Ruth Kaufman - Award-Winning Author and Romance Writer

Ruth Kaufman is the author of My Life as a Star, My Life as an Extra, My Once & Future Love, The Bride Tournament, Follow Your Heart, At His Command and other books.

The Week After Release Day

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My release day January 21 was so much fun, including a celebration later in the evening.  

Highlights of the first week include:

  • Getting an email saying that Publisher’s Weekly has selected the Historical Romance Version for review (out of thousands of submissions). They also said there’s a small chance the review won’t be published. Assuming it is, I think it’ll be in PW and on BookLife, their indie publishing site. Of course I’m hoping they say good things….
  • Romance Writers of America asked me to write a new monthly column for their eNotes e-newsletter called Author Experiment Case Studies. I featured mine, publishing two versions of the same book, this week. I look forward to seeing what other author experiments I come across and how well they worked.
  • The USAToday HEA Romance Unlaced blog by Madeline Hunter for which I was interviewed to feature both versions was shared on Facebook 127 times, tweeted 60 times (including a tweet to HEA’s 14.6K followers), and posted 9 times on LinkedIn.
  • Making Amazon’s Hot New Releases lists with both versions in their respective categories.
  • I guest posted on the topic “When are you done,” at Seekerville, one of Writers Digest’s top 100 sites for authors, and enjoyed chatting with the commenters. And I was asked to guest on another romance blog…awaiting details. 
  • Receiving my print copies in the mail. Holding the book you wrote, with your name on it in huge letters is wonderful.
  • Amazon suggested I might like my own book.
Lowlights include:
  • Frustration trying to figure out how to upload the print versions to B&N and iBooks (which sends you to iTunes and is generally un-user friendly).
  • Not being able to instantly satisfy those who wanted to buy my book in a store. I haven’t worked on that because of the time it takes that may not yield the desired result. If I’m fortunate to get good reviews from valued sources, they might pave the way on a difficult path.
  • Time management. I enjoy guest posting on blogs, but writing different posts for each and requesting spots can be time consuming. Chatting with commenters is a lot of fun, but the guest should check in often throughout the day, which can be distracting.
What’s to come? Stay tuned…

AT HIS COMMAND now available in paperback & print!

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There’s only one first release day for every author. Back in the day, you might go to a bookstore to view your book on an actual shelf, and maybe you’d sign the stock. In these digital days of indie publishing, my release day yesterday was online.

An exciting development was my interview in USAToday’s HEA Romance Unlaced blog written by bestseller Madeline Hunter, Seeking shelter from the heat? So far that’s been posted to Facebook over 100 times, tweeted 56 times and posted on LinkedIn 9 times.

Supportive friends and colleagues tweeted, shared, posted and commented on Facebook, and informed me of their purchases.

I spent a lot of time on social media and email, and participated in Marketing for Romance Writers’ #MFRWHooks and meet the #MFRWauthor promotion.

I refreshed my sales reports and Amazon Hot New Releases every so often, and was thrilled to watch both ebook versions climb in their respective categories throughout the day, and though they went online later in the day, the print versions showed up on the lists, too. As of this writing, AT HIS COMMAND-Historical Romance Version is #21 in Medieval Historical Romance…so close to making it to the first page. And the Inspirational Version is #39 in Historical Inspirational Romance. Will they climb higher? Stay tuned.