Creating Great Novel Beginnings – 3 Webinars With Les Edgerton

LES EDGERTON, well-known writer, writing teacher, and author of HOOKED: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go, is teaching a StoneHouse University 3-class series on creating great novel beginnings. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from one of the best writing teachers around! These are online classes (webinars), so anyone with an internet connection can participate.

Note: Registration for all 3 classes isn't required, but is highly recommended. You must register for each class separately.

Class 1 – Creating a Great Beginning for Your Novel—Basic Elements

Tues June 26 10-noon MDT | $32 before 6/9, $50 after

CLICK for Full Description and Registration Page

* How openings have changed profoundly over the past decade.
* The basic elements of great openings and what’s important about each and how to achieve them.
* The inciting incident—what it is and why it’s crucial to understand this most important of all elements.
* Why backstory and setup “kill” novel openings.
* Creating surface and story-worthy problems and how they’re related.
* The differences between scenes and sequels and why everything truly important in a novel needs to be delivered via scene.

Class 2 – Creating a Great Beginning for Your Novel—Red Flag Openings

Wed June 27 10-noon MDT | $32 before 6/9, $50 after

CLICK for Full Description and Registration Page

* Five openings that almost always doom the story.
* Misconceptions about the two most important characters in a novel—the protagonist and the antagonist.
* The causality of plot.
* Why theme is unimportant when writing a novel’s first draft.
* How a publishable plot is constructed.
* Creating a road map for your novel—an outline that works and consists of 15-20 words.

Class 3 – Putting It All Together—Creating a Great Beginning and Using These Techniques Throughout the Novel

CLICK for Full Description and Registration Page

* When exposition/summary are used and when they shouldn’t be.
* Exploring that “all of a piece” that Flannery O’Connor defines a great story by and how to achieve it.
* Discussion of literary and writer’s terms and why they aren’t understood properly.
* Creating a novel from the template of the first 10-15 pages.

About Les Edgerton

Well-known writer and writing teacher Les Edgerton has had dozens and dozens of his personal students secure top agents and sell their books to a great many publishers, and thousands more have used the techniques from his hugely-popular classic writer’s text, HOOKED: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go to gain an agent and get their books taken as well.


Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Guest Post by Lisa L Wiedmeier. Amazon Promotion, Gone RIGHT!

Lisa L Wiedmeier, Author of Cheyenne, A Timeless Series Novel, Book One

Who am I? I’m just another indie author who took StoneHouse University's, Learn how to ‘Work’ the system, webinar and had huge success.

Of course this isn’t always the norm, however, for whatever reason I was able to use this as a platform to propel my YA book to #98 overall on Amazon.

Now, I hadn’t just been sitting around before I took this course. I was marketing myself to death trying to get anyone to take a peek at Cheyenne, my novel. It’s not that it wasn’t good enough; its just that it wasn’t getting the exposure to take it to the heights it deserved.

There are four platforms that StoneHouse suggests in the webinar and I was doing three out of the four fairly well, but it just wasn’t enough. What I was missing was the fourth, the Amazon connection. There’s a lot more than just listing your book on Amazon and watching it fall where it may. A whole lot more than I knew.

I’d had Cheyenne on Amazon since July 2011 and had sold about 500+ books. Not too bad since I’m unknown, but not enough to quit my day job either. My best ranking ever since listing Cheyenne was about 9,300.

Through following Aaron's extremely useful tips and advice, I began working on the Amazon connection. Now I’m not going to go into details here, as you need to take the course to get all your ‘duck in a row’ so to speak. But with following a few of his suggestions in the month of February I began seeing some small results.

Now there’s a bigger picture to all of this and it’s all in the seminar, but one of them was making sure that your book cover truly meets the audience. What I mean by that is make sure if you’re a YA book to have a YA cover. Now, I’d thought I’d done a good job with my cover, I was going for the retro look, but I missed it by a long shot. Yeah, here’s the before and here’s the after….

So the old cover wasn’t bad, but yet it wasn’t good either. I needed the new design to help catch attention and that’s exactly what it did… it caught readers attention.

So with a new cover in hand and being enrolled in the KDP program with Amazon, I decided to follow another one of StoneHouse’s webinar suggestions, offer my book for free.

I picked a Tuesday/Wednesday for the free promo after consulting with Aaron and began, Tweeting, Facebook and messaging just about everyone I knew to get the word out. My friends in turn began promoting it on their side as well. With that said, by the Wednesday afternoon of my free promo, I’d reached the ranking of #4 on Amazon’s ‘Free’ listing.

Shocked? I was! I’d never expected to see this sort of success and yet I did by offering my novel, Cheyenne, for free for two days. I had over twenty two thousand free downloads!

Next came the scary part, well scary for me in that I’d never done this before. I once again ran to Aaron and went over the after free promo pricing. Should I go with the .99 cent price point, or stick with the $2.99 that I’d been at previously… I kept the $2.99 price point and was in for a surprise.

So, let me run this down for you…. The month of February didn’t show me much love, I had a paid ranking of about 66,000. Not horrible considering there are over a million plus eBooks on Amazon. But by the time the free promo was over and I looked at my paid ranking on Thursday morning, I was at #3,900. Not bad you say? I was ecstatic, but it gets even better.

As the day progressed I gained even more ground, 2,000, then 952, then 458 and yeah my paid ranking kept going up! By Saturday I’d made it to #98!

As we speak I’m holding good steady ranking. Am I done yet? Not even close… What’s on the list next is the 10 Steps to a successful Blog tour #2. Took the first one and loved it, the second one is this week—you should join in!

The most impressive part of StoneHouse Ink’s webinars is that the data is all rolled up into a nice compact package that’s easy to understand and practice. Will it bring you success like I had? Who knows, but it’s worth a shot. I’m glad I took the course and I'd recommend it to every indie author I know.

You can follow Lisa on Twitter @lisawiedmeier
Or on Facebook
And on her Website HERE

Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

WEBINAR March 14th! How to get reviewers to come to you! (StoneHouse University)

Guest post by K.C. Neal

As an author, you have a product to sell. Not published yet? That's no excuse - you always have something to sell, even if it's just yourself! Before I published Pyxis last November, I had a product I had to sell to a very specific market. I needed to "sell" the ARC of Pyxis to reviewers.



The more reviews written up right when the book released, the better. Reviews are extremely important for buyer confidence, and book bloggers can give a book great exposure when they blog their reviews.



But as a nobody, unpublished, first-time author, how could I get reviewers interested in reading in reviewing my book? Well, I thought about it a lot, and I had a couple of revelations.  

And those revelations led to over 130 reviewer requests 

for an ARC of Pyxis - a debut, unknown book - over 3 weeks. 

Those were REQUESTS - reviewers coming to me. I didn't have to solicit, email, beg, or plead. I actually ended up closing to requests earlier than I'd planned because I didn't want to hand out a bazillion ARCs.



I applied the same principles when I started recruiting bloggers for my blog tour. And I ended up with three or four times as many book bloggers volunteering to host tour stops than I'd planned for. What a nice problem to have! :)

Guess what? Next Wednesday I'm giving away alllll my secrets about how to get reviewers interested in your book and get more blog tour hosts than you know what to do with. And how to do it with minimal effort on your part - by getting THEM to come to YOU.



StoneHouse University is hosting this webinar, and here are the things I'll be talking about:



• How to get bloggers to come to YOU for an ARC of your book

• Where to find blogs for your tour

• How to make your blog tour stand out from all the others

• More book blogger survey results - what book bloggers really want from authors

• What makes bloggers bump a book to the top of their TBR piles

• How to build great relationships with bloggers

• Helpful tools and widgets for promoting your tour and doing giveaways

• Detailed sample timelines for planning through follow-up

• The 1 thing that will make bloggers drop everything to help you (hint: it has nothing to do with your book)

• The 2 philosophies we use that get bloggers excited to work with us (regardless of whether they love the book we’re touring)



Here are the details - space is limited, so if you're interested don't wait to sign up!



Book Blog Tours Part 2: Advanced Tips and Tricks



Location: Online - just need an internet connection to attend

Format: Interactive webinar - you can live chat and ask questions during the presentation

Date and Time: Wednesday March 14 10:00 a.m. to noon (Mountain Time, MST)

Cost: US$50 for interactive live class, US$45 for video recording of the class

Topics We Will Cover: See list above

Register Here





If you missed Part 1, 10 Steps to a Successful Book Blog Tour (the webinar above is Part 2), you can purchase a recording of it for $45 - just email Aaron at stonehousepress@hotmail.com. Part 1 is a great foundation for understanding how to plan, structure, and carry out a book blog tour. Here's what one attendee had to say about Part 1:



Feedback from Book Blog Tours Part 1: 10 Steps to a Successful Tour

“Just finished attending the Blog Tour webinar with
Aaron Patterson and K.C. Neal presented by StoneHouse University.
Sooooo worth the price of the ticket. Check it out at stonehouseink.net
and link to their SH University page for future offerings. In this brave
new world of digital EVERYthing, authors can’t afford to miss
opportunities to learn from those more experienced in cybermarketing.
Just plain brilliant.

Thanks, so much.”



—Sally J. Smith, Writer

Learn more about StoneHouse University

Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

StoneHouse University. What is a blog tour and why should I care?

I wanted to do a post and talk about this upcoming Blog Tour Class. It is Feb. 1st and is a Webinar. That means you can log in and join via your PC/Mac or call in and be on the phone. So, no matter where you are you can join.

There is a cost, $50-but that is not bad considering what you will learn.

But what is a blog tour, why do I need to know how to run one and what good will it do for me and my book?

All good questions. A blog tour is like a book signing tour but instead of going to bookstores and sitting there trying to sell 5 books, you are doing the interview or signing online on different blogs. Way cool and you can reach more people.

Bloggers and their honest reviews are huge! Did I say huge? If I had a choice to be reviewed by the New York times or by a well followed book blogger I would choose the blogger. They review a book and it gets readers. They say, yup, good book their peeps go and buy the book. A review in the NYT gets you a pat on the back.

So you DO want your book reviewed by book bloggers. But what is a tour you may ask? It is where you plan to have your book reviewed by 15-30 bloggers in a short time frame. Like a month or 60 days. So almost everyday you are reviewed and you are exposed to people. This review is posted on Amazon and goodreads and other sites so you get reviews as well. You see how this is good?

This class is to show you how to do this without pissing off the bloggers and how to do a good tour and sell a lot of books. You never know what a tour will do, it may just make your sales bump, but it may like Vincent Zandri take you to #3 on Amazon and sell over 100k books.

Here is a link to K.C. Neal's blog to give you an idea of what a tour looks like. She is also the one teaching the class. HERE

See all the stops and the different bloggers? They will all post their review on that date. It is a crazy building thing that every author should know how to do.

That is the blog tour. Now, here is a link to sign up, you just need to pick a time and pay. After that you will register and you are in. Please share this with others and take your writing seriously. If you don't no one else will...

TIME: 10am-noon and 5pm-7pm *Mountain Time Zone
DATE: Feb. 1st 2012
LOCATION: Online
AVAILABILITY: Limited
COST: $50.00

To register hit the Paypal button and pay, it should redirect you to the registration page after you have paid.

Blog Tour Online Class. Feb 1 2012

To register for the 10-Noon class click below:
*All times are MT (Mountain Time)

Blog tour Class (10am-Noon)

To register for the 5-7pm class, click below:
*All times are MT (Mountain Time)

Blog Tour Class (5pm-7pm)

Now that I have your attention lets touch on Amazon. The next class is all about how to Work the systems that run Amazon. Most if not all bestselling indie authors know how to tag and what all the rankings mean. I will show you how to do it, how to get noticed on amazon. This is key in selling well on Amazon.

If you follow J.A. Konrath he is very open about this. Go HERE to read about what he has to say about Amazon.

"Writers aren't buying my fiction. They aren't buying my non-fiction either--I have an ebook called "A Newbie's Guide to Publishing" and it is among my lowest-selling titles.

The people who buy me are readers, and the vast majority have never heard of me. Readers find me on Amazon, because Amazon has made it easy for my books to be discovered."

You can do a million things but it is all about being SEEN. and Amazon is the big monkey.

"The majority of my sales come from Amazon and my ability to use the tools they provide. So far I've played my cards right. I write fun books with good covers and sell them cheap, I have a lot of virtual shelf space, and readers like my writing."

"5. Study Amazon and how it sells ebooks. Experiment. Take chances. If one of Amazon's imprints offers to publish you, accept. Right now they are the only publisher who can increase your sales."

Convinced yet? Amazon is where it is at, one day that may not be the case but right now it is...so, on Feb. 8th I will drop it all, show you the truth and not hold back on how to game the game. It is one big game people, and if you know how to play you WILL win.

Sign up for both classes as we only have 50 spots so first come first serve. Don't miss out on this if you care about selling your eBook or book on Amazon. Just to let you know, my sales are up every month, my book Sweet Dreams is 3 years old and sold more in December than it ever has...on a OLD book, this is like 45 in book years, but it is still moving. You can learn this stuff, it is easy, and fun...
That is all.

Here is the info:STONEHOUSE UNIVERSITY AMAZON CLASS

Learn how to use Amazon to increase sales and build a fan-base!

TIME: 10am-noon and 5pm-7pm *Mountain Time Zone
DATE: Feb. 8th 2012
LOCATION: Online
AVAILABILITY: Limited
COST: $50.00

Amazon is the biggest bookstore in the world. They move more product and reach more people than any other bookstore. By understanding how they work and their systems such as tagging, customer recommendations, book lists and the ranking system you can sell more books and be "seen." We will teach you how to use Amazon and their systems and get them to work for you instead of getting lost in the millions of books and eBooks listed on their site. Stand out and be sold!

To register just click the Paypal button of the time you want and after you pay it will redirect you to a registration page.

10am-Noon (MST)

5pm-7pm (MST)

Thanks for Tweeting and sharing this link and information. If you know of any other classes you would like to see in the future feel free to comment and let us know what you want to learn.

One last quote from J.A. Konrath, "And feel free to tweet this. It won't help me sell many eBooks, but it could help your peers."




Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

STONEHOUSE UNIVERSITY ONLINE BLOG TOUR CLASS! FEB 1st!

STONEHOUSE UNIVERSITY PRESENTS

Book Blog Tours, Part 1: 10 Steps to a Successful Tour

TIME: 10am-noon and 5pm-7pm *Mountain Time Zone
DATE: Feb. 1st 2012
LOCATION: Online
AVAILABILITY: Limited
COST: $50.00

Description:
A book blog tour is one of the most powerful and least costly ways to spread the word about your book. In a well-planned tour, you'll reach hundreds to thousands of readers in your target audience in a manner that is many times more efficient than doing live book signings. You can do your own tour for minimal or zero cost, making it one of the most affordable methods of marketing your book. Blog tours can be effective for all types of books, all genres, upcoming releases, and already-published books. In this course, you'll learn the essential steps to planning and executing your own successful blog tour, plus tips for building relationships with book bloggers and creating a tour that stands out from the rest.

To register hit the Paypal button and pay, it should redirect you to the registration page after you have paid.

Blog Tour Online Class. Feb 1 2012

To register for the 10-Noon class click below:
*All times are MT (Mountain Time)

Blog tour Class (10am-Noon)

To register for the 5-7pm class, click below:
*All times are MT (Mountain Time)

Blog Tour Class (5pm-7pm)

StoneHouse University
SHU was created by Aaron Patterson and K.C. Neal. Many authors are trying things on their own and the publishing world is changing so fast that it can be hard to keep up. SHU is here to teach writers and authors the skills they will need to write, publish and market their books. Classes and webinar's on writing a hook, to working with Amazon. Online classes will be held once a month, or more as the demand grows. We hope that SHU will be a help and a resource to anyone who wants to make a living writing.


Aaron Patterson
Aaron is an Amazon bestselling author and has four books published. He writes thrillers and YA Paranormal. He is also the CEO of StoneHouse/StoneGate Ink. SH is a next generation publisher that publishes eBooks first with limited print distribution and on to regular distribution. SH has around 40 authors and over 50 titles. Aaron is a marketing crazy person and can be found in Twitter or Facebook or blogging.

K.C. Neal
K.C. Neal, author of the YA fantasy Pyxis Series, enjoys the social and promotional sides of publishing as much as the creative side. In the span of just a few months, she’s gained thousands of Twitter followers and hundreds of Facebook friends and fans, and coordinated several successful book blog tours. Her philosophies about social media interaction have led to excellent relationships with book bloggers, and she’s eager to share her expertise about book blog tours and online social networking.


Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.