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Why Author’s Still Need an Email List and Newsletter

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For authors to gain success, they must play many other roles besides writer of books and articles. To sell books, authors must build a strong online presence to connect with their readers directly. One of the most effective ways to do this is with a newsletter and email list. Newsletters and email lists allow authors to communicate with their audience, promote their work, and build a loyal fan base. Let’s explore the reasons an author needs a newsletter.

One of the main reasons an author needs a newsletter and email list is to build a direct line of communication with their readers. By collecting email addresses from fans and followers, authors can send out regular updates about upcoming books, events, and promotions. This direct connection with readers helps authors to cultivate a loyal fan base and create a sense of community around their work. In today’s saturated market, where competition is fierce, having a dedicated audience who is eager to support your work can make a significant difference in an author’s career.

A newsletter and email list promotes an author’s work effectively. Traditional methods of marketing, such as advertising or book tours, can be costly and may not reach the right audience. By sending out targeted emails to subscribers, authors can promote their books, upcoming releases, and events directly to people who have already shown an interest in their work. This targeted approach can lead to higher conversion rates and better engagement with readers.

Distributing email to fans helps authors gather feedback and insights from their readers. By sending out surveys or asking for feedback in emails, authors can gain valuable information about their readers’ preferences, interests, and opinions. This feedback can tailor future projects, improve marketing strategies, and strengthen the relationship with readers. In this way, a newsletter and email list can act as a valuable tool for authors to engage with their audience and refine their craft.

In terms of impact, the use of newsletters and email lists has revolutionized the way authors connect with their audience. With social media platforms becoming increasingly crowded and algorithms constantly changing, having a direct channel to communicate with readers is essential for authors to stand out in the digital landscape. Authors who have successfully built and maintained a newsletter and email list have reported higher book sales, increased engagement with readers, and a stronger sense of community around their work.

While there are many ways to promote books, newsletters are still the best way to communicate with readers and build a loyal fan base. The more authors connect with readers through their newsletter, the greater the success they experience. So don’t give up on regularly sending a newsletter to your fans.

Interview with Michele Emmy, Author of Pieces of Eight

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A while back we published Pieces of Eight by Michele Emmy, and recently we unveiled the new cover for the book, shown to the right. So, it's about time we post her interview.

Michele lives in Littleton, Colorado with her husband and son. A homeschool mom and tutor, she has written scores of parenting and education articles for newspapers and magazines, as well as fantasy and science fiction stories and novellas. A Clarion graduate, decades of daydreaming finally paid off when she won the Colorado Gold award for fantasy.

Hex-A-Gone is her first novel full length novel and we'll be publishing it in April. Pieces of Eight is an ecofiction novella about a desperate Wetworld confronting the reality of the world above.

Soaring ocean temperatures are destroying the oceans, the scorching heat and putrid waste slaughtering its denizens. A desperate Wetworld sends one of its own to Dryworld to assess and mitigate the threat. But as their emissary struggles to understand and confront their foe, she realizes that if Wetworld wins its battle for survival, something more vital will vanish forever.

Now, let's get to know Michele a little better.

Q: How would you describe yourself/life in seven words?

A: Obsessed with recipes. Delighted when sentences work.

Q: Besides being a writer, what other types of jobs have you held?

A: I've worked as a nanny, homeschool mom, tutor, presidential campaign staffer, customer service representative, medical practice manager, community and commercial barter club owner and operator, magazine editor, and social media advisor.

Q: How do you go about researching for a book?

A: That’s the beauty of writing fantasy. I don’t have to. I make it all up.

Q: What would you like your readers to come away with after reading your book?

A: Mostly I want them to enjoy themselves while reading.

Q: If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?  Explain?

A: Seriously? Because that’s what I said to my husband when he popped the question, and it kind of exemplifies my attitude towards life in general.

Thanks to Michele for sharing a few things about her life and writing process. Now here's a teaser from the beginning of Pieces of Eight that you can get on Amazon in eBook.

Pieces of Eight Opener

The language of octopi has no words, no concepts. Only senses. Thousands of them, distinct, each a harbinger of the world unfolding around us. The cease of motion when a predator glides past, the taint of death eddying around it. The cloying stench of coral, comparable to a human with questionable oral hygiene. The soft crack of newly hatched eggs.

We cannot smell, you say? Sounds are muted underwater, shadows distorted? To you, perhaps, who smell only through nostrils, hear only through ears. Wetworld creatures do not separate the senses—they are as tangled as a kelp canopy, accentuating one another.

Even when we hunt, we do not destroy, but envelop. Predator and prey become one as we consume, are consumed, and as part of some new entity, consume again. It is our dance, and we dance it through eternity. Wetworld exists, how would you put it? All for one and one for all.

Octopi are solitary creatures. We lurk in caves, nestle in crevasses—except when on the hunt. Then we glide, a deeper black against dark water. We unfold, senses prickling, until sustenance appears. And then we lunge. Buoyed by a blinding determination that temporarily thrusts aside our shyness—we MUST feed! we WILL feed!—we envelop what we need and retreat, sated. But not merely by flesh—it is the essence of our prey that sustains us, connects us. We savor this feeling, this unity, until our bellies shrink once again and hunger drives us outward.

That was all I knew of life. To me, it was enough. Until the day you plucked me from my world, and altered yours forever.

How to Standardize the Punctuation in a Manuscript Before Submitting or Formatting Your Book

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In a previous post, I showed you how to Remove The Extra Sections, Breaks, and Spaces Before Submitting or Formatting Your Book. This is not the only messy situation you might encounter in your manuscript. Your punctuation can be just as inconsistent, which causes major issues when formatting your book. Plus, your book looks sloppy, and sloppy books get bad reviews. Below is an example of inconsistent punctuation.

Forgive my pathetic use of ellipsis and em dashes while you take a look at the punctuation in red. See the em dash after "mood?" Now look at the em dash between "him" and "as." I've seen many manuscripts with this inconsistency throughout, or there's a mix of en dashes (shorter) with em dashes (longer). The best and proper punctuation format is the longer em dash that is after "mood." Now look at the quotation marks and notice they are not the same type. We all know you should always use the pretty slanted symbol before "Mitchel," but the straight quotation marks somehow seem to sneak their way in. The final example is the ellipsis. For formatting purposes, always use the one that displays as one punctuation mark and not 3 periods. The reason for this is that 3 periods in an eBook will separate, so you could have one period on one line and start the next line with the remaining periods. An ellipsis will stay with the preceding text.

Once again, you can simply use Find/Replace to fix these issues in a blink of an eye. Here's how.

1. Open your manuscript in MS Word.

2. Open Find and Replace with CTRL+H. Or locate the Editing section on the Home tab and hit the down arrow on the Find option on the upper-right side, and choose the Advanced Find… option.

MS Word Find and Replace

NOTE: In some cases you can copy a symbol from your manuscript such as straight quotes, or you can use a carat code (^), or use the Special pull down at the bottom of the Find and Replace dialog box. Note that not all punctuation has a caret code, so the process below is a bit inconsistent.

3. Find straight double quotes ( " ) using ^034 and Replace by typing in the fancy double quotation mark ( “ ). The correct left or right will insert where needed. Rarely, a quotation mark inserts backward, but the only way to find it is by reading through the text.

4. Find straight single quotes ( ' ) using ^039 and Replace with fancy single quotation mark ( ‘ ). Again, the correct left or right style will insert, but they too can insert backward on rare occasions.

5. Find em dashes with 2 dashes ( -- ) and Replace with actual em dashes (—) or ^+ or select it from the Special characters pulldown at the bottom of the Find window.

6. Find ellipses with three separate periods ( ... ) and Replace with the ellipsis character (…) or ^0133. Note there is no ellipsis option under Special Characters.

7. And don't forget to save your changes.

More About Caret Codes

At this point you might be wondering how to find other caret codes for other forms of punctuation. Here's the easiest way to find them in MS Word. This is so much easier than doing a Google search, which I did countless times to no avail. Please let me know if you find a decent list of them. I couldn't even find these instructions anywhere, so I had to figure it out myself.

1. Click on the Insert tab, then go to the far right, to the Symbols section.

2. Click on Symbol, then More Symbols. A box of symbols will pop up.

3. In the top box, find the punctuation or symbol you need and click on it.

4. At the bottom right, find the Character Code and From fields. Click on the from option and choose ASCII (decimal).

5. Make note of the character code for use in Find/Replace. Enter it there with a preceding caret (^) and a zero (0). For example, if you looked up the ellipsis in the symbols, you'll find the character code 133, so you’d enter ^0133 in the Find field.

Now go spit shine that manuscript and impress agents. If you're self publishing, you'll save yourself A LOT of time.

If you come across something you don’t know how to fix, go to Services > Ask a Book Formatting Question in the menu and let me know how I can help.

5 Reasons Author Central is an Essential Part of Your Author Presence in the Amazon Bookstore

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Do you want readers to buy your books? Of course you do. Then don’t just put your books in bookstores, put yourself out there too. Amazon’s Author Central brings both you and your books together in one place that you control. Besides introducing you to Amazon’s customer base, it encourages readers to buy more of your books, and here’s how.

1. Author Follows

Amazon is invested in understanding their customers’ preferences because it results in more sales, and every store wants to sell more products. The Author Follow button is one way Amazon can track what their reader base likes and is more likely to buy. Readers can follow authors from their Author Central page or any of their books’ product pages, but only if the author has an Author Central account. And once a reader follows an author, Amazon will show that author’s books to her in emails and on their website to promote more sales.

Identify the number of followers you have on your Author Central control panel. 

Similar to how you would encourage fans to follow your social media accounts and GoodReads author page, you should encourage readers to follow you on Author Central for the reasons previously mentioned. Put a link to the page on your website and include it on your promotional materials. Get your number of followers up, and you will sell more books.

2. Brand Awareness

Your Author Central page reflects your brand as an author. The profile you publish tells readers who you are and what you write. If you are producing a series, customers can easily find the next book or two they’d like to read in highlighted series sections. There are places to tell readers which of your books  they should read, along with recommendations for the books you enjoy. 

It’s important to note that the author name link on a book’s detail page or in search results directs to an author’s Author Central account. If you don’t set up an Author Central account, this link goes to a page that lists your books mixed with other authors’ books. This means you could lose a sale to another author whose book outshines yours, and I’m sure you don’t want that to happen.

Readers do want to know who you are, including your background, accomplishments, credentials, and that you are a real human. These days, not only do we compete with human authors, we compete against AI more and more. Readers are becoming even more invested in knowing the identity of an author. If they like you, they believe they will like your stories.

3. Google Search Results

Simply stated, Google indexes author page on Amazon. When someone googles your author name, you want all the top search results to be flooded with your website, social media links, and such. More so, direct links to buy your books are better at the top. Since you’ll sell more books on Amazon, it’s best that your Author Central account link be as close to the top as possible after a Google Search. Go google your author name now. Discover where it ranks. Any way that you can increase visibility of your books is a good thing!

4. Book Information Control

There are a number of book information updates you can apply to your books from Author Central: add editorial reviews, update your book descriptions, add author comments to a book page, and more. Editorial reviews are positive testimonials about your book that catch a reader's attention and tell them your book is worth reading. Actively updating your author comments tells both readers and Amazon you are invested in selling books. This option is especially helpful if you have a publisher and a lack of control of your books via KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

5. Marketing Materials

Again, if you are traditionally published and do not have access to KDP, the marketing materials that Amazon provides in Author Central are extremely helpful to view your book rankings and manage your marketing needs. In the Sales Ranking report, you’ll find your rankings in the various Amazon marketplaces around the world. There is also a BookScan report available for free on Author Central, which expands a picture of your rankings across other bookstores. Author central also provides easier access to your review, so you can use them in your marketing materials on social media or print.

Finally, Amazon Advertising is accessible from Author Central. This is especially handy for traditionally published authors. If you haven’t already realized this, you won’t sell books unless you advertise on Amazon. Having control over your advertising is important because you also have control over advertising budgets. 

Part of being an author is getting your name and face and books out there for all to see. And your Amazon Author Central page is an invaluable tool every author needs to further your exposure. It’s easy to set up and maintain, so make an effort to visit your page and update it frequently.

Back to School Reading for Kids with These Awesome Picture Books

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Sadly, summer reading is over. Thankfully, it's never time to stop reading!

Now it's back to school, and before you know it, it'll be time to snuggle up under a blanket by the fire with a little one and a good picture book. Here are two books that we recently published that the kids are sure to enjoy.

Fall Night Fun includes Farmyard animals racing to find the perfect pumpkin to carve before dawn!

Apollo, the horse, and Jerry, the squirrel are best friends who live on a farm. Because Jerry is an Eastern Grey Squirrel, he never gets to see the night time stars. But on one fateful fall night, Apollo takes Jerry, along with friends, on a nighttime adventure to find pumpkins that they can carve their names into. Will Jerry be able to see the stars and find the perfect pumpkin before the sunrise?

Fall Night Fun is a perfect Halloween read. The colorful illustrations by Lauren Curtis puts everyone in a fall mood, and the characters are fun and lively. Join the adventure and find out if the animals are successful with their quest.

Get Fall Night Fun in paperback or eBook on Amazon.

Read an interview with author Marin Resnick in our blog.

In The Mutant Monsters of Marsden Mountain: Genesis a nasty chemical spill overtakes a town and turns animals & objects into FUN monsters!

Reading in a Classroom

When the people of the town returned home after a chemical spill, they're greeted by mutated monsters eager to share their newly authentic selves. But the humans force them to relocate to a small hidden mountain town. There, these spunky creatures build a thriving community where they celebrate their differences. The mutant monsters learn valuable life lessons too: acceptance, fellowship, kindness & more.

This quirky & poetic series is for all kinds of kids...big & small. Watch as the monsters’ friendships blossom & creativity sprouts. What will happen as they learn about life & embrace adventure? Read The Mutant Monsters of Marsden Mountain: Genesis and you’ll find out!

Get The Mutant Monsters of Marsden Mountain: Genesis in paperback or eBook on Amazon.

Read an interview with author Miranda Tanner in our blog.

These books are perfect for home and school. They teach about friendship and cooperation and tolerance and more, all great lessons for kids. Your children will want your to read them to you over and over again.

Interview With Marin Resnick, Author Of Fall Night Fun

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We are excited to announce we've been working with a new children's book author. ArmLin House Productions will be publishing Marin Resnick's second children's book, her first titled Scary the Scared Iguana. Her new book, Fall Night Fun, is about Apollo the horse and Jerry the squirrel, best friends that live on a farm and venture out to find pumpkins during a crescent moon and the Halloween harvest.

Marin is a mom, writer, and coffee lover who splits her time between Hunterdon County, New Jersey, where there are more horses than people, and Ocala, Florida, the Horse Capital of the World. When Marin isn’t driving her daughter up and down Route 95 to horse shows, she enjoys trail walking and spending time with her dogs ( Onyx, Tommy, Violet, and Molly) and God.

When asked, "How would you describe yourself/life in seven words?" she answered, "My daughter says I am Sofia Petrillo." I had to chuckle, more so because Sofia is one of my all time favorite television characters.

Here are a few other interesting things about Marin, who I am so looking forward to working with on future projects along with Lauren Curtis who illustrated Fall Night Fun.

Q: What are your passions in regards to giving back to the community and/or world?

A: So many. After living in Florida, I realize that there are many homeless veterans, and they are not always able to care for themselves. I think it’s really important to take care of them, and each other. In Florida, there seems to be an understanding that when someone needs help, you just take care of them. That goes for helping if someone has lost a dog, or if a veteran is hungry, you feed them, to holding open doors. There’s a saying in Judaism that everyone needs to do a mitzvah a day, and the world will be better. That has become apparent with my time in Florida.

Q: Who are your writing influences?  What authors helped you find your own writing style?

A: Sue Shapiro is one of my major influences. The author of the book The Jap Chronicles, Isabel Rose, is another because of the structure of her books. My favorite Sue Shapiro quote is about when you write a book that upsets everyone, that’s when you’ve found your voice. That is some solid advise.

Q: How long does it take you to write a book?

A: Depends. A children’s book I can write quite quickly because it’s about the same length as an article for the newspaper. The Ocala Experience, which will be the first nonficiton adult book I’m taking on, could take a bit longer.

Q:Tell us a bit about your main character(s)?

A: The main character is Apollo, and he is my daughter’s real horse. She asked me to write a book about him. The other is Jerry, named after my late father, who loved the horses and loved to watch me ride, so it was only suitable that Apollo’s bestie be named Jerry.

Q:Tell us a little bit about the next book you’re writing.

A: The Ocala Experience is all about my most recent trip to Ocala, and how I thought it was going to be just this change of residence for the season. But it actually wound up being a journey through my past, so I can get to the future. A lot of childhood wounds healed and a lot of other stuff happened. And I’m hoping this experience will help others.

Look for more from Marin here on our website soon. Fall Night Fun will be in stores late June or early July, so make room for it on your kids summer reading list.

Remember Holidays with Your Mother?

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Dr. Martha talks about holidays with family throughout her life in Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers.

The word Lent has multiple meanings, and somehow it came to mean the forty days before Easter Sunday beginning on Ash Wednesday. One explanation is that the 40 days represent the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert. There was also this tradition—the only word I can think to describe it because it wasn’t a rule—of giving up something for Lent. It was supposed to be a sacrifice: an offering from me to God in exchange for blessings or grace. We Catholics always wanted more grace. I seem to have some vague memory that having enough grace was a way to cancel out the bad stuff and save one from Hell. Another possibility was that our giving up something may have been because Christ fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and therefore you could give up one thing for 40 days. The sacrifice was in giving up something that you value. You don’t give up spinach or finishing homework. Kids would give up candy or soda or maybe watching their favorite TV show during Lent. These days, I suppose kids could give up using electronics. As my children got older, I suggested that rather than giving up something—which usually was pretty silly anyway—that they would give something. They could volunteer somewhere or give away the things that they no longer needed or wanted. It made more sense to me to help the community.

Interesting, over the years, how much of the religion has been removed from the major Catholic holidays. At least for us “ambiguous Catholics.” I still put up a manger scene at Christmas and have given all my grandchildren some form of manger or birth of Christ storybook at one time or another. But for Easter, it’s been all about the fun of egg dyeing and Easter baskets. My bad. I’m not alone in this though. Easter parades, Easter eggs, Easter candy, all the fun stuff have been around since the 1700s. Here’s a little-known factoid about Easter candy that I’ve learned over the years while teaching Chinese medicine in Turkey. It turns out that jellybeans, some say, have their origin all the way back to a Biblical version of Turkish Delight.

Dr. Martha Shares How Motherhood Has Changed Over the Last 50+ Years

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In Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers, Dr. Martha discusses 4 generations of motherhood.

But I wish they had lived longer. I have bunches of patients who are my age and whose parents are alive, or at least one is alive. I envy that. I tell people that my parents died young because I do think that 76 and 77 are young. Too young to be dead. I have a four-generation picture of my mother’s mother, my mother, me, and my daughter Audrey. I had always imagined that I would be in another four-generation picture. It would be my mother, me, one of my children, and their child—my grandchild. But Mom didn’t make it long enough for that to happen. My hope is to still have a four-generation picture. This one will be of me, my child, their child, and my grandchild’s child. Yep, planning to be a great-grandmother!

Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers is the Perfect Mother’s Day Gift

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Mother's Day is fast approaching. Have you thought about what you'll get Mom or Grandma this year? If they grew up Catholic during the 60s and 70s, they will love Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers, a walk down a memory lane of baptism, naming ceremonies, confession, confirmation, marriage, divorce, and much much more.

Dr. Lucas candidly recounts memories of her Catholic daughter's childhood: beginning with her parents choosing which saint to name her after and continuing through her Catholic grade school education, taught by nuns, the founders of America’s parochial schools. Experience the strict discipline and rules of a system where independent thinking was discouraged. Everything was forbidden, everyone was a sinner, and every action put students at risk for “going to hell.”

Girls formed lady-like identities regulated first by school uniforms, then by the cult of the Virgin Mary, and last by the ceremonies that parishioners were forced to endure over and over again. Parents and elders were to be obeyed and respected, their wishes anticipated, while children were expected to accept punishment out of the fear of God. After all, obedience was a gift from the Holy Spirit. 

The journey continues into adulthood with Dr. Lucas’s willingness to question authority, grapple with her own identity, and slide into becoming what she lovingly calls an “ambiguous” Catholic. She offers a visceral account of Catholic guilt, desire, piety, anger, and the superstitions that shaped the Catholic upbringing. For some, this still permeates their lives as adults. 

Who were Catholic Daughters? Why did these young women work so hard to fit into the Catholic mold, even to the extent of making up sins? And what kinds of sins did you make up when you were a kid just so you’d have something to say to the priest in the confessional booth? This provocative question at the end of the “Confession” chapter is just one that is at the core of Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers. 

This book and its guided journal questions emerged from Dr. Lucas’s experiences and desire to help others discover their truth and speak it out loud. Buy this journal now and begin an exploration of yourself and your inner beliefs. You’ll reconstruct the traces of your Catholic mother-daughter nexus, remember your personal accomplishments, get a better understanding of your embodied self, and reflect on important life lessons. By completing the journal exercises,  you can discover your own truth and live more authentically, even if you aren’t a Catholic Daughter of a Catholic Mother.

The Fun Parts of Motherhood: Naming Babies and More

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Dr. Martha Lucas has an interesting story about how she was named. This and much more from her on being a baby in her Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers book about life as a Catholic woman in the 60s, 70, and beyond.

They named me after Saint Martha, the patron saint of housewives, servants, and cooks. Catholics turn to her when dealing with chronic stress and doubt. Martha was a worker, keeping everybody fed and dressed in clean clothes, while her sister Mary had chosen “the good portion.” What’s meant by this old saying is that Mary was concerned with more spiritual things. She was the sister who spent countless hours conversing with Jesus almost to the exclusion of practical and domestic matters that were more suitable burdens for Martha.

During my birth, my mother suffered through a very long and hard labor—I obviously didn’t want to come out. A priest even gave her the last rites. My mother and father decided that if she lived and the child lived, and it was a girl, the child would be named Martha. A boy would be named John Jr., which was already a given. Well, it was me… Martha Lucas. It’s the name they gave me and the name I’ve kept. Admittedly, I’ve changed it due to marriage even though the man to whom I am married now has the opinion, “why would you take my name? I don’t own you. You are not my property.”