What Is Kindle Scout?

Over the last few months, I've been posting about my Kindle Scout experience at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This post originally appeared on their blog in May. This version is slightly edited from the original and discusses my decision to enter the book for a Scout campaign.

Call Me Zhenya is a full-length paranormal romance novel about spies who’ve been genetically altered to have special powers. The hero is a Russian werewolf; the heroine is an American super-brain. Together, they fight crime!

I wrote this book quite some time ago, then spent a lot of time editing and fine-tuning, but mostly ignoring it while I worked on other things that were already contracted. In the back of my mind, I always thought maybe I’d send it to the Amazon contest, or find some other semi-unconventional place for it.

Then Kindle Scout came along. This is a crowdsourced publishing platform—you put your book up, cover and all, and people vote you up or down for a publishing contract. Amazon’s editors then evaluate the books and pick the ones they want for publication. Publication is not entirely based on how many votes you get—KS is looking for well-written work that doesn’t require massive editing.

So KS ended up in the back of my mind, too. But when I finally decided it was time to do something with the book, I submitted it to a lot of traditional places first. I really felt it was one of the more mainstream-type books I’d written in a long time (HA HA HA HA I used “I” and “mainstream” in the same sentence pardon me), and might just have a chance with agents/publishers.

Apparently not. The responses I got were either, “This doesn’t suit our needs at this time,” or “Wow, I liked this a lot, but it doesn’t fit our line/paranormal isn’t selling right now.”

So, after numerous rejections, I decided to move on, and now I’m preparing the manuscript for Kindle Scout. I have some misgivings, but then I always have misgivings (“Do you really have sufficient justification to eat lunch right now?” “Are you sure you really need to stop what you’re doing and go to the bathroom?”). Aren’t you glad you don’t live in my head?

On to some meaty stuff:

Kindle Scout offers a good many pros and not many cons that I could see. The manuscript has to be unpublished—not even on a blog or Wattpad, for example. You also have to be sure you’ve done all the heavy lifting editing-wise, and you have to supply your own cover. Then, during the voting process, you have to run some marketing to get votes. If you’re chosen, you get an advance of $1500 plus Amazon’s marketing machine working for you. The contract is very straightforward, and outlines exactly what the conditions are for you to ask for your rights back.

If you don’t win—here’s where I was a bit surprised. To prepare for this, I started scouting books (4 out of 9 of my choices have gotten contracts—pauses to buff nails and look smug). If the book is NOT chosen for publication, a couple of things happen that I thought were actually pretty neat and author-friendly. First, if you subsequently publish the book through Kindle, Amazon sends out an email to everybody who voted for your book. So if you get, say, 300 votes but no contract, you can then Kindle-fy the book and all 300 of those people will be notified that your book is available. In addition, if you vote for books, those books stay on your Kindle Scout page. The ones that have been published on Amazon will now have a link to their buy page even if the book was not chosen for publication by Amazon. Now that’s a perk.

If a book you voted for is chosen for publication, you receive a free copy and are encouraged to read and review the book to further assist the author you voted for.

My assessment, then, is that this is a positive thing pretty much all the way around. I also read several articles online where industry watchdogs and the like analyzed the contract, just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. Overall, I feel pretty good about that aspect of it.

Getting Ready to Go Scoutin’

My first step to prepare my book was to sign up for Kindle Scout and start scouting books to find out how the process works and also to check out what kinds of books are being submitted (gotta scope out the competition, natch). The KS page presents the cover, the first chapter or so of each book, a blurb and an interview with the author. I usually check the blurb, then read the first chapter until I nope out of it. If I don’t nope out before the end of the excerpt, I give it a vote. That’s my full process. I am lazy. And I’m still scoring almost 50%. (I actually have no idea how that fact is relevant to anything, but I’m still bragging about it. Because I can.)

The next step is marketing. Not for the specific book, but for everything else I’ve ever published. (Okay, maybe not EVERYTHING.) The goal here is just to get some additional people’s eyes on me. I’m focusing on my mailing list and my Facebook page. I also revamped my website (actually both websites, but the Elizabeth Jewell site isn’t as relevant to this effort). I’ve read several books and articles about marketing as a self-publisher. From those books, I’ve pulled out all the advice that’s common to all or most of them, figuring those are probably the most efficient and effective approaches (they’re also the ones that make the most sense to me). In the mean time, I’m also preparing the manuscript and the cover art.

I see I’ve run on quite a bit, so I’ll stop here. Next time, I’ll talk about the nitty gritty of getting a cover prepared and cleaning up the manuscript. In the mean time, go check out Kindle Scout on your own and vote for some books! It’s fun! I promise!

Guest Post from Fellow Scouter Heather MacKinnon

Today I'm turning the blog over to Heather MacKinnon, whose Kindle Scout book, Changed, is in its last few days of campaigning. She's also about to get married! I had already scouted Heather's book when I started my campaign--drop by and hand her a vote!

One night changed everything.

Being Changed into a vampire wasn't in Adrienne's post-college plans. But when she wakes up in a strange basement and can see perfectly in the dark and move impossibly fast she's left to navigate this new world alone. Thankfully, Nicholas steps in to help her adjust. As their feelings grow, she finds out her centuries-old maker is looking for her and determined to make her his wife. Can she outrun the vampire who Changed her and explore her feelings for Nicholas before it's too late?

Tell us a little bit about your book, Changed. What brought you to write it? What do you like most about it?

Changed is a story about a young woman who's made into a new vampire against her will. In this world, the Change is something that involves forms, an orientation, and a training facility. Although vampires remain hidden from humans, their world is governed and orderly. So, when a newly orphaned vampire shows up, she throws a wrench into their well-oiled machine. I’ve actually written a version of this story already but it was not very good and so this one is almost entirely from scratch. What inspired me was a lifelong love for vampires and their dark and mysterious world. What I like most about this book is that it concentrates on an aspect of vampires we don’t see often--the new ones. You’ll follow my main character as she learns how to not only stretch her abilities but also curb them when necessary.

Heather MacKinnon

Why did you choose to send the book to Kindle Scout? What did you see as the advantages to this publishing platform?

I’d been planning to self-publish Changed when I saw a small ad for Kindle Scout on Amazon. I read over all the material they provided and then did some research of my own into other author’s experiences with publishing with Kindle Scout. The benefits seemed plentiful (advanced royalties, professional editing, and the mighty power of Amazon marketing) and the drawbacks few (not being able to control the price of my book, and not being able to publish on any other platform) so I decided to take the plunge!

Are you planning more books in the future? Will you be sending them to Kindle Scout, or go a different route?

I’m already in the process of writing a modern romance right now. I’ve put it on the backburner for the moment while I deal with the last few days of my Kindle Scout campaign and get ready for my upcoming wedding (October 14th is so so close!). Other than that, I have a few ideas for stories flitting around my head that take place in the same world as Changed does. If the book is received well, I might flesh some of them out further. If I’m selected for Kindle Scout, I think I would submit other books for a campaign as well. If they don’t choose my book this time, I’ll probably just move forward with self-publishing from here on out.

Tell us more about yourself. Why do you write, and what’s your favorite thing about writing?

I write because I read. Obsessively. I had to finally get a Kindle Unlimited subscription because my fiance almost took my debit card away after seeing how many books I’d bought in a month (just kidding, he wouldn’t do that, but he was definitely concerned--see upcoming wedding comment above!). After reading so many fantasy and romance novels and picking out parts I loved and parts I didn’t, I decided to try it my way. Once I started, I found more and more ideas coming to me that I wanted to make into stories. I have about 3 floating around right now and the only reason why there’s not more is there’s literally no room left (see Kindle Scout campaign and wedding comments above!). My absolute favorite thing about writing is making a reader feel what I want them to feel. When someone reads my work and is outraged at the bad guys or swooning over the good guys, that’s the biggest payoff for me.

Thanks so much, Heather, for dropping by the blog! And don't forget to stop by her Kindle Scout page and take a look at Changed.

Finding Anna--the Doctor Who Connection (More about Call Me Zhenya)

When I write, I find it really helpful to find real people to "play" my characters while I'm spinning the story in my head. Sometimes I base them on pictures I find in magazines, but in most cases I cast an actor or another well-known personality, and incorporate some of their quirks into my characterization. It helps the characters come to life for me, and makes it easier to write about them.

In this post, I talked a little about how I tuned in to the character of Evgeni. It was finding my Evgeni that got this version of the story moving along. But I also had to find Anna before I could really get underway.

Anna was a shakier process. Originally, I had pictured Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Eliza Dushku), but as the story changed into its current form, that didn't quite work. While I was doing my initial work, the news arrived that Elisabeth Sladen had passed away. Elisabeth played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who back in the 80s and also in some of the more recent incarnations of the show. She was the first companion I saw, when I started watching Doctor Who with Tom Baker's first story, "Robot," back when the original series was being broadcast on PBS.

Right away, I wanted Anna to be a sort of tribute to Elisabeth Sladen. But she herself didn't quite work for me in the head canon of the role. I named Anna Slaten in her honor (yes, I changed it a little--it just seemed like the right name for Anna although, as an aside, for some reason I kept also calling her Stanten, and had to weed out those typos in the last few drafts), and then started looking at other Doctor Who companions to fill her role. I tried Karen Gillan for a while, but that didn't work. Finally, while I was catching up with some episodes, I hit upon "Planet of the Dead," and the one-time companion Christina, played by Michelle Ryan. She was a kickass type who liked to wear black, and she immediately felt like the right face to put on my Anna Slaten.

I also "cast" Delgrado. This was a strange process, because I had him pictured very clearly in my head, but then couldn't place the face of the actor who had taken him over (this isn't the first time this has happened...). Finally I realized he was Clark Gregg, Agent Coulson from the Marvel movies and now Agents of SHIELD.

You can take a look at all my "casting" photos as well as some other research materials I used for the book on my Pinterest account. And please take a swing by my Kindle Scout page and drop me a vote!

What is up with that Weird Title and Who the Hell is Zhenya, Anyway?

The answer to this question is that Russians have weird nicknames. You might know that the nickname for Alexander is Sasha, and the nickname for Michael is Misha…etc. Zhenya is the nickname for Evgeni, which basically means Eugene, but Eugene is a boring name, so there you go.

The title itself comes from a scene a little ways into the book, where Evgeni instructs Anna on how to control his wolf form for her own protection. The wolf’s response to her assertion of control leads to all kinds of interesting complications down the road.

Here’s the scene:

“First I’ll answer your question about waking me, but not waking the wolf.”

She nodded. It was important she knew this. “All right.”

Evgeni slid the backpack to the ground. It landed silently, and his steps were equally silent when he closed the distance between them. “First,” he said, “you touch me like this.”

His hand rose, and for a split second she thought she’d misjudged him, that she’d followed him out here to the Alaskan bush just so he could kill her where no one would ever find her body. His hand closed around the side of her neck, resting partially on her shoulder, his thumb pressing against her Adam’s apple. She flinched; she couldn’t help it. The movement hadn’t been sudden or violent, and nothing about his touch hurt her, but every cell in her body was suddenly, acutely aware that he could break her neck or crush her windpipe with a single shift of that enormous hand. Was he really answering her question, or was he making a point?

Then his eyes softened again, and the grip shifted. The thumb on her windpipe didn’t relax, because it had never been taut to begin with, but it moved, stroking her skin. And that brought a whole new onslaught of sensation.

“It’s important to touch me here,” he told her and tapped her windpipe lightly. “It doesn’t have to be hard or rough—in fact it’s better if it isn’t. But your thumb here, your fingers behind my ear.”

“What if…” She struggled to regain her composure. “What if your back is to me?”

“Turn around and I’ll show you.” He released her and made a twirling motion with one finger. The size and weight of his hand still lay imprinted on her throat.

Hesitant, she turned her back to him.

The touch came promptly, but she was ready for it this time. He laid his fingers along the line of her windpipe, his thumb pressing against the base of her skull. Still gentle, careful, yet still a placement he could use to kill her if he chose.

“You hold me and speak to me,” he said, and she could feel his warm breath against her ear. “You do not call me Evgeni. You say Zhenya.”

It was a diminutive, she knew, like calling him Sasha if his name were Alexander, or like calling her Annie. “Zhenya,” she repeated.

“Yes.” His hand came free, and she turned back around to face him. “You do it. Show me you understand.”

She stared up at him. She wasn’t sure she could even reach his neck, much less get her hand into the right position. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but he was definitely tall enough to make it awkward.

As if reading her dilemma on her face, he dropped to his knees, a smile working his mouth. “Try now.”

God, this was weird. But necessary. He wasn’t playing games with her. In a very real way, he was showing her how to control him. And he didn’t have to do that.

She laid her hand along his neck and shoulder, mimicking the position he’d used on her. Her thumb lay against the hard knob of his Adam’s apple, which was roughened with overnight stubble. So was his cheek, where her index finger brushed it. Her small hand seemed ludicrously inadequate for the task she’d assigned it.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, then vibrated beneath her hand. “If you were a mama wolf,” he told her, “you would take me by my neck and put me where you wanted me. And if you were an alpha, you would take me by my neck and show me I was not the alpha. So this shows control but also protection. If the wolf is waiting there right under the skin, this will make it understand you are a friend.”

Anna nodded, letting her hand drop. Since he was kneeling, she walked around to stand behind him rather than asking him to turn. From behind, she laid her hand again on his neck, thumb against the base of his skull, fingers along the line of his windpipe. “Like this?”

“Yes. Now say my name.”

“Zhenya,” she said obligingly. “Zhenya, wake up and don’t try to eat my face.”

He chuckled. “There, you see? It’s easy enough.”

END EXCERPT

I hope you enjoyed it! And don't forget to vote!

How "Call Me Zhenya" Came to Be

This week, I'm going to spend some time talking about my Kindle Scout book, Call Me Zhenya, and how I came to write it. Next week, I'll be encore-posting some blog posts I did over at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers about Kindle Scout and the Scouting process. I hope you'll enjoy a peek inside my creative process (aka--KK's brain is freakin' weird).

You might get tired of seeing this cover.
I won't. It's pretty. *pets*

The seed idea for this book hit me several years ago. I was watching an episode of Angel (first-run--I told you it's been a while...), during the Season Four arc when Angelus was unleashed. There's a scene where Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (STILL BITTER, JOSS WHEDON) breaks Faith out of prison so she can go do her vampire-slaying thang. She was in prison voluntarily, atoning for her sins from way back in Season One (and Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but they needed her, so she took a fancy dive through a glass window and high-tailed it out with Wes. (Which, frankly, any lady in her right mind would do, because, hello, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.)

That scene got me thinking. What if a spy were in prison voluntarily, taking a hit for something that happened in an operation that wasn't her fault? That evolved into having her there for protective custody. Then another spy comes to let her out. And what if that spy were the man who betrayed her? Or the man who killed her lover?

The idea sat in my ideas folder for a long time, just called "Spy Girl." I'd thought about writing it to submit to a specific publisher, but then the line at that publisher was discontinued before I got the manuscript underway. So it continued to incubate.

Evgeni Malkin, Russian Werewolf Spy

A few years later, my BFF and I were talking about story ideas, hockey player fic, and specifically Evgeni Malkin. (This was the same type of conversation that led to me writing Blood on the Ice, which started with "Vampire hockey. Go.") At some point, one of us said, "Evgeni Malkin, Russian Werewolf Spy." Maybe she said it, maybe I did--I don't actually remember. But that made me start thinking about "Spy Girl" again, and suddenly the whole story fell into place. The Spy Girl, inspired by Faith, became Anna, who's been sitting in a prison in Barrow, Alaska for two years under what she was told would be temporary protective custody. Then along comes Evgeni Belyakov, Russian Werewolf Spy, an assassin who's been having second thoughts about an assignment he was involved in two years ago. Poking around in places he wasn't supposed to, he found out things he shouldn't have. And now he's going to atone by breaking Anna out of prison. Because if she stays there, the Agency that promised to protect her is going to kill her to prevent the information inside her genetically enhanced superbrain from falling into enemy hands.

So that's the story of the story. I hope you'll take a minute to drop by and vote. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing this book, and I think you'll have a hell of a lot of fun reading it.

Big Announcement! New Book on Kindle Scout!

I’ve got a new book ready to go, and I need your help!

Over the past few months, I’ve been getting a manuscript ready to submit to Kindle Scout. Scout is a platform on Kindle where readers get to help Amazon decide what books to publish. It’s a little like Kickstarter, in that your votes are part of the process that gets the book picked for publication, but you don’t have to pledge money. All you have to do is vote.

At the end of the voting period, if my book is chosen and you voted for it, you’ll automatically get a free copy. If it’s not chosen, I’ll make it available at a low introductory price as soon as possible after the voting closes, and I’ll have a contest to give away a few free copies.

So I need your votes! The campaign runs for thirty days. Here’s the URL—go check out the excerpt and add me to your Scouting list!

He'll risk his own humanity to save her life.

Short-term protective custody, they said. But two years later, Anna Slaten—and the data locked inside her enhanced brain—is still behind bars.

Evgeni Belyakov seeks atonement. Two years ago, the wolf shifter/assassin did what he was ordered to do. Since then, he’s learned the ugly truth about the Agency. And that Anna is next on their hit list. But saving her could mean risking everything. His heart. His secrets. And surrendering control to the most dangerous creature of all. His wolf.

Reading Challenges for 2016

I didn't quite finish the reading challenge I chose for last year, but I started a little late, so I'm not too worried about that. I also read a few books I didn't report on here, so I came closer than it looked.

In any case, I'm doing a reading challenge again this year, but with different rules. First, I picked several different lists, including the one from last year, and I'm going to work on all of them. Second, I can't buy a book or get a book from the library specifically for the challenge. I have to find all the books from what I already own. Considering I have like nine bajillion quadloogle books, between my electronic hoarding habits and my overfull bookshelves, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I set everything up in a journal for this year. I don't really do much in the way of journaling anymore, so this is just a book where I'm keeping notes on things that happen, books I read, movies I see, etc. Also it's a good place to keep track of just how many times I've seen Star Wars in the theater this year (I'm trying to break a personal record...).

Some pictures:

 So far in 2016 I've finished The Martian, Pinocchio, and Smuggler's Run (a Star Wars tie-in book). I've got a couple more books underway. I also signed up for the Goodreads challenge at a book per week, so I'm already behind--because of course I am.