Focus on 1 Thing

To be successful at anything there is one common thread among successful people. Now, preparer your mind for this concept. Are you ready?????? Here it is.  Focus On 1 Thing. When you focus on one significant thing in your life nine times out of ten it will eliminate other things . Here's an example. 

When you take 60 minutes out of the day to focus only on exercise, nine times out of ten it will eliminate the need for medication such as high blood pressure, cholesterol or other medical issues excess weight cause.

Let's look at writing. You have a deadline for a story. Take a seat, focus on your story and write for a designated timeframe. When you do, nine times out of ten, you will end up with a story by your deadline. That will eliminate the stress of that date creeping up on you, along with the long hours into the night, or days of a quick snack or junk food to fuel the extra hours you trying to take your body through. Not to mention eliminating the guilt you will feel for messing up the 60 minutes you spent on exercising earlier in the day. 

If you want to expand your reader base, take 60 minutes a day to focus on just that. Research your audience. Focus on what they do? Where they do it? Then find a way to go to them to introduce your work. Expand your reader base by one or ten, it doesn't matter how many. This will eliminate some the anxiety or inner turmoil you feel on release day. 

Focus on sleep at night. Put a timer on the television, or radio. Close your eyes. Sleep. A good night rest relieves stress and tension. It rejuvenates your body and your mind and eliminates the dragging feeling you have sometimes in the morning.  

There are a lot of people who brag on multitasking and that's okay. Successful people concentrate on 1 thing at a time. Have you ever hear the saying "Jack of all trades, master at none"? Become the master at one---YOU. 

There are 24 hours in a day. Break it down to accomplish what you want out of life. You want to lose weight. Take 30-60 minutes each day and focus on exercising. You want to expand your readers base, spend an hour focus on nothing but promotions, or finding your readers. You want to write a book. Set aside a timeframe when you will focus on nothing but that story. You want the energy to do it all again the next day? For eight hours focus on nothing but sleep. 

Focus on 1 thing. 

Just a few thoughts from Inside The Heart. 

As always you can find me at: www.irisbolling.net or www.siriaustin.com 

Until the next time

Iris 

WOW! IT'S BEEN A MINUTE

Life is funny. You think you've started this hobby of writing and suddenly you find yourself involved in the big business of publishing. Well, it wasn't really suddenly. I mean it did not happen overnight. However, the little hobby is now a business. Yay, SIRI AUSTIN ENTERTAINMENT LLC. Check us out at: http://www.siriaustin.com.

Did I see this coming? No. But man it has been a ride...... Let me bring you up on what has happen since the last time I blogged here, (coughing to cover the embarrassment) since 2013.

Novel number 15 was published last month. Series number four is one book away from completion and I am now the Executive Producer for my own television series, entitled....wait for it....The Heart.

That's right, I took my very first series, The Heart and made it a political drama for television. Yes, we did casting calls and hire actors. We wrote scripts breaking book one, Once You've Touched The Heart, into scenes. We interviewed and hired crew members to film. And then, we just did it. We use several locations in my hometown, Richmond, VA. Filmed for six weekends and then edited for just as long. Then we aired for six weeks on the CW-Richmond network. And guess what?????? This is the best part. We are about to do it again for season 2 of The Heart. I have written six episodes from book 2, The Heart of Him, for filming this summer and airing around February 2016.

Does this sound insane or what? Yes, I went from sharing the adventures of getting into the world of publishing to adding the world of production to it. Now take a minute and think about that..... It seems like a natural transition.

We write to share our stories, characters, and imaginations with readers. Producing those stories for television, web-series or movies, is a natural way to give your readers another aspect of your stories. First you put them between the pages of a book, then you bring them to life for the big screen. Natural progression.

So now, I have two worlds to share with you. The Adventures of a Self-Published Author and The Adventures of an Indie-Producer. There I've changed the name of my blog to Inside The Heart. Form now on I will be sharing the things from publishing, for that is my first love and things from behind the scenes of The Heart with you. I think Inside The Heart covers just about everything.
Talk about following a dream.  Are your ready for the ride?

As always you can find me at: http://www.irisbolling.net or https://www.facebook.com/iris.bolling.

Until the next time,
Iris

Goal Setting for the Self-Published Author

Keeping in mind that being a Self-Published Author is a business, I have a question for you. Do you have a business plan in place? If you do, has it been updated recently? If you don’t, get one. Why? I’m happy you asked. A business plan does several things for you, the first and most important, in my opinion, is goal setting. You should know where you are going before you start the journey. A business plan is a road map, of sort, to help you get to your destination. There will be twist and turns along the way and probably a few bumps and bruises, but you will still be on your way. Being on your way to becoming a successful self-published author is your goal. So take a moment to plan that journey. Who knows, you may end up with a few wonderful accolades along the way and a little money to help you get there.

How do you put together a business plan? Another good question. In this wonderful and freighting world of the internet, you can goggle and find just about anything you need to do whatever. Goggle “Business Plans”. You will get an array of sites that is dedicated to assisting you in putting together a business plan, if you would like to do it yourself. However, if you are like me I do not pretend to be a business guru. I’m an author, so I turned to professional to put together a business plan for me.

To those that are brave enough to try this on your own, here’s the short of what a business plan should include according to the Small Business Administration:

a)      Table of Content – give key sections of the plan

        b)      Executive Summary – Tell who you are, what you do and why

c)      Business description and vision – your company’s goal and objective (for your books)

d)      Definition of the market – who might buy your product

e)      Description of product and services – describe your product

f)        Organization and Management – describe who is responsible for what in your business

g)      Marketing and Sales Strategy- how you plan to reach your customers

h)      Financial Management- revenue and expenses

i)        Appendices- brochures, and/or copies of your book

That Small Business administration has a really simple and informative on-line course on creating a business plan. http://app1.sba.gov/training/sbabp/index.htm check it out.

I know, I went a little deep on this post and this is a very simplistic example, but the information is helpful. Besides, who said this journey was going to be fun all the time it creating wonderful characters and story lines. We have to put a little work into it somewhere along the road.

Until the next time.

Iris

Staring A Publishing Company—Really? Okay!

 So you want to start your own publishing company. Believed it or not it really isn’t that difficult to do. Keeping it going and profitable is the challenge. Starting your own publishing company is not for the faint at heart. Go into it knowing that every decision made is on you. Your company will succeed or fail based on the decisions you make. Also know, you may not see a profit right away. In fact, it will probably be three to five years before you see green. However, the joy and pride you experience every time you put a book on the market is unbelievable. Each book is like your baby, from inception to birth. Here are the steps I took to establish SIRI Enterprises, my publishing company.

1.      First I knew I wanted to self-publish. You need to determine if you want to publish just your books or publish other authors work.

2.      Once that decision is made, write a business plan. I used, The Ernest & Young Business Plan Guide by Eric S. Siegel, Brian R. Ford and Jay M. Borstein, as my resource.

3.      Apply for your business license with your local city or county. Contact the IRS to obtain your EIN (Employer Identification Number @ http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98350,00.html). Also, set up with your state tax department.

4.      Go to the US Copyright  Office @ https://eco.copyright.gov to establish an account

5.      Do the same with The Library of Congress @ http://pcn.loc.gov to establish an account

6.      Purchase a set of ISBN @  http://isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp (you can purchase from 1-1000 at a time)

7.      Determine if you want a Vanity Press to handle your packaging (ie: LULU, Smashwords, Create Space, etc…) Or if you want total control you can hire a consultant to handle page design and covers design. I use http://judithwansley.com/default.aspx

8.      Research printer and/or distributor for your books. You can use just a book printer or one that does both. I use http://www1.lightningsource.com/  

9.      Establish a relationship with editors to use when needed.

10.  You don’t have to do this, but I did set up an account with Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble to handle eBooks sales.

Now, it you still want to start your own publishing company, I have to tell you, it has been a very exciting endeavor. While I still would like to be published the traditional route, doing for myself has been most rewarding. Good Luck and remember, Believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything.

Quality vs. Quantity

Message to Self-Published Authors

What is the first thing you think when you read an author has produced twenty books in a twelve month time span? WOW! That author is bringing in the big bucks. It’s a logical assumption. You want a piece of the action, don’t you? LOL! We all do. But, at what cost?

This is going to be short and sweet.

If you put out twenty books and only two out of the twenty were good reads, how many more of your books do you think readers will purchase? Probably none. Here’s a little something to remember. Quality will bring you a bigger bang for your money than quantity will in the long run. How, you ask? Well, let’s look at the economics of book sales. You sold one hundred books at $5.00. You made $500.00 dollars. Not bad. You put out another twenty. This time you only sold two, you made $10.00. What happened? The readers choose not to try you again. Eighteen out of the first twenty they purchased were not good. And here’s the thing, you knew it before you put the book on the market. But you put them out there anyway for the quick buck. Now, you really have a problem—negative name recognition. You have to win the faith of the readers you lost back.

Let’s take a look at another scenario. You wrote one book. You sold 100 at $5.00. You made $500.00. Not bad. In fact readers are talking about your book to others and you find you have to reprint more or your eBook sales are jumping. When you release your second book, you sell 200 on the first day. $1,000.00 in one day! This is a real WOW! You have double your sales on the first book, all from word of mouth. The readers talked about how good that first book was to their friends, bookclub members, on review sites and other readers listened. Not only did you retain you first group of readers, you have added more. Why? Quality.

The quality of your story is what will keep the readers faithful to you as an author. They will remember the characters, what they did, how they did it and who they did it to. Readers will begin to quote some of your words. But most important, the readers will share your work with other readers. Give them a piece of crap and they will not even remember the name of the book. Or worse, when they hear your name the will smirk, “Don’t waste your money.”

Quality vs. Quantity…..Quality wins hands down, every time. When writing your novels, but your big toe in it the mix. It will pay off in the long run.

Part II - Action

Adventures of a Self-Published Author

Part 2 – Action

Sorry, it’s been a while since the last post, but I’ve been a little busy with the self publishing business. The last time we were together I shared the beginning of my journey into the literary field – The Plan. You always have to have a plan. The next step is putting your plan into action. Believe me when I say, THIS IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE.

The most frustrating part of my journey was determining where to go once my first great master piece was complete. The 50 pages I told you about last time turned into 800 plus pages. The large number of pages didn’t bother me because I was telling a story. As long as the story flowed it didn’t matter how long it was—right? WRONG! The number of pages did matter, or so I found out. I digress; let me go back a little.  

After completing my master piece, I began researching where I should go from there. The answer was The Writer’s Market. It’s a book that is published every year on where & how to sell your fiction novel, or short story. It has a wealth of information for anyone that is looking for an agent or a literary home. It tells you who handles what type of stories. For example, if you are writing a romance novel you wouldn’t want it to go to a publishing house that handles science fiction. You want it to go to a publishing house that handles romance. Here is the main lesson for this blog, DO YOUR RESEARCH.

Research? Hum, what are you trying to find you ask. Good question. You are trying to find a good fit for your master piece. You are trying to find the right publishing house and/or agent to market your novel. Some publishing houses have different imprints, so you need to research that also. For example, an imprint could be sweet romance, suspense romance, urban romance, erotica, or Christian romance. If your book is erotica, you don’t want to submit it to the Christian imprint, though the visual of the Christian agent reading your submission would be interesting, you are setting yourself of for a rejection. So take the time to research where and who you want to submit your master piece.

My research was in lighting, to say the least. There are hundreds, if not thousands of publishing house out there. But I persevered and found several publishing companies that I wanted to submit my novel to. Did I mention THIS IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE? Oh, I did—okay. This is where my problems began.

To submit a manuscript, to an agent or publishing house you have to do two things, other than write the book. You have to write a synopsis and a query letter. WHAT? WHY? Don’t they understand I’ve written a 190,000 word master piece? I don’t have any words left to write a letter or a synopsis. He--, (four letter word) I don’t even know what a synopsis is, for real. Sigh—, more research!

According to Webster a synopsis: a condense statement or outline; an abstract. Yeah, that helped—not. In the literary world a synopsis tells the major point and events of your book in a concise and accurate manner. In other words tell someone what your book is about without re-writing the entire story. I am going to be very honest here; I still have not acquired this skill. This is probably the number one reason why I self-publish. But I did try to write the synopsis.

Then there is the query letter. Well, this is a little easier than the dreaded synopsis, but still a difficult task for me. A query letter, as I understand it, is the attention getter. This letter is sent to an agent or publishing house as an attempt to get them interested in your novel. If your query letter is done well, the agent or publishing house may request your complete manuscript for review. So, what do you put in a query letter. Ahhh—more research.  You definitely want the opening statement to catch the interest of the reader.  Agents and publishing house received thousands of letters each day from eager new authors, and some of us not so new authors. Their time is limited, so you need your letter to capture their attention with the first line or two. Paraphrase the word you use when you are telling a friend about your book. How do you get them excited and eager to read your book? Do that with your letter. Then tell them about you—your experience or your connection with the topic of your novel. Most of all remember, you are trying to get them to believe in your story as much as you do. Sell it to them. Okay, I did that.

Now, it was time to submit my master piece. I sent the query letters, the synopsis and the first three chapters of my book to the top three publishing house of my choice. Now, all I have to do is sit back and wait for the bidding wars to see who would have the honor of selling my novel. LOL! Ahhh, that was so funny.

Let me tell you, when I received the first rejection letter, I shrugged it off saying, “they just didn’t see the greatness.” The second one came, I simple said, “oh.” The third one gave a little more than “I’m not interested.” It stated the general story was good, but the word count was off the chain. You may want to consider making it two books instead of one. Hence, the creation of Once You Touched The Heart and The Heart of Him.

Writing the next great mater piece is one thing. Getting it into the readers hand is another. Publishing is a business, whether you are with a publishing house, or self-publishing. Like any other business you have to work, and I do mean work hard at succeeding. The first step is learning all you can about the world of publishing. Take the time to research any and everything about how to get your great master piece into the hands of the reader. That, after all is the goal—right? 

Well, let’s see. We talked about planning and action. So what’s next? Ahhh yes, making the decision—Traditional or Self-publishing.

Until the next time,

Iris

Adventures of a Self-Published Author

Adventures of a Self-Published Author

Part 1 – The Plan

Where should I start? The beginning is always a good place. I was born the daughter of a share cropper……..screchhhhh. We don’t want to go that far back. LOL! Just a little humor to get your attention.

As those who write knows, it always starts with putting pen to paper, or pulling up the computer and putting fingers to keys. It really was just that simple for me. I needed a stress break from work. The job had deal some harsh blows, and I needed an escape, so I did what I always did, grabbed a romance novel. (Might as well escape with a good looking man that loved me beyond belief.) At the time it was a Brenda Jackson novel. My son was watching television in another room and I could hear President Bush (the son) in the background. The thought occurred to me that we need a President that cared about the people, the country, the world, anything but himself. “Can’t you find something better to watch on TV?” I asked my son, who has been heavy into politics since he was eighteen. “There’s nothing else on,” he replied. Understanding, I nodded in agreement. “The only thing on TV now is reality shows. Whatever happened to dramas?” Then he said something that changed our lives. “You have a wired imagination. Why don’t you write something and send it to the networks.” I stood there in the middle of the floor just staring at him with the romance novel in my hand and thought, why not. From the mouth of babes.

     I went back to my office, but my feet up and tried to continue reading my book. But my thoughts drifted back to my son’s suggestion. I put the book down, moved over to my computer and begin writing a story about a politician the cared about people, family driven and fine as Denzel Washington. At first I wrote about 50 pages and stopped. When I read it, I thought it was pretty good. So I called a friend over and asked her to read it. She came over, sat in my office and begin reading. I went in the kitchen to start my Sunday dinner. An hour or two later she emerged from the office, (I almost forgot she was in there) took a seat on my sofa in my living room and began asking a series of questions about the characters. To my surprise and hers, I was able to give her all sorts of details about each character in the very short story. It was funny because from there we talked for hours about what I had written. Her parting words were, you need to finish that book. “Book? What book? I was supposed to be writing a script for TV.”  

From September to December 2005, those 50 pages turned out to be the outline for 800 pages of what you now know as The Heart Series.  I put the information my friend extracted from me down on paper which gave me the family and friend structure. Then I put together a flow chart showing how and where each story connected to the next. Here’s the original layout;

  

As you can see, when I began my adventure in writing, it was never about just one book or just one series. From the very beginning the plan was set for The Heart Series, plus a few more. 

Why am I sharing this information you ask? That’s simple too. When I started on this journey, I knew nothing about writing, publishing, marketing or public relations. Even worst, I had no idea where to gather the information. Therefore I tapped into the only resource I knew, the internet. I began researching my favorite authors, how they got started, what motivated them and how they learned. Since Brenda Jackson, Beverly Jenkins, Francis Ray and others shared their experiences to help me with my journey it is only right for me to do the same for others. You know the helping hand theory.

This is the thought I want to leave you with. If you are truly interested in doing something, not just writing, but anything, make a plan. Take the time to research the area, don’t think because you have a little talent, a contract or offers are going to fall into your lap. Learn all you can, from whomever you can about the craft. Remember even bad information can be helpful. We learn the best lessons sometimes from failure.

Until the next time,

Iris