DONALD WILLERTON
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • Overview
    • Novels >
      • Death In The Tallgrass
      • Teddy's War
      • Smoke Dreams
      • The King of Trash
    • Mogi Franklin Mysteries >
      • 1. Ghosts of the San Juan
      • 2. The Lost Children
      • 3. The Secret of La Rosa
      • 4. The Hidden River
      • 5. The Lake of Fire
      • 6. Outlaw
      • 7. The Lady in White
      • 8. The Captains Chest
      • 9. River of Gold
      • 10. War Train
  • Press
  • Blog
  • Photo Blog
    • Death In The Tallgrass
    • Teddy's War
    • Smoke Dreams
    • Ghosts of San Juan
    • The Lost Children
    • The Secret of La Rosa
    • The Hidden River
    • The Lake of Fire
    • Outlaw
    • The Lady in White
    • The Captain's Chest
    • River of Gold
    • War Train
  • Contact

Willerton Blog

Notify Me

No CHILE BUT THE BEST BREAKFAST EVER

9/3/2024

2 Comments

 
Picture
The third weekend of June, I received the Western Writers of America SPUR Award at their Annual Conference in a hotel in downtown Tulsa. The parking was in the basement of the hotel and difficult to get in and out of, not to mention the fee, so for the short time I would be there, I decided to eat my meals at the hotel’s restaurant rather than exploring the local cuisine someplace else, as I usually do.
 
On Saturday morning, I found a booth in the dining area and ordered a breakfast burrito. It sounded nice enough on the menu, but when it came, it revealed how spoiled I’ve become by living in New Mexico. The menu did not offer green or red as a choice, so I assumed it had neither. By the time I ordered, I had adjusted my expectations. When it came, however, I remembered how barren a breakfast burrito can be if it’s not drenched in a green chile sauce, or, if handheld, how empty it tasted without a couple of scoops of red chiles to give it vitality and moisture.
 
My burrito did not even have salsa. Nonetheless, I ate it and it was good enough.
 
As I finished, an older (that is, my age) man came to my booth, did not take off his cowboy hat, asked if I wouldn’t mind company, and sat down. That was okay with me. I was already mellow into the Cowboy Way, having worn my cowboy hat to breakfast (and not taken it off, as it seemed to be protocol), as well as the boots I had bought in Amarillo the day before.
 
He was a kindly man, introduced himself as L. J. Martin, and mentioned that he was a fellow author attending the Conference. The waiter came and he ordered breakfast, giving me time to look at the business card he handed me.
 
L. J. Martin is a well-established Western writer with thirty westerns, twenty-two thrillers and crime stories, and 11 nonfiction books, including cooking books. He is also a photographer who uses his art to create book covers. His wife is an author with seventy-five novels to her name, specializing in Romance. She has been on the New York Times bestseller list twenty-five times. They’ve also seen a few movies based on their books. They alternate living in Clinton, Montana, and Prescott, Arizona.
 
Reading his website, ljmartin.com, is entertainment in itself. The Martins are not only prolific, but cover a wide range of interests. The house in Montana is stunning (see it on the website), with a kitchen that would make Rachel Ray jealous.
 
Mr. Martin went on with his background. He got interested enough in the publishing business that he and a friend formed Wolfpack Publishing some years ago. Looking at the website, the publishing house has matched him in terms of productive energy.
 
Wolfpack Publishing is a full-service publishing house that is home to an all-star stable of award-winning legends and developing superstars in the western fiction, action-adventure, men's adventure, crime fiction, mystery, thriller genres, and more. The house publishes under four imprints: Wolfpack Publishing (concentrating on Western novels), Wise Wolf Publishing (serving mainly young adults), Rough Edges Press (hosting thrillers, mysteries, adventure, crime books), and CKN Christian Publishing (dedicated to bringing wholesome Christian novels to readers). I cannot guess how many books they have in their catalog.
 
Wolfpack has been named the Best Western Fiction Press by True West Magazine. Besides printed books, it specializes in eBooks, Print On Demand paperbacks and audiobooks. Their forte is marketing, using whatever means they can find, including the network, social media, libraries, bookstores, big box stores, and international markets.
 
As he was making his way through his omelet, L. J. Martin asked if I might be looking for a publisher. Since Death in the Tallgrass was self-published, I was an easy mark for being approached and my picture was even on the back of the book.
 
Trying not to drool on what was left of my burrito, I managed to squeak out that I had very much hoped to identify publishers at the Conference who might be interested. My previous publisher had sold itself to new owners who are more interested in nonfiction, self-help, spiritual books. Gunfights are not in line with their vision.
 
By the end of the day, L. J. Martin had introduced me to Mike Bray, the CEO of Wolfpack Publishing (he was giving a talk at the Conference), and during the next week, Mike was reading Death in the Tallgrass, Smoke Dreams, and a couple of the Mogi books. I did a little research, then talked with a friend in Albuquerque whose books are published by Wolfpack. She thought it was a good enough outfit.
 
Last week, I signed a publishing contract with Wolfpack Publishing for all of my published books, and this morning, I mailed fourteen manuscripts (pdf files) to Rachel in Tampa, who is the Production Supervisor for Wolfpack. I am now part of the stable of award-winning legends and developing superstars mentioned above.
 
I have, legitimately, made it to the big time.
 
This is a good time to make a break from the Mogi Franklin Facebook page, so I’ll be working with Facebook to discontinue it. I will continue my regular Facebook page, as well as my website, DonaldWillerton.com, but a lot of the marketing associated with my books will move under Wolfpack’s purview, beginning with Wolfpackpublishing.com, where the books will be listed and offered for sale. The Mogi books may end up under the Wise Wolf imprint, and my three adult thrillers/mysteries/historical fiction may be under the Rough Edges Press. I’m sure someone will take care of it and I’ll let you know.
 
It will be a while before I hold a freshly published book in my hands, but that’s okay. I won my first writing award twenty-three years ago, this month; I can wait a little longer.
 
Thanks to everyone who has kept up with me for all this time. I hope to prove worthy of your attention.

2 Comments

LANDSCAPES OF INSPIRATION

7/23/2024

1 Comment

 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
​With the third or fourth reading of The Lord of The Rings, I read a companion book (The Inklings) about J. R. R. Tolkien’s relationship with his friend, C. S. Lewis. There was mention of the two (both professors at Oxford) taking regular walks around the countryside. I assumed it meant short out-and-back hikes during the day. I’ve learned recently that their walks were much more extensive.
 
England is a country of paths. National laws require existing foot paths on public and private land to be maintained for unobstructed public access for walking, riding, or biking. Primitive dirt trails, village sidewalks, little used roads, or city streets take you through parks, forests, across fields, beside streams, and even through parts of farms. Some of the paths are hundreds of years old. I walked sections of the Monarch’s Way, an eight-hundred-kilometer trail that more or less traces the hasty retreat of a king from a losing battle during the medieval period from the north of England, all the way to London.
 
Modern gates help manage animals, while ladder-like steps go up and over fences, and small bridges allow streams to be crossed. If recent rains have made the pathways too muddy, someone automatically creates detours to firmer ground. Relatively well-marked, it is a friendly system, to say the least, and a system that encourages people to be proud of their scenery and their heritage.
 
This last April and May, I went on a nine-day, self-guided walking tour through the Cotswold area of west-central England. Taking a circular route through eight quaint villages (I could have started in any one of them), I walked mainly by myself for about 50 miles by a variety of paths through what is regarded as the quintessential England – villages dating from the early centuries, ancient houses built from locally quarried stone, with roofs of slate or thatch, “fences” built of stacked stones dug from fields, and communities that were originally defined by commerce and governed by the Lords and Ladies of manor houses and the Vicars of local churches. It was like walking through a thousand David Winter Cottages.
 
My tour company took care of room reservations in each village and moving my luggage, so all I had to do was eat, sleep, and walk. It’s fascinating to see the roles that pubs occupy in English village life, every one of them pet-friendly. And, typical England, I saw the sun only one day, while experiencing cloudy and occasionally rainy weather the rest of the time. It made it more enchanting and less of a struggle.
 
The countryside was full of sheep, flowered meadows, and cultivated fields; streams and small rivers; thick, black soil; and vast runs of hedgerows separating the patchworked lands. I sometimes felt as if I was walking through Hobbiton and the Shire, and would not have been surprised to see hairy-footed hobbits scurrying between fields.
 
Afterwards, taking a train to the airport in London, I stopped for a night in Oxford, having always heard of its reputation. It is a remarkable place, though crowded with people on walking tours, groups of students, and tourist busses. I viewed three or four of the “colleges” (there are twenty-seven) that make up most of the town, and climbed the belltower of the University Church where C. S. Lewis occasionally spoke. I also had a cup of tea in the Bodlean Library, the largest library in England. I thought it was very English of me.
 
It was a pleasing and calming trip, and I can well see how the countryside became the source for tales of Miss Jane Marple (Agatha Christie), Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter), Bilbo and friends (J. R. R. Tolkien), and Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy (C. S. Lewis).
 
It is a land full of literary inspiration.  

1 Comment

MORE ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING

7/14/2024

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Curiosity was part of my deciding to self-publish Death In The Tallgrass. I wanted to see how Amazon’s self-publishing platform had changed from when I first used it a decade ago, as well as whether the book selling business had grown to better accept and support self-publishers.
 
Another part was to discover if my having publishing control would increase the sales of my book compared to my past books being sold by my regular publisher.
 
In originally publishing the nine books I called The Mogi Franklin Mystery Series, I used Microsoft Word to do the formatting of the manuscripts (sections, page numbers, titles, etc), used my own photographs to create the covers, set my own page and margin sizes, chose the font sizes, and did all the other details before submitting my files to Createspace, the self-publishing platform then offered by Amazon. I put considerable effort into each novel, but don’t remember how much I spent for each one; it wasn’t much.
 
It wasn’t very long before I had physical books on my bookshelf, had a book page on Amazon for each one, and was happy for what I had done. This was during 2012-2015. However, none of the books sold well, if at all. I was convinced it was from my lack of drive for doing marketing. I’m an introvert: I want to write, not deal with sales.
 
Some time later, I answered an ad by Terra Nova Books, in Santa Fe, who offered take the nine books, edit them (I had never had my books edited by a professional) and republish them under their imprint with new covers, which they did from 2016 to 2021. I was the first author under their imprint to offer middle-grade books.
 
They also published my two adult novels, The King of Trash, and Teddy’s War. I was very happy to have them as a publisher, it was great working with them, paid about half the going rate for each book ($3500-$4000), but hardly earned a dime from book sales. It turned out that marketing wasn’t part of the deal. They didn’t even solicit reviews.
 
Death In The Tallgrass had a much harder early life and I decided to self-publish. I committed to all the standard steps to produce a good product, well-supported, and well-advertised, including a budget providing for hiring professionals for multiple levels of editing, cover production, and manuscript preparation, which are the big-ticket items. I anticipated producing an audiobook, as well, mainly to see how it was done and if the book would sell as an audiobook. Based on articles I had read, I expected to spend several thousands of dollars.
 
By the time the book appeared on Amazon, I decided not to buy a marketing package or magazine-type advertising. Getting close to $10K was a little unnerving and I had grown conservative. I settled with being aggressive in getting reviews and entering contests, hoping they would provide the publicity I needed.
 
I can still choose to go with commercial marketing options, but most of it is social media-based and I’m relatively hostile to social media platforms.
 
Among other insights, I learned the following:
 
  1. Self-publishing is now very well received by the industry. Many people, even some great authors, do their own publishing and even their own distribution. That still doesn’t mean bookstores will offer them, but the online availability mostly makes up for it. There are multiple communities of self-publisher service providers who support events tailored to self-published authors.
 
  1. An industry of help-providers exists to provide support for every level of creative activity. If you need something, there is likely someone whose business it is to provide it. If you need a lot of somethings, there are businesses that front armies of creative, experienced people who will take care of your every need.
 
  1. All the steps needed to produce a physical or electronic book can still be done by the author, if you want to do it that way. There are good book publishing software applications you can buy that are significantly easier than using Microsoft Word, as well as lots of online advice on how to do it.
 
  1. Either way, it costs real money. There are cheap ways to do the separate steps, and there are expensive ways. You probably get what you pay for, but the important thing is to be honest about your talents, capabilities, goals, and the expectations for your product when you start out to hire someone. My hiring was based on perceived quality of the people, process, and the products I would receive. I also searched for reviews of the different vendor sources before hiring. I think I chose well.
 
  1. You can also cheat on the creative side, if you want, especially if you’re interested in making money more than making art. The “I made a million dollars from publishing on Amazon” people did it by picking a low-content genre of product that’s guaranteed to be profitable (there’s an app for that), hiring someone to create the content, hiring someone to create the cover, hiring someone to put it all together into a publishable file, hiring someone to format it, print it, or record it, and then hiring someone to review it, advertise it, promote it, socialize it, and even help you fill out the IRS forms for your income. They will hold your hand at every step, if that is what you want.
 
  1. For example, suppose you want to produce a twenty-four-page children’s coloring book with a memorable, easy-to-remember title that features unicorns or butterflies. You can do it with a day’s worth of your own time hiring and managing the different service providers, and it will sell forever with almost 100% profit. Maybe.
 
  1. Fortunately, other than using ghostwriters or using AI generators (there’s an app for that), producing a fiction novel is still a matter of craft. But if you hire a few different steps done by individual service providers, it will probably be a good use of your time, money, and effort.
 
  1. There are several fine organizations and talented individuals who provide wonderful service for the steps involved in producing a book. It is not hard to distinguish good individuals and organizations from the bad (read the reviews), and it is smart to use good, professional people to review and comment on what you’ve written. Take their advice and direction.
 
  1. Writing a good book to begin with is still the best starting point for an author.
 
  1. Amazon looks like a vast bookseller that uses vast, automated, AI-based tools to control how, when, why, and for how much books are sold. The center of their control empire is their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, which I’ve talked about before. It takes considerable knowledge to discover how to take advantage of the SEO, but there is local power to be had by any author who will pursue it. This is probably why the sales of my books by Terra Nova Books were so low – I’m guessing they spent zero time exploiting the context provided by Amazon to help sell books.
 
  1. After the book is in final form and ready to go to the publisher, I recommend hiring marketers, promoters, advertisers, reviewers, and distributors, or some combination thereof. Amazon is a wonderful platform for reaching individual readers, but it does not provide the leverage needed by bookstores, libraries, the Armed Forces, and other large quantity book buyers. I don’t know how to do this, but my lack of capabilities became obvious when I realized what it might take to really elevate my sales. If I want a significant jump in sales, I need to hire some professional or organization who is good at doing it.
 
As an example of #11, I can’t even get my new book into the small, home-owned bookstore in my town. The owner has a table set up for local authors and she has yet to put one of my books on it. It comes down to the fact that if she buys from my Amazon page, she has to pay full price, as well as shipping and handling, because there is no middleman (a distributor, for example) who can give her a price break for bulk sales.
 
I’d be happy to provide her with my book – as many copies as she wants – and I could give her a large discount off the retail price. But when she pays me, I become a business man who has collected income. I have to have a county business license, I have to have a state tax ID number, and I would probably need to establish an LLC to make myself a viable business (which I’ve done before; it’s not difficult).
 
If a different bookstore asks for the book, or if a gift shop, department store, museum, the Navy (it buys 10,000 books a year), or some other book seller wants copies, I would need to augment my website with an online ordering process, keep an inventory (in my garage, of course), have a money in-and-out process, and do my own packaging and mailing, including postage.
 
Pretty soon, it looks like a job, and that’s not what I’m interested in, even in exchange for increased income. My current Amazon income, by the way, is just reported on a 1099 form with my tax return.
 
So, my learning continues, and I’m now looking for options to have someone else market my book without it costing more than what I would earn.

0 Comments

July 07th, 2024

7/7/2024

1 Comment

 
​I believe December 18th, 2023 was the last time I posted a blog to my Mogi Franklin Facebook site. The absence will be explained in my next few posts, which I’m hoping to write about once a week. After those posts, I’m getting out of the blogging business.
 
I’ve gotten ticked off at Facebook, which is now filling my MogiFranklin site with advertisements, movie tidbits, AI-generated soft porn, nonsense, and other features that have nothing to do with me, so I am eliminating the site altogether. More information from me will be on my main Donald Willerton Facebook site.
 
My forthcoming blogs will fulfil promises I made to describe my adventures with self-publishing my latest novel, Death In The Tallgrass. Fortunately, my adventure now has a great ending by my winning the 2024 SPUR Award for Western Historical Fiction Novel, presented to me by the Western Writers of America at their annual WWA Convention in Tulsa, last month. It is their highest national literary award, and receiving it far exceeds the time, effort, and money I spent getting it published. It made it all worth it.
 
With that introduction, let me summarize the steps, times, and costs, to produce my novel.
 
Three years ago, I had what I thought was a finished novel of 150K words. Just for the record, I did not set out to write a western; I just told the story as it came to me and, true to form, I did not know the ending when I began the novel. I submitted my manuscript to my traditional publisher and it was promptly rejected. I reduced it to 117K words, resubmitted, and then took it back voluntarily, still recognizing it as a pretty pathetic effort. I paid them $500 for the initial review.
 
Going through a tedious intervention process with myself, my manuscript, and a how-to-write-a-good-novel guidebook, it took several months to gut it, rewrite it, and produce a different story of 110K words. It even had an ending. It was also undoubtably a true western novel. Of all my books, this is the first one to be identified with a traditional genre. Rather than submit it to my publisher again and possibly suffer even more shame, I decided to self-publish.
 
I submitted the new manuscript to an online editor, found through Readsy.com, for an Editorial Review. He did an excellent job and returned to me a fully marked-up manuscript, which is not usually done for an Editorial Review. I paid him $2200. I adopted every change he suggested, including removing the first two chapters. I reviewed it again, smoothed it, and submitted it to an online Copy Editor, again found through Readsy.com. I paid her $1500. She did a wonderful job and returned to me a fully marked-up manuscript. I adopted every change she suggested, and then rewrote the final chapters to make it fit all the changes and to resolve all the plot elements.
 
In going from Editorial Review to Copy Editor, I skipped hiring a Line Editor. I had worked through every sentence and word with the feedback of the Editorial Review, so I was hoping my efforts had corrected any grammatical mistakes. I was trying to save money. Likewise, after doing everything the Copy editor told me to do, I skipped involving a Proofreader, saving several dollars more.
 
At that point, I believed that I had a well-written, well-told story ready for publication. In late summer of 2023, I hired an online graphics artist to create the front, back, and spine images for the novel’s cover. I paid $500. With the text and cover, I hired an online company to convert the 106K word Microsoft Word file into a correctly formatted novel, in both a PDF format (for a print edition) and an epub format (for a Kindle edition). I paid the company $200, plus $230 for an ISBN.
 
Note: reviewing the manuscript during the reformatting process revealed seventeen more mistakes. Since then, I have found only one additional mistake.
 
I submitted the two files to Amazon/KDP, who published the novel and made it available to the public. This was the end of August, 2023. I paid my webmaster $500 to update my DonaldWillerton.com website.
 
For book reviews, other than asking family, friends, and Facebook readers, I spent about $500. For entering contests (about 10), I spent about $750. Postage, business cards, and bookmarks cost about $200.
 
I hired an online voice actor from ACX.com in September, 2023, to produce an audiobook of the novel. It took about three months, with ample time to review and comment on the recording, and for the voice actor to get over a cold. I paid him $1200. I also paid $110 for the graphics artist to create a square book cover (required for audiobooks since their hardcopy are physical CDs). The audio file and cover were uploaded by ACX onto Amazon around Thanksgiving, 2023.
 
The total expenditures for publishing the book were, rounding up, about $8500 over a one-year period (don’t forget my skipped costs of maybe $2000, if you’re making plans). For all my efforts, I have 25 reviews posted on Amazon, went unnoticed in all contests but one, and won one award. I received no income from any of the contests or awards. I am still waiting on 2 contests to complete.
 
As of the first of July, 2024, which is ten months after I first published, I have sold 61 paperbacks, 40 electronic copies (of which two were sold in England; I even know who it was), and 24 audiobooks, which have netted me about $526, all derived from online sales.
 
As is commonly said in writing circles, if you expect to be a writer, don’t give up your day job.
1 Comment

DEATH IN THE TALLGRASS IN PRINT, EBOOK, AND AUDIOBOOK

12/18/2023

1 Comment

 
Picture
​I’m happy to announce that Death in the Tallgrass, my newest novel, is now available in three formats: paperback (trade size), ebook (Kindle), and audiobook (read by John D. Swain). You’ll find it at    https://a.co/d/aiHphO8  .
 
It has received many enthusiastic 5-stars and I believe other readers will enjoy it just as much. The audiobook is currently free as a special offer, and you can listen to a free five minutes of an Audible Sample on the book page.
 
Here’re a few comments from the reviews:
 
“This was a wonderful read and one I can highly recommend.” - Grant L.

“[This novel] went in a lot of directions that I didn't see coming…The ending is bittersweet but still satisfying…a hit for those who enjoy speculative fiction and Westerns with an edge.” - Jaime M.

“It was hard to stop reading this tale with its many twists and turns, dangers, and happy times…A real winner and if you are a Western genre fan, it should be put at the top of your reading list.” - Trudi L.
 
 “[The author] packages historical, metaphysical, and literary fiction into a single book, and…takes a no-holds-barred approach to pain, justice, and redemption…The writing is as raw as the story itself.” - Asher S.
 
“[With] the author’s ability to so keenly and vividly capture the essence of the time and place, it’s a richly textured historical novel that combines adventure, romance, and introspection…thoroughly engaging read for those who enjoy immersive historical fiction.” - K. C. F.
 
“…A historical novel with a complex story about a young man’s introspection, a clash of cultures, a romance, and several adventures. I did not want to put it down.” - Cindy
 
“[The author] is an extraordinary and engaging writer who has crafted an entertaining, adventurous, and intriguing story. Highly recommended and very well done!” - Don S.
 
 
Read more comments in the Reader Reviews on the book page. Consider this book for last minute Christmas giving or send it to someone for their New Year reading list. And, please, everyone contribute a review! That gets the novel more recognition on Amazon.

1 Comment

PROGRESS SO FAR

10/8/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
​It’s been more than two months since my book, Death in the Tallgrass, was published through Amazon/KDP. I decided not to blog about my experiences until I had stored up some steps of significant learning regarding how Amazon bookselling works, anticipating that the longer I waited, the more steps I could report and the more glorious my accomplishments in book marketing would appear.
 
I guess I haven’t waited long enough. My learning curve has been pretty much flat, with a few bumps of simple ignorance.
 
Here’s the data: my Amazon report shows 26 units have been sold since the book was published on July 26th, all but one being sold in August. Eight of them have been electronic copies, while eighteen have been paperback. This doesn’t count the twenty-five copies I bought myself – the first ten being flawed and unusable, while nine have been sent to reviewers, entered in contests, or given away to family. I have six on-hand.
 
There have been eight “customer reviews” and three ratings without reviews posted by readers on my Amazon book page, while I have posted three “editorial reviews”. I’m averaging 4.9 out of 5 stars for the eleven customer reactions. Amazon needs fifteen “customer reviews” before it considers an item to be worth promoting, so if anyone is planning on leaving an honest review, now is not the time to be shy.
 
The reviews have been the highlight of my progress. For most of the last two months, the “editorial reviews” section of my book page, which posts reviews that I paid for in one way or the other, have not appeared because of technical difficulties. However, this last Monday, magic happened and they now do, which means all of my reviews can be read by the buying public. They are, without question, great reviews and I’m humbled with the praise they contain; you should read them for the fun of it. Of Amazon’s automated marketing efforts, the reviews are a success and I am especially appreciative of friends leaving reviews. I will be well-positioned once I pass the magic number.
 
One point about “editorial reviews”: there are many websites that provide book reviews for authors or publishers. Some offer “free” reviews, but the majority provide a graduated scale of reviews for sale. That means they have a ready source of people who will read a book and write a review. The website will advertise the books across the reviewers and the reviewers choose what books they want to review. Since none of these people know the authors, I suspect that most everyone who works for a reputable website (there are ways of finding out) read the books and write honest reviews. When one is finished, the author gets the review, but it may or may not be automatically posted on Amazon or other sites (i.e., it may say “editorial review only”); it’s in the fine print. How the reviewer is compensated for their review, I’m not sure.
 
Except for one case. I was able to see the resume of one reviewer working for an on-line company who posted a “customer review”. She wrote a wonderful review and is obviously accomplished at it. She should be – she’s done 742 reviews. A book blogger, she lists her reviews on a website and talks about it in her blog. At the bottom of each review, she is allowed to put a “BUY THIS BOOK” button, per agreement with Amazon, and if any of the readers click that button and buys a book, Amazon compensates her with a tiny share of the price. Given enough reviews and enough time, she’s probably building a pretty good business.
 
Some review websites routinely reveal they cannot guarantee someone will be interested in writing a review, and some of them mention that they cannot guarantee the reviewer will actually read the book, if they do write a review. The website will then offer packages of 1, 3, 5, 10 or more guaranteed reviews for prices ranging from $79 and up. I saw one website advertise 1000 reviews for $999. Whether a thousand people actually read the book and write an honest review is suspect to me.
 
Amazon will not publish reviews that involve payment to a reviewer, or have any possibility of undue influence between the author and the reviewer, which includes family. Anyone with my last name cannot post a “customer review”, even though I can post it as an “editorial review”. Amazon will not recognize it for any ratings in their algorithm, but it will show up on my book page, nonetheless. I’m okay with that.
 
Another sign of progress is my entering book contests. This is not a usual choice for recent publications because contests require money up-front and are usually long-term in results. I’ve entered a half-dozen contests (Eric Hoffer Awards, NM/AZ Book Awards, SPUR Awards of the Western Writers of America, Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, and others). The contest winners will typically be some months down the road. I chose to enter contests because I’m vain, and because actually winning something is highly quotable. Some of them will even send me gold stickers for the front cover of my book!
 
What I have not done is create on-line ads for my book. Amazon has an extensive advertising program, as well as Facebook. I hadn’t really paid attention, but I now notice highlighted ads in almost every corner of Amazon and Facebook that feature the front cover of a book, a small blurb about how great the book is, and a button to take me someplace that will happily place an order for me. Some of the ads are really impressive. However, ads cost money on a continuing basis; you typically pay per ad, or per week for a certain number of ads, or pay per click when someone wants to “learn more”. I am wary of anything that requires me to create a “marketing campaign” with a budget.
 
It doesn’t mean I won’t do it, but not now.
 
I also have not approached book reviewers at newspapers, book bloggers, or freelance reviewers.
 
How’s my audiobook coming? Hmm…I don’t know. My voice person was to begin the first of October and be done by early November, but I haven’t heard from him. I know he had projects to finish before he got to my book, but I was, by October, supposed to be listening to chapters as he recorded them. I haven’t paid him anything, and there’s a higher organization I can complain to, so I’m not worried. Its time will come.
 
It seems that I’ve been busy, but it may just be a level of attention that I’m not used to giving a book once it goes public. I may not be marching but only marking time. I spent a few hours on my next book, but lost enthusiasm for it. I think I’ll read for a while.

0 Comments

HEARING MY WORDS

8/20/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
​When I decided to self-publish my new book last year, I viewed it partially as an adventure: having done everything myself a decade ago, what had changed? Was it easier or harder? More costly or cheaper? Would I do it again? I included not only doing the marketing (which I’ll talk about in a later blog; it’s not going well), but also publishing my book as an audiobook, if it didn’t cost too much. The only data point I had was a previous estimate from a company in Santa Fe who quoted $10,000 for Teddy’s War, which had about the same number of words.
 
Giving you the current status first, I just signed a contract with an experienced voice actor in Alaska to produce an audio file of Death In The Tallgrass by November 1st, for about $1200. When I have that file, Audible (a subsidiary of Amazon) will freely make it available for purchase from Amazon, Audible, and Itunes. I have no control over the price and won’t know until after it comes up. Audible makes their money off the deal by keeping a healthy chunk of the sale amount.
 
I only began working on this a week ago and it’s been a pretty exciting process.
 
Producing an audiobook is provided by a company called ACX, which stands for Audible Creation Experiment, also a subsidiary of Amazon. My book had to have been published in Kindle format, so that I could use the same file to submit my book to ACX.
 
Using a page created for me by ACX, I typed in the title of the book, the author of the book, my budget range, and a short description of the book. In that description, I named some of the characters and described what I thought they sounded like. I didn’t think I had good enough descriptive words, so I said Harry was like a young Tom Selleck, Alice was like a Melissa McCarthy, and Charlie Goodnight sounded like a fat Tommy Lee Jones. It seemed to have worked pretty well.
 
I narrowed the potential audience of Narrators-for-hire by requesting a male voice (my book uses a first-person male to tell the story), chose “storyteller” from a long list of “voice styles”, and indicated a budget range of $50-$100 per finished hour, which is an hour of reading the final edition of the audiobook.
 
ACX used my word count (105,635) to estimate that it would take 11.4 hours to listen to the final audiobook. It takes 3 to 6 hours of work time to create one finished hour of properly recorded, edited, and formatted story. Different Narrators use different levels of time and effort in producing their final product and earn it back by adjusting their cost per finished hour.
 
I provided an “audition file” of 2 to 3 pages excerpted from my book. Those excerpts featured scenes of dialogue between different characters to help the Narrator know what would be needed in terms of the voice, style, pace, intuition, and interpretation throughout the story. I chose five scenes, each of a paragraph or two of dialogue or monologue by four different characters.
 
After broadcasting my request for a Narrator (taken care of by ACX), any Narrator interested in voicing my book sent ACX an audio file of them reading the audition file. ACX takes care of the communications and all I had to do was sign into my account, go the auditions page, and listen to the different auditions received. It was very easy.
 
In addition to hearing my own words read by the Narrator, I could click on their name and go to their “profile” page. From a listing of finished books they had narrated, I could listen to excerpts. Between those excerpts and my audition file, I developed a good sense of how my book might sound with their voice.
 
I sent out my request on a Friday, and within two days, I had eighteen different Narrators respond with an individual audition. It was pretty exciting to hear my words come to life.
 
I listened to each audition three or four times, eliminated the easy ones (i.e., the Narrator sounded too old or was too tenor), and then did a side-by-side comparison until I got it down to four candidates. It was not easy.
 
I wanted, in particular, to judge how much a Narrator changed his voice to present different characters, and how much “acting” was done as opposed to “narrating”. Only two out of the eighteen had great variations in their voices; one Narrator actually provided a female partner to read the female parts. My final selections all made small changes in their voices for the different characters. Their changes in pitch, pace, enunciation, and pauses were enough to hear and imagine each distinct character.
 
After picking my final Narrator and confirming they were available in the right time frame, I filled out an electronic form with only 5 questions (including price and due date). ACX sent the form to the Narrator. When that form is approved, my next step is to choose a 15-minute segment from the book, submit it to the Narrator, and have him read it in the voice and style that he has chosen for the whole book. He will record the 15-minute segment, send it to me, and I will iterate with him until I am satisfied. I will approve it when finished.
 
After that, it’s off to the races! When the whole book is finished, I will have two chances to read, comment, and ask for changes to any part of the audio, hopefully honing it to be perfect, and then his job is finished. He will give me a final version of the audio file and I will submit it to Audible; it should be for sale within 24 hours.
 
I hope this all works and from what I’ve seen so far, it will. Everyone concerned seems to have the process down and are working to produce a professionally-done, significantly-good product. It takes a long time to produce an audiobook, so I’m content to wait a couple of months to have it done well. 

0 Comments

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

8/4/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
​In a previous blog, I told of finding seventeen errors in my Word document of Death In The Tallgrass as it was being converted to an Amazon file that was ready for a book printer.
 
I hired a company to do the conversion. We iterated by them sending me a pdf file of the converted Word file that I would then read for any needed changes. If I found errors or changes, I sent them a message giving the corrections needed. By iterative improvement, the final pdf had no errors or changes, and I promptly approved that file. They then converted that file into Kindle format.
 
I proceeded to send the final pdf to Amazon to be used in printing the book.
 
Except that I didn’t. I used their first pdf file by mistake, which means that all paperbacks printed in the last week contain those seventeen errors.
 
Don’t ask me how this happened. I’m at the point in my life where major screw-ups are surprising but hardly require explaining. I believe I can trace the chain of events but it stills ends with me being completely responsible. And ashamed; I only had one thing to do and I messed it up.
 
I was reading a copy I had ordered for myself when I noticed errors that I remembered correcting. Looking at the files on my computer, I realized what had happened and quickly sent the correct file to Amazon. With remarkable foresight on Amazon’s part, it was easy to replace the faulty file with the good one. From now on, all paperbacks printed will be sourced from the correct file.
 
The Kindle version was not affected. It was automatically generated from the final converted file.
 
I now need to replace all the copies of Death In The Tallgrass sold in the last week. I know a few of the people who bought copies, but having announced the book by using this blog, I don’t know everyone.
 
I strongly believe that every buyer deserves the correct copy, and I have a strong desire for all copies in circulation to be what I intended. Some errors concerned format changes that you won’t notice, but a few errors will be irritatingly noticeable and could ruin the reading experience. To make amends, I am offering a deal and am hoping that buyers will allow me to do this:
 
  1. If you have a copy of the book ordered between July 28th and August 4th, send me your email address at [email protected].
  2. I will send you a question asking that you identify a particular error. If you find it, that will confirm you bought a corrupted copy
  3. Reply to me and I will send you a $25 eGift Card from Amazon that allows you to order a new copy. You should destroy the old one.
 
This is a lesson concerning self-publishing: there is only the author to blame when things go wrong, and only the author to fix the problems.

0 Comments

DEATH IN THE TALLGRASS     ON AMAZON!!!

7/30/2023

4 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
​My latest novel, Death In The Tallgrass, has been published and is available on Amazon.com and through the Kindle Store, in both paperback and eReader formats.
 
You can see the book by holding the cntrl key down and clicking on the following link:  https://www.amazon.com/Death-Tallgrass-Journey-Through-Frontier ebook/dp/B0CCZK8H5G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VV58CG3RZH4W&keywords=Donald+Willerton+Death+In+The+Tallgrass&qid=1690732116&s=books&sprefix=donald+willerton+death+in+the+tallgrass%2Cstripbooks%2C119&sr=1-1
 
By the way, I’m having my website worked on and it still lacks some of the correct links.
 
This book is dedicated to my brother, Keith. He died from Covid in December, 2020. My submission package for the new novel was accepted and published last Friday, July 28th, which would have been his 74th birthday.
 
He would have liked what I’ve written. It features the countryside he loved best – the lofty peaks of New Mexico and Colorado, the Panhandle of Texas, the Canadian River valley, the Palo Duro Canyon – and highlights some of the history we grew up with. He would be delighted to find he was the model for one of the book’s characters. Those of you who knew him won’t have a lot of trouble identifying the character.
 
Among his many talents, Keith had a phenomenal memory. He specialized in jokes, humorous tales, and biographical details of various people, and could go on for hours as the center of entertainment. He also appreciated road trips. Our biggest trip together was in the 1980s, beginning with me picking him up at the Albuquerque Airport, then winding our way up through the Jemez Mountains towards the road to Bloomfield. We took a left somewhere along the way and visited Chaco Canyon.
 
For those who knew him, you can well imagine his disdain of sleeping on the ground in a crowded two-man tent. Even with air mattresses, he suffered while I laughed at him. In his sleeping bag in the morning, he looked like a beached whale on a mattress gone flat during the night. It was inevitable that our last evening of the trip found us next to the railroad tracks in Durango, waking up to 2 inches of snow. I think he was ready to go home.
 
From Chaco Canyon, we went to Mexican Hat, through Monument Valley, and over to Lake Powell. In Bluff, we stopped at Sand Island on the San Juan River. It serves as the launch point for raft trips going down the river. Getting the contact information from the bulletin board led to my almost 30 years of rafting adventures down the San Juan, the Rio Grande, the Chama, and the Gila Rivers.
 
Keith went on only one rafting trip. Surviving near mental collapse and a near-death experience, rafting dropped off his to-do list and we stuck to wheeled adventures afterwards. It is a major regret of mine that we did not visit the Grand Canyon in his last years. He asked but I felt it involved too much driving. Why I had gotten so old, I don’t know.
 
I miss him far more than I expected. He preferred comfort over stress, but he absolutely loved being in the semi-wilderness areas we experienced. He loved Hemingway, Roark, and Larry McMurtry, and even my Mogi Franklin mysteries. I’m sorry he’s not here to enjoy Death In The Tallgrass.
 
The picture I’ve attached is from an overnight trip to the Conejos River valley in Colorado.
 
If you read the novel, I’d appreciate a review on Amazon. It is easy to do. Go to the review section near the bottom of the book page, to the button on the lefthand side that says “Leave a customer review”. Click it and you’ll be led through all you need to do. Reviews are everything for getting me visibility in the Amazon system.
 
You need not worry about what to say or how many words to use. I’ve seen one-word reviews as well as multi-paragraph essays. I just appreciate knowing people have read it.

4 Comments

FROM MANUSCRIPT TO SUBMISSION

7/17/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I began writing my Mogi Franklin stories in the late 1990s for fun and something to keep me creative. By the mid-2000s, self-publishing had come into its own and Amazon launched Createspace, a service for authors that provided the ways and means for writers to self-publish their books and have them placed on the Amazon and Kindle sites for sale. Createspace even provided authors with an “author site” that allowed us to submit, price, adjust, and manage our book sales. I still use mine.
 
Createspace prompted me to set a goal of having my Mogi books published and available in a bookstore so my mother could buy copies before she died. I taught myself to take a finished (self-edited) story, written in Microsoft Word, reformat the text for the correct paperback size (I chose 6” x 9”); determine chapters and chapter headings, section breaks, page numbers, titles, and copyright information (it was not easy); use my own photographs to create the front, back, and spine of the cover, with the help of Photoshop; and give Amazon the correct descriptors of the book for marketing, including the words and word phrases for the search engine.
 
I submitted everything through much the same interface I described in my last blog, and, waiting a week, suddenly had a paperback copy of my book in my hands. The cost was minimal, only buying the ISBN and paying for copies of my books. Amazon also offered converting to the Kindle format for free, so my books magically appeared in electronic form. Woohoo! In 2012, my mother bought a full set of my books, and died a few months later.
 
Createspace was replaced by Amazon KDP, which offers the same level of services to DIYers.
 
Around 2013, I signed on with Terra Nova Books, a small family-owned book publisher in Santa Fe. All of the Mogi Franklin books were redone – editing, compositing, new covers – and published under their imprint. Terra Nova uses a book distributor, so my books were not only available through Amazon, but through bookstores, big retail stores, and other publishing outlets. I went on to publish three standalone novels with TNB, along with four more Mogi books.
 
This last Spring, Terra Nova Books was sold to different owners. The publishing house will remain in Santa Fe, and I will renegotiate the contracts for my individual books so that I remain with the house. I still own the copyrights, but I want the house to continue the business end of distributing and selling.
 
Not having previously worked with the new owners reinforced my desire to self-publish my new book, Death In The Tallgrass. I had decided in October to not publish with TNB because I honestly wanted to find out how the self-publishing environment had changed and to share my experiences through this blog. I was also embarrassed to submit a manuscript for a third time, having already had it rejected twice.
 
What I have found is that self-publishing is a whole new world compared to my first experiences. The services provided to self-publishing writers (which now includes Amazon/KDP) cover the spectrum of everything that a writer might want or need: idea creation, development and planning; writing education and training; manuscript help that includes multiple levels of editors, designers, reviewers, proofreaders, and manuscript preparation; a range of artists and cover designers for developing the cover and the interiors of complicated books that include many illustrations, tables, and charts; and the publishers, printers, distributors, and marketers who will get publications on the shelves and in the media. In addition, there’s a large number of videos on YouTube that cover every aspect of the self-publishing process.
 
Of course, every service provider wants money for what they do. Never equivalence self-publishing with choosing a cheap route. You can still do most of it by yourself for a minimal investment, but the professionals have a clear and typically insurmountable advantage. You get what you pay for.
 
For Death In The Tallgrass, having spent two plus years writing the novel, I started my self-publishing effort in January of 2023, buying an “Editorial Review” from a professional editor who lives in Jerusalem. I found him through Reedsy (look up Reedsy.com), a full-service organization for self-publishers. I reviewed the resumes, accomplishments, and costs of nine other candidates before choosing him. He did an extraordinary job and made a major difference in the quality and focus of my story. I repaired the manuscript, skipped hiring a “line editor” because my first editor had done such a thorough job, and hired, also through Reedsy, a “copy editor” to go through it, looking for contextual, grammatical, and logical errors in my sentences. She lives in South Carolina, and was also excellent. She made a major difference in the quality of my writing.
 
I skipped hiring a proofreader, convinced that I had surely caught every mistake, and hired, again through Reedsy, a professional artist and cover designer to create my cover. She lives in Connecticut, but has won cover design awards in New Mexico. I’m very happy with what she did.
 
I hired a company called Word2Kindle to convert my Word document into a Print-On-Demand formatted file (a pdf) and a Kindle-ready formatted file (an ePub). I have no idea where that company resides. They not only converted the text but added chapter headings and highlights, corrected my title and copyright pages, unified the font and font sizes throughout the book, and set up the correct page numbering. I’m due to give the final approval on Wednesday, and I am very happy for what they’ve done.
 
And, by the way, in doing the conversion, seventeen embarrassing mistakes were identified and corrected, most of which were missing words in sentences. That’s what I get for skipping the proofreader, but I at least found them.
 
I’m expecting the self-publishing part of my writing adventure will have taken seven or more months and about $6000. For a three-year project, that’s not bad. This is about twice what I paid Terra Nova Books for any previous novel, but is less than the typical $10,000 that other self-published authors swear to be an average cost.
 
Of course, I’m not finished. After my book is published, I still have marketing costs to come. I hate marketing and always left it to my publisher, and, consequently, got little from them except frustration and an occasional penny. Doing it myself, I hope to learn what the choices are, what the cost tradeoffs are, and keep up with the statistics to understand what works and what doesn’t.
 
I also plan on offering an audible version of the book, which I’ve never done before. This should be quite an adventure, but costs a lot. There’s a company in Santa Fe who will provide narrators at an average of $1000 per finished hour. For my book, that’s about 10 hours, which translates to $10,000, which I won’t afford.
 
However, I can use a company that provides electronic translation with AI-driven voices for considerably less. You give them a sample text and they’ll provide you recordings of the text using a number of different voices, which you then choose for reading your book. I’m not exactly sure if I’m going to like this or not, but I’ll give it a try. I can always not do it.
0 Comments
<<Previous
    Picture

    Author

    Don Willerton has been a reader all his life and yearns to write words like the authors he has read.  He's working hard at it and invites others to share their experiences.

    Archives

    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    August 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017

    Categories

    All
    Author
    Book Ideas
    Courage
    Ghosts Of San Juan Photo Blog
    Mogi Books
    Mogi Franklin Mysteries
    Outlaw
    Persistence
    PhotoBlog
    Photo Blog
    Plot
    Readers
    River Of Gold
    The Hidden River
    The Hidden River Photo Blog
    The Lady In White
    The Lake Of Fire
    The Lake Of Fire Photo Blog
    The Secret Of La Rosa Photo Blog
    Writer
    Writing
    Writing Characters
    Writing Structure

    RSS Feed


Copyright 2017 - Donald Willerton
Donald Willerton Books
Donald Willerton Blog
Site Design by Artotems Co.
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
    • Overview
    • Novels >
      • Death In The Tallgrass
      • Teddy's War
      • Smoke Dreams
      • The King of Trash
    • Mogi Franklin Mysteries >
      • 1. Ghosts of the San Juan
      • 2. The Lost Children
      • 3. The Secret of La Rosa
      • 4. The Hidden River
      • 5. The Lake of Fire
      • 6. Outlaw
      • 7. The Lady in White
      • 8. The Captains Chest
      • 9. River of Gold
      • 10. War Train
  • Press
  • Blog
  • Photo Blog
    • Death In The Tallgrass
    • Teddy's War
    • Smoke Dreams
    • Ghosts of San Juan
    • The Lost Children
    • The Secret of La Rosa
    • The Hidden River
    • The Lake of Fire
    • Outlaw
    • The Lady in White
    • The Captain's Chest
    • River of Gold
    • War Train
  • Contact