Take control of your author career to sell more books, spend more time writing, and build consistent income so you can stop stressing. If you missed any of the items from the campaign, you can grab them here! BackerKit automatically adds them to the campaign totals.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello, authors -
Thank you so much for your kindness and patience as we got The Bestselling Author Next Door out to... everyone! Yes, the ebooks, audiobooks, paperbacks, workbooks, marketing decks, and almost everything have been shared with those who pledged for them. I've gotten some posts and comments from those reading, and the ways it has already changed their mindsets, so I'm very grateful.
There was a bonus as part of a stretch goal for a brand-new workshop titled How to Write a Breakout Romance Novel. That's happening tomorrow, Wednesday, May 31st at 1 pm CST! If you pledged $100 or more then you should have access to it on authoradsintensive.com already.
You can login at authoradsintensive.com/login and there's also a place to reset your password. Please try that before contacting us! However if you still can't get in then you can email [email protected]. (Note: If you did not pledge more than $100 in the Kickstarter, you will not have an account on authoradsintensive.com.) Inside Author Ads Intensive you can find the product How to Write a Breakout Romance Novel which has the Zoom link.
While most of my conversation revolves around marketing your books, this is one of the few times where, along with Mastering Trilogies, I talk about craft. Since we're focused on a "breakout" romance novel, we're still thinking about sales, but this is what we can do while we're writing the book.
In case you're wondering if you're going to have to "sell out", please know that the phrase selling out supports the lie of the starving artist. It's a false dichotomy. You don't need to starve to create great art.
And more importantly--I fully believe good craft leads to better sales. That has always been true, it's just not something I've really talked about in detail until now. This workshop will focus on that.
It WILL be recorded, so no worries if you can't make it live.
The 90-minute VIP Group Coaching and Q&A will be on Wednesday, June 14th at 1 pm CST. It's a little more important that you've read the book by this time, as we will be discussing the ideas and implementation strategies from what's inside. But even if you don't read it in time you can still show up and soak it in. And of course, it will also be recorded.
The only other item left on the Kickstarter after that is the Personal Advice from Skye Warren, which is happening slowly but I will get through all of them over the summer. (I enjoy them but also find it stressful because I want to read all your books and do a deep dive for every person, which is literally impossible. But please know that I believe in every single one of you.)
Hello, all! I'm dropping back into your inbox with some frequently asked questions as well as the audiobook update...
1. If you aren't sure what BackerKit is or where to get your downloads - don't worry! BackerKit is sending out emails when they're ready in your account. I went ahead and posted the update as soon as it started going out, but not everyone had been emailed yet. If you haven't gotten the email from BackerKit by tomorrow, at that point please email Steph at [email protected].
Also if you see some of your downloads, but not all of them, please wait until tomorrow because for some people they showed up at different times.
2. The original e-book epub was somehow corrupted, so we've now fixed that with a new version. If you are able to read the book, you do NOT need to re-download it. It's the exact same content. But if for any reason it's not opening for you on your e-reader, then you can redownload from BackerKit.
3. The download for Year of Focus Planner was incomplete. If you downloaded it and it only had 8 pages, please re-download it using the same link. It should be 22 pages.
4. The audiobook is now available to listen! This one was a little trickier since we could not deliver it via BackerKit. Instead we used BookFunnel. These were distributed automatically to your BookFunnel account using the email address on BackerKit. However, it will NOT email you to let you know. So if you already have an account on BookFunnel, you can login and listen. If you don't yet have a BookFunnel account for that email, you can create a new one and it will appear in your library.
Here's the official script from BookFunnel:
Your books have been added to your BookFunnel library! To get your books, just log in to the BookFunnel app or my.bookfunnel.com using your Kickstarter email. If you log in and your BookFunnel library is empty, log in to BookFunnel using your other email address to get your books.
The good news is that you'll be able to listen to it using the BookFunnel app, similar to how you do with Audible or Chirp, instead of having to get a bunch of audio files. I hope this will be easier.
Thank you, everyone!
Hey, everyone!
Thank you so much for your support of this Kickstarter and on the last post. And your patience. I have an update on every single reward in this post!
➥ Paperbacks, spiral workbooks, and marketing decks are being shipped right now! About 80% have been packaged and are with the post office. Many of you have also gotten emails with tracking info. The rest will be out in the next day or two. Naturally arrival time will depend on the postal service and how far away you are, but hopefully soon.
➥ E-books have gone out! They're available in both EPUB (easiest for e-readers) and PDF format. You'll access them via BackerKit. It should send you an email, but you can also use the link for your survey to get back in.
➥ Digital workbooks have gone out as well! Same thing on distribution. They have been reformatted to be printable on regular printer paper.
➥ Digital versions of the Marketing Deck are also available on BackerKit! I provided the regular, beautifully designed cards in PDF format that we printed. This is great if you want to just keep it on your computer. However if you wanted to print them, it would be trickier since there's so much color and the sizing is not what printers are used to, so I also created a printable version that's black and white with multiple cards on a page so you can print it normally and cut them out.
➥ The audiobooks have hit a snag, as the way that I had planned to distribute them via BackerKit would be awkward to download and hard to listen to. So I've requested access to the BookFunnel audiobook beta, which will hopefully work better. Please stay tuned for this one!
➥ As stated on a previous update, the Breakout Romance Novel workshop will be on Wednesday, May 31st at 1 pm CST. And the 90-minute VIP Group Coaching and Q&A will be on Wednesday, June 14th at 1 pm CST. So if you've pledged for those, mark your calendars!
I'm hoping that fulfillment goes smoothly for everyone, but I also understand some people may have questions or run into hiccups. I'm here to help as much as I can. Please email Steph at [email protected]. I also drop in there when I can depending on the volume to help answer questions.
Thank you again--and happy reading!
Very excited that we got the cards in today and they look wonderful! Which means I'm spending all next week fulfilling orders! Yes, physical AND digital orders. I hope that you're excited to get the rewards.
However, I need to address some of the angry messages and comments in author groups. I'm used to the supportive community of romancelandia, so this took me by surprise. If I saw an author say that their husband fell off a ladder and required major surgery, which then had complications, we'd say, "of course your book will be late, readers need to understand that you're human, not a machine!"
And here's the thing, readers do understand that. They're usually very kind.
But I guess... some authors are mad and talking about it behind my back.
Everyone wants to be liked, and I am no exception. I want to be liked but... there is no universe where this was going to take priority over the many, many, many ER, hospital, and doctor's visits I've done in the past three months. And we haven't even started physical therapy.
On the one hand I'm sorry people are upset with me. I never, ever wanted that.
On the other hand, ouch. I would literally never talk smack about an author in a group just to point out that they're late with a book during a medical emergency.
No one has asked me for a refund, but if anyone would like one, PLEASE let me know ASAP, and I'll be happy to provide it. I don't have any desire to "force" someone to accept a book they ordered but no longer want. I worked on the book, the journal, the marketing deck, with love--and honestly would rather they not be received by anyone who holds resentment towards me and this project.
IMPORTANT: The only way to get the refund is to email Steph at [email protected] FROM the email address you used on Kickstarter (so we can find it easily), with the subject line REFUND REQUEST. Once they go out the refund offer will no longer apply, so let us know by 4/1, Saturday night, midnight CST. The books are going out this upcoming week so it has to be fast.
I know that a significant portion of you getting this update have been totally understanding.
Please know that I appreciate you fully--your presence, your messages, and your patience.
It was my first time ever making a deck of cards like this so that process was new to me, but I think they turned out wonderful--as did the book and journal. I'm very excited to see everyone at the Breakout Romance Novel and VIP Coaching and Q&A calls as well.