Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Two Girls shirts and stickers
Two Girls shirts and stickers on TeeSpring
Starting in the year 2018, every person born has an identical twin. What was dubbed the mysterious Set Mutation is now, twenty years later, a worldwide phenomenon. Penny and Sam, two 16 year old twins, have never understood why they are different from one another. While all the other sets of twins grow to be more alike, in every way, Penny and Sam struggle to fit in--they aren't naturally the same person. Soon they will find out how deadly their secret really is.
Fiction Series, Dystopic, Young Adult,
Monday, February 13, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Two Girls is getting great reviews during its first week
GOODREADS:
Montzalee Wittmann's review
Two Girls (Two Girls #1) by Justin Sirois is a sci-fi adventure set in the near future that is really chilling. Manipulation of birth and genes, cover-ups, and murder if the heroes the readers are following get caught. All very exciting and lots of twists and exciting ending. Loved it all the way through.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1905455562
Friday, February 10, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
TWO GIRLS is HERE
Starting in the year 2018, every person born has an identical twin. What was dubbed the mysterious Set Mutation is now, twenty years later, a worldwide phenomenon. Penny and Sam, two 16 year old twins, have never understood why they are different from one another. While all the other sets of twins grow to be more alike, in every way, Penny and Sam struggle to fit in—they aren’t naturally the same person. Soon they will find out how deadly their secret really is.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Friday, January 27, 2017
Amazon's Kindle Scout - editing with Amazon's Kindle Scout editors
It took about three weeks to get back my edits from the Kindle Scout team. Admittedly, I was a little nervous opening up the editorial letter, fearing that I would have to make major edits to the structure of the plot. Luckily, that wasn't the case.
The editorial letter was very thorough. It both complemented the novel and gave thoughtful suggestions about clarifying motivations and story points. I was a little lucky as this is a series and much of what the editors wanted addressed does get solved in the second book. The letter was broken down into sections:
Overall, the track changes in the Word doc that I got back were easily accepted. The editor used the Chicago Style manual and paid close attention to consistency throughout. I basically accepted 99.9% of the edits and kept just a few that I felt were stylistically native to the series. The editor even commented positively in a few places which made me feel great.
I made a few edits of my own to clarify what the editor thought was foggy and submitted the novel yesterday.
Amazon already updated Goodreads with Two Girls and the publishing date says March:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33792520-two-girls
That seems right.
IF you asked me what I thought of the whole editorial process with Kindle Scout, I'd say I was absolutely pleased by their level of attention. It makes sense. Amazon paid a $1,500 advance to me as well as paying an editor to go through a 300+ page novel. They don't just want to make their money back, they want to turn a profit. Editing Kindle Press books as well as they can only makes their investments more valuable. It's a win/win for me and Amazon.
The current plan is to see how Two Girls book 1 does and then hopefully submit book 2 to Kindle Scout this summer. Fingers crossed.
The editorial letter was very thorough. It both complemented the novel and gave thoughtful suggestions about clarifying motivations and story points. I was a little lucky as this is a series and much of what the editors wanted addressed does get solved in the second book. The letter was broken down into sections:
- Overview - overwhelmingly positive comments.
- Structure/Plot Flow - no changes here, the novel is a fairly straight ahead linear story.
- Characterization - great compliments on character evolution and realism .
- Tone and Style - no changes.
- Dialogue - editor said this was one of the strongest elements of the novel.
- Grammar - typical consistency edits with m dashes v.s ellipses and such.
- Formatting - no edits there.
- Character List - editor made a detailed list of every character.
Overall, the track changes in the Word doc that I got back were easily accepted. The editor used the Chicago Style manual and paid close attention to consistency throughout. I basically accepted 99.9% of the edits and kept just a few that I felt were stylistically native to the series. The editor even commented positively in a few places which made me feel great.
I made a few edits of my own to clarify what the editor thought was foggy and submitted the novel yesterday.
Amazon already updated Goodreads with Two Girls and the publishing date says March:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33792520-two-girls
That seems right.
IF you asked me what I thought of the whole editorial process with Kindle Scout, I'd say I was absolutely pleased by their level of attention. It makes sense. Amazon paid a $1,500 advance to me as well as paying an editor to go through a 300+ page novel. They don't just want to make their money back, they want to turn a profit. Editing Kindle Press books as well as they can only makes their investments more valuable. It's a win/win for me and Amazon.
The current plan is to see how Two Girls book 1 does and then hopefully submit book 2 to Kindle Scout this summer. Fingers crossed.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Amazon's Kindle Scout - paperback rights and cover design with CreateSpace
One of the major perks of Kindle Scout is, when you get a publishing contract, you retain the paperback rights. This can be both positive and negative depending on your skill level. If you're not versed in self-publishing, then it might be a headache to navigate a platform that suites you best. Or it might be expensive to find a book cover designer.
I was excited to know that I have full control over the print version of Two Girls. With Severed Books already running for five years with So Say the Waiters, I have nearly all of my properties printing and selling through Amazon's Create Space website.
Knowing I'll get live updates of sales to books that I price myself is a relief. Making a little over $3 on a $11.99 sale through Amazon is a way better deal than any average author would get through a traditional contract. Without an agent in the way, I'll avoid the 10% off the top fee as well.
Labels:
Two Girls
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Amazon’s Kindle Scout – an Unexpected Campaign Success and Book Contract Win
To say I had everything going against me and my Kindle Scout
campaign would be an understatement. I launched my campaign during the worst
time, got a dismal page view count, and barely hit the "Hot and Trending" list. When I got the You’ve
been selected! email, I held my phone, stunned. How did I pull it off? Let me back up just a
little and explain how I got to that point.
I’ve been writing fiction for about seven years and poetry for
much longer. I've gotten a few local grants and awards for my work, but nothing on an NEA scale. Thought I’ve tried to get an agent now and then, my work usually landed
with great indie presses and no agent wanted to take on those projects.
In 2014, after self-publishing So Say the Waiters, I started
working on Two Girls. I’d never written young adult stories before, but this
felt right—the characters made sense and the semi-dystopic setting was weird
and challenging. The story grew into two books—Two Girls = two books, right? I pitched it to over a hundred agents, one of which gave me a sort of half-yes and then, after six months, decided not to take the series. That was pretty disappointing.
Then I put the manuscripts down. Away. Shelved. My creative
life did a creative 180. I started making tabletop games, successfully funded a
$22,000 Kickstarter by myself, then another for $7,000 while reinventing myself
as a game writer. And it was/is fun. Amid all this and also writing the second
installment of a complicated role playing game, I decided to submit Two
Girls to Amazon's Kindle Scout.
I submitted my novel RIGHT BEFORE THANKSGIVING. I clearly wasn’t thinking. At
all. The campaign for Two Girls literally started on Thanksgiving Day and ended…
take a guess… on Christmas Eve. Some people might say, “Oh, that’s great,
people are off work and looking for something to read.”
No. People are shopping on Black Friday. They’re scooping up
deals on Cyber Monday. They’re scrambling to cook and travel and pack and wrap presents
and avoid creepy uncles and everything else that’s holiday related. I knew I had made a massive
mistake.
Marketing is something I do fairly well. My Instagram for my
game making endeavor has over 3,300 followers after 9 months of posting
original content. I’ve been promoting things like night club events to poetry
readings to political fundraisers for almost two decades. How did I make this insane timing mistake?
Disappointed in my crap
timing, expectations sunk, I posted about Two Girls on Instagram and Facebook
when it launched and quickly tried to put it out of my mind.
In the next 30 days, Two Girls had only 330 page views which is around 10 pages views a day. That’s
nothing compared to other authors who paid for ads and posted on social networking
platforms with Trump-like aggression. And the “Hot and Trending” list? Well, I
got a pop at the end and made it on there for 71 hours = less than 3 days.
When
the campaign ended, I sighed and thought, “Well, that was a good lesson. Never
schedule a month-long campaign between the two biggest holidays of the year…
idiot.”
And then the unimaginable happened. I got the email. Two Girls was accepted for publication by Amazon Kindle Press.
So what the hell happened here? I think the new lesson is this.
Amazon’s editors are paying attention and they are looking for compelling work.
Two Girls is a Young Adult series at its core, but its also difficult to categorize. It's kinda of science fiction, but not really. It's kinda dystopic, but hardly. It's a bazaar teen drama with lots of perspective shifting and questions about American identity. Not the easiest sell.
Admittedly, I had this going for me: I’m an established
author with a good presence on Amazon. So Say the Waiters is a 3 book series
with over 600 reviews on Goodreads and Amazon combined. It's currently opened for TV. So where does that leave the first-time author with little to no web presence? I still think you've got a decent shot.
Here’s the good news. If you have a strong project, but don’t
have a wide social marketing reach, it might not matter. Amazon's editors get paid to find great writers. It's to their benefit because you're a possible revenue resource that takes little to no maintenance after installment: they plug in your asset and hopefully it makes them a 50% profit over the course of months or years.
Remember, I did nearly no
marketing to boost my Kindle Scout campaign and I landed a contract.
Here's your Kindle Scout to do list:
- Create a great cover.
- Have someone proof your novel.
- Refine your blurb.
- Have someone else proof your novel.
- Ready your modest social media campaign.
- Have a THIRD person proof your novel.
- Post your campaign.
Keep writing. Never be boring. Fill the world with the weird shit.
I'll keep posting about the editing and publishing experience here. I just submitted the updated manuscript to the editors and I'm waiting for their notes/edits.
Check back soon.
Labels:
Two Girls
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