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Fiction, Food, and Foolishness
Booking and Cooking
•Full name: Keilah Mae West •5 years old; going to kindergarten •a world class klutz •a little absent minded •dances with two left feet; it’s been proven that she cannot walk and chew gum at the same time •collects seashells •loves to wear her favorite pair of Boot Scoot cowboy boots •owns a fish named Oscar •likes to play dress up with her bestfriend Gigi 
What a day we had in the kitchen!! The world’s greatest klutz, Keilah West came over and we made Raspberry Scones. True to her reputation, Keilah had a little accident with the flour! The kitchen looked like it had been dusted in snow. No such thing in October in East Texas!! However, it must have been an omen, because the next day, the weather turned cooler. Once we got the mess cleaned up, Keilah got busy and before you know it, we had delicious Raspberry Scones. She couldn’t wait to eat one and they were so yummy, she wanted to share the recipe with you. Enjoy!
RASPBERRY SCONES
Ready in 45 minutes Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/3 cup honey 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/3 cup buttermilk 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 cup heavy cream 2 tablespoons butter, melted 1 cup raspberries Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix in butter and honey. Add buttermilk and cream; mix just until moistened. Gold in raspberries. Pat dough into a circle about the size of a pie plate, and bake 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven and cut into 6 wedge shaped pieces. Place back in oven and continue baking for 12-15 minutes, until golden. Mix powdered sugar and either water or milk, to the consistency you like for icing and drizzle over scones. Yum-yum!
Meet the author: Katina Chimney
Katina Chimney is the first time children’s book author of “Keilah West, the World’s Greatest Klutz.” She is currently working on a series of picture books – featuring the misadventures of Keilah West. Katina is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).
http://www.amazon.com/KatinaChimney/e/B00P8RO48Y/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Keilah West, the world’s greatest klutz, knows she must be good at something because everybody is good at something and she is a ‘somebody’ after all. But everything she tries is a disaster and she has tried a lot of things like golf, ballet, cooking, and even being a superhero. One day with her best-est friend, Gigi, Keilah finally discovers she is very good at something after all.
If you are an author and would like one of your book characters featured on Booking and Cooking, please let me know in a comment and I’ll contact you.
NAME THAT HIPPIE
In my current book, quirky character, Raynebeaux Starr, needs a middle name. Cast your vote in the comment section. Here are some to choose from, but feel free to suggest your own! If your choice wins, you’ll get a signed advanced reading copy of the book! (due for release January 2016)
Aurora, Autumn, Crystal, Meadow, Larrisa, Cassidy, Harmony, Dharma, Heather, Paisley, Promise, Ambrosia.
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Website is LIVE!
Hello all you Sweet Thangs!
My new website is finally LIVE!! Please check it out at http://www.anneverett.com I am so in love with the site. It has a shabby chic design. Simple with a bit of rustic country. Janis at http://www.rocksteadyresolutions.com/ did such a fantastic job! She is just fabulous to work with.
Also, my first audio book, Laid Out and Candle Lit is now published!
New Website and #Giveaway
My website is undergoing major changes and I can’t wait for it to debut where everyone can see how gorgeous it is going to be!
Also, over a #Goodreads, I have a #giveaway going on until the end of the month. If you’re a member there, be sure to enter. Three lucky winners will receive a softcover copy of Sweet Thangs: Southern Sweets from Two Sassy Sisters!
Book Promotion Pay-Off
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve blogged about my experience with online advertising/book promotion and the results. Today, I discuss another site I used and the benefits from it.
On April 17, I did a one day .99 cent promotion for, Laid Out and Candle Lit, book one in my Tizzy/Ridge series.
ENT works the same way as the mega promo giant BookBub. They have an email list where subscribers select what type of books they are interested in. So, since my book is a romantic suspense, ENT targeted those subscribers who want to know when a book in that genre goes on sale or is offered for FREE.
The ENT ad cost me $35. If I had done a BookBub ad, the cost would have been over $400.00.
Keep in mind, ENT has thousands of subscribers, where BookBub has 100’s of thousands. But it’s almost impossible to be accepted by BookBub for anything but a FREE offer.
RESULTS:
For the book I advertised, on April 17th, I sold 80 books and loaned 0.
That’s a total income of about $56.
Remember I mentioned how an ad for a book in a series will help sell other books in the same series? During the next few days following the promo, Laid Out and Candle Lit sold 25 more books at regular price, and loaned 6
Book two, You’re Busting My Nuptials, sold 17, and loaned 21
Book Three, Tied With a Bow and No Place to Go, sold 11 and loaned 19.
Total income from the days following the promo at regular price of $2.99 each:
53 books sold. 46 loaned. Estimated income: $155.20
This promo was by far the best one I did. Less money. Less time. More sales. From now on, I won’t waste my time and funds posting to multiple sites when I can get a bigger return from just one. There are others like ENT. BookGorilla/KindleNation, Book Blast, and I’m sure some I don’t know about.
A smaller site worth checking is The Fussy Librarian. I have a non-fiction book promo scheduled with them this month. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Are Free and Paid Online Book Promotions Worth it?
This is the second installment of results from my advertising experiment. Today, I’ll discuss who I advertised with, both free ads and paid, and if I think they worked.
Again, I chose a book that for the first eight months after release performed well. However, after that great take-off, sales declined, so I thought it should be one I tested. That way, any bump in sales would definitely be the results of the Kindle Countdown Deal ads.
You can find plenty of sites to advertise your books for free and small amounts of $$. Just do a random search for book promo sites. Be sure and read each site’s rules for submission and if they are interested in only FREE books…some are. I spent several hours a day for three days getting my book submitted to all the sites.
Following is a list of where I submitted my ad and what I paid. Keep in mind, for every site you submit to, you must subscribe to their newsletter or you won’t be able to find out if they ran your ad or not. In many cases, you’ll never hear from them unless it’s a paid ad. Not all of the free sites ran my book. If I don’t list a price, that means it was a free submission.
Book Goodies**had to do an author interview and lengthy submission…took me over an hour! However, they did run my Kindle Deal.
Book Lovers Heaven $5**the cover didn’t show up on the ad
Books on the Knob**don’t think they ran an ad
Buck Books**no ad
Daily Free and Discounted Books**no ad
E Book Bargains UK $10**all romance books and a nice 2-D photo of mine.
Ebooks Habit**a free site. They listed the book at regular price, not @ .99cents. :+(
EBook Lister**ran the ad for three days. Nice coverage.
EBook of the Day**ran an ad
Fiverr/Book Tour Radio $10 They slammed Twitter and FB with ads for several days with lots of shares and retweets.
Great Books/Great Deals $5
Hotzippy Romance $15**I thought this site was complicated with lots of pages.
Indies Unlimited**great site for promotion site lists/didn’t run my ad
Korner Konnection***really nice look to this site, but don’t know if they ran my book or not
New Free Kindle Books**no ad
People Reads**no ad
Read Cheaply**Great looking site and free right now.
Read FREE.ly**my link didn’t work on this site
Reading Deals $10**nice site and simple submission form
StoryFinds $50**paid extra to target certain readers, don’t think it paid off.
Sweet Free Reads $5**mostly FB and Twitter. Really nice site.
The Midlist**no ad, but they did contact me saying they were full for that time period I requested.
World Literary Café and AMC $20**two different sites and it is the only ad that ran on Friday, May 22.
I also posted in several Facebook groups for indie authors. 99cent e-books, Bargain Ebook Hunters, Ebook Lovers, Indie Kindle, Amazon Kindle, and UK Kindle Book Lovers.
All of the sites I paid to advertise featured my book. Some of the free sites featured it as well. Most of the ads occurred on the first day of the deal, which was Monday, May, 18. I’d read that books sell best on Monday’s, so I kept that in mind when scheduling the price reduction.
The Facebook ads ran each day of the deal, with many reposting and tweeting.
RESULTS:
Monday, May 18—sold 49, loaned, 7
Tuesday, May 19—sold 33, loaned 9
Wednesday, May 20—sold 22, loaned 7
Thursday, May 21—sold 17, loaned 6
Friday, May 22—sold 18, loaned 7
Total= 139 sold, 36 loaned
Estimated income–97.30 +46.80=$144.10
As you can see, I covered my expense ($130) but certainly not the time I spent getting this deal setup. So my conclusion is…NO, it did not pay me to do all the random advertising.
Since I’m not interested in what ranking my book has during a sales blitz, I didn’t check the ranking any of the countdown deal days.
I have somewhat of a different take on promotion. I don’t think Facebook or Twitter is beneficial to me. Most authors will disagree, but I stand by my opinion. Maybe I don’t know how to use it, but in my experience, I’ve not seen results from social media. Most followers on Facebook are friends, and I do appreciate when they share my posts…that means a lot to me to have their support. I just don’t think Facebook posts results in many sales. As for Twitter, keep in mind every person on that site is selling something just like me.
Many authors put a lot of emphasis on rankings and do FREE promotions in order of becoming an Amazon Best Selling author. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. If I give away 70k books, 70k times 0, is still ZERO. So…not a best SELLING author…a best give-my-book-away-for-free author! Sorry, but reality sucks.
However, most times a free promotion will move the book up in rankings, but Amazon updates them every hour so a book could be in the top 100 at noon, and by 6 PM, in the thousands! My list according to importance goes like this…1. Sales 2. Reviews 3. Ranking.
One benefit of doing a sales promo is that if you write a series, it usually stimulates sales for the other books in the series. It also may result in more reviews for the book you featured. Which is a good thing. Even though my sales were not huge, I’ll wait and see if my reviews increase.
My next blog will concern a one day promo I did with one site known for having thousands of email subscribers. I’ll let you know how that came out! Stay tuned.
Ann Everett, Best Selling Author
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