Calling All Gamers!

As an author, one of my responsibilities is getting the word out to the general public about my books. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s a hassle, and sometimes it’s downright embarrassing. But, since I’m neither Nora Roberts nor Danielle Steele, it’s a necessary part of my day. In fact, it’s a regularly scheduled part of my daily routine—I spend at least one to two hours daily on marketing, either current books, an upcoming book, or looking for new opportunities.

One of those new opportunities recently landed in my lap, and I’m pleased to share it with you now.

 

My book, Five Minutes to Love, has been chosen by Romance Fate, a company that turns romance novels into interactive games, and will appear on their gaming platform in six to nine months. 

 

When my publisher contacted me about this opportunity, my first reaction was to double check she had the right Jennifer. Seriously. Then it was to check out the site, because really, a game? But I checked them out and they’re legit. Turns out, they have more than one million subscribers, and their demographic is women between the ages of 25 and 35 years old. From what I understand, they develop an interactive game based on the book where the player can choose what to do.

 

It actually sounds kind of neat, especially for this particular book.

 

Normally, I might be concerned about them choosing the second book in a three-book series, but since all of the book stand alone, and since Five Minutes to Love actually takes place chronologically before the first book in the series, I think it works. And with speed dating, or rather, a failed speed date, as the meet-cute, well, I think there are great possibilities!

 

Of course, I had other concerns. Will the company remain true to my brand? Will they make radical changes that I find embarrassing or offensive? The answer is no. They categorize their games by romance subgenres, and they’re not going to change my subgenre (although they may add a character or two). What that means is they’re not going to make my contemporary romance into a dinosaur romance, or erotic, or violent. J

 

So, here’s what you can do for me. If you have friends or relatives who play games on their phones, let them know about Romance Fate. And my book. If you know someone who might want to play these games, let them know about the apps. And, if you’re curious about which of my books is going to be part of the gaming world, of course, feel free to check it out.

Self-Motivation

One of the hardest parts of being a writer is being able to motivate myself to do things when I’m not under deadline.

Right now, I’m in a holding pattern. I’ve returned all my edits and I’m waiting for my galleys. I’m waiting on my cover art. I’m also waiting on a release date. That’s a lot of waiting. No, I’m not complaining—there are a lot of pieces in the publishing puzzle, and my job is to make sure I finish all of mine in a timely manner so that the rest of the team can do their job.

They’re doing it right now.

But that means I need to be doing something else.

Ideally, I need to be writing. It takes me approximately six months to write a first draft of a book. If I wait until a book is published before starting on a new one, I’ll never gain traction in a publishing industry that is crammed with authors. So when I’m not on deadline, I need to be writing the next book.

Because there’s no one standing over me with a whip forcing me to write, however, that’s sometimes harder than it sounds. Daily life gets in the way. The news makes me want to crawl into a hole. And self-doubt always rears its head when my characters that usually occupy that space are silent. 

So sometimes I have to force myself to do it, despite how much I enjoy what I do. When that happens, the dog gets lots of exercise. We walk, which clears my head and gets my muse flowing. I try to talk to other writers—brainstorming with them about their writing problems shows me I’m not alone and also gets my muse flowing.

And I focus on marketing. Because unless people buy my books—and leave reviews—no one is going to know they’re out there.

Speaking of marketing, Amazon surprised me by putting one of my books on sale. If you haven’t read it yet, now is a great time to do so, especially since I have no idea how long the sale is going to last. Check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minutes-Love-Serendipity-Book-ebook/dp/B079WMLNJB

Book Release!

It’s almost here…Five Minutes to Love releases on Wednesday. Book releases are always exciting, whether they’re my first book or my seventh, as this is. Writing and editing are hard work, and to see it all come to fruition is satisfying.

My favorite part of working on this particular book was the research I had to do into speed dating. Since my husband and I met in college, I never participated in anything like that, but I wanted my hero and heroine to meet that way—actually, I wanted them to fail, but you’ll have to read it to see what happens. So, I needed to do research.

I did as much research into speed dating as I could on the internet, short of signing myself up for an event—as supportive as my husband is, even he has his limits. Then I contacted some single friends to find out if any of them had ever gone to an event. Although the ones I contacted hadn’t, she had friends who had. And she provided me with fantastic “horror stories” that I was able to use. But there was still something missing.

One day, my husband, daughter and I met a friend in the city. After hanging out for the afternoon, we went out to dinner and guess what? There was an event going on in their party room. So, my daughter and I spied on it, which enabled me to learn exactly how the events take place.

So what happens to my characters? You’ll have to find out!

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minutes-Love-Jennifer-Wilck/dp/1509219544
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/five-minutes-to-love-jennifer-wilck/1128011304?ean=2940158814495

#AmEditing

The thing about writing is that to some extent, I can make my own schedule. I can write when I want, working around other things. Of course, that assumes my muse is cooperating and that I’m inspired at the time I sit down to write. I can write until I’m finished, not worrying about anything other than finishing the book.

When it comes to editing, however, I have less flexibility. Usually, I’m editing according to someone else’s deadline. If I want my book published, I have to accommodate the needs of content editors, copy editors, layout people, etc. So when they send me something, everything else I might be working on has to be put off to the side so I can meet my deadlines.

Currently, I’m entering into the editing phase. I’ve been editing my own manuscripts for a while now, polishing them in order to get them ready to submit to my critique partners, or incorporating my critique partners’ comments into a manuscript I’m preparing to submit to my editor. But now, a bunch of different projects are coming together and for the next few weeks I’ll be busy.

My editor will be sending me my galleys any day now (I’ve been saying that for weeks, but really, it’s true) and I’ll have about a week to scour every word, letter, space and punctuation mark for accuracy before turning it back in and getting a release date for Five Minutes to Love—the sequel to Addicted to Love.

I’m also working on a self-publishing project and the editor I hired just returned my manuscript to me with all of her comments. They’re fantastic, but whoa, there are a lot of them. So for the next month, I’ll be working on those a little at a time. I can’t spend entire days on them because of other things going on and the fact that I’ll go batty. So I need to space it out a bit. But when I’m done, that manuscript is going to shine!

And finally, I’m judging a writing contest, so I have books to read. While I don’t have to edit them per se, I have to evaluate them for a variety of criteria, and there’s a deadline for me to complete them. So in between editing, I’ll be reading.

Insider tip: Now is a great time to invest in Advil, as I’ll be taking a lot of it! J

Changes

“Never a dull moment!”

“When one door closes, another opens…”—Alexander Graham Bell

“Is the glass half empty or half full?”

“May you live in interesting times.”

Those phrases/quotes are some of the common ones we use to describe our lives as things change, opportunities present themselves or chances are lost. Indeed, I agree with all of them. In fact, I’m pretty sure several of them flitted through my mind this weekend when I found out my old publisher, through which I published four books, will be closing in June.

Nope, not my current one. They are doing great and I’m publishing—and selling—books with them. In fact, my next book, Five Minutes to Love, is coming out sometime in the spring and I’m currently waiting to see a galley copy so I can make copy edits and then get a specific release date. No worries there.

The other publisher is lovely, small and very concerned with the future of her authors. She’s going out of her way to help us, provide us legal releases so our rights revert to us, and help us with anything we need. And readers can still buy those books as long as they are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

My first reaction was actually excitement. Because there are now so many possibilities! I have lots of plans, which I’m keeping to myself for now, but ultimately will reveal in the future. I have terrific people to advise me and I’m taking things slowly when I can. In the meantime, when in doubt, edit. I have been going through one of the books and re-editing it (you can never do that too many times), because I can’t do anything with it until it’s almost perfect.

So stay tuned, because I hope to have more book announcements in the near future.

In the meantime, if you love to read, here’s a giveaway you might enjoy:

Giveaway Details...

What: $400 & $500 Black Friday Amazon Shopping Spree Giveaways

When:  Nov. 6-22, 2017.

$900 Giveaway Page:  https://wp.me/P2H01p-7EQ

$500 Giveaway Page:  https://wp.me/P2H01p-7F2

$400 Giveaway Page:  https://wp.me/P2H01p-7F5