C.J. Miller

I've been doing some research on promotion for books and while I have an exhaustive list of possible places to promote, I've whittled it down to those items that I can reasonably complete given time and money constraints. The biggest tasks is #1: Write good books. I have always been a big reader and before I started writing, the extent of my interaction with an author I liked was to go to their website and see when their next book was coming out. That was it. I didn't care if they had a facebook page. I just wanted another good book to read. Here is the rest of the list. 2. Think about author branding and creating a tag line to make it clear what I write 3. Get a professional picture taken 4. Write an author biography 5. Attend social media / promo classes provided by Harlequin 6. Create a faceook author page 7. Write an author mini-bio for places like Amazon Author Central 8. Host monthly contests on my website once my book is released 9. Let people in my im...

Since The Call, I've been busy. I've received some additional revisions on my manuscript and I've set them as my first priority. They are not due until January 2012, but I'd like to mail them off before the holiday. I received my contract from Harlequin, which I've read and had my roommate from college, now a copyright/patent lawyer, review, read, and help me understand the legal nitty-gritty. I had a few follow-up questions and am waiting to hear back about them. I received information about promotions through programs that Harlequin offers to their authors. I need to follow up on this. I've done promotional research on my own and compiled a list of To Do tasks. When I have this list out of draft form, I'll post it here in case it helps someone else on a similar path with the same questions I have. I've been thinking about getting an author portrait/photograph taken to be used on my website and other promotional items. I'm trying to decide: ...

Well, not my first e-book, but I purchased my first e-book last week. A writer buddy, Trish McCallan self-published her book, Forged in Fire. For anyone interested in self-publishing, she has some good information on her blog about her experiences. I had read e-books/articles/documentation before, for school or for work reasons, but this was my first just-for-fun e-book purchase. I don't own a tablet or a Kindle, so I downloaded Kindle for PC from Amazon. It was easy to set up and simple to purchase the book through Amazon. I spend a great deal of time on the computer, for work and for writing reasons, so I was worried reading on my laptop wouldn't be as comfortable. So far, that's not true. The pages fit the screen (no scrolling up and down) and it has a highlight and bookmark function that work well, since I often get interrupted as I'm reading. This might be the first of many e-book purchases. No shelf space required, and I can tote reading material along with...

For any writers reading this, I thought it might be useful to post my progress in getting my promotional and marketing tools configured, so it might be a jumping off point for your own website creation. Before I was published, I didn't worry about selecting a pseudonym or creating a website. Not only did I not want to jinx myself, I figured when I got published, I would worry about the administrative stuff that comes along with being a writer and setting up a business (more on this later). When I first started looking into creating a website, I was a bit overwhelmed and unsure where to start. I'm going to break the process down into pieces and maybe I can save someone else confusion. Pseudonym: After grappling with several name choices, I decided to pick a pseudonym that is a variation of my legal name. Because my last name is pretty common (Miller), I wasn't too worried about privacy issues. I wanted a name I would respond to, and a name I could easily sign without...

Most authors love to read. I'm no exception. I love to read and have since I was a child. Just thinking of Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, and the Babysitter's Club makes me warm with nostalgia. My late grandmother had shelves filled with Harlequin romances. I think they were Harlequin Presents, although I couldn't swear to it. My mom and aunt read them too and they would pass books by the bagful back and forth. When I could get my hands on one, I would sneak off with it and spend the afternoon reading. That's how I became a 3rd generation Harlequin reader. My love of reading led my imagination to create stories of my own. When I told my husband, who writes as a hobby, about the stories in my head, he said, "Why don't you write the stories down?" From the moment I started to write, I felt something click into place. This isn't to say that anything I wrote that first year (or second) was publishable. But I persisted. Every day, without exception, I...

A brief recap, for writers looking for time lines for their submissions (although it does seem to vary, these are just my dates - roughly): May 2010: submitted a query letter to Harlequin Romantic Suspense (was called Silhouette Romantic Suspense at the time) July 2010: received a request for the full manuscript and mailed it October 2010: received a request for revisions November 2010: mailed revisions March 2011: received a request for a 2nd round of revisions April 2011: mailed revisions July 2011: followed up via email on my submission. September 22, 2011: Got the CALL!

I love reading stories about writers who get the call from an editor or agent when their book is going to be published. In my writer groups, this telephone call is referred to as "The Call." This differs from the dreaded "R," which is a letter of rejection. So without further ado... my story! I had heard that HRS was increasing their word count and I had assumed that when I heard back about my book, it would be either a rejection or another request for revisions to make the book longer. I was cleaning up the kitchen and getting ready to start dinner when I heard the phone ring. It was a 212 number I didn't recognize. I thought the call might be from a contractor we'd hired to install a new front door in our home. I answered and the person asked for me. She identified herself as Shana Smith from Harlequin (at this point I started shaking) and she said they wanted to publish my book (at this point I almost started to cry with happiness). For one small mo...