Christmas Cookie Recipes for the Lazy (Busy) Mom!

December 13/2013

I love Christmas! Love Love Love!
I'm starting my enthusiasm a bit late this year because I just got back from a vacation (who doesn't need one just before Christmas?) but yesterday I got out the tubs of decorations and will devote the next few days to transforming the house into a Winter Wonderland. As I write this I have my inflatable snowman waving to my street on the front lawn, surrounded by a family of twinkly lit penguins. The lights will go up on the trees and house next week. I like to do a big reveal like that guy in National Lampoon's Vacation. Flip a switch and make my family say "ahhhh.."

This year on my blog, I thought I'd offer some of my favorite cookie recipes.I use the word recipe loosely, seeing they take very little effort. I used to go crazy with the Christmas cookies. Really, I did, but I'm a busy mother and don't have the time to bust a gut on cookies, especially when all my kids want is yummy, colorful reindeers or fun confections to munch on, not award winning works of art like these blue cookies.

Every year I host a Cookie Exchange at my home. If you've never done one of these, it's a fabulous way to get ten types of cookies and only actually bake five. You take plates of your cookies to an exchange and trade. You end up with the same amount of cookies but have different varieties so that your kids aren't eating the same Snickerdoodles and Santa shortbread throughout the whole holiday season.

The first year I did this I spent a hundred hours perfecting my cookies, rolling the fondant, making cute little Christmas characters with my decorating gun, placing garnishes just so, arranging them on Christmas plates or in darling decorated boxes and tying each grouping with a Christmas bow.
Not anymore! After seventeen years of kids,I make the easiest cookies that have the best appeal to children's simple interests, put my my exchanging cookies into fun containers and stick a pre-made bow on top. The effect isn't as magical but like that old Burt Bacharach song says "Make it Easy on Yourself." 
                   
                     Not like in this picture. These cookies took someone ten hours to make!

Here's a recipe my kids LOVE that takes very little time and although they are called Reindeer Food, my darling children re-named them . . .

Reindeer Poop

Mix Cocoa Puff Cereal with Melted Marshmallows, Form into small balls, Sprinkle with Colored Sugar, cool. eat.
(See how easy that is!?)

We also like to make Fudge which happens to be the yummiest and easiest thing to make

Chocolate Fudge

Buy the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk with the fudge recipe and follow.
(That saved e-space!)

          Now for something that is not chocolate. At least not brown chocolate...

Pretzel Canes

Dip Rod Pretzels in melted white chocolate, 2/3 way up the length, then sprinkle with Red and Green sprinkles, M&M's in the hardening chocolate, nuts or edable decorations. Or drizzle with icing.

Okay, now for non-chocolate. . .

                                                                    Melting Snowmen

Make sugar cookies, (see thumbprint cookies below, or buy plain cookies!) Paint them with white stiff frosting and secure a partially melted marshmallow at the top to simulate a melting snowman, with a toothpick and food coloring, make a snowman face and then top off the marshmallow with a hat made from a piece of Chocolate (oops-chocolate again!) If you're feeling fancy, make arms that melt into the icing in the cookie.
Personally, I find this cookie rather sad but it's all the rage this year.

And now for something with absolutely no chocolate!

Thumbprint Cookies

Makes about 20

2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temp

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

2 large egg whites

3/4 cup finely chopped nuts of choice 

1/3 cup jam (any flavor) 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a non-stick baking mat. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, vanilla extract and salt. Gradually stir in flour. Form dough into 1-inch diameter balls. Dip in lightly beaten egg whites, then roll in nuts. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheets. Press down center of each with thumb. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Just before serving, fill centers of cookies with jam. Or, fill centers with 1/2 teaspoon of jam before baking.

I have some cute decorating ideas, stolen from really clever women, on my Pinterest page if you'd like to see a Christmas Pizza or Christmas tree veggie platter. Or take one of these curly pretzels or the grid pretzel, melt a rolo candy on it, stick a green or red M&M on top and there you have it! Perfection. 
These little edible critters are cute too and I bet you could buy the chocolate covered pretzels (you would think I owned stock in the pretzel company?!) buy pre-made cookie dough, get chocolate chips and those red decorations they sell that taste like cinnamon. And suddenly you have reindeers. Heads anyhow.

Here's a great site to find cookie recipes.

                                  These are very cute but very time-consuming CAKE POPS

Whatever you do this year, remember the old Chinese Proverb, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" so pace yourselves and enjoy the season.

Kim Hornsby is an Amazon Bestselling Author. Her Christmas Novella Christmas in Whistler is climbing the charts this month in the anthology Christmas by Candlelight. If you need something to look forward to at the end of the day, download this book to your Kindle, phone, ipad or whatever and treat yourself to a little Christmas escapism romance! Click on the title above to see it on Amazon books.

Her novels are Amazon Bestsellers  Necessary Detour, a Romantic Suspense and The Dream Jumper's Promise, a Suspenseful Romance.

Visit her Amazon Author Page for a list of her novels. 

Kindle Countdown Deals Flops Big Time!

Update is below the post to describe why Kindle Countdown flopped!

December 1st at 8 a.m., my novel THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE goes to .99 from its regular price of $2.99. I'm trying a new thing on Amazon called Kindle Countdown Deals and I'm not sure this will be a good thing for this book but I'll see at the end of the week.
You tell them how many days to run the deal and give them a starting price point. They reduce the price then build back up incrementally over that time period. If I remember correctly, my book goes to .99 tomorrow morning and after two days goes to $1.99 then on the seventh day, back to $2.99. They put a little ticking digital clock beside the price to show how much longer at this price.
The idea behind this is sales for the week it's discounted and to create buzz and good ranking for the book after having it on sale. I'm hoping Amazon puts it on some list that readers can access for cheap books because I'm limited in what I can do promo-wise. I'll be away all week with limited internet availability.
I want to do free days at Christmas and Amazon insists I keep the $2.99 price point for two weeks after the last day on the promotion so that'll put me at about December 20th when I can reduce the price again.
As a first time author, I'm still trying to gain readers and convince people to read my book, take a chance on a new author, write a review.
UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up.

I'll update this blog next week when I have a chance to see if Kindle Countdown Deals works or not. I'm headed to Nicaragua tomorrow for some jungle time and won't be available online. This is me hiking in the jungle in Nicaragua.

Lately my book has not been selling at $2.99. It does far better at free :) or at $1.99 and although I never guessed that I'd be okay with offering my book for so little, I now realize this is the way to build a career.
The second in the series THE DREAM JUMPER'S SECRET will be out the first week of February and that should be a big shot in the arm for the PROMISE book, as well. Anyone out there have experience with Kindle Countdown Deals? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Nominated for BEST INDIE FIRST BOOK by Indie RomCon

Amazon Bestselling Author Kim Hornsby

December 13th UPDATE: I really hoped there'd be some breakthrough sales of this book with Kindle Countdown Deals but I sold very few copies of the book at each price level. It was almost like there was a sign on it saying "don't buy this." My sales plummeted. Maybe they were going to anyhow, seeing it's the Holiday Season and romance readers enjoy reading Christmas Love Stories, (like Christmas by Candlelight) but I've never seen such poor ranking for this book since it was launched! Not just that, but now I can't adjust the price to where it does make sales because I'm locked in at the higher price for 2 weeks after the promo. All round, this did not work for me at all. Good thing I have other books and novellas out there. And I have a husband to support me while I try to make a go of it as an author!

UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up. This has successfully tanked my book sales now for 2 months. I will never do this promo again. Little did I know when I wrote this blog in December.

The Dream Jumper's Promise
Blurb

Tina Greene can't accept the presumed surfing death of her husband, Hank. Months after signing the death certificate, she trades mourning for saving her Maui dive shop from bankruptcy. When Jamey Dunn walks back into her life things take a strange turn. Dreams of Hank have the dive instructor questioning her sanity and leaning heavily on Hank's best friend, Noble. Jamey and Noble clash at every turn, both desperate to help Tina. When Jamey suspects Tina's strange dreams hold clues to Hank's disappearance, he must reveal his unusual ability to visit dreams. Trusting the man who once betrayed her doesn't come easily when the decision to let Jamey enter her subconscious has a price. As Tina, Noble and Jamey decipher the mystery of Hank's disappearance, grave danger sets in to reveal that one person is a traitor, one is flirting with insanity and one is an impostor.

Kim Hornsby is the AMAZON BESTSELLING author of THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE, NECESSARY DETOUR and THE HUSBAND HUNT. Visit her amazon page to find inexpensive downloads and print books.

American Music Awards Hits and Misses

This year, the AMA's was the year of the production number, but we saw that coming, didn't we? Singers, dancers, Cirque de Soleil twirlers, rappers, fire eaters, costumes, lights, props, smoke machines and stage managers galore! I can't imagine the circus that is backstage at the AMA's, but I digress.

Katy Perry opened the show with a geisha version of UNCONDITIONALLY that had all of the above. Well, maybe not the fire eater but she nailed the opener with a Japanese theme complete with parasols, cherry blossoms, Japanese drums and K.P. herself dressed in full geisha gear, including sock feet, which I have to think is way easier for navigating up the grand staircase while singing and dancing.
Katy sang Live (no lip syncing)

Pit Bull was the host this year and although he leaned heavily on the Latino card, he was classy in his tuxedo and was absolutely adorable as a totally different type of host. His scripted Schtick was fun and the crowd loved him. Well done Pittie!













T. Swift presented the first award, luckily it wasn't to One Direction, whose lead singer, Harry Styles has an infamous T. Swi song about him. Wearing a tight, tiny gold dress that wasn't nearly long enough to cover any of her legs, she accepted several awards over the course of the evening and spoke with such heart and clarity that no one can blame her for her silly dalliances with boys who are barely finished high school.

Moving on. ONE DIRECTION Those boys can actually harmonize beautifully and if you feel like poo-pooing their talent, you try making 5 part harmony. Watch until the end to see their second award. Fans love these boys.
Ariana Grande sang next and with just her voice and a 4 Tops-style backup singing line, she rocked the house. Who needs smoke and mirrors when you have a voice like hers? My eleven year old daughter has been following A.G. for years on YouTube and loves her from Victorious on Nickelodeon.  Lady Gaga got to her feet, always one to recognize a good voice. She later won a big award and was all teenage gushy and silly in her acceptance speech but isn't she only 13 or something? Amazing!
Why would a man who has a men's clothing line show up to a huge awards show in a plaid shirt and ripped  jeans? Chewing gum. Marc Anthony. Booo
Did anyone else feel like Imagine Dragons was the only true rock performance of the night? When those nerds did Demons that morphed into RadioActive, the crowd went all rock star wild. With everyone on their feet, the 4 Dragons drummed the solo in RadioActive and brought down the house. Little does my daughter know we have tickets to see them in Seattle in February. When they finished, she was affected, aflutter and couldn't speak. Love this band. Not lip syncing.
Taylor Swift won a few more awards, spoke eloquently and the show went on with interactive commercials of JLo hawking Kohl's and pretending she was an action star, Pit Bull hawking Fiats on the beach, and Mackelmore referring to the injustice of Traynor Martin.
What's with the Shark Tank entrepreneurs in the audience? Marc, Damon and Robert had aisle seats and camera time. Who bought them camera time? And then they presented, without a woman among them. WTF? Where was Lori or that real estate woman?
Pit Bull and Kei$ha did a duet. Lip Syncing. Both of them. In her Daisy dukes and nose ring, she did a fine job of dancing and lip syncing to her own song.
It was fun to see Imagine Dragons win Alternative Rock and receive an award from non other than Joan Jett and David Grohls. They even said so.
Justin Timberlake performed a song that was amazingly fun like each of the 40 people on stage with him were lead singers in a speakeasy club. Great song, great performance J.T. and the crowd loves this Golden Boy. He's funny, musically talented and handsome. And not lip syncing. What's not to love? J.T. for president.
The Ceremonies- rock triplets?
Bill Maher who has no business on a music awards show stage, presented the Icon Award to Rihanna's mother who presented it to her in a charming mother/daughter moment that showed the world that Rihanna is just a girl from Barbados who isn't so far removed from when she used to sell fruit to tourists. Did you know that she has 33 Million twitter followers or is the most viewed artist on YouTube? Me neither. Social media works! Regardless of all her tweeting and instagraming, Rihanna won the first ever Icon Award and sang like a true performance artist. She definitely shines bright like a diamond. Not lip syncing.

Awards were given, Pit bull's presence faded like he'd been fired mid-show, and I worried that someone might fall on their extremely pointy award. "Hold it away from yourself!" I shouted at the T.V. Especially after Avici (Tim Berg) lumbered gawkily to the stage to get his EDM award. Worst ever acceptance speech, even for a Swede whose first language is not English.Christina Aguilera sang a tres understated duet with someone at a piano and showed the underbelly of a superstar in an amazing performance.
Lady Gaga and R. Kelly did a skit/song about the president having an affair with an Italian lover who looked like Marilyn Monroe that was strange. Interesting skit and love the song and love R. Kelly and love Gaga but it kind of fell flat. Too much weirdness even for Gaga? but not lip syncing.
Miley Cyrus and her kitten backdrop proved that the girl can sing but please darlin', lose the cat and weird teenager bedroom backdrops if you want to be taken seriously. It's just wrong. I'd say 99% of your audience didn't even notice your high cut undies because they were staring at the kitten, who was lip syncing very poorly.
All in all the AMA's were highly entertaining with even a TLC reunion near the end. With loads of  fake snow, lights, movie screen backdrops and fabulous sets, the evening was well done, beyond entertaining and fun. No twerking but hey that's a good thing. Wholesome Tay Tay Swi Won for Artist of the Year.
Ah, and after the ending, it said that One Direction is taking over America on Tuesday, or did they mean to say Good Morning America? I dunno.

Kim Hornsby is a former rock singer and entertainment specialist as well as an Amazon Bestselling Author.
/http://www.amazon.com/Kim-Hornsby/e/B00AFJ8BJS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Juan Pablo has chosen his Queen

Filming of The Bachelor 2014 has finished, if you can believe that.
The first night at the Bachelor Mansion in Los Angeles was September 17th in Agoura Hills (near Britney Spears house) in California. The scoop is that they stayed briefly in the L.A. area, after the opening night, had a few days/dates and left for Utah. Juan Pablo loves to ski and on his Bachelor application, he said that his favorite place to go was skiing in Utah, so this is no huge surprise.

But the next location was a HUGE surprise to me, if the rumors are correct. The whole show picked up and left for South Korea, where they filmed a spot with a dance duo who has millions of hits on YOUTUBE. Really? Okay, I'll wait to see this. Then they went to Vietnam, apparently and ended in Miami after hometowns. If you love spoilers, check out Reality Steve who seems to have a spy on the inside of The Bachelor. Chris Harrison, are you moonlighting?
One of the oldest contestants was eliminated in Miami, leaving 3 gorgeous women to go to St. Lucia with Juan Pablo.

You have to think this man is trying to find someone compatible with being a part time mommy. It would totally suck if he thought with his 'heart' instead of his head. I know someone who made the first choice and the children are virtually ignored now. Very sad. I think Juan Pablo is smarter than that.
I can't wait to see this all play out on Monday nights in January. CAN;T WAIT! As I type this Juan Pablo presumably has proposed to someone and is waiting out the three months to be with her. How frustratato! That's my attempt at Spanish. Luckily we have Thanksgiving and Christmas to distract us before the regular Monday nights resume and we find ourselves planted in front of the T.V. hoping Juan Pablo finds his true love. It's something to look forward to in January which has the highest suicide rate of all the months. Oops. Did I say that?
If you find it hard to wait, like I did, you might want to take up reading. I'm an author and created my own little Bachelor world in these stories.

I recently wrote a short story (2-3 hour reading time) where I used Juan Pablo as the hero. I made him French but still very sweet, compassionate, parental and sexy. It's #1 on Amazon Christmas stories this week in Anthologies. My story in the book is Christmas in Whistler.
Also, check out my Pinterest board for this story. I loved writing it and paired him with Julianne Hough.

 I think they'd make a cute couple. What do you think?

NaNoWriMo Musings Along the Way

I may be feeling too confident. Everything might come to a crashing halt any day now but so far I'm ahead of schedule for NaNoWriMo. If you are one of the people left in the world who don't know what I'm talking about, it is National Novel Writing Month for all us people across the world who want to tackle the horrendous task of completing a novel in a month.
Have you ever said, "writing a novel couldn't be that hard", or, "I could write a novel if I tried"? Well this was your chance. Don't despair if you haven't signed up. You can sign up late or do it next year. It's an annual thing so anyone who procrastinates can jump in next time. www.nanowrimo.org 
I stared at my computer all summer, wishing I could get going on the second in The Dream Jumper Series. I have readers waiting for this thing. I just couldn't get motivated. Publishing #2, The Dream Jumper's Secret, was originally planned for this fall but without any words on the page, that didn't look good. I had the basic story line. I just couldn't write it down.
At the last minute I signed up for NaNoWriMo when I realized that my hubby will be away on trips over half the month of November and I'll have the freedom to write with uninhibited abandon. Don't get me wrong, he's a wonderful husband, and I love him dearly, but he does blame the state of our messy house on my novel writing. He works from home so I imagine he spends the whole day wondering when I'm going to get up from my keyboard and do something around this 4,000 square foot house. And I spend most of the day cursing the day I let him buy this big place, wondering how expensive a cleaner would be. Until I hit the bestseller list I haven't been able to justify paying someone to clean. I'm driven by the need to prove something, most days.
So you see, I had two problems with the novel--no motivation and lack of support. Then I realized I had a third problem. Fear. I love the first book. It was nominated for BEST INDIE FIRST BOOK by Indie Rom/Con this year, has 166 reviews, has been downloaded 67,000 times and I consider it as small success.

I'm terrified to write the second one in case it's not nearly as good. Here's what helped give me that last push. Just before November, I read a series of 3 books by an author I felt was on my level 11 months ago. She and I published around the same time, went neck in neck on the free lists last winter and I was intrigued by her provocative cover and title. Sins and Needles is the name of the first one. I foolishly didn't read it, thinking it was about drug use, not tattooing. Okay, I'm a dork. But I also didn't want to buy it and help her do better than me. Did I tell you I'm competitive?

She published the second book in her series a few months after the first, then the third a few months after that, managing to fit in a prequel as well. According to what I've read about her, she writes at an alarming speed, holed up in an office, stopping for nothing until the book is done. In the last year, her books rose to the top of the charts, she's now represented by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Agency and is published by Hachette. This month, she is my hero. Not just because she wrote quickly but also because she turned out some fine reading. They are romantic/suspense, but more erotic and more suspenseful. Edgy. Hard to describe. Just buy the first book and see if you can get through the swearing, sexy scenes, and gritty descriptions. If so, you're in for a wild ride.
Before I started NaNo I took mental note of what made that series so compelling and decided to get off my fat arse and write the next book in the series. I plotted it out, penned out 35 scenes like Bob Mayer said Jennifer Cruisie does and signed up for NaNo. Excitement started to rear its lovely head. On Halloween night I was like a race horse chomping at the bit, pawing the ground at the gate, anxious to start writing. It was difficult to not jot down even a few words.
November 1st, I woke up, wrote my 2,000 words and left on a girls' weekend with my laptop. I woke each morning I was away, hours before the other ladies, got myself a cuppa and planted myself in the big chair by the roaring fireplace to write 2,000 words. I came home the first weekend with a really good start to my book. Yipee!

Did I lose steam? Not so far. I'm still writing like a maniac. Everyone has their writing process. This is the process that worked for me-- plotting ahead of time and planning scenes. My friend Geri, is the opposite. She needs to do away with all the obsessive planning and just give herself permission to write a very rough roughdraft. See where the story goes just before she writes it down.
Once I gave myself permission to just write the damned thing, much like the Cherry Adair Finish the Damned Book Challenge, I was off to the races. (With all these horsey references, you'd think I was a jockey). And now I'm up to almost 40,000 words this first week. They are not all great words and the rewrite is going to be horrendous but I'm getting this story down. I know now that I will finish this book by the end of the month unless I become like the hare in that fable where it falls asleep and the turtle wins the race. Knowing I'm 4/5th's of the way done is a beautiful thing over here in my head. I've set my sights on a Valentine's Day publication and am having the cover artist get busy for the second book in the Dream Jumper series.
Having this glorious international challenge, knowing that there are thousands and thousands of us out there in far-reaching countries, struggling to write, helps spur me on. I have a competitive nature but it's all friendly and fun. Mostly, I'm challenging myself to be the best I can be.
Also, checking in on word count is right up my alley. If you're writing and want to friend me, my name this year is Kimberwrite and I'd love some friends. I asked to join a group here in Seattle and didn't get a reply, so I took that as a no.

If you are stuck and can't get going check in to NaNo's motivational speeches by bestselling authors. Some are very inspirational.
Here's what works for me if I get stuck along the way.

1. Get up from the computer. Go do something else. Think about what you are going to write next but deny yourself the action for an hour. It's like the 'takeaway' in sales techniques.
2. Go back to your synopsis and read what you intended. If you don't have a synopsis, maybe try writing one.
3. Write out the next two scenes, making sure you are making it almost impossible for your protagonist to achieve their goal.
4. Pretend you are the protag. Get inside her head. Then write from that angle. Not necessarily first person POV, just be her and then try writing.
5. Music the protag would listen to, stick a hat on your head for different characters,
6. Give yourself permission to write a terrible book. Don't worry about editing, choosing the best words, the most narrative descriptions. You are going to fix that in the coming months. Just write what comes to mind.
7. Don't read back what you wrote and don't backspace more than two sentences. Keep the bad stuff and just continue.
8. Have fun!


NaNoWriMo is to be credited for more than just getting those first time authors to write their novel. It helps writers like me drop all the expectations and just sit down to write. Isn't that what it's all about?

Kim Hornsby is the author of two full novels The Dream Jumper's Promise and Necessary Detour, two short stories based on THE BACHELOR and has two contemporary romances in the Seasons of Love Series. All are available on Amazon.

                                                   Find Kim at www.kimhornsbyauthor.net

Kindle Direct Publishing Select Free Days. Read this First!

KDP FREE DAYS, OR NOT? THAT’s THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION.

There are thousands of readers out there who will pay for your books but many of them will barely look at your novel without a sign it's worth paying for. Especially if you are a new author and without a huge following. 

One way to help get sales is to offer your novel free. This generates free ‘sales’ and looks good on paper, even if you don’t see money for those downloads. And, if you’re in this for the money, I feel kind of badly for you right now. (Imagine me patting your back and handing you tissues) I have done KDP Select free days about 10 times now and feel like a bit of a Select Amazon expert.

Amazon Headquarters in Seattle

For free days, I upload a version of my book that includes a note after THE END to ask if the reader sees fit to review, the author would really appreciate it.

In the days after free days, sales escalate. So do the reviews a week or two later. The ranking looks much better approximately two days later. Don’t freak the morning after free days when your book is 164,000 in rank. It’ll decrease as the day goes on.  Soon after, you’ll get reviews. Many of the reviews that follow your promotion will start out like this “I wasn’t sure what to expect but …”
Why do they expect so little? Because it was FREE! The expectation is less than if the reader paid $12.99 for an e-book download. It’s no wonder some of the best books don’t have all 5 star reviews.  Novel readers want their moneys' worth. I have yet to read Gone Girl because of the cost. Just sayin’. Oh and now it's going to be a movie, without my help.

                                                              Gone Girl Cast Announced

 If you have lots of reviews that are above 4 stars, you'll get more real sales eventually. This is fact. The readers who don't subscribe to free day lists on a daily or weekly basis will jump on board to buy the book when they see more reviews. Books with 200 reviews and over a 4.7* rating are more likely to catch on than 6 reviews and a 3.2* average. Do some hopping around on Amazon, and check out Safe Haven, Sins and Needles and Warm Bodies. I use those three because my novel was lumped in with them and I spent weeks/months watching. Two were movies and one was a breakout series that came out boom, boom, boom and caught on like wildfire.

I'm a stat watcher. I watch my stats daily, sometimes three or four times a day. When things are going well with a book, I’ve been known to wake up in the middle of the night and check stats. By stats, I mean ranking, not sales. It’s not necessary to check my sales if I’m looking at ranking on the Amazon list. Ranking reflects sales. Another thing I do is keep track of books that were published the same week as me. I love to reflect on how their sales are better than mine. From this obsessive activity, I’ve learned a lot. Here’s some of what I know to be true. The ranking is directly related to sales and sales are affected by :

1. 'NY Times Bestseller' at the top of the cover, or something similar

2. Lots of good reviews – Over 100 is good, Over 300 is better

3. Amazon Ranking (or Kobo etc) Less than 10,000 in Kindle books is great

The above indicators help a reader to avoid paying for a clunker. And there are a lot of poorly written books out there right now, with self pubbing at an all-time high.

4. Whether you have the power of a publisher or NY publishing house behind you.

5. Whether it's a series, or not. Series are BIG!!

6. COVER! Non-pro covers are overlooked on a regular basis. Pay the $200.

7. Whether the author has a following. If this book is the third of a series, the sales should be better than a first one with no second published.

8. Ads, marketing, word of mouth, BUZZ!

9. If you love ranking, find a rare category and boast that you are top ten in psychic romance. Sure it might be Romance, Suspense, time travel, werewolf, psychics but you’re top ten!

I watched Safe Haven rise to the top of the lists this year. And stay there. For a long time. Yes, Nicolas Sparks has a huge following. Look at the list above and the only one not used was #5, the series, and instead of that he had a movie with Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel.

I also watched a novel (comparable to mine) rise to a USA bestseller in the last ten months. The author did free days with me, right after we both published late December 2012, both of our books did well, then she published the second and third in the series within two or three months of each other and her rise to stardom was imminent. The writing is pretty clean for a self- pubbed author, the cover is hauntingly compelling and she has over 200 reviews on each of the 3 books. Ta Da! She went free several times with the first one to get her stats up, published the second, went free to get those stats up and the rest is history. What this author did with her high concept romantic suspense novel that I did not do, was release 3 in one year, had a pro cover to start with, and who knows what else. I'm still watching her... Not that The Dream Jumper’s Promise was left in the dust. It’s done well for itself. Especially for a first novel, but without a second in the series to keep the readers engaged, I lagged behind.

And so, dear readers, these are my observations. I’m a huge fan of Free Days. And of marketing those days to the absolute max. When my thriller, Necessary Detour, went free over Valentine’s Day in 2012, with The Wild Rose Press, I had 42 ads out there to announce the deal. Some were free to me, some cost a few dollars. None cost over $20.  I got 35,000 downloads in 5 days and made almost $2,000 in the following month in royalties as well as landing #42 in Author ranking, above some very heavy hitters. That was a month to remember.

If you decide to do KDP and take advantage of the 5 Free days, here’s my gift to you. 

Do 3 of your 5 days at the beginning of the 90 days, and do 2 days, 60 days in. To advertise, log on http://authormarketingclub.com/members/submit-your-book/  to see 20-30 sites that will advertise for your free days at little or no cost. Then sit back and watch. 

You’re welcome.


 

Kim Hornsby is the  author of KDP Free Days, http://amzn.com/B00AFJ8BJS a cheap eBook on Amazon that elaborates on how to get the most out of your Select Free days.
She's also the Amazon Best Selling Author of Necessary Detour and The Dream Jumper's Promise. He highest ranking as of November 10, is The Husband Hunt, a perma free short story that reads like watching a series of THE BACHELOR.

  

Writing Romance is Harder Than it Reads!

Ever read a romance novel and think "I could write this stuff!" Well you can't. Not without years of hard work, training and tears. For those of you who have the know-how, (and I don't mean the personal romance know-how) and the education, this doesn't mean you. I'm talking to the people who poo poo the genre and say it is easy to write a romance. If it were, wouldn't everyone do it?
If a romance author let you think you could do it without a degree in creative writing, or at the very least classes and workshops on novel writing, they are probably one fine writer. Making the story flow, making you feel you are a part of the story and can write like that if you tried, is the sign of a good writer. It might look simple, but it is not.

Thank God I didn't know this before I started my first novel. I said those above fated words while reading a Susan Wiggs romance one summer. It seemed to me that there was nothing to thinking up a compelling story and then just typing it out. No offence to the author but sheesh, just write a handsome man, a woman the reader would care about, a nice setting, story and BINGO! Publication.
I was so confident, I started writing in the fall and had a spring power outfit hanging in my closet for an inevitable meeting with my editor in New York.

In some ways it's wonderful to be so confident. I'd just been on a family vacation in Canada, over the border from Eastern Washington, and decided to set this blockbuster hit on a lake, like the one we'd just been to. And then I started writing. And deleting. And writing. And deleting.
This wasn't my first novel, but it was my first romance. I'd already written a Women's Fiction that had been rejected by some of the finest agents and editors in NYC, so you see, I wasn't totally green. Just unpublished and uneducated about the process of novel writing. Aside from a few workshops on the Hero's Journey, I had no clue. I didn't even read romance but after reading Susan Wiggs' novels, I thought I might start.

Then I read somewhere that the second book doesn't usually sell. It's purpose is solely to babysit the dust bunnies under your bed, The third book was the one that would sell. Regardless, I finished the book, sent out a queries, and got rejected by some of the finest agents and editors, not only in NYC but all over this fine country. It was unanimous. No one wanted it. No one wanted the first thirty pages, let alone the full manuscript. Although I loved the high concept, no one else did. I'd written a story about a modern day Goldilocks and the Three Bears, something that apparently would sink like a lead hard copy, and I was told repeatedly that it was a bad idea. It had either been done to death or couldn't be done, I can't remember which.

That was bad news to me, who had a series all planned out with Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk about modern day women who find themselves in similar circumstances to the nursery stories. The completed romance was titled Goldy and the Bayers, about a rock singer who suddenly retires and escapes the media by hiding out at her lake house, only to find herself spying on the family next door - the Bayers.

The completed manuscript collected dust for several years while I continued writing. I'd gotten too far in to quit now. I had thousands invested in Writers' Conferences and posit notes and felt I owed it to myself to prove that writing a book and getting it published was super simple! Dammit!
When I saw a call for Fairytale stories by Entangled Publishing, I ventured under the bed to get Goldy, and sent the pitch to several other publishers while I was at it.

Then I got a shovel, a pick ax, and a big garbage bag and started editing and cleaning up the first three chapters. When several publishers asked for the full, I smirked and told myself to dig out that Power Suit for NYC. Turned out I hadn't exactly written a romance. No siree. According to several agents who almost considered representing me at this point in my almost career, the story wasn't formulaic enough. Apparently there is a definite formula to follow for romance and I hadn't done that. In the first few pages my hero did not catch the protagonist when she fell off a ladder in her Daisy Dukes, his hand getting tangled in the jean rips, until they broke apart, embarrassed. I wasn't sure what the formula was, but when one of the queried editors suggested some easy changes to make it fit the formula, I gladly said yes and signed on the dotted line. Thank you Ally Robertson!

Writing romance is not easy. And it isn't just me who's had a hard time at this. Most writers will tell you that if you think it's easy, the joke is on you. Writing a romance (and a believable sex scene, while we're talking about it) takes a ton of skill and talent. It is not the walk in the park it looks to be and next time you read a novel that's as smooth as a piece of crustless cheesecake, think about the craft that goes into writing your entertainment.
How about it writers? Anyone ever heard that romance writing is easy?

Kim Hornsby is the author of Amazon Bestseller, Necessary Detour with The Wild Rose Press, originally named Goldy and the Bayers.