Author Spotlight Interview: Brittni Chenelle
By: Hidden Gems | Posted on April 28, 2020
This week, we continue our series of author spotlight interviews by chatting with Brittni Chenelle, the author of genre-defying multicultural fantasy books like Kingdom Cold and the Gifted Fae Academy series. We spoke to her about her inspirations and motivations, and how she dreamed up the unique world of her magical academy. HG: So, Brittni – on a personal note, I thought your book was SO original! BC: Thank you so much! I was really nervous to publish it. It was my first attempt at writing Urban Fantasy. HG: The magical academy genre is a very packed one. When you started writing, did you make creative choices to specifically stand out from the crowd? Or did that just happen naturally? What do you think makes your universe and characters different to the mainstream? BC: Writing something unique that doesn’t necessarily fit anywhere is the easier task. I struggled more with… Read More >
Keep Your Sagas Consistent the Dungeons and Dragons Way
By: Ginger | Posted on April 24, 2020
Writing a book series is a great way to establish a sustainable writing career – but the bigger your literary universe, the more difficult it becomes to keep track of it. Strong and recurring characters are the backbone of any great saga, but as your cast continues to grow, it becomes more and more difficult to keep track of everyone’s appearance, background and traits. So why not steal an idea from Dungeons and Dragons and use character sheets to keep it all straight? This year, I published the tenth book in my most popular romance series and began adapting all the previous ones into paperback – and that’s when I ran across a problem. In Book One of my series – the one I was turning into a paperback – I was reminded that my big, bad, baseball-bat swinging protagonist had an older brother. In Book Nine, I’d specifically spoken… Read More >
Review Writing Made Easy – the 5 Questions Method
By: Ginger | Posted on April 21, 2020
If the only thing stopping you from writing a review for a book you read, whether from us or anywhere else, is that you don’t know what to write, don’t give up just yet. We have an idea that may help, and aside from buying an author’s books, there’s no better way to support them by regularly leaving them honest and quality reviews. Remember – other potential readers use those reviews to help them decide whether to take a chance on a new book, so their importance to an author can’t be overstated. The best thing about being a subscriber to Hidden Gems is the opportunity to download and enjoy FREE eBooks from over 15 different genres – including the latest titles by USA Today and New York Times best selling authors. However, the reason these authors choose to send out all these free books is that they’re hoping that… Read More >
LinkedIn Advertising – An Overlooked Option for Non-Fiction Authors
By: Ginger | Posted on April 17, 2020
While the overall principles of advertising a book are mainly the same between fiction and non-fiction, it is true that most of our ad and marketing posts are more specifically geared towards writers of fiction. That’s why this week, we’re going to discuss an often overlooked option that is much more suited to writers of non-fiction – and that’s advertising your book on the more professionally oriented social media site LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the professional social network – kind of like Facebook for people in suits. Most of us have a presence there, and because of the way LinkedIn is set up, you might even have hundreds more contacts than you do on Facebook. While it’s not so effective for advertising steamy romance novels, or gritty crime thrillers, there is a lot of value in this audience for authors who write under their own name, and publish books that might… Read More >
Isolate yourself with these 5 Epic Fantasy Adventures
By: Hidden Gems | Posted on April 14, 2020
With the COVID-19 crisis continuing, your Kindle or eReader might just become your new best friend. Today, we’re sharing 5 fantasy titles recently read and reviewed by Hidden Gems subscribers – and remember, if you want to receive free fantasy books like these – or others from 15 different genres – just sign up today and select your favorites. Exile’s Redemption by Lee Dunning The Elven Nation lies fractured, and ambitious young scholar Raven hopes to reunite it with knowledge she scours from the great library. However, when portals to another dimension open, flooding her homeland with bloodthirsty demons, Raven needs to ally herself with an even darker entity; and hope she can use the power of the exiled W’rath to defend her people. “I might become a fantasy reader,” warned JD Lovil in a 5-star review. “The Author starts you off with a very artfully drawn map of the elfish… Read More >
How to Write Killer Facebook Ad Copy
By: Ginger | Posted on April 10, 2020
One of the biggest complaints authors have about self-publishing is that they have to do their own marketing and advertising, which is why we spend so much time on the topic in our blog. And while we have covered Facebook ads in the past, there is at least one area where people still ask for help most frequently – writing the actual ad copy! That’s because when done right, Facebook ads can be a very effective tool for selling your books – but if you aren’t careful, they can just end up being very expensive! The key is in determining which combination of words will be most effective in drawing clicks to your book, so we have some tips for that. I spent many years as an advertising copy writer in the New York advertising agency world, and if there’s one thing I learned it was that “shorter is better.”… Read More >
Author Spotlight Interview: Jeana E. Mann
By: Hidden Gems | Posted on April 7, 2020
This week we have a quick chat with Jeana E. Mann, the USA Today bestselling author of The Exiled Prince, The Rebel Queen, and The Ruthless Knight. A former corporate executive, Jeana now has over twenty books, three series, and several awards beneath her belt – proving that she made the right choice to boldly live out her dream of becoming a writer. HG: First off – WHO IS Jeana E. Mann? How do you describe yourself? I saw your bio on Amazon (I’m a writer, too, and I followed you out of corporate America. I’d love to explore that! You’re so inspirational!) but first – who is Jeana E. Mann to readers who might not have heard of you before? JM: Although I always wanted to be a writer, I got a degree in Speech & Hearing (which I hated) and ended up going back to school for accounting…. Read More >
What are your Publishing Priorities?
By: Ginger | Posted on April 3, 2020
As many of us know, when it comes to self-publishing, actually writing your book is really only the first step in a much bigger process and to really have any chance of achieving success in this business, you can’t afford to miss or skip any of the other steps. You want to make the most out of each book launch, which means being prepared and well organized – in other words, “get all your ducks in a row.” Unfortunately, that advice only works when you’re already sure which order your ducks are meant to go in! That’s why in this short guide, we’ll break down the publishing priority list for any independent author. One of the things that holds back a lot of self-published authors is the sheer scale of launching a writing career. Writing a book is hard enough – but then you’ve got to teach yourself how to… Read More >
