First round of thanks for No Strings Attached readers

No Strings Attached has been out for a week, and here's my first round of shoutouts to the people who've been so generous with their time (and money).

Thank you, Chachic, Tina, Lee, Layla, Hazel N, Tin, M and popandcrackle!

And to address a few things that I read/heard in the first week:

From Chachic's review: "The focus isn’t the build up of the love story but rather the complications involved in their relationship."

Very true, although not what I intended. Let me just share -- when I got back into a romance groove, I decided to write three love stories based on the three different love interests I felt I could write about. (My Imaginary Ex, Fairy Tale Fail, and Love Your Frenemies represent all that.) No Strings Attached was a fun thing I tried based on a friend's suggested concept, but it happened to get noticed first.

From Tina's review: "I liked how Carla seemed like a very real person, and her friends offer enough contrast to her for the readers to see the different sides of the story without telling it to them in a long monologue of sorts from the heroine."

Thank you. I did base her on a real person, who would likely never do what Carla did. Oh well, fiction. :)

No Strings Attached

From the back cover:

Carla is a whiz at her job: she’s efficient, reliable, and a total genius when it comes to putting something together at the last minute. The snag is she’s single and turning the big three-oh in a few months. Her girl best friend (yes, she’s married just like the other girls in Carla’s barkada) keeps trying to set her up with stable banker-types, while her guy best friend (single – the other single one) encourages her to play the field – no strings attached.

Then, through no set up or extraordinary circumstance, Carla meets Dante. Hot, smug, sexy Dante. Definitely not a banker-type and seemingly too good to be true. So there’s got to be a catch. There is. He’s five years younger. Is the universe telling Carla to finally let loose and enjoy a fling with a younger man? Or is there a lot more to this awkward situation that she bargained for?

My second novel with Summit Books is out now. Hope you're all in a book-buying mood. :)

This was the work that I had originally talked about in this blog, but under a different working title. I'm happy with the title change, though, and appreciate that there's a lot of feedback and care behind getting these books out.

Some shoutouts:

Editor Ines and Publisher Aueeie: It's hard work, what you do. But I'm so glad you make the effort. I hope it's fun rather than frustrating on most days. :)
Abi Goy at Studio Dialogo: Excellent cover!
Husband Michael A.R. Co for the help with the not-girly stuff.
Certain friends (they should know who they are) for suggesting the concept.
Chris for answering my odd questions.

Thank you for the support and encouragement. :)

I will never get tired of these posts I guess

November has beaten October as Fairy Tale Fail's best month ever. Amazon also launched (finally) a way to give Kindle books as gifts, even to people who have never opened a Kindle account, so this might even get better. (I hope!) If anything it's taught me that momentum is a big part of the ebook success thing -- a big promo push in the beginning helps, but also constant buildup.

That said, Amazon is a mostly American audience, and I'm never really sure how they'll react to a very obviously Pinoy story (though it's in English). This review by Holly of Book Harbinger came out recently and gave me an idea.

I also found out that FTF's older sibling My Imaginary Ex is still selling, more than a year after its release. Recent reviews by online communities and book bloggers have been significantly helpful.

Speaking of helpful online communities, a Goodreads page has been created for No Strings Attached. (Thanks, Chachic!)

Paper again, and word counts

FTF paperback update: Batch 1 is all out, but I'm expecting batch 2 to arrive in a few weeks. Sorry about the delay -- apparently I'm bad at figuring out supply and demand. (Good thing I'm not an economist!) Please be OK with being batch 2. :)

The books got some exposure on the interwebs this week by being featured on Chachic's Book Nook. It's always exciting, especially now that I've come out and started interacting with people who post stuff about the book. The reviews also give me something to think about, so here are a few thoughts to toss back out:

From Chachic's review of Fairy Tale Fail: "If only the paperback was as cheap as the e-book edition, I’d buy lots of copies and give them as Christmas gifts to my girlfriends. Unfortunately, the paperback is more expensive at P350."

I appreciate the thought, and I do wish the printing was cheaper. :( I got a great deal from CreateSpace, but it still can't beat the cost of distributing an ebook.

From her review of My Imaginary Ex: "I just have to say that I’m enjoying reading local chick lit. I just have a minor complaint – they’re all so thin! Small paperbacks less than 150 pages long. I’d be glad to read something meatier if the authors come up with something like that."

I had to learn to write with a word limit that would still make good business sense to my publisher. But to their credit, my next title's manuscript was 8,000 words over -- but they're still taking a chance on it. (Love them!)

BTW I just found out that that book now shares a title with an upcoming Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman movie. (Story's different, as far as I can tell. Unless they too meet on a beach in Batangas.)

FTF Kindle report card

This graph represents Fairy Tale Fail's sales figures on the Amazon Kindle Store in its first six months. It's not at all at the level of quitting my day job, but for an indie publishing experiment you can probably see why I'm excited. I don't know what accounts for the spike, but my theories:

- Changing the price from $1.89 to $0.99
- Tina at One More Page's review
- Joining Goodreads and the Goodreads Filipino group
- Amazon reviews from Laura and Vicki Tyley
- Amazon UK's Kindle Store opening in August (but based on figures, this isn't significantly the cause)
- Releasing a more expensive paperback ($7.99) drove people to purchase the ebook
- Amazon's recommendations algorithm

Maybe it's a combination of all of the above, only Amazon really knows, but this makes me want to release that next book project now. There just might be a market for it after all!

BTW - for FTF's early adopters who purchased at $1.89, you will be getting the next ebook project free from me. Working on it now. :)

Fairy Tale Fail paperback live in Manila - another experiment

A small batch of Fairy Tale Fail paperbacks are now here in Manila, and for sale.

Price: P350.00
Pickup point: Salcedo St, Makati City.
Email minavesguerra[at]gmail[dot]com for details and other possible pickup points. :)

The batch is small because, frankly, as a reader I am a cheapskate and I rarely pay P350.00 for books nowadays. I'm not sure how many people would buy it at this price when it's already on Smashwords and the Amazon Kindle Store for less than P100 or P200 (depending on your format preference).

But I was told that people love paper, let's see...

If you purchase the paperback, you will also get:
1. A free copy of the ebook version
2. A free copy of my next ebook (when it comes out)

If you've already ordered the paperback from Amazon, email me at minavesguerra[at]gmail[dot]com and tell me -- so you can still get the free future ebook. :)

Getting Pinoys back on more reading lists

There's some interesting talk going on at different Filipino book blogs about local publishing, genres, marketing books via social media, and then some. Jump in via Tina's post at One More Page and follow the links like breadcrumbs.

Their topics are things that have been floating around in my head for a while, especially in the past year or so, since I was first published, and since I started deliberately reading more work by Filipino authors. Others are finding it difficult to start the reading bit, because of a lack of variety in genres that interest them.

That's true in my case too -- I've read one generational epic (about oppressive landowners and oppressed workers and Martial Law and People Power), one drama about the immigrant experience and family, two classics about all our social ills, and the very modern-meta take on it all which won the Man Asian... so now I feel I've come full circle, and any books I find that are about any of those topics I wouldn't read unless highly recommended.

I do like contemporary lit though, and the way it's emerging in local publishing is via chick lit. I've voted with my wallet, and they seem to be coming out with more of it, so it's not just me telling people to read this stuff. (I also LOVE ZsaZsa Zaturnnah and Trese to bits -- buy them!)

In terms of new material, I do hope publishers explore this more. Like YA, which is the "gateway drug" for so many young readers (me included), and I've read a number of short stories that could have been their own cool Pinoy YA novel if someone just pushed and demanded more from the author.

For writers who encounter some resistance, please consider publishing for the Kindle. It's work (on top of the work of actually writing the thing, I know), but getting it out there is such a wonderful learning experience. If you believe in your story that much, then give me the chance to "sample" it! And by all means, find a way to promote it online, via book blogs and online groups. Summit Books did such a great job marketing My Imaginary Ex when it came out, but it's been a year, and if I get any new sales at all I believe it's because of the community of readers who talk about it online. They're a force!