did I change it? I was concerned about lagging sales and a few people suggested that the first cover looked too middle grade, primarily because it was illustrated. I loved that cover but I agreed that it didn't have the "read me" factor for an YA audience.

Interestingly, Clockwise was chosen for a cover challenge  last week and the voting results surprised me, 12 to 11 for the original!

I still think I did the right thing by changing the look of book one before putting the rest of the series out, but chances are if I'd stuck with the first theme, it would've done as well.

The main point here for me is, as an Indie it was my choice. I wanted to change it and I did. =)

I'm not alone in this starter cover syndrome. Several of my writerly friends have changed their covers recently, some for the same reasons as me and some because they thought it was time to try something new. Traditionally published books get new covers all the time, when the paperback comes out, for instance, or to update a book or series that's been out for more than a year.

Sometimes they update too soon, and make readers angry, but I'll get to that in a minute.

starter cover

 makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

Megg said: I just wanted to mix it up a bit. The old covers sold well but they've been around awhile.

Stacey said: It didn't stand out as YA. Readers couldn't tell what genre the books were just by looking at them. When they did read the books, I got complaints that the more mature upper YA subject matter didn't jibe with the illustrated covers - which made people think they were MG. Now readers love them and are picking them up because they love the covers. They are recognized as the Zellie brand now and the next trilogy will have similar covers. 

Cheri said:  I'm an indie author, and I love to try new ideas. I had a theory about covers with vivid images on a black background and wanted to test it out. I also knew that in the tiny thumbnail image, the beautiful swirling font of my book title is difficult to read. I wondered if that was a deterrent to potential readers, so I wanted to test that out as well. 

Magan: When I first went through the whole cover design process I was looking for someting in the realm of HP Mallory with the cartooney covers. Both our books are comedic with romance, so I thought a cutesy cover would do the trick. Then the reviews started to come in and I realized alot of people weren't picking up the book because the cartoon cover was giving off a middle grade vibe and that wasn't what I wanted.


Though it's great to change covers, authors have to be careful not to annoy their fans by changing covers they might love, especially mid series. There's some talk on the 'sphere about series books getting a make over midstream. For people who bought the first book, or the first two books in the series, it's annoying when the next book no longer matches. See this post by Narratively Speaking. She's particularily upset by the recent change made to Beth Revis's covers. I for one have Ruby Red sitting on my shelf and have long waited for book two to hit shelves. I'm a little annoyed that the covers have since changed and now my series collection won't match. Plus,the collection loses value when this happens. I'll still buy it though, since I loved book 1.

Megg and Stacey both changed covers for their whole series once the series was out. I, on the other hand made the choice to change the cover theme after the first book was out, believing it would be better in the long run and hoping I wouldn't put off any of my readers who bought the first one. I didn't have a lot of readers yet at that point, and no one has complained so far. (Magan has done the same.)

What do you think about the cover updates? Does it bother you if series covers change before the series is complete?

 

Elle Strauss writes time travel and merfolk chic-lit, light SF and historical YA fiction. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, hanging out with friends and family, and sometimes traveling. To ward off writer's butt she does a bit of hiking, biking and yoga. Elle is married with four children and divides her time between British Columbia, Canada, and Germany. Find out more about her and her books at www.ellestraussbooks.com

New Adult - Let's make it happen

This is the suh-weet Day of Sacrifice Omnibus cover that Keary Taylor designed for me and I'm revealing it for the first time today, here, on the Indelibles site! (You can download the first DoS story for free from Amazon, BN, Smashwords, and iTunes.)

The last novella in the DoS series, Unfavorable, will drop next weekend and the Omnibus soon after.  I've got all my ducks in a row and am so happy to have another series under my belt.

Great cover.
Fun, sexy paranormal stories.
Awesomely edited.
Beautifully beta-read...everything seems in order.

Except, well, the problem I run into every time I publish a Day of Sacrifice story.

What category does it fit in?

These stories are not quite YA. The characters are predominantly 17-25. And only one story - Rebellion - has main characters that fit into the age range of Paranormal Romance for Adults.  There is also, on average, more language and sexuality than a YA novel, but less than, say, what you'd find in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books.

As a self-published author, marketing the book is only slightly less important than writing the book and, frankly, marketing these stories has been a bit of a PITA.

At the #indiechat last week, we got to talking about New Adult as a category. It's not a new idea, but it seems the category is as enigmatic as the books that belong in it. Many publishers, large and small-two exceptions being Rhemalda Publishing and Crescent Moon Press, don't use it because it's not recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble. In addition, some feel like there isn't a need to further compartmentalize novels, grouping them by genre, then sub-genre, then category, then sub-categories.

The thing is, YA isn't really recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble as a category either. You list your books in Children's or Juvenile Fiction and then you can choose teen-ish sub-categories from there.

It makes me feel skeevy.

My YA novels are intended for upper teenage readers and to see them pop up next to children's picture books is just not right.

That being said, YA, Young Adult, is a thing and we've all embraced it. Books need a proper category to go in so that they reach their intended readers. That doesn't mean that adults don't read YA or vice-versa, but it would certainly cut down on some confusion.

And there has been a lot of reader confusion with the Day of Sacrifice series. Reviews indicate that readers think it's too racy for YA and too vanilla for adults.

Yeah, because it's New Adult. :)

So, here's the deal. Many of the Indelibles have written/are writing/want to write novels that fit into the New Adult category.

We're all just going to agree that it's a thing. In the world. That people want.

Like I said before, I'm self-published and half the reason that works for me is because I don't like to sit around waiting for permission to do things the way I want to do them. Now, I know full well that Amazon and Barnes and Noble aren't going to include New Adult in their categories (or even create a joint YA/NA category like they should) any time soon.  What we can do is start using the label in our tags, descriptions, and in how we refer to the books we write.

If we want it, let's make it happen.



(For a more in-depth discussion of the New Adult category, check out this rad article here.)

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her poet husband and their two young children.