Coffee Novelist

I hope you enjoyed the popcorn and used the restroom during the intermission. I have continued to grind away. Before I move on, I must clarify my grind type. As you may be aware, not all grinds are the same. I have a drip coffee maker, an espresso machine, and a French Press maker. Each performs best with a different grind. The espresso is very fine, the French Press is coarse, and the drip in the middle.

My grind is set to authorpreneur, or direct to reader author, or independent author. Take your pick. My grind is not set to submitting manuscripts to the Big Five, or traditional publishing houses. However, as you will see below, I have spent some time using that grind. Sick of the coffee metaphors? Me too.

• I subscribe to a super high-end coffee magazine called Standart. They have a benefits for readers page, which offers subscribers discounts. It is mostly used by micro roasters the world over who offer a percentage discount to Standart readers. Shipping costs kept me from trying this for my coffee novels until I had the idea to send sticker and a signed promo card to any Standart reader who bought The Trier. So far, one guy in Brazil let me know he bought a book (he has yet to ask for the stickers)

          

• Put the updated Tripio cover on Goodreads. I have forgotten about my Goodreads author account. I just don’t vibe with Goodreads, but hear that it is essential for indie authors, so there you go.

• One benefit of doing live events is meeting fellow indie authors and making connections and doing things like trading books.  I recently traded The Trier for Lisa Devons’ book of poetry Sophomore Stomp.

• And a second connection from the Elevate event was made. Next week, I am going to have coffee and talk and trade books with a local editor and writer, Janet Schwind.  It’s always good to get to know folks in the biz.

• One other practice for indie authors is to read and review books for each other. A review on Amazon is the “lifeblood” of an author. I did just that by reading Bloody Kansas and reviewing it on Amazon. Of course, Amazon rejected my colorful, but positive, review. So I posted a boring one. I am still waiting for a reciprocal review for The Trier.

• There are a million folks out there trying to get a writer’s money, time, and attention. If you are like me and can’t really spare any of the above, then the one place to put what your do have is by joining The Alliance of Independent Authors. Based in England, Alli is part coach, watchdog, cheerleader, resource, and sounding board for me. There is an annual membership charge, but it is worth it.

• One example is a fellow writer, Kevin Mclaughlin, who took a question I had posed in the ALLI forum and helped me with a technical issue with my cover file for Tripio. He asked nothing in return.

• I did send a query to an agent and a submission to a small press, 7:13. The press actually sent me a rejection, which is unusual these days. Most presses, big and small are too overwhelmed to even get back to you.

• One benefit of spending some time grinding for queries and submissions is that they ask you questions about your project, and that helps bring its commercial viability into focus. In short, I have had to pick a genre or category for The Trier and the next two Trier novels. I have decided to label them “Coffee Magic Realism”, which may or may not have existed before.

• For the above submissions, I had to come up with various descriptions (long and short), synopsis, and market plans for my books.  All this was useful, even if my heart isn’t really into the traditional grind of Big Five Publishing Houses. I am applying it to my own Coffee Novelist ecosystem. Why do all that work for them?

• Every couple months I reach out to my mentor, if you will, Craig Leener, who is an accomplished indie author with one of his books being made into a movie. I sent him my book descriptions for his thoughts. Once I get those, I will follow Jane Friedman’s advice and update my descriptions on Amazon etc. These type of things can age quickly so its best to revisit them once in a while.