Spotlight: Lakisha Spletzer

Happy Friday!

Regular readers of the blog may remember today's Spotlight Author. She joined us for our Carving our Own Destiny week at the beginning of the summer, and taught us all about Formatting and Publishing Ebooks. When she started a blog tour for her dual releases this summer (Moonbeams & Werelove Midnight Revelations), I had to jump in.

Before we get into the trailers, I always think it's more fun to get to know the author a little bit. Maybe I'm a dork  . . okay, we've already established that I am a dork . . . .BUT watching a trailer or reading a book after finding out tidbits about the writer just makes me feel like I'm more invested. Like I've gotten the inside track somehow. And besides, Kisha rocks!

RACHEL: Okay, Girl you have two releases coming out back to back! How on earth do you keep all your series and novels straight?

LAKISHA: I'm in love with binders of all shapes and sizes. And folders on my flash drive. Nifty things. They allow me to be organized. What I do is create individual documents and/or spreadsheets where I put lists of characters, places, outlines for the various books and timelines. There's nothing worse than mixing up something that you have already established in a previous book.

RACHEL: Yes, a girl after my own heart. I'm all about the spreadsheets! So we know how you write now but can you tell us what drove you to finally listen to the voices in your head and start writing in the first place?

LAKISHA: I've been listening to them since the age of 8 but I didn't take them seriously until I was in my mid-twenties. I had people telling me they liked my stories and that I should write them down. I finally followed that great advice.RACHEL: I'm so glad you did!! And I'm sure your readers agree--you've written five books in the last two years, AND you have another six planned. Just. Wow. I bow down to your mad ninja skillz. You obviously got a system down, but if you could channel any YA Author's style and talent for your own when drafting, who would it be?

LAKISHA: I really like Richelle Mead's style.

RACHEL: VAMPIRE ACADEMY is one of my all time favorite series and I'm not too patiently waiting for the spin off series. I agree, that chick can write. But looking at your own books, I see you've done paranormal, fantasy, romance, horror, and science fiction. Is there anything left that you haven't written yet and would love to try, but it makes you a little nervous?

LAKISHA: Thriller/mystery. I do enjoy the occasional novel in those two genres and would love to write one of my own. Also, I read a lot of vampire fiction, and though I say I won't write a vampire story, I think it would be interesting to try.

RACHEL: I definitely think there aren't enough thrillers and mysteries in the YA market, so that would be a really fun thing to see you explore. So, okay, last question, Kisha. You're a fellow YA author so I'm assuming you're also stuck in your teen years. I'm forever seventeen. What age are you stuck at?

LAKISHA: I think I'm stuck in my late teens. Everything seemed more intense for me at that stage in my life.Thanks Lakisha!! Now for the really fun stuff--the trailers:

To get your copy, head over to Smashwords or Amazon and the Kindle Store.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Formatting and Publishing Ebooks (Lakisha Spletzer)

I admit it. I am a complete technological ignoramus. I don't get the stuff, and it doesn't like me. So the concept of doing it myself and putting ebooks up on any platform scares the snot out of me. Luckily my girl Lakisha is here to help break things down and spare me some angst.

Friendly reminder that we are having a GIVEAWAY with many of the participating authors, and to enter for a chance to win all you  have to do is comment on any post and/or tweet about it. If you tweet, just include me @EndingUnplanned. Pretty easy, right?

Take it Kisha!

In today's current changing publishing industry, many unpublished writers are left wondering what course to take. Go with a traditional/small publishing company or take a leap of faith, like many hopefuls, and try indie publishing.

One of the best ways to get out there is creating an ebook of your novel. Before you publish one, though, you should make sure to do the following things:

1. Make sure you find a trustworthy beta reader – Now what this means is finding someone, who is not a close friend or family member/relative, to read your work and give you feedback. It doesn't have to be editing feedback, but honest-to-goodness reader feedback. Readers can spot things sometimes that an editor might miss.
2. Edit – I'm not talking about do one read through with a few corrections and call it a day. It usually takes several drafts to get it ready for print. For example, my novels on average take about six drafts (revisions) from chapter one to the final chapter before I feel satisfied I've got the majority of the mistakes out and that it is the best story it can be. Trust me. No novel is ready after ONE revision.
3. Good cover art - If you're not able to use such programs as Photoshop, then look around for a cover artist. You can find them in various including, Deviantart . Make sure your cover fits your novel; otherwise you run the risk of upsetting readers with what they will view as false advertising.

If you've gotten all that done, then you are ready to go to the actual publishing of an ebook. Right now, there are two that have the widest reach for ebook authors and readers. Smashwords and Amazon's Kindle Publishing.

Each requires that you format your manuscript a certain way before uploading it. The Kindle platform allows you to do a preview of how your novel will look on a Kindle screen. Smashwords provides an extensive, yet easy to follow User Guide for publishing to their site. For both you set the price.

And just a bit of friendly advice, don't price your ebook above $2.99. I know your first instinct is that you're worth more than that. The problem with that reasoning (don't worry I felt that way, too, in the beginning) is that readers are less likely to pick up your novel because 1) you are an unknown and no one's going to pay a high price for an author they know nothing about, 2) after a year and a half of experimenting with pricing, I found that when I lowered my price to $2.99, $1.99 and $0.99 I noticed jumps in sales. Something to consider.

One benefit that Smashwords.com has over the Kindle Publishing is the ability to produce coupons and have a sale. You can put your ebook on sale on Kindle, but there is a delay time of 24 – 72 hours before the pricing goes into effect. With Smashwords.com, it's instant. And, being able to create coupons is good too because everyone loves a discount.

For those that want to publish ebooks and sell from their website/blog, there is an awesome program that fellow indie author, Elissa Malcohn, showed me called, Calibre. This program takes your novel's .doc format and reformats it into some of the popular ebook formats such as .epub and .pdf.

The best teacher, that I've found, is to use any community forums, help guides and others who have used these various programs and websites. It may take you a while on your first novel to get everything ready for publishing, but once you do, it'll be worth the effort.
 

 
Lakisha Spletzer is an Indie author who writes paranormal, science fiction and fantasy. Available 2011: YA - Werelove #2; MG Fantasy - The Tempo; Fantasy - Moonbeams. Follow her journey at Kishaz World and on twitter at @kishazworld
 
 
 
If you have any questions for me and Lakisha, please leave them below. See y'all tomorrow!