Going AWOL

Hey folks,

I’m back! Thanks to all of you new followers and commenters who’ve been checking out my website! It’s nice to see some new “faces” in the mix around here :)

I apologize for the “hiatus” I seem to have taken. But I do have some good news to report… from a personal standpoint, anyway. I’ve been very busy moving into the new house my husband and I bought last month (our first!) and also pretty occupied growing the new addition to our family (our second!) who has yet to be determined as a boy or girl. So becoming new parents again and moving has pretty much eaten up our free time.

In other news, more along the lines of what may interest my readers, we’re still on track to get you that next book! Please stay tuned (and bear with me) as June draws nearer. “Socially Awkward” will go to print as planned! Check back here for details!

All the best,

Stephanie

My Busy Week: A Recap

Wow… This week has been a little bit of insane. If you’re a friend of mine of Facebook, then you’ve seen the flash-flood of statuses, posts, and other information there. If not, here’s what you missed…

My New Blog Project!
In an effort to focus my new commitment to living a healthy lifestyle, replete with healthy foods and yoga practices, I’ve begun a new blog: My Life in Yoga Pants. So far, my posts are mostly reflective in nature, but soon, I’m hoping to include healthy recipes, yoga poses, techniques, and fun pictures to entertain you. I hope you’ll subscribe to keep an eye on my progress!

My New Freedom!
After a little bit of a time lapse issue, A Previous Engagement: A Novel has now become free at Amazon for the Kindle. In about 72 hours, I seem to have exploded onto the scene over there at Amazon, logging an impressive 8,845 downloads. In a month and a half, I haven’t yet hit 6000 downloads from Smashwords, so I guess Amazon is where it’s at! I’ve landed onto the Top 100 Free Downloads list (sitewide) at #32. It’s hard not to be damn proud of that.

My New Business Endeavor!
On impulse–yes, I do that sometimes–I decided to throw my hat back into the ring of at-home beauty sales. I miss it, I truly do. So, you can now shop my beauty and fashion boutique at my Mark Store online. This is a sub-brand of Avon, but the products are great and very, very affordable! I love their makeup, so I’m hoping to share it with others through this new business endeavor. Don’t worry; it’s not going to replace writing. Ever.

My New Book Trailer!
I finally made a book trailer. Or, rather my dear friend/roommate/girlfriend of my brother-in-law Katelyn Tustin made me a book trailer. Hey, I found the pictures. But anyway, watch it, like it, share it, do whatever it is you do with these things. I’m hoping this trailer will help me draw in a new 10,000 readers. Who knows? In the works right now, a “Love Unlisted: A Novel” book trailer. Stay tuned!

It’s been a pretty incredible week for me here, I hope yours has been just as eventful! Already can’t wait to see what next week has in store.

My First Author Reading!

I’m excited to announce my first reading appearance! I’ve done a couple of book signings and author mingling events, but this will be my first experience reading on a stage! Woohoo!

I hope you’ll come and join me on February 17, 2012, at the Hovey Players in Waltham, MA!  I’ll be signing/selling copies of A Previous Engagement, Love Unlisted, and (drumroll) Love Regifted!!! Not sure what I’ll be reading from yet, but it will be lots of fun, I promise!

I’ll also be joined by Jessie Olson, author of An Ever Fixed Mark!

For more information, visit our event’s Facebook page. You can reserve tickets ($5 each) by emailing Nicole@hoveyplayers.com.

Hope to see you there!

Friday the Thirteenth: A Book Giveaway!

It’s Friday the 13th, everyone. If that doesn’t bother you, even a little bit, good for you.  Unfortunately, I was raised in far too superstitious a household to get past this date without at a least a moment’s fear. Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky? Why am I afraid of a date that comes up every once in a while, just like any other date? What’s the big deal?

In Love Unlisted, my main character Grace is afraid of a lot of things, including the number 13 (a condition called triskaidekapthehobia.) She’s especially afraid of Friday the 13th (a condition called friggatriskaidekaphobia. Seriously.), but at least she’s got a good reason. Okay, a few good reasons. That day really is unlucky for her. Coincidence? Maybe. But she’s not willing to start poking around to find out why.

However, I am, and so I did a little research on what makes Friday the Thirteenth such a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad kind of day. No one’s really sure where this came from, specifically, although the superstitions around the number 13 seem to come from (surprise!) Christianity. Twelve is considered a whole and perfect number (12 Tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, etc.) and 13 is unbalanced, therefore unlucky.

One theory points to the history of the Knights Templar as the first cause of fear surrounding Friday the 13th. On October 13, 1307, the French Templars were rounded up and imprisoned to later be tried and put to death. That would do it, I bet. But other than that, nothing.

In my own personal life, unlike my character Grace, I can’t point to any specific incident and say, “That’s why I hate this date…” I guess I must’ve just inherited my fear of a date, a product of my environment. I know why I hate things like heights, spiders, and enclosed spaces (all legitimate fears, mind you), but I have no idea why today’s date is scary.

Well, that’s a good thing, right?

So what about you? Are your nerves on edge when you see Friday the 13th on your calendar? What else are you irrationally afraid of?  Share your thoughts with me in the comments section (please include your email address) for a chance to win a FREE e-book of Love Unlisted. Maybe reading about Grace’s fears will make you feel better about your own… Maybe.

Come back next Friday to see if you’ve won!

 

 

Breaking My Own Mold

I’ve been writing romance novels for the past couple of years, and I have to admit there’s a certain kind of rhythm to the process. Not that every romance novel is the same, or anything, it’s just that the act of writing them seems to follow a certain kind of pattern. Four novels in, I’ve got a routine down by now.

Before I wrote these novels, when I first “officially” tried my hand at fiction, I began by building up a reserve of short stories. Some of these were entered in contests, some were published in free magazines, but all of them eventually sat gathering cyber dust. It’s been a while since I’ve written a short story, but they’ve always held a fond place in my heart. For this reason, I decided to dust them off and put them into a collection.

As I read through them, deciding which to include and which to hold off on, I began to see a pattern. Even before I was writing romances, or had ever thought about being a romance author, my stories were all commentaries on love, in one way or another. People who love each other and show it in strange ways, people who love their daily routine or the possessions they own, people who find comfort in the love of their family members. There are many types of love and they all deserve to be looked at, celebrated even.

Just because I write about men and women who fall in love and live happily ever after, that doesn’t mean I can’t see the other kinds of love out there.

And that’s how I came up with my latest e-book release: “Other Kinds of Love: A Short Story Collection.” It contains 12 stories written at different points of my life, regarding different issues. And all kinds of love, in its many (warped, deranged, endearing) forms.

If you’d like to take a peek, it’s now available via Smashwords and Amazon. Soon to be on iTunes and at Barnes & Noble online, so you’ll be able to load it up on your Nook or iPad in no time.

As always, thanks for reading. And if you do decide to give “Other Kinds of Love” a read, I hope you enjoy it.

Why Free Was For Me

If you’ve been following my announcement over the past month, you might have caught on to the fact that I’ve made my novel, A Previous Engagement, free as an ebook. (Paperbacks aren’t free, sorry…LOL). You can download it just about anywhere: Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, and iTunes. It was a risky move, just giving away my work, but it was one I felt I needed to make.

See, to be totally honest, before I made that novel free to download, sales weren’t going so great for me. I’d hand-sold about 100 paperback copies (of my two titles combined) and only about 30 of the ebooks. Sure, that’s a great start for an independent self-pubbed author like myself, but I knew I could be in better shape.  After all, A Previous Engagement had been out for about five months in December and I hadn’t reached anywhere near the audience I knew I could. Ads, giveaways, and guest blogs were helping, but barely. And with a second title WAY under-performing the first after two months out, I was heading downhill. My self-publishing career was costing me more than it was earning me.

That’s when I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands.

I thought long and hard, made lots of lists, and consulted some of my friends in the Indie Author Group on Facebook. In the end, it was their advice that really got me leaning towards making one of my titles free. Many had shared their stories with me, especially how a free ebook had helped them to gain exposure, reach new readers, and ultimately, resulted in more sales of their other titles.  With two books out, I knew making one free could help me sell the other. And since I plan to publish three more novels in 2012, I hoped reaching new readership would have a domino effect on all my titles’ sales.

So I did it. On December 9, 2011, one month ago today, I made A Previous Engagement free and lowered the price of Love Unlisted to just 99-cents. That was a big jump from my asking price of $2.99 for each title. I was risking quite a bit of potential profit, but I knew from experience in retail that you’ll sell more volume at a lower price. In the end, provided you reach as many new customers as you hoped, your sales dollars will be greater when selling at the lower price. But you’re not reading this for a basic consumerism lesson, you want to know what happened…

Well, a few things happened. First of all, I hit 1000 downloads of my free title in about 9 days. Today, one month later, I’m closing in quickly on 5,000 downloads. I’m averaging about 150-200 downloads every single day, and they’re coming from all outlets, iTunes especially. Here’s some other fun facts about what a free book will do for an indie author’s reach:

  • I’ve gathered 470 ratings and about 30 reviews on iTunes for my free title.
  • And about 20 ratings for my second novel (the 99-cent one).
  • I reached the #4 spot on the top free downloads for contemporary romance novels on iTunes.
  • The was listed on several popular sites as a free title, reaching lots of new readers. Check out GetFreeEbooks.com for one example.
  • I’ve gathered almost 50 reviews on Barnes & Noble (2 for Love Unlisted so far.)
  • My sales of Love Unlisted were multiplied 10 times over. I sold 4 copies in November, compared to over 40 copies in December alone!
  • I’ve added about 20 new fans to my Facebook page!
  • My blog went from averaging 8 hits per day to averaging over 40 hits per day!

So while it’s early days still, and I have new titles to publish and promote, I have to say that the first results of this freebie experiment are all positive. Not every rating is a 5-star one, not every review is glowing, but the point is that people are reading. And when they like what they read, they’re buying my next book. I’m not going to be a millionaire any time soon, but I’m just happy my books are being read.

At the end of the day, isn’t that why we write our books anyway?

A Whole New Year

Despite the drop in temperatures and that post-holiday fall-out, I must confess that January is one of my favorite times of the year. There’s something about that clean-slate feeling that I just love. The chance for new beginnings, an excuse to tie-up loose ends, the perfect excuse to undertake a new adventure.

A few years ago, my resolution for the new year was to begin my publishing career. Back then, I thought that meant tracking down an agent and doing things the old fashioned way. I never thought I’d wind up here, anticipating my third book release all by myself… no agent, no editor, no publisher.  And you know, I like it much better this way, even if it isn’t the way I first dreamed it up.

That’s the thing about each new year… the possibilities seem wide open, the future bright. There’s no telling where you’ll end up or what you’ll be doing when this new year comes to a close. I want to release three books in 2012 and accomplish a whole slew of personal goals in the process… some of these things will definitely happen, some not. But the things that will happen that I don’t plan for are just as exciting.

So, 2012, bring it on!  I’ve got big plans for you… and I hope you’ve got some for me, too.

My First Guest Blog…

I wrote a guest post! True story.

Karen Wojcik Berner, author of A Whisper to a Scream, was kind enough to declare December 7 as STEPHANIE HADDAD DAY on her blog. I have to admit, I like the sound of that.

So swing by her blog today…. right here… to read my post about staying organized for the holidays. Leave a comment for the chance to win a free copy of my novel, Love Unlisted!


A Free Book!

Happy Holidays! I hope that you had a fabulous Thanksgiving and aren’t too scared about getting all that gift-shopping done in time.

Now that NaNoWriMo has ended, I can turn my attention back to the more important things in life… like my sick toddler, my Christmas shopping list, and all the cookies I need to bake.  In the meantime, I’m also planning to get some quality reading done.

If you’re like me and need something good to curl up with, I hope you’ll consider downloading a free digital copy of my novel “A Previous Engagement” — a gift to you for the holidays.  Visit the book’s page at Smashwords and add it to your cart, then checkout… It’s totally free! Happy Holidays!

Day 29: The End

I did it!! I wrote upwards of 6,000 words in one crazy marathon to complete my 2011 National Novel Writing Month project, “Socially Awkward.”  With a final *official* count of 50,008 words, I just made it.  According to Microsoft Word, it’s more like 50,100… but I’m not sure where the discrepancies are coming in here. Oh well. A win is a win. And here’s the badge to prove it… –>

And yes, even though this is my third win, it still feels pretty good. I’d venture to say it’s even more fulfilling now that I have so many other demands on my time. But sick toddler and all, I finished it. Woo!

So now what happens?

Well, one thing is for sure, it’ll be a few months before anyone gets to read this one.  There are some gaping holes that need filling in some of the sub plots. And to be honest, all the scenes are out of order. This book needs a major overhaul. Somewhere around Draft 6, we should be really to publish this puppy.

Mark your calendars for an intended release of June 21, 2012.

In the short term, I now turn my attentions back to the oft neglected “Ava” novel… here goes nothing.

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