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All the Trimmings

All the Trimmings

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I’ve been thinking recently about the importance of side dishes. One Thanksgiving Day, we just had all the trimmings. It wasn’t until after the pie that our guest noticed the absence of turkey.

Indie-publishing can feel like this – a plethora of side dishes, from formatting to advertising. There are so many activities involved, it can be easy to forget that writing is the main event.

A good book, one that someone wants to read and once started can’t put down is not a small thing. But I have learned, it is also not the only thing.  If no one knows about your main dish, no one can enjoy it.

That’s what all the trimmings are for.

Gravy, for instance, is the distillation of a broth’s flavor. A blurb is like this. So is your author bio. And like gravy, these bits of text can be used to flavor many other side dishes.

Your book page on an online bookstore may start out looking like mashed potatoes – white and blank. So, make sure to add your blurb and author bio here.

Also, remember add a generous handful of keyword phrases to these texts. Just as extra seasonings like pepper and sage spice up your stuffing, keyword phrases make your text more appealing to search engines.

A fruit relish, like the iconic cranberry sauce adds contrast to your meal. I find writing a regular newsletter is an excellent palate cleanser. The opportunity to focus on a different flavor enhances my writing experience.

And then, the vegetables! I love crisp, crunchy salads bursting with vibrant color. This is a textural contrast, just as giving away or selling a book in person contrasts with doing so online. It’s not that bell pepper strips are better than sweet potato casserole. They are just completely different.

And included in “all the trimmings” is dessert. Whether it’s a crisp apple, a slice of pie, or chocolate mousse, dessert reminds me of reviews. I love knowing that something I wrote touched a reader, caught their attention and sweetened their day. That’s just the best!

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Rose is the author of The Valora Series, The Durrell Brothers Trilogy, Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised. Her novel, Waiting For You, the first book of the Durrell Brothers Trilogy, was 2nd place winner in the 2018 New England Reader’s Choice Contest. She loves writing stories about people who do everything in their power to avoid falling in love.

Please feel free to email Rose at https://rosegreybooks.com/newsletter with your thoughts on any of her books. Or reach out on Facebook: facebook.com/rosegreybooks/. Rose loves to hear from her readers!

The Book Release Story

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Now that The Heart Thief has arrived, I’ve been thinking about the term Book Release. One could call it Book Publication Day. Or No More Rewriting Day. But Book Release Day is evocative in the way those other true but less stirring terms are not. Because publishing a book is a kind of letting go.

Writing starts out with a lost idea, tangled in a net by the side of the road. A passing author rescues it. The idea is dehydrated and stressed so it needs to be rehabilitated and made into a story before it can go into the wild. When the big day arrives, the author, handling the story gently, but wearing leather gloves in case it bites, transfers it to a small cage.

It’s a long drive to the release location and the author fastens the cage into the back seat with the seat belt. On the way, the story paces anxiously, turning from one set of bars to the other. It can scent freedom in the breeze that puffs through the car’s open windows. A small, select group of supporters have gathered on the mountain top to see it off.

The weather is clear and from the peak, one can see the village below. The buildings are distant but distinct. The story remains quiet, crouched near the door of its cage – ready but tentative. Perhaps this is a trick, it thinks.

But the author fiddles with the catch and the door swings open. The story pauses for a split second, still unsure and then it flies. It swoops up into the blue sky, glorying in the freedom to stretch and soar. And then it is gone – off to new adventures.

On the way back down the mountain, the author notices something caught in a bramble bush by the bridge. It’s a new idea, scratched and bruised, but with potential. The author puts it in the cage and brings it home. It will probably need some warm milk and a soft blanket. The author can hardly wait to see how this idea turns out.

It might take a few weeks, though. So, while you are waiting, check out The Heart Thief!

Writer Resolutions

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February is an awkward month. All those writer resolutions I made in January begin to look a bit bedraggled four weeks later.

I started out well.

“Just grab a pen,” chirped my internal Time Manager. “Get those tasks out of your head and onto a pad of paper.”

My Time Manager knows my internal weakness. I love lists. So, I made a long list of the many things I know I ought to do more often as an indie writer. Marketing. Branding. Social Media. Graphic design research for ads and so I can recognize what makes a good book cover. Keyword Management. Research related to the Business of Writing.

But these are all big umbrella type topics. So, I made a second more detailed list of “things I need to get done in order to get other things done.”

Then, just to be completely thorough, I transferred each of these writer resolutions tasks to index cards.

I love index cards even more than I love lists. And there were a lot of those cards. I color coordinated them – yellow for daily items, blue for weekly ones. I noted which day each week I should do them and how much time I should spend on each task. They made a satisfyingly fat stack.

I was feeling pretty smug until I realized I had forgotten cards for five crucial tasks.

But my internal Time Manager was right. Filling out those index cards had cleared enough mental space for me to remember the obvious: Observing. Thinking. Reading. Staring at nothing. And most important, writing.

These activities are the reason I do this author boogie. The rest is commentary. Doesn’t mean I’ll never tackle that fat pile of index cards, but I think I’ll prioritize for my personal Big Five.

Rose Grey is hard at work on her first scifi romance novel. Visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. The Closer You Get, All Of Me, Waiting For You, Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are contemporary romance novels available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.