Tag Archives: Elle James

Can Writing for Amazon Kindle Worlds Be Right For You? Guest Post: Elle James

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Jordan Dane

@JordanDane

I’m on deadline and in a crunch, but I am honored to have my dear friend, Elle James (aka Myla Jackson for a sexier read), as a guest at TKZ. She’s a USA Today & New York Times Bestselling author best known for her suspenseful military romances. She writes for Harlequin Intrigue, Romantic Suspense, and Nocture, as well as having her own successful indie projects. This woman is busy, but always generous with her time to support other authors. As a former member of the Army and Air Force Reserves, Elle has traveled across the United States and to Germany, managed a full-time job until she eventually quit to write full time. Ask her about what it takes to raise very large exotic birds in the Texas hill country. Take it away, Elle.

Is Kindle World right for you? If you are not familiar with Kindle Worlds, the stories are basically fanfiction you can get paid for. An author agrees to open his/her world, allowing other authors to write in that world and they split the profit.

So, why not just write in your own world and skip the splitting of profits gig? Keep it all to yourself. Here’s why you might want to dip your toe or pen into the Kindle Worlds of other authors.

You can write a crossover from the author’s Kindle World into your own series or world. What that buys you is a door into that author’s readership. The readers who love that author will buy books by other authors knowing they will catch glimpses of their favorite characters in those books. If they like the new author, they will find more of the new author’s books to read. It’s a cross-promotional effort that could expand your reader base.

I’ve written in two other authors’ Kindle Worlds for that very reason. Their stories were Military Romance and Military Romantic Suspense. The crossover made sense. The assumption is that their readers will like my books because they are in the same genre.

I expanded my reader base and now I have my own Kindle World. The beauty of Kindle Worlds is that you don’t have to stick to the same genre. Other authors from other genres can write in your world. An author might pick up readers who typically read other genres than what the author writes. But a good story is a good story and the readers might look for more of that author’s stories.

Writing in a Kindle World is not for every author, but if you’re still building your audience, you might give it a try. Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World is a Military Romantic Suspense genre. Authors writing in my world include young adult, thriller, contemporary romance, military romance and more genres. I hope they all pick up new readers because of their experience writing in my world. I invite you to write in mine! If you are interested, contact me through my website. I’d love to include you in an organized launch.

You can visit my Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World page on my website to see the books already written in my Kindle World or visit my Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World on Amazon to find out how you can participate in my Kindle World. Or read some of the books in my kindle world to get a flavor for what other authors have done. You can get them Here on Amazon. You can also read my original Brotherhood Protectors series. I’d love to have you join the Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World!

DISCUSSION:

1.) Would you consider writing for one of the Amazon Kindle Worlds?

2.) What experiences have you had writing shorter projects between novel length books? Did that experience of writing shorter, allow you the flexibility to try other genres?

3.) What genres have you attempted and enjoyed?

Jordan here: I wanted to add a couple of comments. Amazon Kindle Worlds sets the price for your project, depending on its length. You can write whatever length you have time for, between projects. HERE is a link for the details behind Amazon KWs and samples of their boiler plate agreements and exhibits.

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Things You Can Learn at a Female Impersonator Contest

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Jordan Dane

@JordanDane

Tootsie_imp

Now that I have your attention, I attended an unusual writers’ conference located in my hometown of San Antonio on Feb 25-27, 2016. The Wild Wicked Weekend did not disappoint. The name says it all. This was my first time attending this crazy event, although I heard a lot about it over the years. It’s organized by a group of authors called Belle Femme and the venue was the Menger Hotel, an historic hotel reputed to be haunted. (No, I did not see any ghosts, that I know of.) I almost didn’t attend because the events planned for this conference actually scared me more than the ghosts that frequent the old hotel.

Here a link and you can see what I mean:
http://wildwickedweekend.com/

What never ceases to amaze me is the generosity of fellow authors who met with me to exchange ideas on better ways to promote books. One author in particular – Elle James – taught me a lot about her highly successful career being a hybrid author, working with traditional houses as well as being a driven indy author with a great track record. I learned that I had to bend my way of thinking from traditional publisher strategies to a more independent author approach. These two ways are different in how advance promo time is used and the importance of pre-orders and advance reviews and ways to boost awareness of your books.

Here are some specific things I wanted to share. None of these are very detailed because I need to learn more, but there might be enough for you to get started too.

1.) I learned about Drive.Google,Com where you can develop a GOOGLE FORM for obtaining Advance Reviews. Once you create the form, you can embed the code into your facebook page, for example, and begin to build on a database of reviewers for your current and future releases.

2.) You can set up a Street Team page for your author name on Facebook and generate buzz with exclusive content, giveaways, and insights into your books to build enthusiasm for your work.

3.) I heard about targeting Facebook ads to specific markets that could be interested in your book, based on certain keywords – and the use of Facebook Power Editor on a Chrome Browser. As I said at the start of this list, I am still learning about these marketing techniques, so I’m not able to give detailed advice. If that is what you are looking for and you would like to learn more, then you can click on the link.

4.) I heard about the benefits of getting set up under Amazon Associates in the Affiliates program.

5.) I learned about tracking indy sales through an app called BookTrakr. The details are much better than I’ve seen on other sales tracking tools.

From networking with generous authors, I was pitched to write for another new series to be launched in July. I can’t share the news yet, but I’ll be linking my latest novel (THE LAST VICTIM) into a crossover to jumpstart my character Ryker Townsend into a new series of his own.

I’ve never written for Amazon Kindle Worlds (KW) before, but I’ve found that if I crossover any of my series books or create a new series that will tie-in to the two KWs I will be writing for, I can take advantage of the readership of all the authors writing for the series. In the back of our books, we add links to the other books in the series and once a reader finds the KW series and loves the book, they may keep buying them. We sustain each other’s momentum by doing this.

This is nothing new. Traditional houses have been placing ads in the back pages of printed books if an author’s contract allows for it. But in this digitized world, an online link can mean a sale and perhaps sustain a rise in sales rank.

My strategy for the rest of the year will be to write my Amazon Kindle World novellas (word count sweet spot ranging 25,000-30,000 words) – I have 4 so far with releases in Feb, May, July, Nov – then link in one to two of my Ryker Townsend (FBI Profiler Series) with word counts at 50,000-60,000 words each.

So I am in the precarious position of having contracts to fill, but I will also need to establish a better advance and post promo strategy to take advantage of pre-orders, advance reviews, street teams, and Facebook parties. That’s what I learned at this crazy conference from some very prolific authors who took me under their wings.

The moral of this story – Never pass up a Wild Wicked Weekend.

FOR DISCUSSION:
1.) What advance promo works best for you?
2.) Have you used Street Teams to generate buzz for your books? Strengths? Pitfalls?
3.) What synergies are there in cross promoting your books with other authors in a series or who write similar books to yours?
4.) How do you obtain your advance reviews?

HotTarget (3)

HOT TARGET – Omega Team series – ebook priced at $1.99.

Rafael Madero stands in the crosshairs of a vicious Cuban drug cartel—powerless to stop his fate—and his secret could put his sister Athena and her Omega Team in the middle of a drug war.