UNFORGETTABLE'S Blog tour begins tomorrow. The schedule for the review tour is listed below. Please check them out and enter the following Rafflecopter giveaway  a Rafflecopter giveaway .

Schedule:
May 14th: https://brightlystreet.com/ and  http://mybookaday.com/

May 15th: http://gettingyourreadonaimeebrown.blogspot.com/ and http://empowermoms.net/ and https://www.rockinbookreviews.com/

May 16th: http://lisaisabookworm.blogspot.com/ and  https://joyinthemoments.wordpress.com/ and http://www.blogginboutbooks.com/

May 17th: https://www.singinglibrarianbooks.com/ and https://ldsandlovinit.blogspot.com/

May 18th: http://whynotbecauseisaidso.blogspot.com/and  http://www.wishfulendings.com/ and http://literarytimeout.blogspot.com/ and http://booksaresanity.blogspot.com/

Promotion--Bookmarked Bargains

When at twelve I first decided I wanted to be a writer, I had no idea that meant I would have to learn more than writing skills to accomplish that goal/dream. I'd also have learn business and marketing skills. And this post, my friends, is part of that marketing side of things. As you know, I've recently released 101 Pocket Writing Tips & Techniques To Inspire Your Fiction and Strengthen Your Craft,  and I'm now in the process of revealing it to the public--i.e., marketing. As part of my marketing plan, I have included it in this awesome five day sale which is quickly coming to a close. If you love to read, or if you want to get 101 Pocket Writing Tips at the low price of .99--check it now. The sale ends tomorrow.

Learning from Book Reviews by Ronda HInrichsen

Betrayed, my recently released novel, has been receiving some awesome, reader reviews, and I am so happy and grateful so many people have enjoyed it. I also love learning from those statements what I did right in my book and what I want to continue to include in my future stories. Praise and learning--the perfect combination. :)

However, sometimes we get reviews that mention elements about our book the reviewer didn't like, or worse, their comments are simply unkind; i.e., the reviewer hates everything about the book and is not opposed to sharing that opinion with the world. It's a given. No matter who the author is, they will receive such reviews. But I've found that if I look beyond the criticism and consider the review as a response to my work, just as I do when I'm reading it aloud to others, I can learn a great deal that will help me with my writing, and sometimes with my career as an author.

For instance, if a reviewer states she enjoyed elements of the book, like the lovely descriptions and the relationship I developed between the characters, but the story was slow and it took her a long time to get through the book (By the way, this is not one of my reviews.), I first try to understand what the reviewer is really saying, In this case, I'd see that while I met some of my goals, because I want my readers to enjoy the setting and the characters, I'd also notice I didn't meet another of my goals, which is I do not want readers to want to put my book down. So it might be that I need to increase my pacing and suspenseful elements. I then keep that information in mind as I read others' reviews and decide if the reviewer was right. If so, I have some writing work and learning to do.

As far as the hate-everything-reviewer goes, most of the time that reader is NOT YOUR READER anyway, and there's no point in spending a lot of time worrying about how to fix something to that reader's tastes.But, if the reviewer mentions an element in my book that mine didn't have or didn't do well but that he really want to be there, I consider whether or not his points are valid and whether or not I should work on what he said. After that, I move on.  Part of marketing work includes trying to find those readers who like what we write, so I try to hang on to the praisers I find and not worry about the rest.

Finally, most of the time it's not recommended that an author respond to a reader's review, but this "rule", like so many others, is one that needs to be followed or not followed according to the situation. In the following case, I thought I should respond to a question a reviewer had because my answer could also help those who read this blog. She mentioned this about my character, Tom:

"I thought his profession was interesting as well and I'm kind of curious to know how that was decided on for the story and the research the author did for it."  htp://www.wishfulendings.com/2015/01/blog-tour-review-giveaway-betrayed-by.html#more

Answer: I came up with the initial idea for Tom's profession while I was watching a historical documentary about one of the World Wars. I don't remember which, probably WWII, but in either case, it talked about how a battle situation was won because they had a magician figure out how to deceive the enemy through an illusion. I loved that idea and ran with it. As far as the research goes, there are always small bits of information I have to look up as I write the story, but most of Tom's character and especially his tricks came from the book, Hiding the Elephant, by Jim Steinmeyer.

Marketing Tool--Blog Tour

No matter how we're published, authors have to market their books. For many, including me, that's a hard thing to do, because we have to not only put ourselves--our work, our words, and in some cases our hearts--out for the world to see, but because it's also very difficult to say, "Hey, check out my book. It's awesome, perfect, everything a reader could ever want . . . "  LOL. And yet, somehow, somewhere, we have to try to spur "word of mouth" advertising.

Blog tours can help. Sometimes publishers will put them together for authors, and sometimes authors will put them together for themselves, but this time, my publisher, Covenant Communications, put together a blog tour for Betrayed. The tour is on day 2, and so far I've seen three great advantages: I've received some dream-come-true reviews which have been posted on important sites like Amazon and Goodreads; tweets about my book have surfaced through Twitter; and I am finding new readers.

The bad side of tours? They can be somewhat costly and time consuming to put together, and the cyber-world seems to always be changing, so it's hard to guage how many people are actually seeing it. But that's the case with every marketing tool. As for me, so far, so good--I'm happy with Betrayed's Blog Tour.

Blog Tour Schedule

Jan 19th
http://www.iamareader.com

Jan 20th
http://ilovetoreadandreviewbooks.blogspot.com

http://www.charissastastny.com

Jan 21st
http://mybookaday.blogspot.com

http://ldsandlovinit.blogspot.com

http://katiescleanbookcollection.blogspot.com

Jan 22nd
http://www.bonnieharris.blogspot.com

http://literarytimeout.blogspot.com

Jan 23rd
http://minreadsandreviews.blogspot.com

http://www.ldswomensbookreview.com/wordpress

http://www.wishfulendings.com

Jan 24th
http://gettingyourreadonaimeebrown.blogspot.com

http://www.rockinbookreviews.com

Thoughts on Marketing

Well before my first novel, MISSING, came out, I began to research marketing strategies. I even bought a very helpful book titled, "1001 Ways to Market Your Books." That's right 1001, and that's not all. In fact, the more I research marketing, the more I've realized that beyond the basics--websites, blogs, facebook, etc.--many different, well-proven tactics can produce good results. The trick is to find those that work best for you and then to do them to the best of your ability.

For instance, marketers know "Word of Mouth" is the best marketing tool out there. The problem is trying to foster it. I started out by putting on my reader hat, and asking myself two questions: "What makes me want to buy a book?" and "What makes me tell others about a book?" I then incorporated my answers into my marketing plans.

Related to fiction, my answer to what most made me want to buy a book was "when I believe the book will be well worth my money because I've read something of the author's that "hooked me" to his/her writing." So, my goal became to build my name through magazine writing while I worked toward novel writing. Along with that, I tried to write the best book I could--initially--because of that all important first impression. You, my readers, will have to judge if I accomplished those goals or not. :)

After MISSING was published, I've tried various things. Some have been more successful than others, but the truth is, they've all had some success. The moral of the story? Do something!

As I said before, their our myriads of marketing opportunities out there, and in conclusion, I'll now mention two marketing ideas/events going on right now:

1) I am not my only marketer. I also try to work with my publisher and their distributor in trying to find ways to sell MISSING and TRAPPED. One example of that, is my publisher offers review copies of my novels to blog reviewers and I try to help them find reviewers. Another example, is their distributor does what he can to get my books into new selling venues. In fact, MISSING is now available at Costco in Orem. For my part, I am willing to go down there to do numerous book signings.

2) Hold a big event. In following this advice, fellow author, Jane Still, has created a large event/goal for herself: to sell 7000 copies of her book, Mother's Daze, in one day--April 21. Click here for details. Besides trying to reach her goal, she's having a contest for those who purchase her book, and guess what? TRAPPED is one of the prizes. You really ought to check this one out. Her book could be just what you're looking for to give to your mother (or yourself/spouse) for Mother's Day.