The ACRBA Blog Alliance Needs Your Help.

By Jenny Blake

Today I am talking about (ACRBA) Australian ChristianReaders Blog Alliance and how it can help you as an author and some of you may be able to help us.

Firstly A little background on what ACRBA is how and it came about. Several years back Narelle Atkins and I were talking about blog alliances and how many were no longer sending books to Australian and New Zealand readers unless they could get the book as an e-book. As a member of several alliances I was saying how much as a reader I enjoy being able to review books and promote authors. We got talking about how it would be nice to be able to support Australasian Authors and through this the alliance was formed.

From there we created a blog page and started recruiting reviewers and then authors and publishers. We do review overseas books as well as Australasian but first preference goes to books from this area. We read both print books and eBooks but at present have several members who can only read print books.

We do not charge for blog tours unlike some alliances the only cost is the books that are requested. We send out requests to our members and if they would like to review the book we will then send on the information to the author or publisher. If you are an author who wishes to tour with us we have a form on the blog to fill in and submit chapter one, and a blurb of the book. Publishers can also fill in the form. We also ask if you will send print or eBooks and how many you are willing to send. We understand it the costs and want to help authors as much as possible.

For reviewers the requirement is to have an active blog and to post the information we provide and a review. We also would like reviewers to post a review on sites such as Amazon, Goodreads and Koorong. We also encourage reviewers not requesting a book to post the information to help promote the books. We do encourage bloggers to read at least one book every 3 months. The exceptions are if you are only reading one genre such as children’s books or non-fiction.

Now to part of the reason for this blog post we need help. We recently lost some of our reviewers due to a few reasons most being they are not blogging or don’t have time to read books. We need new reviewers. If you enjoy reading and would like a free book we are interested in hearing from you. As mentioned we send out the info on the books and you can request the books that appeal to you. We do however request you average one book every 3 months. We also would like you to post the HTML of books you are not reviewing during the blog tour week to give the authors more exposure. We also have a form at our blog to fill in.

We also have a category called friends of ACRBA for bloggers who want to help promote the books and will post the HTML on their blog during the week we tour the books. This also provides free blog content you can use on your blog and we even provide the code for the tour. The tour is always the first full week of the month. 

Links:

Blog: http://acrba.blogspot.com.au/

Submissions: http://acrba.blogspot.com.au/p/submissions.html

Applications for reviewer or Friends of ACRBA: http://acrba.blogspot.com.au/p/application.html

JENNY BLAKE (aka Ausjenny) is an avid reader. When not reading she enjoys watching cricket, in fact you could call her a cricket fanatic, scrapbooking and jigsaws. She volunteers at the local Christian bookshop where she can recommend books to customers. Her book blog is where she reviews books and interview authors. Her goal is to help promote new books and encourage authors. Her blog is at http://ausjenny.blogspot.com and is Co-Founder of http://acrba.blogspot.com

Three Things Readers May Not Know About Being An Author - Kara Isaac

It has been just over six months since my debut novel, Close To You, released and a month since my sophomore novel, Can't Help Falling, came out. While this (in no way!) makes me a publishing veteran, I thought I'd blog today on some of the assumptions that some of my friends/family/readers have made about having a couple of books out there in the big wide world (and that I myself had before this new adventure!).

**I should note that the below are only for authors published by traditional publishing houses. Some of the below are very different for independently published authors.**

Before we continue, I should start by saying this is not a whinge. I love being an author, I love working with an amazing publishing team, I love interacting with readers and being able to give away books and all the other unexpected amazing things that come with this adventure. These are just a few things that people have been surprised by when I've told them that I thought may be of interest to others :)

We have no say (or control!) over price
Every now and then I'll get a message from a reader wanting to know when my book/s are going to be on sale for $1.99 (or better yet, free!) or someone will ask me why it is X price at one retailer but Y price at another.

Honestly, honestly, honestly, we have no say over what our publisher charges for a book, or what the distributor then charges for a book, or what a then retailer charges for a book. I've seen the paperback version for Close To You priced by retailers from $19.07 (NZD) up to $36.00 (NZD) and everything in between and I have no intelligence as to why any are priced the way they are!

We also have no say as to whether a title goes or e-Book sale, when it goes on sale or what the price is. Simon & Schuster put the Close To You eBook on sale for $1.99 the week before Can't Help Falling came out. Which I was absolutely thrilled about because one of the best ways to have new readers take a chance on you in the current environment is by offering it at the big discount. But I wasn't part of that decision, I was told about it after it was made and then used all of the channels I had available to me to try and spread the word.

Good reviews in publications do not necessarily equal good sales
With Close To You I was fortunate enough to receive a favourable review in a magazine in the US that had a circulation of over two million people (TWO MILLION PEOPLE! I thought I'd hit the author jackpot!). With Can't Help Falling I was blessed that it was named an October Top Pick by RT Book Reviews. Both were huge honours but I've also heard comments from people assuming that they resulted in books selling like crazy and so whether they bought it or not wasn't going to make any difference because I was already riding high on great sales numbers.

As much I would love this to be true (oh, so much so!), turns out it doesn't work that way. That magazine with the two million distribution? When I compared sales in the four weeks before the magazine came out and the four weeks after, the weeks after saw a sales increase of 28 books. Total. The day you see an author on the New York Times Bestsellers list or read that they signed a six or seven figure deal on their next contract is the day you can assume they're all good. Before that, I promise you every sale does count :)

We don't have access to limitless number of author copies to give away
My contract gives me fifty author copies for free, to be primarily used for promotional purposes. Of those five I held back for family (parents, grandmother, mother-in-law, sister and, strangely enough, one for my own bookshelf!). Another five went to friends who had saved my bacon somewhere in the writing process - either by being early readers, helping create promotional material, babysitting my kids so I could write etc. The other forty? Almost all are committed to giveaways before the book was even released via GoodReads, Facebook, guest blog posts or interviews, promotional giveaways with other authors etc.

Once those are gone, I have to buy them. While I could access them at a steep discount from my publisher, because I live in New Zealand by the time I also cover the cost of shipping them from the US plus the taxes that I incur importing them it actually ends up cheaper for me to buy my own book from a place that offers free shipping like BookDepository.com at their full retail price and have it dispatched from there. I'm 99% sure I'm their best customer for my own books :)

What about you? Were any of these things a surprise? Any other questions you'd like to ask me about life as a traditionally published author? There is the winner's choice of a copy of Close To You or Can't Help Falling for one commenter (please leave an email address if you would like to be in the draw so I can contact you if you win!). Entries close midnight, Sunday 20 November (US CST).

Kara Isaac lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Her debut romantic comedy, Close To You, is about a disillusioned academic-turned-tour-guide and an entrepreneur who knows nothing about Tolkien who fall in love on a Tolkien themed tour of New Zealand. Her sophomore novel, Can't Help Falling, is about about how an antique shop, a wardrobe, and a mysterious tea cup bring two C.S. Lewis fans together in a snowy and picturesque Oxford, England. When she's not working her day job as a public servant, chasing around a ninja preschooler and his feisty toddler sister, she spends her time writing horribly bad first drafts and wishing you could get Double Stuf Oreos in New Zealand. She loves to connnect on her website, on Facebook at Kara Isaac - Author and Twitter @KaraIsaac   

Author Houses

Have you ever visited the house of a favourite author? Perhaps visited a place where they have set a book, or an important scene?

For as long as I can remember, I've loved Anne of Green Gables, by Canadian author, Lucy Maud Montgomery (yes, it probably had something to do with the hair colour!). When an unexpected windfall came my way several years ago, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: go to Canada. So I did.

Green Gables, Cavendish, PEI

Prince Edward Island has to be almost exactly opposite on the other side of the world from the small NSW country town where I live. Getting there (via LA, Chicago, driving up from Boston) was adventure enough. But staying there, smelling the Atlantic brine, walking the red dirt roads, visiting the house where Lucy Maud stayed as a girl (which Green Gables was based on), having relatives of the author (!) talk about her work, all of these things helped bring the novels to life with such clarity that a girl from Australia could only marvel and thank God for this opportunity. (And maybe pretend, for a moment, while walking down Lover's Lane, that my husband was Gilbert?)

Lake Muskoka

A few days later we were in Muskoka, Ontario, scene of the novel The Blue Castle, also by LM Montgomery. Hearing the pines sing over the swathes of beautiful blue lakes was another boost to the imaginings of a girl more used to dusty paddocks and grey-green gum trees, my raving over this gorgeous part of the world prompting my sister to visit the following year.

Your turn: have you ever visited a favourite author's house or seen a favourite location from a book? Did it meet your expectations? What was the experience like?

                                   Carolyn Miller lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and four children. A longtime lover of romance, especially that of the Regency era, Carolyn holds a BA in English Literature, and loves drawing readers into fictional worlds that show the truth of God’s grace in our lives. Her novels have won or finaled in over a dozen contests, including the 2014 RWA ‘Touched by Love’ and 2014 ACFW Genesis contests. Carolyn is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and My Book Therapy, and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Connect with her: www.carolynmiller.org    

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