This is an update from a pre­vi­ous post:

I’m com­ing to the close of my first free pro­mo­tion, which ends tonight at mid­night. I can see why so many authors go for this pro­gram. “The For­got­ten Queen” has been at #1 in Arthurian since yes­ter­day, #2 in his­tor­i­cal since last night, and #574 in ebooks. Even though my “sales” have been pretty high, I feel like I need to watch and see how the num­bers land after the pro­mo­tion ends. It will be inter­est­ing to see how “The For­got­ten Queen” ranks tomorrow.

My biggest griev­ance with the KDP pro­gram is that I know so many peo­ple who love their nook and/or other ereader devices. I still haven’t made up my mind as to whether or not I’ll con­tinue with the exclu­sive KDP pro­gram for another 90 days or not. I guess it all depends on how the num­bers go in the next few weeks.

Yes, it’s true, this is my sec­ond post in a sin­gle day. But, I promised I would keep track of my book sales on this, my very first #free ebook pro­mo­tion day.

So this morn­ing I posted that by 9:00 AM I had sold 71 copies of “The For­got­ten Queen.” I use the word “sold” loosely, since there is no actual exchange of money. It’s free today and tomor­row. As of 2:00 PM, I have sold 135 copies today. My rat­ing on Ama­zon have gone from ~68,000 in ebooks and  #20 in Arthurian (yes­ter­day), to 1,733 in ebooks, #2 in Arthurian, and #10 in his­tor­i­cal today. I would be very happy with that, except for the fact that when I actu­ally click on the links to see the place­ment of the book in those cat­e­gories, it does not show up. Ama­zon glitches have been typ­i­cal with this novel for some rea­son. Whereas my “Class Col­li­sion” series always shows up imme­di­ately in the rank­ings, “The For­got­ten Queen” is no where to be found, even though the link is active. I think it might be time to con­tact Ama­zon and ask them what the deal is. Is there some­one on the staff try­ing to sab­o­tage my fab­u­lous book? Surely not.

For other authors out there, you might be inter­ested to know that there is no other pro­mo­tion going on for “The For­got­ten Queen” right now, other than the fact that it is cur­rently free. Soooooo, yeah, … doing the exclu­sive KDP free pro­mo­tion does seem to “sell” the book, but as for this rais­ing my actual rank­ing, … I’m not con­vinced yet. Maybe if “The For­got­ten Queen” starts show­ing up when I click on the link, then I’ll finally admit it. Hmm.… I’ll keep you posted.

~Annette

To KDP or, not to KDP. Now, that IS the question.

My first two nov­els were released to a wide range of dis­trib­uters. As I picked up sales, I began to notice a trend. When I did no adver­tis­ing, I sold more books on nook than kin­dle. (I know, I know, that is soooooo NOT the norm!) I guess that was why I was a lit­tle skep­ti­cal of the exclu­sive KDP pro­gram on Ama­zon. But still, those free pro­mo­tion days were mak­ing me sali­vate. That’s why I opted to “test” the pro­gram. My third novel, “The For­got­ten Queen,” has been enrolled in KDP for almost 90 days. Finally, I decided to run those free pro­mo­tion days. Here’s my exper­i­ment as it unfolds.

With­out any pro­mo­tions, from May 1 — May 7, I sold 15 copies of “The For­got­ten Queen.” This morn­ing my free pro­mo­tion began. So far, as of 9:10 AM, I have “sold” 74 books today. (The word “sold” just seems so wrong.) But there’s a painful kicker here. Ama­zon is cur­rently NOT list­ing “The For­got­ten Queen” in any rank­ing. (What the? Where did my num­bers go? That is sooooo NOT nice! BTW, prior to this morn­ing, I was ranked at ~68,000 in ebooks, and No. 20 in Arthurian.) Now, as every­one in the book busi­ness knows, pro­mo­tions aren’t about how many books you can give away for free. They’re about build­ing a plat­form, rank­ing higher in the Ama­zon algo­rithm, and reach­ing poten­tial read­ers, and hope­fully a few good reviews along the way too. Any­how, I’ll try to update the “sales” progress as the day unfolds, so that other authors con­tem­plat­ing this deci­sion will have a lit­tle more infor­ma­tion to go on before mak­ing the 90 commitment.

BTW, I haven’t reen­rolled “The For­got­ten Queen” yet. My KDP exclu­siv­ity ends on May 24^th. I guess I bet­ter decide soon!

~ Annette

So it’s been a few years now since I took the plunge into the pub­lish­ing world. I must say that the quote I heard back in 2009 while attend­ing my first writer’s con­fer­ence in New York has proven to be absolutely true. “The book busi­ness doesn’t run the way read­ers think.” I have referred back to that quote so many times, and every time I do, it rings even more true.

Back when I was a reclu­sive writer, I thought that the best books were the ones that sold off the shelves. I had lit­tle under­stand­ing that mar­ket­ing was the key to a book’s suc­cess. (Duh, you say? Yeah, … duh, indeed!) But it’s prob­a­bly a good thing that I didn’t under­stand, because back then I had zero inter­est in mar­ket­ing. All I wanted to do was write, write, write.

In the time since, I have come to a under­stand more about who I am, what I want to do, and how to go about it. Just in case a new author needs a lit­tle pick-me-up, I’ve decided to out­line some points that have helped me in this piranha pool.

1. Good writ­ing is not rewarded by sales. Good writ­ing has noth­ing to do with sales. Sales are a result of good marketing.

2. To make a busi­ness out of writ­ing, mar­ket­ing is required. Period. A mediocre book will sell off the shelf if a genius is ped­dling it, while a mas­ter­piece may sit and do nothing.

3. Iden­tify your genre and reader audi­ence. If pos­si­ble, do this BEFORE YOU START WRITING YOUR BOOK. Though it’s impor­tant to be true to your inner story, there is no way to mar­ket a book unless you know who you’re talk­ing to.

4. Never knock another author or blog­ger, espe­cially pub­licly. I joined a few chat rooms on Ama­zon shortly after I started pub­lish­ing, think­ing that it was a good way to net­work with other authors. Lit­tle did I expect to be attacked. (Oh yes, the joys of neg­a­tive peo­ple.) But it was actu­ally a good expe­ri­ence, because I learned that no mat­ter who you’re talk­ing to, peo­ple will remem­ber. I know their names. I remem­ber their faces because I googled them. I learned that every­one is a poten­tial aid in the mar­ket­ing process. Back then I may have been a nobody, but that is no longer the case. Be polite. Be supportive.

5. Never com­plain about a neg­a­tive review. Review­ers, espe­cially blog­gers, net­work. They talk. They “spread” the word. You don’t want a back­lash. Remain pos­i­tive. Remain polite. And if pos­si­ble, find a way to thank peo­ple for their review. The same holds true in request­ing reviews. Don’t nag. Never harass. If some­one doesn’t want to review your book, don’t bug them!

6. It’s eas­ier to mar­ket mul­ti­ple books, than one book at a time. Some­times it really is best to do what you love, and write, write, write. Then, after you have a num­ber of books avail­able, push a mar­ket­ing cam­paign. It’s cheaper, more effi­cient, and far more effec­tive. That’s the way the pub­lish­ing houses do it. They have a gazil­lion books and mar­ket them in bunches because it works.

7. Remem­ber why you’re in this indus­try. There are so many peo­ple who are ready to stomp on you. BUT YOU CAN’T BE STOMPED ON UNLESS YOU PUT YOURSELF UNDER SOMEONE’S FOOT. Ignore the mean peo­ple. Ignore the petty. In real­ity, they are irrel­e­vant. They are the ones who will offend and thus, be pushed out of the game.

8. If you want suc­cess as badly as you want air to breathe, you will be suc­cess­ful. (I’m still work­ing on this one. Mostly I still just want to write. That’s my air. Sto­ries and plots.) If you have entered this indus­try for the fun of it, you’ll prob­a­bly be dis­ap­pointed. Not every­one is friendly. Not every­one is sup­port­ive. As I stated before, some peo­ple are down­right cruel. Ignore them, or let them hurt you. It’s your choice.

9. Sup­port other authors. Make friends. Net­work. (Seri­ously, this is cru­cial. NETWORK!!!)

10. Never give up. Dare to dream. Dare to face fail­ure. No one ever suc­ceeded by throw­ing in the towel. You can do it!

Tweet­ers beware. For those who use TrueTwit, I’d like you to know that it dri­ves me crazy. Sup­pos­edly TrueTwit is a ser­vice that pre­vents SPAM. Ugh. If only. Instead, those who use TrueTwit BECOME the spam­mers, send­ing out unwanted direct mes­sages to people’s email. Hello! Rude! And all because I wanted to fol­low you? Believe me, see­ing that TrueTwit mes­sage in my inbox decreases my desire dra­mat­i­cally. My email gets enough spam already. I’ve read a lot of blog posts sug­gest­ing a boy­cot of TrueTwit users. I don’t want to do that, but seri­ously, I’m get­ting tired of PROVING that I am a per­son to a SPAM pro­gram. And it IS SPAM.

1. TrueTwit sends out auto­matic direct mes­sages. These DM are not sent by a per­son. They are sent by a com­puter. It’s totally imper­sonal and it infil­trates my inbox. So stop already!

2. It’s totally anti­so­cial. Twit­ter is meant to be a forum of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Oh, maybe you don’t want any­one to fol­low you? Is that why peo­ple sign up for this ser­vice? Don’t worry. You’ll prob­a­bly get your wish.

3. In order to be “val­i­dated” and prove that I’m not a robot, TrueTwit has me go to their sight where I am bom­barded with adver­tise­ments, many of which are part of a captcha puz­zle that I must solve in order to be “validated.”

4. Some­times it takes sev­eral min­utes for TrueTwit to load. I’m wait­ing, and wait­ing.… because I DO care about who I fol­low. Finally the page loads. It’s not a sim­ple click and you’re val­i­dated. You have to solve a puz­zle. Seri­ously? All so that I can prove to a COMPUTER PROGRAM THAT I AM HUMAN.

This pro­gram is stu­pid. I don’t want any­thing to do with it.

Some­times par­ents ask me, “How old does a child need to be to begin music lessons?” In order to answer that ques­tion, it is best to under­stand the devel­op­ing mind.

“Win­dows” for learn­ing coin­cide with child­hood brain devel­op­ment. For exam­ple, the lan­guage win­dow begins to close between the ages of 4 and 6. Prior to the clo­sure of the lan­guage win­dow it is easy for a child to learn a new lan­guage. After the lan­guage win­dow begins to close, it becomes increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to learn a new lan­guage. Learn­ing win­dows do not close all at once, nei­ther do they close com­pletely. If they did, adults wouldn’t be able to learn any­thing new. But the devel­op­ment of the brain that accom­pa­nies learn­ing only hap­pens dur­ing child­hood. (In gen­eral, learn­ing win­dows may be kept open longer by focus­ing on a spe­cific skill set prior to the window’s closure.)

The pitch window

The pitch win­dow coin­cides with the lan­guage win­dow, which begins to close between the ages of 4 and 6. Dur­ing this stage of brain devel­op­ment, the under­stand­ing of pitch may be max­i­mized. This is eas­ily accom­plished by singing and play­ing a musi­cal instru­ment. It is impor­tant to note that a Har­vard Uni­ver­sity study found that exten­sive early child­hood music edu­ca­tion resulted in an increase in size of the cor­pus cal­lo­sum, the bun­dle of nerves that con­nects the hemi­spheres of the brain. This increase has the poten­tial to affect all other areas of learn­ing, par­tic­u­larly math and sci­ence. This is where the baby Mozart idea came from. While the the­ory behind lis­ten­ing is a nice idea for par­ents, the study found that noth­ing can replace actual instru­ment prac­tice. Play­ing an instru­ment forces both hemi­spheres of the brain to work together, com­bin­ing pitch and coör­di­na­tion with abstract thought.

So why doesn’t every­one have their three-year-old in music lessons? This is a com­plex issue that many peo­ple do not under­stand. Young chil­dren have a short atten­tion span and require con­stant super­vi­sion. As a result most teach­ers will not accept stu­dents at this age, thus cre­at­ing a short­age of music teach­ers for the very young. This lack of accep­tance by teach­ers also cre­ates the false assump­tion that music edu­ca­tion for the young does not mat­ter. Com­pound­ing the issue are mis­in­formed par­ents. Another issue is prac­tice. There are very few young chil­dren who will prac­tice with­out an adult at their side. So even those young chil­dren who are tak­ing music lessons may not ben­e­fit com­pletely since their par­ents MUST super­vice at home prac­tice. As a result of these dif­fi­cul­ties, music lessons are fre­quently post­poned until after the pitch win­dow has closed.

Ben­e­fits of catch­ing the pitch window

Per­fect pitch seems to cor­ro­late to homes where music is taught at an early age. It is unclear whether this is because of genet­ics or early expo­sure, or a com­bi­na­tion of both.

Prior to the clo­sure of the pitch win­dow, tone deaf­ness can be eas­ily cor­rected. This is gen­er­ally done by ask­ing the child to sing a pitch, any pitch. The teacher matches their pitch. Then the child is asked to fol­low the teacher as they go up or down, one step at a time. As the child improves, more dif­fi­cult exer­cises can be imple­mented. Singing is an excel­lent way to improve the under­stand­ing of pitch.

After the pitch win­dow closes, tone deaf­ness can fre­quently be cor­rected through­out child­hood, though it may not be as com­plete. Tone deaf­ness can some­times be cor­rected in adults, though it is impor­tant to remem­ber that the process becomes increas­ingly dif­fi­cult with age.

The coör­di­na­tion window

The win­dow for coör­di­na­tion typ­i­cally begins to close between the ages of 10 and 12. It is extremely impor­tant for music stu­dents to begin tak­ing lessons prior to the clo­sure of this win­dow. The ques­tion of pub­lic music edu­ca­tion comes to mind here. In most school dis­tricts, band and orches­tra instruc­tion begins in 5^th grade. This is not because it is the opti­mum time for stu­dents to begin their music stud­ies. It is because music edu­ca­tors have to fight to get their pro­grams in the school. On the dis­trict level they have to make it known that if chil­dren don’t get an instru­ment in their hands by this age, IT WILL BE TOO LATE. And as usual, pub­lic music edu­ca­tion is treated by the school dis­trict with a min­i­mal approach. Since that is the age that the win­dow begins to close, that is the age the pub­lic schools begin band and orchestra. 

A stu­dent who begins lessons after the coör­di­na­tion win­dow closes will face increas­ingly dif­fi­cult issues with dex­ter­ity. This is not to say that teenagers and adults can­not learn to play an instru­ment. In gen­eral, teens and adults progress rapidly, par­tic­u­larly in the first year of instruc­tion. The issues that ham­per their progress come with more advanced music and almost always relate to dexterity.

For more infor­ma­tion on music and the devel­op­ing mind visit these websites:

The Power of Sound

The Nurore­port

I’m so excited about the upcom­ing pub­li­ca­tion of my new novel, “The For­got­ten Queen.” Hope­fully it will be avail­able in late Jan­u­ary or early February.

As an infant Avalon is stripped of beauty so that all that remains are her dra­matic green eyes. She is taught from birth that Arthur is her des­tiny. Out of curios­ity she watches him in the lake and finds it impos­si­ble not to fall in love—and yet he is the king. It’s not until a love tri­an­gle between Guin­e­vere, Lancelot, and Arthur forces Camelot to the brink of destruc­tion that Arthur real­izes what a fool he has been.

Raised in the shad­ows, sub­servient to the Lady of the Lake, Avalon rises above it all to become the true queen of Camelot. She is the for­got­ten queen … and the sole bearer of Arthur’s heart.

Genre: his­tor­i­cal fan­tasy, folk­lore, fantasy

Sev­eral years ago I was frus­trated by the com­mer­cial­ism of Christ­mas. At that time my chil­dren were young. I wanted a fam­ily activ­ity that would bring us together, and so I wrote this poem and made a stock­ing out of white satin and gold trim. The idea was that we would each give a “gift” to the Sav­ior for Christ­mas. Each gift was to be some kind of ser­vice that we did for some­one else. We wrote our ideas on small dec­o­ra­tive pieces of paper and tied them with sil­ver and gold ties then put them in the stock­ing. This stock­ing is now full of the var­i­ous things our fam­ily has done for oth­ers dur­ing the hol­i­day season.

(Star back­ground by John Morrell)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I have had a few requests for this, so I decided to just make a post. Below is an audio record­ing of “Trea­sure the Light.” I have also included the sheet music, which is avail­able for either solo voice or choir. Both ver­sions have piano accompaniment.

Audio only: Trea­sure the Light Note: to play, click on the link. To down­load, right click and fol­low the direc­tions next to your mouse.

Free Sheet Music: Trea­sure the Light — Solo with Piano Accompaniment

Free Sheet Music: Trea­sure the Light — Arranged for Choir (SSATTB) with Piano Accompaniment

I wrote this song in early July, 2012 after a meet­ing with the youth com­mit­tee from the thirty stakes involved in the Youth Cul­tural Cel­e­bra­tion. The lyrics were taken from the youths’ sug­ges­tions for themes. As I lis­tened to them call out their ideas, I real­ized that they would make great lyrics. So I decided to take their ideas and turn them into a song.

Any­how, dur­ing the course of the meet­ing a young man raised his hand and said that the girl next to him had a great idea. She quickly offered her idea, which was, “Just one lit­tle light.” Since the meet­ing was run­ning short, lead­er­ship flet that it was time to close down the brain­storm­ing ses­sion, while I was busy think­ing, “Hey! That’s a great line!” I have no idea who this girl is, but I felt her dis­tinct frus­tra­tion that night — as if she were sure that she felt prompted to speak. Even though I have no idea who she is, her words touched me deeply. As you will notice, I used her thought as the first line in the song. I don’t know if she’ll ever notice my appre­ci­a­tion for speak­ing up. Life is a strange that way. Some­times we never see the reper­cus­sions of our actions. But I am glad that she shared.

High­lighted in this record­ing are the fol­low­ing artists:

Katie John­son, Annie John­son, Mor­gan Coo­ley, Gabby Genta, Lexie Jepp­son, Melinda Harper, Christina Walker, Haylee Jones, Gabby Ririe, Joy Pur­nell, Steven Mackey, Spencer Mad­sen, Austin Peery, Jake Thibault, Masen Thomp­son, Tan­ner Myler, and Cade Ander­son. Thanks you guys! You were GREAT!

This song played dur­ing the pre­lude por­tion of the Youth Cul­tural Cel­e­bra­tion for the Boise Tem­ple, which was per­formed on Novem­ber 17, 2012 in the Taco Bell Arena. It was such an honor to be involved in this event. Thank you to every­one who participated!