I'm published.

EileenG

What is says on the title.

I'm now published and you can buy my book on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Feed-the-Fairies-ebook/dp/B005380U3G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=A2HD1FRBBEUS3N&s=books&qid=1306880510&sr=8-2

After the ABNA, I got picked up by Fantasy Island Book Publishing, and decided to go with them.

It's a learning curve. Their art editor, who seems not to have read the book, or even the blurb, produced a cover featuring Tinkerbell's country cousin, complete with ruined castle and talking tree. When I pointed out (politely) that this might not be the best cover for a science fiction book, they got very huffy and told me if I didn't like it, to do something better myself.

So I got Angela Knight to do a cover for me. It's worth clicking on the link just to see her vision of Cytolene!

Antilles

Thanks and congratulations, EileenG

EileenG

Thank you. Now starts the fun of trying to get people to actually buy the thing.

I've just discovered that my target market, teenagers, generally don't have a credit card, which is a problem if they are to buy a book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I may have to rethink my approach.

Memnoch

Well done, way to go!

EileenG

Thanks. Now trying to find a famous writer, preferably SF, who will review my book.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Congrats Eileen!
That's fantastic.

Mr E

Fair play... thats terrific news. Best of luck!

FewFew

That's great news!

What's an ABNA ?

Edit: Nevermind - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

pog it

Ah congrats, I'm delighted for you

Is it cheeky to ask if you got an advance or if it depends on sales?

EileenG

No advance, royalties only. So feel free to buy the book, not just drool over Cytolene's boobs!

Plus if anyone has any brilliant ideas about generating publicity and sales, please let me know.

Oh, one piece of great news, Elizabeth Anne Scarborough has agreed to do a review of Don't Feed the Fairies. I want a Nebula too.

Kinski

EileenG wrote: »

I've just discovered that my target market, teenagers, generally don't have a credit card, which is a problem if they are to buy a book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I may have to rethink my approach.

I can't imagine that many have Kindles either. Probably not the coolest gadget in the playground. Nevertheless, good luck!

FewFew

I always thought Kindles etc. were for weirdos who don't appreciate the feel of paper... I may have been wrong...

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/26-year-old-becomes-millionaire-self-publishing-on-kindle-store-931963

EileenG

If you have a smartphone, which most teens have (prices for android phones start at €59), you can download a kindle app which lets you read books. That's what I do, and I've got out of the habit of carrying six books with me at all times.

I thought I would never like e-books, but I do love being able to carry 50 books around on my phone, and buy more at the click of a button, not to mention being able to read in bed without turning on the light.

Antilles

Fewcifur wrote: »

I always thought Kindles etc. were for weirdos who don't appreciate the feel of paper... I may have been wrong...

I love the feel of a physical book in my hands, but I prefer being able to carry dozens of books easily so I don't finish one at the start of a train journey and then have nothing to read

EileenG

Antilles wrote: »

I love the feel of a physical book in my hands, but I prefer being able to carry dozens of books easily so I don't finish one at the start of a train journey and then have nothing to read

Yeah, I'm paranoid about running out of books. I've been known to go skiing for a long weekend in just the clothes I was standing in, but with half a dozen novels in my bag. Last time I went, I just took a phone.

FewFew

Ah, I'll be buying a Kindle at some point next week I think, so I'll make my first purchase an Eileen Gormley original. Really just picking it up for research purposes more than anything else, if I intend to sell to a market I need to get into that market's mindset. Plus I think you can throw on standard documents, so it'd be handy or going over press releases and stuff on the way to work.

EileenG

I believe you can do cool things with them, like getting them to read the book out to you, or loading your own documents etc.

I've a couple of friends who have one, and swear by them, but I just do Kindle on my phone.

LoveGreen

oh congratulations EileenG.
I was expecting a different genre of book when I clicked that link - creative as well as wise.

Now, just wondering, does Cytolene cook or comsume her earthers raw and would they not lose vital enzymes in the cooking process? Would you class this diet as high in quality protein and ideal for someone looking to gain muscle?:pac:

best of luck with your book:)

DangerMouse27

Congratulations EileenG

Discount for boards members? ha ha ha

What an amazing feeling to get published,you have prob given many others so much hope on here

bigsmokewriting

Congratulations, Eileen! The first of many successes, hopefully.

EileenG

LoveGreen wrote: »

oh congratulations EileenG.
I was expecting a different genre of book when I clicked that link - creative as well as wise.

Now, just wondering, does Cytolene cook or comsume her earthers raw and would they not lose vital enzymes in the cooking process? Would you class this diet as high in quality protein and ideal for someone looking to gain muscle?:pac:

best of luck with your book:)

She doesn't believe in cooking, or even in masticating. Disgusting human habit. And yes, ideal diet for those looking to gain some muscle. Check out male Erisian: www.tinyurl.com/Erisian

FewFew

EileenG wrote: »

She doesn't believe in cooking, or even in masticating. Disgusting human habit. And yes, ideal diet for those looking to gain some muscle. Check out male Erisian: www.tinyurl.com/Erisian

That page is a bit disturbing... too much codpiece and six pack for my Disney heart

pog it

EileenG wrote: »

No advance, royalties only. So feel free to buy the book, not just drool over Cytolene's boobs!

Plus if anyone has any brilliant ideas about generating publicity and sales, please let me know.

Oh, one piece of great news, Elizabeth Anne Scarborough has agreed to do a review of Don't Feed the Fairies. I want a Nebula too.

Er hope that first comment wasn't for me, I've got my own nice set to enjoy

Anyway congrats again, truly great news.

Publicity wise how about contacting local libraries to see can you give a free reading?

EileenG

I might try that, but I'm going to see what other publicity I can drum up via the Internet. Ideally, I want something where people can click a link and they are able to buy it.

I see a lot of writers making youtube trailers about their books, but I'm not convinced this is a useful way to spend computer time.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Might I suggest you send a copy of your book to well known Irish authors who write in the same genre for the same age group and ask them to review your book - even a short blurb, rather than a lenghty review by a known name could easily boost sales.
Darren Shan and Eoin Colfer spring to my mind as people you could ask to do this as they're Irish and write fantasy novels for young adults. I've interviewed Shan myself befroe - he's incredibly friendly and helpful and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to help you out in some way or another. Not as familiar with Colfer, but again I reckon he's a sound guy and would be willing to help. Even if they could advise you on the best way to market.
No harm in asking anyway. If you don't ask, you don't get - I've started to live by that mantra, and you know what, 95% of the time it works. I ask and I get.
Hope that's in some way helpful.

By the way, is your book available in hard copy or only for the kindle/iphone? Firstly I don't have either and secondly I spend most of my day at work standing in front of a computer screen, also when I'm watching tv, surfing the web. So for me, reading is a break from screens, so while I'd really like to read it, I'd really be looking for a hard copy.

CD.

you could also add the direct link into your signature, then there's the usual facebook/twitter/throwing tennisballs with the address written on them at people.

Conga-rats on being published, that really is awesome and same with the review!

EileenG

CaptainNegative wrote: »

Might I suggest you send a copy of your book to well known Irish authors who write in the same genre for the same age group and ask them to review your book - even a short blurb, rather than a lenghty review by a known name could easily boost sales.
Darren Shan and Eoin Colfer spring to my mind as people you could ask to do this as they're Irish and write fantasy novels for young adults. I've interviewed Shan myself befroe - he's incredibly friendly and helpful and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to help you out in some way or another. Not as familiar with Colfer, but again I reckon he's a sound guy and would be willing to help. Even if they could advise you on the best way to market.
No harm in asking anyway. If you don't ask, you don't get - I've started to live by that mantra, and you know what, 95% of the time it works. I ask and I get.
Hope that's in some way helpful.

By the way, is your book available in hard copy or only for the kindle/iphone? Firstly I don't have either and secondly I spend most of my day at work standing in front of a computer screen, also when I'm watching tv, surfing the web. So for me, reading is a break from screens, so while I'd really like to read it, I'd really be looking for a hard copy.

So far, my book is only available as Kindle or Nook downloads. I talked to the publisher, and they are going to do a print version, but that will be at least a year away, it takes that long to get it done. And that's not even counting time spent fighting over the cover art.

I did ask Elizabeth Anne Scarborough to do a review for me, and she's agreed. I'm hoping there will be a few lines in it that I can quote or even stick on the cover as a selling point.

I'll see if I can think of anyone else who might do something similar. It's just that doing anything like that means reading it, which takes a few hours, which is a lot to ask from anyone busy.

I mentioned the book on Rollercoaster, a parenting website, and several breastfeeding mothers rushed to buy it, because they like things you can read with one hand while feeding the baby.

www.eileengormley.com

tbahh

Congratulations!

If you haven't already, you should try local or national radio stations. My cousin recently set up a business and it was featured on the Derek Mooney Show.

EileenG

Thanks. Expect to see me drumming up as much publicity as possible!

FewFew

EileenG wrote: »

Thanks. Expect to see me drumming up as much publicity as possible!

This is exciting, it feels like you're the first boardsie to have a break through, but hopefully not the last. It'd be excellent if in a few years people were in a position to review each other's published works

Memnoch

It sounds like you're doing all the right things. I agree with you about the youtube video thing. Unless it's done well it can easily backfire.

A free reading sounds like a good idea but I wonder how productive it would be. It would make more sense if maybe your name or the book's name was out there a little first to generate some interest. Maybe if it was mentioned in the local paper to pique interest followed by the reading.

Of course, I don't know squat about marketing so I'm just conjecturing.

But best of luck with it!

EileenG

Anyone who wants to review mine now, I'd be delighted.

Believe it or not, one interesting aspects of reviews on Amazon is that bad reviews can do as much to increase sales as good ones. I'm not sure why, maybe people buy to see if it's as bad as the reviews suggest, but it seems to work.

EileenG

One idea that I'm playing with is to have a website which is based on characters from my book. So there will be an "Ask Steve" page, where people can post questions on diet and bodybuilding, and an "Ask Sophie" page where people can post about pregnancy and babies, and an "Ask Ashling" page where people can ask about the world of Eris.

This (I'm hoping) should generate a fair bit of traffic, and should give me lots of scope for referring back to the books ("When I was on the spaceship without any weights, these are the bodyweight exercises I did...")

I don't want to blog, because I'd either be putting out very rough stuff which won't reflect well on me, or I'll be using valuable writing time to polish my blog rather than getting on with the next novel. And writers blogging about writing makes for boring reading.

Any opinions?

Antilles

EileenG wrote: »

Anyone who wants to review mine now, I'd be delighted.

Believe it or not, one interesting aspects of reviews on Amazon is that bad reviews can do as much to increase sales as good ones. I'm not sure why, maybe people buy to see if it's as bad as the reviews suggest, but it seems to work.

*starts preparing a review*

1 Star: "I hate this book. Its so engrossing that I stayed up all night reading it, slept through my alarm clock and got fired from my job!"

EileenG

Antilles wrote: »

*starts preparing a review*

1 Star: "I hate this book. Its so engrossing that I stayed up all night reading it, slept through my alarm clock and got fired from my job!"

I'll go for that!

CD.

EileenG wrote: »

One idea that I'm playing with is to have a website which is based on characters from my book. So there will be an "Ask Steve" page, where people can post questions on diet and bodybuilding, and an "Ask Sophie" page where people can post about pregnancy and babies, and an "Ask Ashling" page where people can ask about the world of Eris.

This (I'm hoping) should generate a fair bit of traffic, and should give me lots of scope for referring back to the books ("When I was on the spaceship without any weights, these are the bodyweight exercises I did...")

I don't want to blog, because I'd either be putting out very rough stuff which won't reflect well on me, or I'll be using valuable writing time to polish my blog rather than getting on with the next novel. And writers blogging about writing makes for boring reading.

Any opinions?

that does sound pretty cool, you could always do a formspring thing if you were not to picky about where it's hosted and you wanted to save yourself the cost of having it designed etc.
(as you can tell, i am very technologically advanced when it comes to the creation of websites. what do you mean I can't have a mirror on my website? we live in the future dammnit!)

Create an account for each character you want to do the question thing with and link them together, that way you could also tap into the market there as well as attracting old readers it could help bring new ones as they read answers and wonder what the hell you're talking about, click through to your site and buy the book.

also, it seems that formspring would encourage brevity so you are not writing giant, sprawling answers and you can check it in your spare time and do it then rather than everytime you go to put something on your site or do general housekeeping.

i-digress

Hey! Congratulations! My friend Alison DeLuca went with Fantasy Island, and she seems to find it great. Best of luck with the promoting!

EileenG

CD. wrote: »

that does sound pretty cool, you could always do a formspring thing if you were not to picky about where it's hosted and you wanted to save yourself the cost of having it designed etc.
(as you can tell, i am very technologically advanced when it comes to the creation of websites. what do you mean I can't have a mirror on my website? we live in the future dammnit!)

Create an account for each character you want to do the question thing with and link them together, that way you could also tap into the market there as well as attracting old readers it could help bring new ones as they read answers and wonder what the hell you're talking about, click through to your site and buy the book.

also, it seems that formspring would encourage brevity so you are not writing giant, sprawling answers and you can check it in your spare time and do it then rather than everytime you go to put something on your site or do general housekeeping.

What on earth is formspring?

EileenG

i-digress wrote: »

Hey! Congratulations! My friend Alison DeLuca went with Fantasy Island, and she seems to find it great. Best of luck with the promoting!

You're a friend of Alison? Cool, she seems to be really on the ball. And nice.

CD.

EileenG wrote: »

What on earth is formspring?

its this site here
www.formspring.com

basically, you create an account and people can ask you questions either anonymously or with their site. I created an account, partly just to stop someone else using my name. in all of the internets no one was using the name i use (which is just my full name) so now slightly paranoid someone else will use it.

Anyway, back on topic, you can create an account using each of your characters names and, if you have illustrations of the characters you can use those as well and invite people to ask you questions whether from facebook or from formspring itself. could also be an effective marketing tool that way.

Because of the anonymous factor people can be jackasses but i'm pretty sure that you can have it so the person asking a question has to have an account. dont really use it that much so not 100% sure.

EileenG

I have a website wwww.eileengormley.com which is just a static page at the moment, but a techie friend says he's going to help me set it up like mini version of Boards.

I have no idea if this idea will work out, but once it's set up, it should be fairly easy to maintain, and not involve boring blogs every week.

Marguerite Tonery

That's fantastic news! Well done! You're a star! I hope you sell millions of copies! Well done again!

EileenG

Thank you. I shall do my best.

I rang my local newspaper today and they are going to do a story on me. Actually, I think they are going to tell ME to do the story on me, and they'll send a photographer.

FewFew

EileenG wrote: »

Thank you. I shall do my best.

I rang my local newspaper today and they are going to do a story on me. Actually, I think they are going to tell ME to do the story on me, and they'll send a photographer.

Heh, a lot of the local papers will do that, it's pretty funny really. Dangerous to send an over-the-top press release as all too often it'll be used without too much editing :P

Good to hear they're playing ball though

EileenG

I used to work for them, so they know I won't go mad. And the people who will read it are my neighbours, so I don't want to write anything that will be difficult to live down. Getting the info on how to buy the book is the main thing.

Memnoch

EileenG wrote: »

I used to work for them, so they know I won't go mad. And the people who will read it are my neighbours, so I don't want to write anything that will be difficult to live down. Getting the info on how to buy the book is the main thing.

Well, if you're writing the article, you could try and schedule a couple of readings in the local library and mention this in the article.

I agree that you should keep it understated. Excited, but understated, if that makes any sense. Who are they going to say the article is by? If they are going to put your name on the end of it then it's obviously different to if its just going to be run without a name.

If you need any help with the article I'd be happy to give feedback on it before you send it to the paper. Feel free to PM etc.

I'm going to try and download the book next week and give it a read, bit snowed under at the moment.

FewFew

EileenG wrote: »

I used to work for them, so they know I won't go mad. And the people who will read it are my neighbours, so I don't want to write anything that will be difficult to live down. Getting the info on how to buy the book is the main thing.

So many connections, ya rascal!