Beyond the Mind Maze

Author: Maria Messini

  • 5 Ways Blogging Sells Books (original post by Molly Greene)

    To some writers, blogging is cakewalk while others struggle to come up with what to say, how to say it, and how to attract readers. If you need innovative ideas, tips and expert guidance, look no further than Molly Greene’s excellent ebook “Blog It: The author’s guide to a successful online brand“.

    Molly Greene is the author of the gripping Gen Delacourt mysteries (Mark of the Loon and Rapunzel), but I initially met her through her awesome blog (www.molly-greene.com) which is a source of inspiration to every blogger and new writer. I’m honored to have Molly’s permission to reblog her recent post 5 Ways Blogging Sells Books. Thanks, Molly!

    ________________________________________________________

    5 Ways Blogging Sells Books

    Many of you don’t believe it’s true, that blogging can sell books and further your career. And you’re right, in the sense that blog posts should not be used as a direct-sale tactic for most authors. But I’m here to argue that a well-written, consistently updated blog can help novelists make sales.

    How? Blogging makes your name, your voice, and your product recognizable, and builds a community that will help support your efforts. In addition, adding content on your blog delights Google, and when Google loves you, the search engine brings visitors to your site so they can see what you have for sale.

    There is no doubt in my mind that blogging can be a value-added marketing strategy. True, you have to work at it, and it can take time to build traffic. But when readers start to find you – and they like what they see – you’ll make sales. Here’s what I think blogging can do for an author …

    1. Blogging sells “you”
    Professional commission-based sales reps who market any product or service know that selling is all about building relationships. The more interesting, engaging, helpful, encouraging, inspiring, and solution-oriented the salesperson, the better their chances of pulling down big commission checks. That’s why the best salespeople understand and nurture these qualities.

    It’s similar with authors. Your blog gives you an opportunity to share with real and potential readers. Your blog is your “voice.” Who you are shines through. When people like you, they support you – and one of the ways they do that is by buying your books and spreading the word to other readers.

    2. Blogging enhances your writing skills
    Over time, once-a-week blogging just hands-down improves a writer’s skill in all areas of the craft, including fiction. And as we all know, the better the quality of our work, the better the word of mouth, the better the reviews, and the better our titles will sell. I published my first novel mid-2012 and didn’t get my second fiction title published until late 2013. What did I notice after two years of blogging? I wrote faster, better, and with more confidence. Better writing = better books = more sales.

    Read the entire blog post on Molly Greene’s blog

  • Review: Rapunzel by Molly Greene (5/5)

    Cambria (Bree) Butler is at a low point in both her personal and professional life. What she least expects though is to find herself at a police station as a suspect in a murder case. Vulnerable and lost, she puts her fragile trust in the hands of her old friend, Genevieve Delacourt, an attorney-turned-detective. Together, Gen and Bree try to unweave a tangled web of lies and deception that will force Bree to get closer than ever to her inner strength–and death.

    I needed a break from my emotionally charged, angsty reads so I jumped at the opportunity to review an advance copy of Molly Greene’s new mystery, Rapunzel. I’m familiar with Ms Greene’s writing as a blogger–she runs a great blog on writing and blogging–so I knew that at least her writing would be engaging. It was a whole lot more.

    Instead of playing on the trend for instant gratification through a tell-all, adrenaline-inducing plot, the writer weaves an intricate story while giving you the impression that you can just lie back and enjoy a smooth ride. Wrong. “Rapunzel” is an exquisitely detailed puzzle, its pieces expertly hidden in each page of the book. So while you fall effortlessly in love with Gen and Bree, you’ll also be putting your puzzle-solving brain to work, sifting through details and descriptions that might seem they’re there to offer a glimpse into the main characters’ lives, but also serve as leads to solving a murder case. Gen and Bree are the kind of girls you want to be friends with–strong and adventurous with a vulnerable feminine side the reader can totally relate to. Their homes, families and backstory are gradually revealed to the reader in a way that proves that Ms Greene knows the golden rule of her (or any) genre: show them don’t tell them.

    If you enjoy mystery stories with strong female leads and solid prose, look no further. This is your next read. As for mine? Mark of the Loon, the first Gen Delacourt mystery.

    Get Rapunzel HERE

     

  • Review: Broken Pieces by Rachel Thompson (5/5)

    I’ve been staring at a blank screen for quite some time. My apprehension has nothing to do with the rating of this book—I’ve already given it 5 stars—it’s just that when a writer decides to bare her soul, reviews seem to me, well, sacrilegious. Therefore, I’m not taking the scenic route, deconstructing, analyzing, regurgitating—I’m just going to use descriptive adjectives: harrowing, heart-wrenching, raw, honest, empowering. But what I personally took from it was a strong sense of optimism. Because when life turns bleak—

    Illumination only lasts until darkness decides to fall

    —Rachel Thomson just flips the light switch back on.

  • Setting up an author platform: what I’ve learned so far

    Happy new year 2014! New year design template Vector illustrationHappy New Year to all!

    It’s time for me to evaluate my baby steps toward building an author platform, and I realize that probably the best decision I made in 2013 was to stop querying agents. “Sour grapes,” you’ll say, but that’s not the case as my query letter wasn’t a failure—it got me two partial requests out of the ten agents I sought out. No, I didn’t manage to get representation, but I found out in the process that I wasn’t very keen to take the back seat and hand over full control of my work to an agent and then a publisher. To be more specific, I didn’t want to see a headless man with a six-pack on the cover of my romance novel (not that I have anything against men with six-packs or covers with naked torsos) or my hearty epilogue chopped because of some imprint’s word-count limitations. But the real reason I don’t regret stopping the pursuit of traditional publishing is the brave new world indie publishing has opened to me.

    I have a mere two-month online presence as an aspiring author, but I’m astounded by the possibilities not only for professional but for personal growth as well. I’ve already met wonderful, creative and inspiring people online, and most are truly willing to help a newcomer. I’ve gathered a wealth of valuable information,and now I feel more empowered to face the challenges that putting my work out there entails. I’ve also realized that without a solid platform, the odds of eventually being picked up by an agent are slim (I thought that applied only to non-fiction writers).

    So here I am with a brand new blog, about three hundred followers on Twitter and ready to share what I’ve learned so far.  (more…)

  • A Rogue by Any Other Name (3/5)

    by Sarah McLean

    When I try out a new HR author, I know it’s more often miss than hit. I’ve got my favorites but they can’t have new titles out whenever I decide to take a break from my gritty contemporaries and my PNRs, and that’s how I ended up reading A Rogue By Any Other Name by a new—to me—author. So here goes:

    Penelope: 4/5 Penny’s had enough of being the proper, well-bred daughter. She needs to be loved and not traded between her father and a future husband, and, most of all, she needs an adventure. Being kidnapped by her childhood friend and claimed as his wife because of her inevitable ‘ruination’ is a good start, at least for her adventure aspirations—because he soon shatters all hopes for love and not being treated as a commodity. Penelope retains her composure throughout the book, and even though she ventures into uncharted territories, risking her reputation, she’s always frank, straight-forward, unyielding and ‘adventuresome’ (as Bourne calls her) till the end. I liked her.

    Bourne (Michael): 2/5 As a Hero, he’s awful. He treats Penelope in the worst possible way, and she’s not some stranger he decided to take advantage of to win his lost land back (his Holy Grail) but a dear childhood friend who’s been nothing but kind to him. Okay, he’s bent on his revenge and reclaiming his father’s land, and the reader expects that, for the best part of the book, he’ll mistreat Penelope, reminding her that she’s nothing but “a means to an end” (that was endlessly recycled!) but it never lets up till the very end! He keeps behaving in a god-awful way, and when Penelope thinks he’s finally made a move indicating he’s come to his senses (and that’s in the final scene, mind you) it’s not even him! It’s someone else, and I’m still quite unclear as to who it was and what their motive was. Also, his internalized one-liners in italics that contradicted what he actually said were really annoying: “I don’t need her.” But I do. I found this constant ‘self-annulling’ tiresome. So no, I didn’t like Michael’s character.

    Prose: 3/5 Penelope’s part in the dialogue is enjoyable. She surprises with her resolve and this shows through her words. Other than that, there was a lot of repetition that dragged the book down, the tone is not too formal (maybe too informal for a historical) and the characteristic wit found in popular titles of the genre was missing.

    Heat: 4/5 The erotic scenes were detailed and nicely rendered with some originality, but they don’t work well into the plot. You’d think that after “the most incredible, mind-altering sex” (who spoke like that in 1831?) Michael would reconsider his ways but, no. After his wedding night, he left his new bride alone in a strange house.

    And now, it’s time for some real nitpicking:

    Penelope is plain. See how much:

    “She’d become too old, too plain, too tarnished.”
    “He’d likely not had a single moment of considering her as anything more than plain, proper Penelope…”
    “She closed her eyes tightly, taking a deep breath, preparing for him to turn away at her plainness. Her imperfections.”
    “She didn’t like the insinuation in the words. The implication that she was plain and boring…”
    “She was never going to be considered beautiful. Plain, yes. Passable, even, on a good day, in a new frock.”

    But tell me this: beautiful blue eyes, silken blond curls, soft pale skin, tempting pink lips… equal plain?! The girl was gorgeous! There’s absolutely no hint at ugliness based on something being wrong with her features. And when Michael is asked whether she’s “horsefaced” he doesn’t reply!! What a jerk! And these are his thoughts at the very end:

    “How was it possible that he’d ever thought her plain? She was a jewel in the cold, grey mid-February sleet, all rosy cheeks and blue eyes and lovely pink lips that made him want to carry her to the nearest bed.”

    What was the girl? Cursed, so that only when someone fell in love with her saw her for what she was?

    I was having qualms going for the second book (One Good Earl Deserves Another) but Stacia’s review made me reconsider.

    Go back

    Your message has been sent

  • Review: Devoured by Emily Snow

    Lately, I’ve been venturing off the beaten path and my comfort zone in an effort to understand new reader trends. This book has erotica elements and is all about the bad-boy rock-star hero who wants what he wants when he wants it–a very popular theme lately.

    However, the fact that I downloaded and read this particular book proves that a good cover can take a book a long way. But I would have easily given it only one star if the tension of the first half hadn’t gripped me.

    Apart from that, Lukas is your typical rock-star jackass with a big ‘no biggie’ attitude. There is absolutely no character development for him, and he ends up coming off as weak toward the end.

    Sienna is the average doormat, but her background story justifies her attitude, plus she’s not such a pushover when it comes to Lucas, so there is some substance in this character.

    The heat factor that is much praised by other reviewers follows an annoying (to me) pattern: build-up through promises, of the I wanna do this and this to you type, but falls short when the Hero actually gets a chance to live up to the readers’ pumped up  expectations. Hot, explicit foreplay, glossed-over sex: is that a trend?

    The prose is weak and clunky. The dialogues are limited to expletives and rarely express true emotion, and the overall plot is really non-existent. The reason the H/h separate is pretty lame and forced. However, the ending is super sweet and compensates in some way.

    (And, seriously, if someone “bobbed their head” one more time,  I would self-combust!)

  • Writing Tips from Authors

    I just bought the eBook and will come back with a review

  • Kinked (Elder Races 6) 5/5

    KinkedI devoured Kinked although I never liked Aryal in the previous books, and I wasn’t sure what kind of hero could tame such a, well, harpy. Enter Quentin…

    Review Breakdown

    Aryal: 5/5 She’s Aryal through and through. If you’ve read previous books and hoped that she’ll somehow turn into a pushover, she doesn’t. Her character develops emotionally as she gets to meet her mate, but she’s still dominant, unyielding … a total badass! Got to hand it to her. She’s original Alpha female.

    Quentin: 5/5 – You can easily fall for Quentin. He’s simply perfect. Although he starts out by showing a Dom side, being with Aryal forces him to play it down and even try out a little role reversal. Still, he has inherent class, and knows how to say the right thing in the right moment. He’s equally sexy as a bar owner and setting up camp in the wilderness, he’s got a feline’s graceful move and he purrrs! My only problem: I couldn’t picture him as a blond guy. A blond black-panther Shifter?! Not so much.

    Plot: 4/5 – For the most part, it felt in the way of Aryal and Quentin’s relationship. It gets better toward the end and helps Aryal show more facets of her character.

    Prose: 5/5 – I love how Thea Harrison writes. It’s never tiring, with interesting turns of phrase, a healthy sense of humor and strong dialogues.

    Heat: 4/5 – The sexual tension is scorching and the H/h’s brief role reversal in the beginning makes the reader wildly anticipating when they’ll carry out their bargain properly, but the plot gets in the way and we never see that. With all the Dom talk that goes on in the first part of the book, maybe I expected more intense get-togethers (and that being not me, says a lot).

    Best quote:

    He told her telepathically, I want to put a collar on you.

    Her answer was a telepathic snarl. Dream on, mother*****.

    FINALLY! I’ve dreamed of such a comeback ever since I read 50 Shades…