Today I’m very happy to host my good friend Theresa Ragan, one of my Wet Noodle Posse (Golden Heart class of 2003) buddies and an all-around cool lady. She dipped her toes into the self-publishing world before I did, and she’s having wonderful success and loving her decision. She’s here today to talk about her experience and to provide helpful tips.

Hello, Trish. Thanks for having me. I’ll start off by telling everyone about myself. I have been writing for 19 years. In that time, I joined RWA, finaled in the Golden Heart six times in three different categories, and wrote ten 400-page novels and too many proposals to count. My first love was writing romantic medieval time travels. If I had sold back then, I have a feeling I might still be writing medieval time travels.

Hoping to grab the interest of a NY publisher, though, I went on to write five romantic comedies, two romantic suspense novels, and one thriller. In February 2011, while I was waiting for my agent to read my most recent manuscript, Abducted (to be released soon), I asked my agent for permission to self-publish my two medieval time travels since these books had been gathering dust for far too long. I was given the thumbs up, so off I went to learn basic HTML coding. I began madly researching blogs and books on “how-to-format” for Kindle and Nook. After Return of the Rose and A Knight in Central Park were released on Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, I was hoping to sell 10 ebooks, but was astonished to see my $.99 book (A Knight in Central Park) hit #65 on the Bestseller list on Amazon books after being mentioned on Pixel of Ink. For a while there I was selling 550 to 580 books a day! Although sales for that book have since leveled off to about 125 books a day, and AKICP is now ranked in the 300’s and #2 in Time Travel Romance, I am definitely enjoying the ride and I want to share what I have learned with anyone who might be interested in self-publishing.

FYI: In under ten weeks, I have sold 10,000 ebooks. In royalties, that means approximately $6,800.

$6,800 is about what I was hoping for in advance money had I gone the traditional route. I am very happy with my decision to self-publish. I must say that other self-published authors warned me that choosing to self-publish would take over my life.

And they were right.

At the moment I am helping my fourth child set off for college. Like most of you out there, I am BUSY. Who has time for blogging and tweets and writing?! Not me. I gave up television a long time ago. I have nothing left to give up. So I am trying to prioritize. Husband, kids, animals, gym, promotion/marketing, formatting, editing, writing, house cleaning. That’s pretty much the order in which I have prioritized since I self-published in March, 2011.

To keep this blog from becoming another 400-page book, I am going to condense. I hope Trish and visitors will add suggestions because I am very new to this self-publishing world and I don’t know much.

1. FIRST THINGS FIRST: Write a great book! This is the easy part. Ha!

2. I learned basic HTML so I could make sure my ebooks would have smart quotes and wonderful looking m-dashes. If you hire someone to format your books, you can skip this part. I do think it would be helpful to download some ebooks on your PC or Ereader so you can look at various formats that other author’s have used.

3. I learned a lot about self-publishing by reading Joe Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

4. I downloaded Derek Canyon’s, Format Your Ebook for Kindle in One-Hour at http://amzn.to/lKXIWP

If you DO NOT want to spend time formatting, there are lots of people who will do it for you. Here is one place you can go for Kindle and Nook formatting: http://design.lkcampbell.com/

Here is another: http://rikhall.com/

I haven’t worked with either of these people, so I have no idea who you should use to format your ebooks. Do some research before you choose. Send them an email and get a quote.

5. My husband downloaded HomeSite5 on my PC so I could make changes in HTML and see those changes as I made them. He already had this software, so this did not cost me any money. You don’t need to do this. Many people use Notepad or Word to format their books and save as HTML for Kindle and Nook.

6. While your book is being formatted, I suggest you ready your bio, backcover blurb, pricing, etc.

7. Once my book was formatted and ready to go, I registered at KDP (this is where you go to download your ebook on Amazon): https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help

8. I registered at PubIt (this is where you go to download your ebook on Barnes & Noble): http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/

9. I registered at Smashwords.com. Smashwords distributes your ebook to the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony Reader Store, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store. I have a lot to learn about Smashwords. Formatting was time consuming, so I hired Bryan Coker to format my latest book (bryansformatting@gmail.com), but I haven’t had time to download it yet. Email Bryan and tell him you would like a quote on having your book formatted for Smashwords.

10. Promotion/Marketing: Use your blog! Help other writers! Send out e-mails to your friends and family. READ Zoe Winters’ Becoming an Indie Author at: http://tinyurl.com/5tcqac8 This book is informative and interesting. It does NOT tell you how to format, but Zoe Winters will tell you what to expect when you self-publish.

When you register with KDP, Pubit, and Smashwords, all of these places will provide you with lots of tips and advice on how to market your book.

11. Print on Demand. If you want to hold a book in your hand, you can set up POD books with amazon through CreateSpace. I plan to do this with all of my books before the end of the year. It’s FREE! Or you can go with their pro plan for $39. Read all about it right here: https://www.createspace.com/

That’s it for now. If you decide to self-publish, I wish you TONS of success!

If you have any questions at all, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

Thanks for having me, Trish.

Here’s some additional, helpful info for people looking to self-publish.

Cover art:

If you’re looking for another option for a good cover artist, try Kim Killion. She’s done covers for, Trish (Living in Color), Colleen Gleason (except Siberian Treasure) and many others as well. www.hotdamndesigns.com

*Dara England for cover art. She makes custom covers and she’s fast: http://mycoverart.wordpress.com/

Miscellaneous:

For lots of informative posts on Ebooks vs. Traditional Publishing: http://kriswrites.com/ Kristine Kathryn Rusch

All About Copyrights by Amanda Brice:  http://bit.ly/k8VRvu

Formatting for Kindle and Nook:

*LK Campbell: http://design.lkcampbell.com/

*Rik Hall:  http://rikhall.com/

My first-ever online read at eHarlequin.com begins today. You can go here to read the first chapter.

The six authors who are taking part in the continuity series The Codys: The First Family of Rodeo are hosting a contest. Here are the details:

June kicks off the debut of Harlequin American Romance’s first-ever six-book continuity The Codys: First Family of Rodeo. In honor of this exciting occasion we’re running 6 one-day-a-month Social Media Blitz Contests at www.harauthors.blogspot.com

Contest Scoop
Beginning next month in June, an author in the continuity will post a blog at www.harauthors.blogspot.com and discuss her contribution to the The Codys: First Family of Rodeo series. After reading the author’s blog, post the link www.harauthors.blogspot.com, the title of the book and the author’s name to your Facebook, MySpace and or Twitter pages as well as your favorite blogs. The more places you link to and mention the author and her book, the more chances you have to win.

You can earn additional chances to win if you refer a friend and they in turn post a link to their favorite social media websites and blogs. Be sure to return to www.harauthors.blogspot.com and tell us where you’re spreading the word by posting the information in the comment section of the blog–that way we can keep a tally of your activity. Remember, it’s One Day Only Each Month June-November 2010!

Authors will be giving away prizes to several lucky winners. Your name will be entered into a drawing for each social media site you promote The Codys: First Family of Rodeo and for each friend you contact who in turn spreads the word through their favorite networks. You have twenty-four hours to link to us and win! The author will post the winners in the comment section of her blog the next day–be sure to return to see if you’re one of the lucky winners.

On June 5th Senior Editor for American Romance, Kathleen Scheibling will introduce The Codys: First Family of Rodeo to readers and the following day on June 6th Rebecca Winters kicks off the Social Media Blitz Contest with the first book in the series– Walker: The Rodeo Legend!

With the help of our faithful readers we’re hoping that on June 6th the web is buzzing with chatter about The Codys: First Family of Rodeo!

I’m being auctioned off! Okay, not really. But I have donated some critiques and books to be auctioned for good causes.

Up now is a critique of the first 25 pages of an unpublished young adult manuscript and an autographed copy of my first YA novel, Heartbreak River. This is to benefit diabetes research and is sponsored by author Brenda Novak, whose son has diabetes. You can access the auction listing (and bid!) here.

Tomorrow (Sunday, May 9), I’ll have a similar package available on the Do the Write Thing for Nashville auction to benefit flood victims here in Middle Tennessee. While my auction isn’t up yet, you’ll want to go over and look through all the fabulous auctions available now. I’ve bid on a few myself. Books, critiques, phone calls with agents, and all kinds of good stuff is just waiting for your bid.

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in my first Southern Kentucky Bookfest in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It’s a multi-genre event where numerous authors sign books and take part in panel discussions. I was on the romance panel with four other authors, but most of the time I spent in the signing room alongside other romance and suspense authors. Even though I was feeling pretty dreadful because the excessive pollen count had activated my almost-always-dormant asthma, I had a nice time chatting with readers and my fellow authors.

Here I am with Teresa Medeiros, whom I’m guessing I’ve known more than 10 years now though we don’t get the opportunity to talk very often. So it was nice to take the opportunity to catch up.

And here are some of the other fabulous authors in our area. From left: Susan Crandall, Molly Harper, fellow Harlequin American author Laura Bradford, and fellow MCRW member Bente Gallagher.

Hopefully I’ll be invited back next year and feel, oh, a million percent better than I did this time.

My good friend Mary, who writes as M.J. Fredrick, has a new romantic adventure release that went on sale today. So I’m going to hold off one more day on putting up more conference pictures so I can share the following Q&A with M.J. By the way, Beneath the Surface is one of my absolute favorite stories she’s written. So I was so happy when this book was bought by her publisher and thrilled when she got the gorgeous cover.

Q. Tell us a little bit about Beneath the Surface.

A. Beneath the Surface is a reunion story between two archaeologists on the verge of divorce. Mallory Reeves brings the divorce papers to the Yucatan Peninsula for her husband to sign. When a storm strands her there, she has to work to remember why she left archaeology–and Adrian–in the first place.
Q. What drew you to excavating sunken ships as a story backdrop?

A. You know, I don’t remember. My baby brother loves archaeology and I remember bouncing a lot of ideas off of him. I think the original idea was for Adrian to have found a Phoenician ship in the Caribbean. The way it was written, though, it overwhelmed the romance. so I revised. And revised. And revised.

Another issue was that I needed Adrian to have a specialty, and I thought underwater archaeology would be a cool specialty.

Q. Would you ever like to dive a sunken ship?

A. God, no. I’m claustrophobic as all get-out. I couldn’t even get in the submarine at Disneyland!

Q. Your couple is already married in the story but on the verge of divorce at the beginning. This isn’t usually a type of story that attracts me, but yours is wonderful. It has the same feeling of newly falling in love about it. Have you ever written about other married couples, or is this your first?

A. This is my second estranged couple book. The first isn’t published, though I’d like to go back and work on it one day. I was intrigued by the movie Twister. In fact, the first scene is similar, though my heroine goes to my hero. I wanted to find out how people who could feel so strongly about each other once upon a time could be pulled apart. This was a struggle as well, finding the balance between what had split them up, but not making it so serious that they couldn’t recover, but also not making it a big misunderstanding. I think I struck the right balance.

I loved playing with their memories, too, feeding that information of their early passion throughout the story.

Q. What’s coming up from MJ Fredrick?

A. I have another book from Samhain coming January 2010 called Breaking Daylight. It’s a story of a mother trying to find her child with the help of an Army Ranger who would rather be doing anything else.

I also have another book, Don’t Look Back, my 2006 Golden Heart finalist, coming from The Wild Rose Press in 2010, but I don’t have a release date yet.

Be sure to get your own copy of Beneath the Surface (in electronic format) from Samhain Publishing by clicking this link and following the directions.

Just call me Lamey McLamerson. I’ve not been blogging here lately because when I get to working on a book, other things seem to get shoved to the sides. I have been committed to blogging on my Healthy Writer blog every day, so pop by there if you get the chance.

But for now, here are some more pictures from the RWA National Conference. These are from Wednesday of conference week.

It was my first year to be able to sign at the huge RWA Literacy Signing. Imagine 500 authors in one room with lots of readers going from table to table to meet them and get books signed. So cool. And the proceeds go to literacy groups. We raised more than $60,000 this year. Extra cool was the fact that my next-door neighbor during the signing was my good pal Tanya Michna/Tanya Micheals. Here we look like normal, friendly authors. In a few weeks, we’ll be getting our geek on and dressing up at Dragon*Con.

Lots of friends stopped by my table. Among them were Michelle Butler, who I’ve now known for 13 years!

And Vanessa Barnevald, talented YA author and Golden Heart finalist this year. I fully expect to hear about a first sale from her soon.

After the Lit Signing was the annual Bandit Bash, sponsored by my fellow Romance Bandits and myself. Here’s a view from above of part of the crowd.

If you’re a regular visitor to the Romance Bandits blog, you’ll know how popular our Golden Rooster is. He’s a virtual rooster who goes to the first comment poster of the day, but don’t tell him he’s not real. He might get upset and karate chop me. The rooster, sporting a cape and mask, graced our party cake — along with some of his cocky attitude.

Banditas KJ Howe and Anna Sugden.

And more Banditas, Beth Andrews and Susan Sey.

Me with one of the Bash guests, Jessica Andersen, who took time away from pimping the end of the world, to come party with us. (See Jess’s books to see what I’m talking about.)

Well, you can probably tell my deadline is sucking up all my time because I didn’t get the second post about the conference up. But never fear! I’ve not forgotten.

On Sunday and Monday of conference week, I was pretty much in board member mode from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. I think we got out of the board meeting around 8 p.m. on Monday. Consequently, I slept in on Tuesday instead of going to play tourist. Two reasons: I was already run down and knew I’d get sick if I didn’t catch up on rest before the conference even started. And I’d broken my toe the night before my slamming it into the base of the bed. Ugh. Never had a broken anything before. I didn’t realize it was broken until the next morning when I discovered it was very sore, swollen and quite purple. Good thing I brought all open-toed shoes. So I didn’t think I wanted to go walking around museums all day.

Tuesday night, we had a party for the Romance Bandits and Bandita Jeanne’s house. Very fun — good food, good conversation, many laugh-out-loud moments. Plus, it was a hoot to hear Donna MacMeans’ GPS telling us how to get to Jeanne’s house in his proper British voice. Here for your viewing pleasure are several photos from the evening.

Donna MacMeans and Loucinda McGary

Nancy Northcott and Suzanne Welsh

Suz with Christie Kelley

The Golden Rooster eyeballing some of the yummies

Jeanne Adams, Anna Campbell and Caren Crane

Joan Kayse offering the GR one of her awesomely scrumptious chocolate chip cookies

Beth Andrews and Anna Sugden

After leaving Rochelle, Illinois on my trip north, I headed to Madison, Wisconsin, where my agent is located. On the way out to dinner, she drove me through the University of Wisconsin campus. I know it’s cold in the winter, but the campus has some lovely lake views. We ate dinner at a place called Nau-ti-Gal on one of the lakes. We sat outside and listened to the live band that was set up and playing under the trees in the yard. The place was packed, and I had some absolutely delicious stuffed grouper. We talked business for awhile, then just some fun non-business stuff. After leaving there, we went to a Madison landmark, Ella’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor. This place is amazing — not just the ice cream but also the decor. It’s full of old toys everywhere, even moving back and forth across the ceiling, and a carousel.

The next day, I headed to Green Bay for the WisRWA conference. I’d never been to Green Bay, and pretty much all I equated with it was the Packers and being really friggin’ cold. I made my way to the hotel attached to the Oneida Casino, where I checked in and found this in the lobby:

Let me just say it’s still very weird to see my name listed as a featured speaker, especially with New York Times best-selling author Sherrilyn Kenyon. Now, I know Sherry, and she’s as down to earth as they come, but it’s still a little squee moment to be listed with her. Here we are together.

I spoke at the conference on Making Your Setting Come Alive, and I was also able to reconnect with writers I’d met at this conference 2-3 years ago when it was last held in Madison.

Here I am with Meagan Hatfield and Ann Voss-Peterson.

And with Lori Devoti.

With fellow guest author Karin Tabke. We were next-door neighbors at the book signing.

With Rachel Berens-VanHeest.

I was also able to have a nice meeting with Harlequin Executive Editor Birgit-Davis Todd. She’s not my editor but does work closely with my editor.

With fellow writers Ann Curtis and Cat Shield (who won the WisRWA Fab Five award for best YA manuscript).

With Publishers Weekly blogger Barbara Vey.

I’ve got one more Wisconsin trip post in me, about my post-conference trip through the lovely Door County and the journey back south. Be sure to check in over the weekend for the final installment. And for those of you in the U.S., Happy 4th of July!

Ever feel like you’ve gone nine rounds with your to-do list? That feels like what I’ve done the past couple of weeks. I’m not sure who is winning.

Anyway, I took part in a group book signing with five of my RWA chaptermates at Sherlock’s Books in Lebanon, Tennessee yesterday. Here are a few snapshots.

Marie-Nicole Ryan, left, and Ramona Richards

Sandra Thomas Wales and Shannon Dauphin

Jody Wallace and me

Last year, hubby and I had three tomato plants that produced a ton of Roma tomatoes. We were constantly eating them. Good thing we love tomatoes, particularly fresh ones. Well, this year we expanded to add cucumbers. Hubby took a shovel and carved out a small plot in the sunniest part of our back yard. Though the plants are bigger now, here are a couple of photos I took before I took my trip to Wisconsin.

Anyone out there have a garden this summer? If so, how’s it doing? What is your favorite thing to eat fresh from the garden.

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On a different note, I’m hosting author Jeanne Adams over at the Wet Noodle Posse blog today. She’s talking about how her dad helped foster her love of books and reading.