Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

When I posted the video trailer for Hans & Greta earlier this week, some of you commented on the great book cover. It was designed by Carol Oates of Custom Book Cover Designs .  Carol was an absolute delight to work with. I highly recommend her for covers & promo graphics. To recap my update on Wednesday's post: I received excellent feedback on the trailer, and from everyone's reaction it seems like I was on the right track. Something about it once we got past the "Psycho Girl" slide niggled at me, but it wasn't until the wonderful  Liz Blocker  voiced what I couldn't put my finger on that I realized what I needed to do to get this thing to maximum awesomeness. Thank you, Liz! So what do we writers do when we see that our work could be better? Edit. And that's what I did. Even though I was  happy with the original video , I'm thuh-rilled with this new one (but I'm still open to critiques, promise). In addition to fixing the thin...

I'm celebrating the wide release of Hans & Greta: A Twisted Fairy Tale Novella ---now at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords  in addition to Amazon ---with this brand new video trailer. If you can spare 54 seconds of your life, please have a look and tell me what you think. And if you're of a mind to Tweet this post or share it on Facebook, I'd sure appreciate it. Thanks! UPDATE on 1/30: I've received excellent feedback on the trailer, and from everyone's reaction it seems like I'm on the right track. Something about it once we get past the "Psycho Girl" slide niggled at me, but it wasn't until the wonderful Liz Blocker voiced what I couldn't put my finger on that I realized what I needed to do to get this thing to maximum awesomeness. I'm almost done w/ the revised video but want to let it set for a bit and then smooth out the kinks. I shall endeavor to get Hans & Greta 2-point-awesome up tomorrow. ;) And now, please al...

Welcome to the Online Marketing Symposium, hosted by the amazing  Arlee Bird ,  Yolanda Renee ,  Jeremy Hawkins , and Alex J. Cavanaugh . We're talking marketing---what works and what doesn't. I've yet to strike sustainable sales nirvana, so today I plan to mostly keep my mouth shut and listen. But I'd like to share with you a few observations I've made in the last year about using giveaways as a marketing tool. #1 Giveaways don't translate into a noticeable increase in sales. BUT they are great for increasing followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc., which could lead to future sales if I ever figure out how to effectively use those social networks. #2 Giveaways work better when I keep it simple. The tasks to earn entries must be straight forward and instantly complete-able. I ran a giveaway that required entrants to leave a review in order to enter, and that was too weighty of a requirement. By the time I figured that out and made the requirements simpler, I...

This ch-ch-chilly day is the perfect day for Michael Di Gesu's Coffee Hop---a day in which we get to extol the virtues of this most delightful of beverages. [If you're here for the Winter Wonderman giveaway , that post is just below] And now back to coffee, Michael's going to choose one lucky participant to win coffee that he's brought back with him directly from Colombia!  All he asks is that we tell him what we love about the stuff. I didn't actually start drinking coffee until after I'd had my babies---which was a very good thing because this way, I didn't have to go through caffeine withdrawals during pregnancy. But when the kids were tots, that warm cup of heaven made a nice start to our crazy days. I have to be honest though. I think I like the idea of coffee more than the actual coffee. I love coffee-flavored things, like ice cream and tiramisu, but in a mug, unless it's mocha'd or latte'd up, I don't love it. I still dr...

We're warming up the winter by snuggling up to some Winter Wondermen  in a bloghop sponsored by Bella Media and author H.D. Thomson . Comment at any of the blogs listed below by Jan. 19th & you'll be automatically entered to win a $50 Gift Card to either Barnes & Noble OR Amazon---winner's choice. The more blogs you comment at, the better your chances of winning. Aaaand, I've got a little giveaway of my own going just to thank you for making my place one of your stops. Here was the directive: “What makes a hero in movies and books wonderful to the point your toes curl?” To answer this question, I took a look at my movie crush history. There are many more men on this list, of course, but these are the ones about whom I was most obsessive: The very first movie crush I can remember is Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music Fast forward a couple decades, and Ray Liotta got my engines roaring as Henry Hill in Goodfellas Alo...

Welcome to the first meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, founded by the notorious  Alex. J. Cavanaugh and now with its very own supportive  IWSG website . I hope this day finds you all well and with your 2014 off to a great start. Today I want to share something I recently learned about. Since social networking is an inextricable part of being a writer these days, we often find ourselves with a reallllly long link that we very much wish to shorten. I've used Hootsuite up until now to pre-shorten, but sometimes that's a pain, so I was thrilled to learn an easier way. Now, it's quite possible that everyone else already knows about this, BUT I was able to amaze and impress my teenaged children (not an easy thing to do) with this newfound knowledge, so maybe I'm not so far behind...and if I am, just humor me, eh? Did you know that to get a shortened url, all you have to do is type goo.gl  into the search bar, then past your long-arse url into the spac...