Stock Versus Professional Photo Shoot.

What every other debates is what they want on their cover. Every time a new book comes out we either fall in love with the cover photo or we despise it. We complain that it's a work of art or a cheap ploy that the author or publisher is using the get readers to buy their book when it's actually horrible.

Some readers wonder why Daemon (aka Pepe Toth) is on so many covers (Indie and traditional) and authors get mad when they see the same thing.

Here's why...

It's called Stock photos.

You can go to sites like

istockphoto.com

or dreamstime.com 

and search for whatever type of images you want. Put them in photoshop and BAM book cover.

These work for a lot of awesome covers. Cover designers do great with these. I have these on 98% of my covers.

   


But after The Only One was released I realized something that upset me. Look at that cover. It's beautiful. I love that image. I love how it related to a certain scene in the book and conveys the passion of the two characters. But you know what I hate? I hate that I've also found it on ten other covers since it was revealed three months ago.

For my next serial (Forever Wild, a serialized novel) I wanted to have seven covers, so I decided to do a custom photo shoot with K Keeton Designs. I picked out my own models and drove down to Springfield, MO to watch my custom shoot unfold.

I was able to figure out the exact shots I wanted. Pic out the exact models. Set the mood and get everything cohesive for seven
covers.

The problem?

It's a lot more expensive.

You can get stock art for about $10 each photo. A custom shoot is anywhere from $200 (if you have maybe a good friend with some photography skills) and upwards in the thousands. That still doesn't include your cover designer fees. So with stock photography you can get a beautiful cover for under $100 and with a custom shoot it can be around $1000. Is it worth the difference? I guess we'll find out when my cover is revealed on November 13th :)

Magan Vernon is a Young Adult and New Adult writer who lives with her family in the insurance capital of the world. When not writing she spends her time fighting over fake boyfriends via social media. You can find her online on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author...

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaganVernon

Website: http://www.maganvernon.com

12 Things I Did to Launch My Last Book

12 Things I Did to Launch My Last Book
by Elle Strauss

 Launch time is busy time for an Indie Author because she has to make sure she's doing her best to get word out about her book. There's always the danger of becoming a spammer, so it's about figuring out the balance.

 I think most people are pretty forgiving when they know you're trying to let as many people as possible know about a new book, versus when an author goes on about their book for-evah, and doesn't talk about anything else except how you should buy their book.

 The other side of the coin is this is a business and people can't buy something they've never heard about. I recently launched the third and final book of the Perception Series - Contrition(link). For those of you who've never launch a book and hope to one day, here are some of the things I did to get word out.

1. posted Contrition on NetGalley and Goodreads
2. asked people who reviewed Perception and Volition if they'd like to read and review
3. did a book blitz with xpresso tours - a book blitz is when a bunch of book bloggers feature your book on or around the same day and you usually offer a contest to entice interest
4. arranged the above mentioned contest with Rafflecopter. Contests are a good way to gain new FB and twitter followers and also newsletter signees.
5. sent out a newsletter
6. bought ads with KND/bookgodzilla, Bookbub and Bookblast
7. asked for free ad placement with Digital Book Today for Perception
8. put Perception (book 1) free and Volition (book 2) on sale for .99
9. submitted Perception and Volition to POI  (They didn't get picked up. It's a crap shoot with POI.)
10. made photo teasers for Contrition
11. made book trailer for Perception(link)
12. let my Facebook fans and Twitter followers know by announcing the news myself and retweeting other peoples tweets about my book


Here's one of the photo teasers I posted for Contrition:

I squeezed my eyes tight, pushing back at the blackness. Oh, God. This couldn't be happening.

I smacked the floor. The woman had played me!
-Noah

I've launched several books now and all of my approaches have been different. Each book has its own need and niche, and current publishing environment. It's up to you as an Indie author to decide what will work best for your book. I hope I've given you a few new ideas.

Any questions?

Elle Strauss writes light and fun lower YA including the popular CLOCKWISE series. She also writes romantic mixed genres set in the past, present and future for YA and adult readers as LEE Strauss. Watch for her next book, a contemporary romance/family drama called EAST OF EDEN.

 Find her at www.ellestraussbooks.com

(A version of this post was originally posted on Elle's blog on September 20.)

Free Writing Feedback During the WHW Amazing Race!

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to alert all the writers out there to this fantastic opportunity happening in celebration of the new Writer's Guide releases!

***

Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi at Writers Helping Writers (formerly The Bookshelf Muse) have added two more books to their Descriptive Thesaurus Collection: The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Attributes and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Flaws. To celebrate, they are hosting a race, and not just any old race, either. It's the...

 
Writing is hard, isn't it? Create the perfect hook. Make your first page compelling. Craft an amazing 25 word pitch. Knock out a query that will blow an agent's mind. On and on it goes. And sometimes, well, you just wish someone would help.

WISH NO MORE!

From October 21st until October 27th, Writers Helping Writers is posting an OPEN CALL for writers. You can fill out a form, requesting help with critiques, book visibility, social media sharing, blog diagnostics, advice and more.

An army of Amazing Racers are standing by (ME INCLUDED!) waiting to help with your submissions. How many people can we help in a week? Let's find out! Did I mention there are Celebrity Racers too--amazing authors and editors who know their way around a first page. Maybe one of them will pick your submission to help with!

Each day this week, there's an AMAZING giveaway, too. So stop in at Angela and Becca's new Writers Helping Writers website and find out how to take advantage of this unique, pay-it-forward event for writers. I'll see you there! 

#99cent SALE - Harvest Nine HOT Reads and #WIN!

The temperatures are dropping, and it's a great time to cuddle up with a new book!

So for One Week Only, we've dropped the price on NINE HOT New Releases and Bestselling Titles, and combined them with a chance to WIN Amazon gift cards, ebooks, and more!

Check it out and spread the word~

Get ALL for only 99 cents this week!

QUICK LINKS:

The Only One ** Dominus ** Dragonfly ** Crossing ** ClockwiseR ** Protected ** A Spy Like Me ** The Pack - Retribution ** Untraceable

READERS ARE SAYING...

**The Only One by Magan Vernon -- "Sweet and sexy!! Loved it! This is the type of story you read again and again." --#1 New York Times best selling author Rachel Van Dyken


**Dominus by Christine Fonesca -- "A thrilling end to a fantastic supernatural series!" --Leigh Talbert Moore, bestselling author of The Truth About Faking


**Dragonfly by Leigh Talbert Moore -- "The characters were intriguing, the mystery and story were interesting and definitely have ME WANTING MORE!!!!!!!" --Mandy, The Romance Bookie


**Crossing by Stacey Wallace Benefiel -- "Beautiful. Heart wrenching. A true tale of love. It'll make you laugh, cry, and have you running out to buy a tube of red lipstick." --RaShelle Workman, bestselling author of the Blood and Snow series


**ClockwiseR by Elle Strauss -- "Time-travel adventures, scary cliffhangers... Strauss's strength in describing battle scenes and wartime add to the historical parts, and the resolution was not what I expected. Great writing and a superfun book!" - Leigh Talbert Moore, bestselling author of The Truth About Letting Go


**Protected by Cindy Hogan -- "This anticipated sequel sizzles with equal parts thriller, suspense and romance. A spine tingling story I could not put down." - C.K.Bryant, author of Bound


**A Spy Like Me by Laura Pauling -- "Move over Gallagher Girls, there's a new spy in town! A Spy Like Me is a fast paced, high energy ride through Paris that left me almost as breathless as Pauling's hot hero. Super fun beginning, great story, and an ending that won't disappoint!" --Gemma Halliday, NYT best selling author of Spying in High Heels


**The Pack - Retribution by L.M. Preston -- "The action in this book was phenomenal! There was never a dull moment. Shamira and the group were always fighting off the bad guys and with style too." --P. Bradish, Amazon Reviewer


**Untraceable by S.R. Johannes -- "This thrilling story is a dramatic entanglement of mystery, deception and teen romance.  The action flows like a brisk mountain stream interspersed with rapids, holding suspense to last page." -- Kirkus Review 

* * *

Enter to WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ready, Set, Write...

     Hello all! Addison Moore here to chat with you about one of my favorite times of the year, NaNoWriMo! 

     What the heck is that you say? Why it's national novel writing month and it officially kicks off in November, so this is the perfect time to start scheming and dreaming for your new WIP (work in progress). 
     Although NaNo has many rules, most of which I routinely break, I say be a rebel and make your own rules. The gist of it is to get 50 thousand words (a start to a novel, or a full novella) down in the month of November. I think it's a great challenge for writers because it allows you to get into the rhythm of working at a challenging pace and setting attainable goals for yourself. You can  sign up on their website and track all of your progress as the month goes on. You can even add friends and give one another cyber high-fives as you speed along in your respective novels. 
     For me the most important part of writing a novel is having a seed of an idea that germinates and morphs into a thing of beauty (actually it morphs into a deformed mutant that my editor has me delete and rework until it resembles the English language) but I digress. The point is, you've started something. 
     Short on ideas? There are tons of ways to find your muse, music, story starter websites, you can even look for inspiration in movies and television shows. So what's the hold up? Get our your pen and paper, your laptop, ipad or whatever your fingers love to tickle when you're getting your writing groove on, and start jotting down ideas. You might be surprised as to where you end up. 
     Above all have fun!
     Happy writing!
     Here are some everyday writing tools you might want to add to the toolbox:

Addison Moore is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes contemporary and paranormal romance. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Previously she worked as a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit for nearly a decade. She resides on the West Coast with her husband, four wonderful children and two dogs where she eats too much chocolate and stays up way too late. When she's not writing, she's reading. Feel free to visit her blog:   http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com

Friday's Freaking Great Book Deals

Everybody loves a great sale!

And this sale is unbelievable

5 Indelible books that are 

Free or only.99 cents!

Lucky You!

Free everywhere for a limited time.
Regularly $3.99
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes
Kobo

1- Grab Watched- an award winning, bestselling YA suspense novel with a dash of romance. It has been in the top 50 of Amazon for over 2 years.

Change.

She longs for it.
A murder.
She will never be the same.

It takes more than a school trip to Washington, D.C. to change Christy's life. It takes murder.
A witness to the brutal slaying of a senator's aide, Christy finds herself watched not only by the killers and the FBI, but also by two hot guys.

She discovers that if she can't help the FBI, who want to protect her, it will cost her and her new friends their lives. 

Buy here
Only .99 cents
Amazon

2-Laugh and cry with Brooklyn in First VL. Virgin Lips. 

YA contemporary romance.  only .99 cents

Episode #1 of Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips

You may not have heard of it, but where I live, it's a thing with a card, even if it is a figurative card. I was Brooklyn Hamlin, certified virgin lips, and I planned on clinging to that figurative card with all I had--while dating as many of the hottest guys at school as I could.

Maybe that's a bit strange. I mean, what teenage girl isn't interested in kissing? Locking lips definitely interested me, but the drama that came with it didn't. No kissing, no drama. Simple.
But on my sixteenth birthday, on my first real date even, the drama found me. His name was Luke Graham--cute, funny, and bad news for the whole female race. 

Enjoy First Kiss the first episode in the wildly popular Confessions of a Sixteen-Year-Old Virgin Lips.  It is 60 pages. There are 5 episodes.

99 cents (reg. $2.99)

buy here

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

3-DRAGONFLY- only .99 cents

by Leigh Talbert Moore

"Dragonfly swept me off my feet! Once I started reading this book it kinda sucked me into the story and I had a hard time putting it down." --Stephanie, My Thoughts...

Three bad things I learned this year:

-People you trust lie, even parents. 

-That hot guy, the one who’s totally into you, he might not be the one. 

-Things are not always how they appear.

Three good things I learned this year:

-Best friends are always there for you, even when they’re far away. 

-That other hot guy, the one who remembers your birthday, he just might be the one. 

-Oh, and things are not always how they appear.

Anna Sanders expected an anonymous (and uneventful) senior year until she crossed paths with rich-and-sexy Jack Kyser and his twin sister Lucy.

Pulling Anna into their extravagant lifestyle on the Gulf Coast, Lucy pushed Anna outside her comfort zone, and Jack showed her feelings she’d never experienced... Until he mysteriously withdrew.

Anna turned to her internship at the city paper and to her old attraction for Julian, a handsome local artist and rising star, for distraction. But both led to her discovery of a decades-old secret closely guarded by the twins’ distant, single father. 

A secret that could permanently change all their lives.

4-PERCEPTION -free

buy now!
Free
Amazon Barnes & Noble Kobo
 itunes

Seventeen year old Zoe Vanderveen is a GAP--a genetically altered person. She lives in the security of a walled city on prime water-front property along side other equally beautiful people with extended life spans.

Her brother Liam is missing.

Noah Brody is a natural who lives on the outside. He leads protests against the GAPs and detests the widening chasm they've created between those who have and those who don't. He doesn't like girls like Zoe and he has good reason not to like her specifically.

Zoe's carefree life takes a traumatic turn. She's in trouble and it turns out that Noah, the last guy on earth she should trust, is the only one who can help her.

Only .99 cents
Buy Now!
Amazon Barnes & Noble, Kobo
 itunes

Only .99 cents

5-Volition by Lee Strauss

 Zoe Vanderveen is on the run with her captor turned rescuer, Noah Brody. 

They're in love.

Or at least that's what he tells her. Her memories have returned but her feelings are dreamlike--thin and fleeting. Her heart can't be trusted. Just look at what happened with Taylor Blake.

Senator Vanderveen's new team of cyborg agents are in hot pursuit, and a reward for their capture is broadcast nationwide. Record breaking cold and snow hinder their escape. Someone dies helping them.

And their fight for survival has only begun.