A free day for a hybrid romance

On February 7th,  Desert Inferno will have a free day on Kindle. It is in Kindle's Select program which enables these occasional days of giveaways with the hope of interesting new readers, who might not otherwise try something out of their usual habit.

This book has had a hard time getting interest because it's such a nontraditional romance. It really needs nontraditional readers to give it a try as it's not so much a simple romance as also a story of adventure. In fact, the more I look at romances, the more I wonder if any of my stories qualify. I once though they were because they are stories of a man and woman meeting, falling in love or trying for a second chance at love, human sexuality, but always, in the midst is something else, a theme, problem, or issue that really is as important as the love story.

When I was submitting manuscripts to publishing houses, I always ran into this problem of their need to fulfill genre expectations. That often meant heroine in trouble. Man saving the day. I didn't like that kind of story to read or to write.

Desert Inferno is a western with a strong emphasis on the love that I feel for Southern Arizona and set in a part of it that I know pretty well. Jake is a U.S. Border Patrolman, and an unusual hero because he's a man most people consider ugly. Well a lot think the desert is ugly also.  Beauty often is in the eye of the beholder and in Rachel's eyes, he's beautiful as is the desert country that surrounds her.

Rachel is a strong woman, successful as a landscape painter, independent in her thinking, but it really is love at first sight for her when she sees Jake. He feels a woman as beautiful as her will never be for him; and so their story begins.

It would be a love story like so many others except for what else is happening. Jake has an old enemy, one who wants to kill him. Rachel's father, owner of a big ranch but in trouble financially, has gone into business with that man smuggling Mexican antiquities into the United States . What he didn't count on was it would also involve murder.

The cover is one of those I have tweaked again and again but think maybe this time I have it as it will stay.

February 7th is a good chance to give one of my hybrid romances a try for free. You might learn you like something you didn't expect; and if you don't, you didn't put out any money. ;) I am sure learning a lot through this whole process. Marketing is a LOT harder than writing is all I can say.

Writing and rewriting promos

As hard as it is for me to create a good author profile, I think even tougher is creating an enticing title, cover, and product description (henceforth to be known here as promos) for my books. Here are the basics-- I wrote it, I love it. I know all about it and consider it to be wonderful-- absolutely. It's my child. I still have to convince a reader of the same thing.

For those published by big publishing houses, promos used to be, and maybe still are, taken care of by them. They often even redo titles. Likely authors who don't self-publish haven't wanted to create a cover, but the image in their mind might not be what the House wants. Those  pro covers will all be done by commercial artists using generally professional models. Some of those models, like one called Fabio, became so famous they even did other ads-- and pretty much ruined the books for someone like me who didn't want the book's hero to look like him. Still the importance, of covers, titles and promos, has not been missed on the publishing houses. They are how you get people to read the story.

In the world of self-publishing, the writers are working with an added problem. Many readers are predisposed to think it won't be good. I mean if it was good, it would be published by a corporation, right? So the reader is looking for an excuse to reject the book. Their turnoff can come fast and for many possible reasons. Some the writer can fix. Some not if they happen to be part of a story that doesn't fit the genre market of that time.

First promo is the title. As a reader myself, I will only rarely override a terrible title to look beyond for more about the story. What might convince me to look twice after an awful title (which that writer likely felt was wonderful) would be a great cover.

In the Kindle Forums I have read that you absolutely must hire a professional artist to do your covers. They say it's worth the money. I don't know about that since I am turned off by the professionally done romance covers I see in the stores.

When I decided, since I have done a lot of digital painting, that I wanted to do my own covers, I went into the bookstores to see what was 'in'.  Why do readers like the cover guy to look like he's on steroids or spends his life working out? My characters are not that. It appears, however, that real people on covers are not popular with the romance reading population.

I went against the grain on this one and did my own anyway. I had several reasons besides feeling I'd enjoy doing them. One was my belief these books may not generate enough profit to cover a commercial artist let alone leave anything left over. I don't have money to put into it. I won't know for about six months whether I am right on that; but I have a lot less pressure with not putting any dollars into the project than if I had been spending money and still finding they didn't meet what the buying public wanted.

To be honest, when I read a promo from bookstore books, I generally can't stand them. There are exceptions, but too often heroes and heroines aren't interesting and the stories seem repetitious. How many feisty heroines and tough bad guy heroes who turn soft when they fall in love can a person read before throwing up? So if that's what the public wants, I am not going to be selling books. My only chance is aiming toward the atypical romance reader. Which leads to the real problem-- how do I get to those and convince them to give the books a try?

I could use any of my stories to illustrate this but will use the first one I put onto Kindle-- Desert Inferno. I have tweaked various aspects of the promotion through the month, but the cover does seem to suit the characters. But they don't look like movie stars or professional models. Will that hurt it when potential readers look at it?

Then I am asking myself if that title, which speaks to the climax, maybe it isn't working. I am open to changing a lot of things where it comes to promos-- just not the story I wrote as if I start changing that, it's all over for me. I can correct mistakes but I can't let myself lose that story in trying to promote it.

After title and cover comes writing something about what this story is, what can a reader expect from it? How do I get across the essence of that in few words? Somehow with this story I fear I have not been projecting the adventure, the danger, the excitement and the essence of this love between two people very different on the outside but inside, soul mates.

But the thing is my books don't fit a genre. I knew that and it was part of the problem with publishing houses. What can I do about that if anything?

The hero in Desert Inferno is probably one of my favorites but he's very unconventional in that he's not handsome. He describes himself as ugly although the heroine sees him as very attractive to her. BUT unattractive simply doesn't happen in romances. The heroes are always supposed to be gorgeous. What can I really do about that aspect?

So I know this much. I'm not the usual romance writer. How do I find others like me-- the offbeat readers? That's where this is still a learning process. I've only been doing it about a month; so I am trying to just kind of back off in terms of trying to figure this all out. I do read a lot on the subject.

 The last thing Border Patrolman Jake Donovan wanted to find at the end of a long day in a remote stakeout was a beautiful woman who had reported a dead body. For a lot of what he considered very good reasons, Jake avoided emotional entanglements of any sort especially with a woman like Rachel O'Brian, spoiled probably and rich without a doubt.

 As soon as she saw this rugged man, Rachel was equally determined that what he wanted was not what he needed. A successful landscape painter, who lived on a remote ranch with her father, she had finally found the man she wanted. So the chase was on as this time,  Jake found he was the prey-- not only of the beautiful Rachel but of an old enemy from his past.

 This is a story of love of the Southern Arizona desert, its dangers and beauties. It's about smugglers of Mexican antiquities, with a villain who has a taste for the macabre. It is most of all about passion and a man who doesn't yet know that love will be his salvation both physically and emotionally.

Desert Inferno 

Writing a good profile?

Profiles are one thing I really hate to write. My own that is. If you write or have to promote yourself in some way, you probably don't like it much either.  I'd rather everything rested on the books, not about me. There is no choice though as it is part of marketing. I got more interested in doing it when I thought about my writing philosophy.

There was a time when I wrote but never even liked to talk about writing. I just liked to do it. After reading different topics in Kindle Forums, I've had more interest in hearing what other writers think, their philosophies, and what works in their view.

The following is the most recent profile I wrote for Amazon. The photo isn't with it but just playing around with black and white and it seemed like a good one for a writer profile.

A good romance is like a wonderful song for the way it carries the reader along with highs and lows, tension and release, action and waiting. These are the kind of stories I aim to write and also the ones I want to read.

When I have created a story of two people coming together for the first or even second time, finding their connection and also the places they have to let the other go, falling in love and then working out a relationship, I feel a real satisfaction. That's what I hope my readers find also.

A good romance book is being able to reclaim the moment we fell in love through someone else's experience. We want to go along with the roller-coaster ride they are on. My favorite books have elements (sometimes a lot of it) of danger to add to this emotional high. I call mine hybrid romances because they also explore other things that fascinate me which might be art (I am a painter and sculptor), history, science, metaphysics, etc.-- whatever fits the situation these characters have entered into.

When I write, I try to apply the craft I learned from my teachers but also the inspiration I received from all the authors I have ever loved.  I edit, re-edit and edit again leaving slack times between to get fresh perspective. I try to cut out anything not needed. I want my stories to make their point, not be everything that happened, but everything important. I want them to have pace and a destination that leaves the reader and me the writer satisfied. My goal is to provide the wheat and not the chaff, to write a story of yin and yang, darkness and light, softness and hardness and the rose with the thorn.

When defining myself I am an animal, nature loving, rural living woman who is fascinated by both people's stories and their choices. 'Why?' has been a big part of my life. I was born into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, grew up in the front yard of Sasquatch with wilderness out my backdoor and a gravel road out front. Schooling began in a 2 room country school which meant a mile and a half walk to school along a gravel roads where in the spring I could watch pollywogs turn into frogs.

Today I live on a small ranch in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon where my husband and I raise cattle and sheep. The grandchildren come to visit when they can and they are also being raised to love nature, animals, and the outdoors. I don't see my life even now mapped out or where it might be next year. I have always liked living with changes possible.

This is all reflected in my stories which are of love, of men and women finding relationship, and struggling with all the things humans do. Perhaps romantic love has not always been so available but has been in the hearts of men and women from the time they first became recognizably human. We don't have a breeding cycle as so many animals do; so there has to be something to draw us together, make us willing to sacrifice, and that something is not simply lust but a far deeper connection that goes into our souls and some call soul mates. I love to tell the stories of these soul mates.