Book Wrap Up!

Draoithe: Midnight Magic Part 12 is posted to Amazon! It will release this weekend! I am super stoked to be publishing the end of this 12 part miniseries. Julian gets the girl, and she's a hell of a warrior with a mission. The saga isn't over but you have Julian and Zephyra's love story. I shall endeavor to get the complete miniseries compiled into one volume up next weekend for everyone, who like myself, can't stand to start a series and then wait for the next part. Let me know what you think if when you read. I love to hear from you so ask the questions, offer the suggestion, and make the comment.

Give Away of the Weekend!

Draoithe: Weaver's Tale is FREE! This weekend.  Araack Kniid the spider shifter king of the longest purple bought a lie in his youth. It tainted his life and bled out into his kingdom causing a wasting effect that could see the destruction of his realm. Will he slide irrevocably into the fade as he faces the obstacles of a long life, or can he discover the truth and save both his realm and himself before it's too late? Pick up your copy of the first part of this novella short read set in the dream. It goes back to regular Price after Midnight Oct. 19th so don't wait.

In other Publishing News!

The duet short read Draoithe: Still Waters has been revised and the new improved cleaner version is now available from Amazon. Meet the Fin knight Leevi Tykander. He journeys far from home seeking his lost betrothed only to find her deceased and his true lifemate in a crazy medical torture facility run by Peter Elliot. Can he overcome his grief and confusion and claim the beautiful coastal wolf shifter Sophia? She was turned by injection and needs his help to navigate immortality. But crossing the friendship line could push the sexy Fin man away as he struggles to discover his own place after her rescue. 

The short read trilogy, Draoithe: Smoke of the Fire has been revised and updated for a cleaner read. The red dragon, Fuego, has drifted through the centuries feeling nothing. He even swears fealty with no hope of having emotion return to color his life. Meeting the fire mage Scarlett changes everything, but the passion that sparks between them might literally burn down the house. Can he learn how to love her and claim his Valkyrie or will their love affair rain fiery destruction onto Draoithe?

Social Media News!

The latest and greatest Storyboard previews and book trailers can be found at the OpheliaKee channel. Head over to YouTube and subscribe to watch new story material. Video Books are in the works and podcasting is still being toyed with. I would love to go faster, but I do have the day job I must slave away in. So bear with me and my crazy indie author journey. I think I might have it this time. It has been a long year trying to learn how, but I might have gotten it. I hope y'all will check it out and let me know what you think.
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The continuing Author Walk

I wish I was successful enough to be able to live in the dream. Sadly, that is not yet my reality. Who knows? It may never be my reality, but it is the ultimate writer's goal for me. Considering that, I want to speak on the subject of hard work.
I am a tiger with the soul of a mule. I have worked hard my whole life. Even if I'm not working for someone else, I'm always working for myself. I spent almost 10 months fully immersed in the dream and still have not learned all I need to know. What I can say is this: Self-Publishing as an entirely indie author has been an enormous challenge and a hell of a lot more work than any day job I have ever had. Even now that I am technically only a part time indie author, I still likely work harder at that than I do my professional career. (Part of that is due to the fact that I have been in my profession for over a decade and I have only been a published indie author for a couple of years now.)
Self-publishing is easy. It is so easy that I wonder why I didn't do it sooner. There are quite a few step by step tutorials out there to explain how to upload a book to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, ibooks, and Kobo, so I will leave that to others to explain. Suffice it to say that when I first began publishing it was not quick. (It actually took me three days to upload one ebook, LOL)

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What I have spent the most time on learning is marketing and promotion. This is an enormous field with tons of information and avenues of approach. I don't profess to understand it all. I might actually need to get a specialty degree to even begin feeling as if I had any expertise. Here's where I am at the moment:
*Everything I do for free I label as promotion.
*If it costs me money, I consider it marketing. 
I don't have a lot of money so I do far more promotion that marketing. I do have a $1 a day ad on Facebook that runs all the time. I also spend money on marketing through Awesome Gang on occasion and take advantage of their email list. That's about it in the spend category. (I have learned that I can drive traffic to my website via Pinterest, but I have left off doing that as it did not result in increased book sales as my books are all on Kindle. It seems that there are too many clicks to make in that.)
I craft my own storyboards, create my own story excerpts, build my own book trailers, and post my links on social media all myself. I did recently purchase a tool called KDROI to help me with posting my FREE books to Free promotional sites. All the Pinterest pins, Tumblr and Instagram images and Facebook and Twitter posts are pretty much me. (I have tried using some help posting to social media from Writers Pay it Forward and All Authors with varying degrees of success. I have left off that in favor of the ads on Facebook purely due to lack of funds.)

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My current belief is that paid advertising is an absolute necessity if you want to get your books out to a wide audience to grow your brand and increase sales. I am no heavy hitter like Ms. Force who can run Google ads with confidence, but I do know that advertising plays a very serious part in the success of self-published authors. I also believe that until I finish my first series, that sinking money I don't have into marketing is not something I am willing to do.
The Draoithe Series Saga is nearing completion. When I begin to write and publish the next works is when I will begin investing in more marketing. I want a lot of titles available on my website before I try spending money. That way readers will know there is a lot to choose from when they consider my stories. If they like them, there is more as well as different stories. 
I also want a wider variety of free promotional materials available for readers to review on social media sites and my website. If there is a total dream experience in place including podcasts, video books, book trailers, storyboard previews and excerpt/quote cards available in multiple venues, I truly believe that will aid me in making my dollars go further. So to that end, I continue to write the blog and offer insight into the behind the scenes of Draoithe and my experiences as an Indie Author. 
Enough of my crazy life. As always if you read, please be kind and leave reviews. I will write again next weekend. Don't forget to grab that FREE short read Draoithe: Weaver's Tale.
Be Careful!
Happy reading,
 Ophelia Kee 
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