Most people don’t think of their author brand as a thing that can be quantified. Instead it’s more of a trait; just like Mirabel has red hair and Sally can’t sleep until she’s brushed her hair for exactly four hundred and seventy-three strokes, Lucy writes historical romance with a BDSM twist and Janice always finds a way to kill a clown by the end of every book. These things can’t really be measured; they simply are.

Except, where your author brand is concerned, it’s not.

Your author brand is a quantifiable substance. It’s a product. It has weight, mass, and density. It can be counted, sorted, packaged, sold, distributed. It can be broken down into different flavors, spread too thin, spread too thick. It can be too strong or too weak, or just right.

What your author brand is, in essence, is a Kool-Aid flavoring pack.

And when you try to make a Kool-Aid flavoring pack stretch too far, you end up with a diluted, watered-down brand. Here’s the recipe:

1. Take one author brand. This can be your name, the particular style you’re known for, whatever it is that acts as the foundation for your platform.
2. Mix with water. And by water, I mean books. As many books as possible. The instructions on the side of the Kool-Aid packet say mix with two quarts of water. Your Kool-Aid packet says mix with two, maybe three books a year, but here’s the thing: with royalty-paying digital publishers so popular now, you can put out two or three books a month. More if you self-publish.
3. Stir well. Divide into single-size servings and distribute to as many people as possible. Do your best to get each person to take more than one serving with the promise there’s a slightly different flavor to each 8oz cup of sugar water. Fans of your flavor will snap up anything you give them, naturally.
4. ?????
5. Profit!

Sounds perfect, right? Except it doesn’t quite work that way. And it doesn’t quite lead to the royalties you’d be expecting. There’s a reason New York publishing houses often limit authors to 1-2 books a year, and it’s not just because of editing time, production lead times, or advance marketing schedules. It’s because they’re managing the author brand, and looking for just the right mix of branding + product to leave a good taste in readers’ mouths and leave them wanting more.

Flood the market, and just like mixing a single Kool-Aid pack with six-gallon drum of water, you’ll end up with something diluted, tasteless, and unsatisfying, so generic it’s indistinguishable from slightly bitter-tasting water. Which means your books (the water, if you’re following along with this horrible, horrible metaphor here) are indistinguishable from each other, leaving a bad taste in readers’ mouths. You’ve just become generic in a market oversaturated with yourself, and no matter how you try to sweeten the deal with giveaways and swag and marketing, you’re left with a watered-down brand that people won’t even remember, let alone return to.

There are lots of reasons for this. Some of them have to do with buying habits, others with public perception, others with your own ability to consistently put out a quality product. There are a million factors to consider when you’re shopping your books around to publishers, and trying to get as many as possible out within the year to maximize your royalties and build your backlist while you’re still fresh and new and trying to make a name for yourself. Things like:

1. Unless they’re buying a series, readers tend to think in terms of purchasing “either/or” rather than “and” when choosing books by the same author.

I’m not calling readers cheapskates. What I am calling them is pragmatic. A book is a huge time investment, much more than a movie or the million other forms of entertainment they can and will spend money on before they’ll spend money on your book. If they don’t like the album they just bought or the movie they just rented, that’s a few minutes or hours of their lives they can’t get back. If they don’t like your book? Depending on how long it is and how quickly they read, that can mean days. Days they will quietly resent you for, if they feel in any way cheated.

So in the backs of their minds, even if they aren’t aware of it, they’re thinking in terms of time investment and whether or not a book is worth it. If you release two non-series books simultaneously, they’ll be trying to decide which one they want, rather than defaulting to buying both. But when both the books they’re choosing between are yours, you win either way, especially if you’ve converted a new reader to the Almighty Church of You – right?

Wrong.

Some of your die-hard fans will buy anything you put out, but not nearly as many of your fans are as dedicated as you’d like to think. General fans and new readers will think, “Well, I’ll buy one book and if I like it, I’ll come back for the other.” Some of them even will. Most of them? Won’t. They’ll add it to their wishlist and forget about it, and what could have been two sales had you released and marketed the books separately has become one lonely little sale, waving forlornly to your unsold book in the rear view mirror.

It doesn’t stop there. In making that either/or choice, readers will more often gravitate toward the cheaper book, especially if they’ve never read you before. In the best case scenario, they love the book so much they become one of the aforementioned die-hard fans and come back to snap up everything you’ve ever written. In the more likely scenario, you’ve just screwed yourself out of higher royalties on the more expensive book because you couldn’t wait one or two more months to release, when your buying public is ready to make another commitment to investing time in one of your books.

So let’s say you have a novella priced at 99 cents and a category romance priced at $2.99. (Aww snap, that’s right, I’m breaking out the numbers in this bitch.) Let’s also say you get a 30% royalty from the publisher on those, assuming your percent is taken from what's left over after the distributor cut and not the even smaller amount left over after the publisher cut. We’ll use the Amazon 70/30 split as an example…and keep in mind that on digital books priced below $2.99, Amazon keeps 70% and you keep 30%. On books priced at $2.99 or above, Amazon keeps 30% and you keep 70%. So on that cheaper novella – the more likely choice for the frugal reader – you’re getting a 30% cut of 29.7 cents. On the more expensive category, you’re getting 30% of $2.09.

So your final take from the sale of each novella is 8.91 cents. Final take from the sale of each category romance novel? 62.79 cents. Even hoping astronomical sales of the cheaper book will compensate for the low return, it’s unlikely you’ll see the results you were hoping for when you eagerly trotted out your wares. In the back of your mind you were probably hoping that each sale per customer would combine the two books, and you’d walk away with 71.7 cents in profit per customer purchase.

But the unfortunate reality is that you’ll likely be getting 8.91 cents, and they won’t ever come back to give you that 62.79 cents that would be the real bread and butter of your sales – because, on release, you gave them a choice. And they didn’t choose what you wanted.

This is why releases from a single author are staggered – so that for one or two or six months, their primary offering is a matter of default, not a matter of choice. Once the book’s post-launch sales potential has exhausted itself and it trends off the new release market, it won’t matter if there are fifty backlist books delivering a trickle of continued sales from fans interested in discovering more from a beloved author (and that trickle does add up). What matters is managing brand perception of your current offering, and making sure you do everything you can to position each new release as a must-have instead of a possible choice out of many.

Well okay, you say. But what if the two books you’re releasing are totally different? What if one’s SF, the other’s historical, and there’s very little overlap in the buying market, so it doesn’t matter anyway?

2. Spreading yourself too thin over multiple markets can undermine your ability to create a strong platform in a single market.

That’s not to say that authors shouldn’t branch out. If you want to jump from paranormal into hardcore science fiction, great. Tons of people have done it successfully, and cultivated new and even overlapping audiences. But be aware that you’ll have to rebuild your audience mostly from scratch, and create a wholly new brand image that readers can concretely grasp in concise terms – and when you’re trying to build multiple audiences in multiple markets simultaneously without an existing base in any single market, you might make an okay amount from the combined trickle of incremental revenues, but you’re missing out on the snowball effect.

The snowball effect is what happens when a book hits that peak sales point where it becomes a self-perpetuating phenomenon. Suddenly it’s pretty much selling itself; ranking lists and book reviews and word of mouth and the overall book industry machine combine into a gestalt that shoves that book under everyone’s noses, and everyone’s buying. The snowball effect multiplies sales exponentially; when a book jumps that hurdle, it jumps hard, and can skyrocket from a few hundred sales a month to a few hundred thousand or (he says as a hundred authors feel a little tingle below the belt) a few million. But it’s less likely to do that when you’ve got twenty other books released at the same time, the weight of their poor-to-middling sales undermining your brand reputation and dragging it down. Why?

3. Because when you’re throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, readers can tell.

At first glance, it makes sense: put out as much as possible in the hopes that one of those dogs will surge ahead of the others and go streaking over the finish line. If you bet on every dog in the race, you’ve got to win some time – and if all those dogs are yours you haven’t lost anything from betting on the losers, right?

Again, wrong. Very, very wrong.

Because you’re competing with yourself, and as I mentioned in point #1, you’re cannibalizing your own sales. And, frankly, you’re boxing yourself in as yet another generic e-book author throwing out book after book after book in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will notice you.

When you want to be noticed, being generic is a little self-defeating. And flooding the market with your books? Makes you look desperate, and like you don’t have a plan for managing your career as an author. You don’t want to look desperate and clueless. Readers can smell desperation and cluelessness like a high school clique zeroing in on that poor nerd who’s five seconds away from wearing his Underoos as a hat – and it’s a huge turnoff. It damages your reputation, and a damaged reputation is very hard to recover.

4. If you sell yourself cheaply, people will think you’re cheap.

Your brand is a commodity, and frankly the value of that commodity is entirely in its public perception. When supply exceeds demand, your product is just going to sit on the shelves without making any money. And when that product is you?

Consumers will think “If no one else is buying her books, why should I?”

When you devalue yourself in the public eye by flinging books out left and right, signing with every publisher who makes an offer, you create the perception that you produce cheap products of little value. People associate Wal-Mart with low prices because of mass production and enormous variety, but they sure as hell don’t associate them with quality. You don’t want to be the Wal-Mart of the book world. You want to be Saks 5^th Avenue, and that means controlling what you supply to generate demand.

More than just a commodity, you need to be a hot commodity. Something readers feel privileged to gain access to. No one gives a shit when Kraft launches a new flavor of mac n’cheese, no matter how brightly those Wal-Mart display shelves promise Kraft is really excited about this product, and you should be too. But the world lights its collective ass on fire wiggling their seats in anticipation when Ridley Scott hints at a not-quite-prequel to the Alien franchise, because that franchise has been established as something of value with lasting brand appeal.

So build a franchise with lasting brand appeal, not a marginally new flavor of the same old product. There’s no anticipation of anything special when you’re slapping a new book up on Amazon every two weeks and saying “It’s there, bitches, go buy it.” You’re just common bottom-shelf goods, cheap and easily accessible – and not worth waiting for.

5. Burnout is a bitch.

Eventually the stress of producing – and editing, I should hope – so many books in such a short period of time will catch up with you, and that’s when you'll go down in flames. It’ll start off slow. You’ll let a loosely-written scene slip because you’ve been up for three days straight and you’ve got a deadline with one publisher tomorrow, the day after your launch event with another publisher. Then you’ll start peppering in continuity errors as you get your series mixed up. You’ll stop caring if you re-used that phrase a dozen times over. The quality of your work will slip drastically. Readers will notice. Reviewers will say things. Publishing industry people who were once sniffing after your scent trail will suddenly shy away like you've got leprosy and just asked to borrow their scarf. It will piss you off, and you’ll be so tired you won’t really have the judgment or restraint necessary to bite your tongue in that crucial moment that could have saved you from committing career suicide. You'll gain not fame, but notoriety, and everyone will gather 'round to watch you burn.

Even if you don’t crash and burn so dramatically, you’ll still notice a decline in which not only are readers completely “meh” about your fortieth new book this year, but you are too. You’ll write by rote and formula, and suddenly you don’t have a brand. You just have a content mill.

Your editors, too, will be exhausted - trying not only to keep up with your releases with their publisher, but to keep up with your other releases so they can attempt, often in vain, to make smart decisions about timing your books based on what else you have floating around in the works while you're constantly missing one deadline after another.

And when even your editors are too tired to handle another book from you, that’s when you have a problem.

So. Hey. Slow your roll.

I know the temptation’s out there. Success is a heady and thrilling thing. You’ll have one awesome book that really takes off, and suddenly you’re a hot ticket and everyone wants a piece of you. You’ve got a million brilliant story ideas, and the world needs to read them all. You’ll get greedy and think if you don’t snap up these opportunities now, you’ll never have them again. But when you’re handing out all these pieces of yourself, you’re going to run out, over-commit, and end up scattered everywhere without a centralized brand focus - instead of making intelligent, strategic, and patient choices about your career as an author.

You’ll be watered-down. You’ll be over-saturated. And you’ll have major issues not only with not being able to manage your brand, but not even being wholly sure what that brand is.

And it’s sad when an author is all up in their own Kool-Aid, and don’t even know the flavor.***

***Yes, I am aware that is grammatically incorrect. Reference my rather lame attempts, throughout this post, to be street/hood. I dance like Carlton. Shut up.

@smoulderingsea: Sometimes the thrill is in denying readers what they want, which makes the gratification that much more satisfying later. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Writing historical for the modern audience means finding the right voice. Not too modern, but don't try to be too stuffy either. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't be afraid to admit an idea isn't working out. Don't waste time on pride alone. Spend that time finding an idea that works. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you're stuck, write past it. Even if it's nonsense. You'd be surprised where it takes you, and you can fix the rest later. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Think linear when you write. Try to present ideas in a clear logical order so that readers aren't always jumping back and forth. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Same goes for sentence structure. Think of each as a linear timeline and try to avoid writing events backward or sideways. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify verbs, phrases, adjectives, or other adverbs. You don't have a swiftly couch. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Seen people write dialogue like Yoda, I have. May work as minor character quirk, it could. All time do it, not. You, I shank.  #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Double negatives involve using two negative words that cancel out their intended meaning. "He didn't say nothing." #twitch #editortips

@smoulderingsea: No one will ever love your story just the way you do--so don't let yourself hate it. If you give up on it, it'll be lost. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and telling you to go out and download OCRemix's "Voices of the Lifestream" RIGHT THE EFF NOW.

@smoulderingsea: Even if your characters struggle with it, they need to make decisions. Their decisions about key things tell us who they are. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: In your story, failure needs consequences. We have no reason to care about character struggles if the outcome doesn't matter. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Stories need a black moment--that moment when it seems nothing can save our heroes. It makes the triumph that much better. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't change your villain without cause to fix an ending you can't write your way out of. Do it right, and true to character. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Each act should end with new information or events that take the book in an unexpected direction, to keep readers hooked. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you follow a formula to help shape your story, that's fine...but don't follow it so closely your story becomes methodical. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: One small act that resonates deeply with readers can mean more than all the explosions, beasties, car chases, and wild sex. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Conflict isn't just external. Your story needs balance between outer/inner conflict. Assassination attempt, then inner demons. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't build your antagonist solely around their attraction to the hero(ine). They need real goals, counter to the protagonist's. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: On days when it seems like you can't write another word and there's no point...remember why you write. How it feels. It'll come. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and watching Hitch seven times a day just because that song at the end gets stuck in my head.

@smoulderingsea: Don't be afraid to explore tangents that weren't in your outline. You may discover a depth you never intended. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When solving a problem in a scene, discard the first answer that comes to mind. It's likely the most predictable/obvious. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Your story is not a precious secret. If you intend to sub it, you need to share it with people who can give objective feedback. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Make sure your crit partners aren't too much like you. The echo chamber effect is good for your ego, but bad for your writing. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When you're writing, you can feel like a force of nature. Forces of nature can be a bit sloppy. You will have a mess to clean. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When your editor asks you to remove a problem area in one part of the story, that's not an excuse to shoehorn it in elsewhere. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Subtle changes in word choice can drastically change impact. Squeal. Trill. Keen. All high noises, very different connotation. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If someone offers a solution to an issue, don't refuse because it's not your own special words. If it helps/is right, use it. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: ...now granted, don't like...copy whole passages of someone else's fix for the story. But if they suggest X word is better... #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When you complain agents are working for their authors, not reading your MS--remember one day you could be one of those authors. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't neglect any part of your story in the hopes the rest will compensate. Weak beginning, middle, end...any will drag it down. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Writing seems like a mystical process, but it's not. In the end it's just one word after another. Build that into a great story. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and repeatedly misspelling my own damned name.

@smoulderingsea: You'll always miss something when you proofread. Try reading backwards to force yourself to really see the words. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If, when self-editing, you find yourself making the same correction repeatedly, keep a list of your common tics to avoid later. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When world-building, ask yourself in what context your POV character knows these details, not what context you know them in. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Take a break between rounds of edits. Read something else. You need to clear your head so you can start fresh in the next edit. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You are not Vida Boheme or Miss Noxema. In your writing, pick substance over style any day. #editortips #ToWongFoo

@smoulderingsea: Be honest with yourself. Before you submit, ask: is this really the best you can do, or are you just sick of working on it? #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Editing isn't just 1-2-3-done. The same process won't work every time. You edit until it's perfect, not until the ritual's over. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't quit after 5 queries. That's not even a representative sample. Take your moment to grump, adjust your strategy, try again. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't preach in your writing. Your message will evolve organically from your story on its own. It's not meant to be a lecture. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You are not the special snowflake who can shit out a perfect, submission-ready first draft. Stop even pretending. Go edit. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: No matter what odd stories we tell, writing is a human experience. Remember it's meant to bring us together, not rip us apart. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and something something something seeds something something something Brutals.

@smoulderingsea: There's a fine line between being an online personality and going over the top. I edged across it today. Try not to yourself. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: The image of the frazzled, sleepless writer is just that: an image. If you don't take care of yourself, your writing suffers. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Have a life outside your writing. Experience fuels how you shape your words. You'll stagnate without new input. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Have a goal in mind when you start your query. I get at least three a day that are pure rambling madness with no point. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you tell me your book will change my life, I'll ask how. How have you even changed my day, let alone my life? #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Give your MC's love interest their own story and motivation beyond just being a plot device, por favor. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Very few things happen quickly in publishing. If you expect them to, you'll just end up making yourself miserable. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You know that feeling you get when someone asks you a rhetorical question? No? Oh. Crap. There went your premise. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: "Real fast" is slang. "Really fast" is proper grammar. Both probably have absolutely no place in your story. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: It's "I'm doing well," not "I'm doing good." Well is an adverb describing the action: doing. Good is an adjective. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Writing won't always be fun. It won't always be magical. But even when you're putting the gritty work in, the magic is there. #editortips

About #editortips: #editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and invoking Zardoz in the worst of ways.

@smoulderingsea: If you send a rude follow-up at 12:01am the day after a response deadline, some might think twice about working with you. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: That's not to say there's anything wrong with a follow-up email. A polite inquiry or quick reminder is rarely an issue. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't ever assume anything in publishing. People are too variable, and the rules change all the time. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Parents in YA are for more stifling the MC. Or dying violently/tragically. Use them to develop characters through relationships. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You don't have to introduce your villain in the first chapter, but you should at least foreshadow the stakes. Tension matters. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Repeat after me: word-comma-space-word. In that order. Not word-space-comma-space-word. Not word-space-comma-word. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Academic writing and fiction writing are barely even the same species of animal. Don't fall back on academic writing styles. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Please don't write your book as a giant collection of memes and pop culture references that will lose relevance in 3 months. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: ...amendment to the last #editortips: unless you're @andrewtshaffer. He could make that shit timeless.

@smoulderingsea: I almost just did this: It grates on my nerves when people think "great" is spelled "grate." I want to hold them over a grate. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you're unfamiliar with a topic, don't bullshit. Someone will catch you, and then your book loses all validity. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you can't figure out if you should use "me" or "I," take the other person out of the sentence. You'll figure it out. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Some authors play games, trying to manipulate their editors so they get their way. Don't. It'll backfire on you every time. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: The more you work on developing your craft, the less time you'll have for self-doubt...along with fewer reasons. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and offending your delicate sensibilities.

Want to win a $500 or $250 Visa gift card, a full manuscript crit, or free books? Read on to find out how - and why.

Okay, so I totally suck at this promo shit. But I kind of have a point to make. And it's kind of important to me. So I'm going to flail and fumble, and you're going to listen, and then you're gonna pat me on the head, tell me I'm crazy, ogle my pretty cover, and wander off. Sound like a deal?

Great. Let's do this.

So I'll be honest: I never meant to write LGBT fiction. Tobias just happened to like men - and happened to like Sean. So. You know. Hot man-lovin's happened and that kind of thing, in between the whole "destroy the world" and "rarrrgh I have angst" stuff. I'm hugely into genre fiction, especially science fiction, cyberpunk, dystopian, etc. And comics. So hey, if Tony Stark was gay (please God let him turn out to be gay) he'd still be a total billionaire playboy, right? So the fact that some of my characters happen to be gay is no different from the fact that some of them happen to be straight, bisexual, trans, Japanese, Irish, Hispanic, or half-African American / half-Thai (I'm looking at you, Tobias). Oh. And don't forget the hermaphroditic fish people. I mean, they get really mad. And I say "so" a lot.

That's the way it should be, if you ask me. I mean the whole "what? Gay? Okay, so what, what's the story about?" thing, not the fish people. Genre fiction that happens to have LGBT characters or characters of color shouldn't suddenly be slotted into a niche market, good only for people with special interests. These books should stand on even footing with other genre fiction books with heterosexual Caucasian characters, judged on their story and not on which subcategory their characters fall into - but how often do you see genre fiction books with LGBT characters  in the top-ranking lists unless the books are more about about being gay than anything else?

And seriously, I wish there had been more coming out stories when I was growing up, but by now, well...hey. We're out of the closet. Now let's talk about what the hell we do while we're dragging our rainbow asses down the street. We're all up in your Kool-Aid. We're part of your everyday lives. We're not going anywhere, sugarbuns, and we do things other than your hair(stylist).

Snark aside, this matters a lot to me, to see LGBT and PoC fiction normalized rather than marginalized...and to show people who feel they can't relate to LGBT and PoC characters that they can identify with them. With us. Whether it's with our stories, our struggles, or our personal development, common experience is common experience.  So with that in mind, to celebrate the release of my debut novel I'd like your help with a massive undertaking:

Let's get From the Ashes into the top 100 on Amazon or B&N by October 31st, 2012!

Not the top 100 in Gay & Lesbian books. Not the top 100 in Multicultural Romance. The top 100 in all of Amazon. (or B&N.) With your help, we can do that . Because there's like, money and shit. I'm giving away stuff. You know, to say thanks if we pull this off. And if we make it, one person will win a $500 Visa gift card, usable at any retailer that accepts Visa, while a second person will win a $250 Visa gift card. A third winner will receive either a full manuscript critique or a copy of each book in the Entangled Flirt and Ever After catalogs. I can say from first-hand experience that those books damned well rock, and not just because I edited half of them. (Are my authors watching? Did they put the pitchforks down?)

Here's how it works:

1. Enter your name and email address* in the Rafflecopter box at the bottom of this post. That's all you need to do to win, but to help spread the word...
2. Post the contest to Twitter, your blog, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. and add the book to GoodReads. There's also a whole row of little social media buttons at the bottom of this post, so use at your discretion. If you read the book and liked it, leave (honest) reviews on Amazon, B&N, and GoodReads. Anything to get the word out, make people aware of the contest, and (with luck) generate interest in the book; both reviews and purchases help raise the rankings, but to keep things on the up-and-up only leave a positive review if you actually bought and enjoyed the book. No sock-puppeting or fake reviews; let's do this legitimately or Zardoz will find you and there'll be seeds and you just don't want none of that shit. Below you'll find code for easy copy-paste badges and links, and Twitter text with the hashtag and links. These things aren't a mandatory requirement for entering, but they'll help us spread awareness and give FtA another push in the right direction for someone to win.
3. If, at any time between now and October 31st, the FtA Amazon Best Sellers Rank or the B&N sales rank hits between 1 and 100, I'll draw three winners at random from Rafflecopter; the first winner will get a $500 Visa gift card in either digital or physical format; the second will get a $250 Visa gift card in digital or physical format (format is your choice, if you win); the third will win a full critique of their manuscript or the free ebook package, depending on the winner's preference.
4. If the rank jumps as high as between 1 and 50, I'll add another winner with a $100 Visa gift card, throw in a few more crits, and give away some FtA swag!

To tweet / FB:

Promote LGBT mainstream fic & win a $500 gift card! Rules: http://bit.ly/Rrh3su Amazon: http://amzn.to/OZqD22 B&N: http://bit.ly/U84BKB #FtA

Or:

I got peanut butter in your chocolate *and* superhero man-lovin's in your sci-fi. And there's, like, money and shit. http://bit.ly/Rrh3su #FtA

Orrrrrr:

#FtA: Like Thai Tony Stark & flaming Captain America read your slashfic and thought it was hot. http://amzn.to/OZqD22 http://bit.ly/U84BKB

Or you could even use:

From the Ashes in five easy words: sociopathic pretty boys kissing violently. http://amzn.to/OZqD22 http://bit.ly/U84BKB #FtA

A badge for your blog, website, etc:

Win $500 or $250 Visa Gift Cards or a manuscript crit if From the Ashes reaches the Amazon or B&N top 100!
Because gay in your sci-fi is like peanut butter in your chocolate. It's too good to put down.
Contest Rules / Entry Page | Buy on Amazon | Buy on B&N | Add to GoodReads

The code (just copy/paste into the HTML editor of your blog posting utility/page):

<center><a href="http://kowloonbynight.com/2012/09/09/from-the-ashes-top-100-giveaway/" target="_blank"><img style="background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; border: 0px;" src="http://kowloonbynight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/FtA-badge.png" alt="" width="500" height="212" border="0" /></a>
<br><strong>Win $500 or $250 Visa Gift Cards or a manuscript crit if <em>From the Ashes</em> reaches the Amazon or B&N top 100!</strong>
<br><strong>Because gay in your sci-fi is like peanut butter in your chocolate. It's too good to put down.</strong></br>
<br><a href="http://kowloonbynight.com/2012/09/09/from-the-ashes-top-100-giveaway/" target="_blank">Contest Rules / Entry Page</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/From-Ashes-Fires-Redemption-ebook/dp/B0097BLJGC/ref=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&amp;n=133140011&amp;s=digital-text" target="_blank">Buy on Amazon</a> | <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/from-the-ashes-adrien-luc-sanders/1112807301?ean=2940015456653" target="_blank">Buy on B&amp;N</a> | <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15995837.From_the_Ashes__Fires_of_Redemption___1_" target="_blank">Add to GoodReads</a></center>

Let's see how far we can take this! Jesus, how many exclamation points did I use in this post?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*Your email address will only be used to contact you if you win. You will not be added to any mailing lists or newsletters, and your information will remain private. Because I know I'd shank a bitch who did that newsletter crap without my permission.

@smoulderingsea: There is no One Truth of Publishing. It's more like a lot of little truths, many more variables, and a strong dash of WTF. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: The time you spend agonizing over rejections or worrying over query responses? Won't change anything. Use that time to write. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't tell me why your book would sell. Show me. #editortips #showdonttellalloveragain

@smoulderingsea: When you get a rejection, don't reply that it's not what you wanted to hear. It's unprofessional, and won't change the response. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: No one will hold a gun to your head and make you write. (Well, a really good friend might. Wait, what?) That choice is on you. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: I've been on the verge of a contract offer only for the author to change my mind with rude behavior. Don't be that author. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Be bold in your writing, but while you're going balls-to-the-wall, don't neglect the little things. Subtleties add depth. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: A story is more than a sequence of events--more than "He did this, and then he did this." Stories feel. Think. Evolve. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You'll find publishing causes less stress if you drop the "us vs. them" mentality. It's a diverse group of people. Not a war. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: It's fine if the meat of your query remains the same when you customize for each sub--but don't use c/p blind form queries. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You don't need an MFA degree to be a writer. It doesn't matter where the skill comes from as long as you learn. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: When you link clauses with "but," make sure they actually relate. "It's dinner time, but Risu's licking the couch." #huhwhat #editortips

@smoulderingsea: You'll get rejected. You'll fall down, fail, despair. You might even be mocked. Doesn't matter. Get the fuck up. Keep writing. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and spreading conspiracy theories about ketchup.

@smoulderingsea: Make sure pronouns are consistent with singular and plural. If you say "Mark and Jenny ran," it's "they ran," not "he ran." #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Struggling for something to write about? Look around you. Common experience makes a great foundation for the extraordinary. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't accept all writing advice at face value. (Not even mine.) Use common sense, be informed, and educate yourself. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: 95% of publishing facts you learn from writer friends turn out to be either misinterpreted, hyperbole, or just plain untrue. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Many writers never actually write a second draft. They perfunctorily edit the first. Go deeper. Create a new, better draft. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Don't confuse trope and genre. Tropes can persist across genres, and every story has them no matter what genre it fits. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: People also often associate fiction tropes with cliches, and thus avoid them. Tropes are more like foundational plot elements. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Exclamation points in narrative (and dialogue) are the devil, you hear me?! The DEVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #interrobangstoo #editortips

@smoulderingsea: If you're stuck, write away from stimuli. No TV, no music, no research sources. Just you and the page. #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Querying can be frightening, but if you don't do it...why did you devote so much of your life to the manuscript? #editortips

@smoulderingsea: Some are afraid to query and publish because they're afraid of exposure . Don't be. Don't hide a story people want to hear. #editortips

About #editortips:
#editortips is a daily rash of tweets from an only partially crazy editor, chock full of random chocolatey morsels about writing, editing, and querying vaguely disguised as helpful pointers and/or really bad humor. I tweet as @smoulderingsea, and try to post with some consistency every weekday at 6PM CST. Weekends optional, depending on if I’m spending yet another Saturday night editing because my social life consists of Netflix and etching obscure prophecies on the walls in an offshoot dialect of Sanskrit.