Marketing Yourself as an Author

by Christine.

There are incredible resources online today that authors can use to sell their products, promote themselves and acquire new readers.  As an aspiring author or one who has many novels under their belt, are you using all that you can?

There are more than I am aware of, but I thought I’d list some here and their associated benefits:

• Goodreads
  So many people today are keeping track of what they’ve read, what they thought, and what they would recommend.  As an author, you can add your books to the Goodreads database, list them in appropriate lists (e.g. best horse series), offer giveaways to promote your latest release and best of all, create an author page where all of your public works are listed.
  This list allows people to mark them as read, rate them out of 5, leave a review and even mark down that they want to read your books in the future!  If you’re not using this feature yet and have published works, I encourage you to look into it. 
• Amazon
  Again, you can have an author profile and list all of the books that are authored by you.  Your profile can also include a biography, photo, recent blog posts from your own blog feed and Twitter updates.  It’s a great way for fans to keep in touch with your latest news and books.
  As an added bonus, if you have your books on Amazon, you can keep tabs on monthly sales, see how your book/s are faring on the best sellers lists and get reviews and ratings from purchasers. 
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• Authorgraph
  This is a nifty way to interact with your fans for free and offer them something they may not have the chance to request in person – an autograph!  The images of the covers of your published works are made available and you can create an autograph that is then placed across any of these images that a fan may request.
  For example, a reader of Horse Country – A World of Horses may fancy a signed copy of the cover from Christine Meunier.  Authorgraph is set up so that your signature is created by you and then saved – this is then sent out whenever you approve a request from a fan.  You can also personalise messages! 
• Lulu
  If you are interested in creating paperback versions of your books, then I encourage you to check out this print on demand set up.  Lulu’s service is free to set things up – they can even help you out with book formatting, ISBNs for free and cover creation.
  You can determine if your books are available to yourself only, to only those who you invite or to the general public.  And from here, you can submit your works into bigger selling networks like Amazon and Barnes and Noble – all for free!
  They make their money through earning a percentage of your profit whenever a sale is made, not before.
  Once you have books set up on Lulu, you can set up your own author store and provide a biography, links, profile image and of course details of your released paperbacks.  You don’t have to pay to have your books printed (except for proof copies), but instead they are only printed when people order them (print on demand).  It’s a great way to cater to the one off buyers all around the world without making a dent in your pocket!

What author platform do you use that has benefited you greatly in the form of sales, reaching out to fans or keeping people updated on your latest releases?

Loving Horse Blogs

by Christine.

It has come to my attention that I don't spend enough time as an author, raising awareness of my books and websites.  I used to regularly read horse blogs and comment on posts of interest (there were a lot!).  For most blogs, when you comment you can provide a link to your website.  In this way, I raised the profile of my blog Equus Education.

I am now focusing on being able to do this with both Horse Country and the Free Rein series.  The first focus point has been creating blog hops and taking part in others.  A search online for horse related blog hops brought up some great results - and a lot of horse blogs worth following!

So here's the question - do you follow blogs online?  And if so, what horse blog would you say you couldn't do without keeping updated on?

As an author, how do you raise the profile of your books online?

I have recently discovered BlogLovin' as a source of staying updated on blogs as new posts are written.  Perhaps it is a platform that may work for you?

Finding True Stories

by Diana Kimpton

Being commissioned to write a book is an exciting event, but, once the immediate thrill has worn off, the prospect can be daunting. That’s what I found when I was asked to write Horse Stories That Really Happened. It was going to be the only horse book in a "Stories that Really Happened" series and I was required to provide 6 exciting horse stories set in a variety of time periods. To help with marketing, the publisher wanted at least one story to be set in the USA and one in Australia. 

 

As soon as I started planning the book, I realised I had a problem. Dog Stories that Really Happened would have been easy, because dogs do brave things all the time. They pull babies from burning buildings, capture criminals and discover people trapped in rubble after earthquakes. Horses, on the other hand, are timid creatures who run away from plastic bags, lions and all dangers in between. That’s why the only horses awarded the Dickens Medal for Gallantry in World War 2 got it for not running away.  

Eventually I found 5 stories that gave the variety I needed:

• How Alexander the Great tamed his famous horse, Bucephalus.
• An Australian heroine’s daring horseback rescue of survivors from a shipwreck
• The wartime rescue of the white stallions of the Spanish Riding School.
• Foinavon’s amazing victory in the Grand National when no one expected him to win.
• The rescue of a horse from a river by a brave RSPCA inspector

At that stage, the American story was going to be the crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountains in a snow storm during the first run of the Pony Express. However, that was eventually replaced by a much better one that I came across by chance.

 

As part of my research, I’d joined a discussion group for horse lovers and early in January someone asked what presents people had had for Christmas. One answer from a lady called Angie stood out from all the others. "We got a mustang foal who collapsed in our yard on Christmas Eve" she said. . "We’ve called her Annie and are nursing her back to health.” 

I immediately wrote asking if I could put the foal’s story in the book. Her rescuer agreed and I set about piecing together Annie’s story through an email conversation that spanned the Atlantic. As it was difficult to get permission to include the various humans in the story, I decided to write the account from Annie’s point of view.  

But there was one big problem. Annie had hurt her leg and was very lame. Because mustangs are protected by law, Angie needed permission to keep her and she would only get that if the foal was free of pain. So several anxious weeks went by with my whole family biting our nails as we waited for the results of each vet’s visit. If the foal couldn’t recover, it wouldn’t just my story that would be ruined. Annie would have to be put down.  

Eventually there was a happy ending. Annie got the all clear, her adoption went ahead and so did my story. Luckily mustang supporters in her area had been watching the foal ever since her mother was killed in a car accident so Angie was able to fill in the details I needed. After she was orphaned, other mares had suckled Annie until the winter came and their milk supplies ran low. Then she’d spent a while with her older brother and some other colts, learning to fend for herself and eat the hay put out by horse-lovers.

But when she injured her leg, she couldn’t keep up with the other horses any more. All alone and growing progressively weaker, she was totally reliant on the donated hay. Then on Christmas Eve, she plucked up the courage to go down to Angie’s house where she knew the hay came from. That’s where she collapsed and her new life began.

The story of Annie remains my favourite from that book because I became so involved in the events. When the book went out of print and I got the rights back, I gave the copyright in Annie's Story to Angie so it could be used to help mustangs.

There are still some second hand copies of Horse Stories That Really Happened on sale if you want to read Annie's Story yourself.

 

The three historical stories  from the original book live on in Perfectly Pony: my ebook anthology of pony facts and fiction.  

The Benefits of Thinking Like a Horse

by Lisa Wysocky

Predator/prey differences aside, there are many differences between horses and humans. Horses hear higher and lower sound frequencies than humans do, and they can hear sounds that generate up to half a mile away. People, however, can better isolate where those sounds are coming from.

Humans have eight to ten thousand taste buds, while horses have up to twenty-five thousand, to better differentiate safe plants from those that are toxic. A horse can smell his owner up to three hundred feet away, and if the temperature and wind are right, from much farther away than that. Other than food, humans are lucky to smell something that is thirty feet away.

As humans, we try to impose our human experiences onto horses, and that is an impossible task. From the way horses process thought, to how they see, even to how they process touch, theirs is a world apart from the human experience. We then, have to become more horse-like. We have to step up to try to understand the horse’s experience from his or her viewpoint. Horse spook at a plastic bag one hundred yards away? It helps to know that horses cannot judge distance as well as people can. When we start thinking like a horse, our reactions––such as praise, reassurance, or discipline––to their behavior then becomes more appropriate. 

  

 I find it is the same when I am writing. When I write, I try to think like my readers. How will an average reader interpret a scene, or a character’s line? Will my description of a round pen, for example, make sense to a person who does not know about horses, yet not be too elementary for those who do? As a reader, I would much rather have the comfort of a concise, accurate, and thorough description of an object or a process, than have the “Huh?” experience. So, that's what I try to write.

I have been very fortunate to have my nonfiction books about horses and horse training diligently edited by people who are seasoned horse people, because people who are serious about their equine friends are the ones who will be interested in those books. On the other hand, I am equally as fortunate to have a woman who knows little to nothing about horses edit my Cat Enright mystery series. Even though I try to think like my readers when I write, I sometimes forget that not everyone knows what a fetlock is, or why a character might pull up on a saddle pad so it does not lay down hard and flat across a horse’s withers.

As readers and writers, and as people in general, it probably is a good idea to consider the end user. Whether it is a conversation with a teenager, a report sent in to a supervisor, or a trail ride with your favorite horse, considering their experiences, thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, will always make your life experience easier, and more fulfilling.

Try to get it Right the First Time

by Christine Meunier

Do you Research for Your Writing?

Although a lot of what is written for enjoyment is fiction, there are areas that should be factually correct.  I think this is especially true for horse books where people read to enjoy, but also to learn about an animal they love.

It’s important that what they read is information they can put to use with their own horses - or once they get a horse!

Perhaps it’s tempting for someone writing a book to not double check information they’re not 100% certain of.  A book is written once and then provides you a return any time it is read or bought – it is worth getting it right the first time.

With our current digital age, the great news is that if somehow facts change and your book is no longer current or correct about a particular thing, you can easily update an eBook and republish it.  Do your homework and try to get it right from the start, but keep up to date in your field and don’t shy away from revising an edition of your book if you need to.

Why Write About Horses?

by Toni Leland

My name is Toni Leland and I’m a horse addict. 

Seriously...I could have been the poster child for the classic horse-crazy girl.

I discovered horses when I was about 8 years old. Unfortunately, about that same time, I discovered my father was terrified of them and that there wouldn’t be a horse in my future any time soon. So to fuel my passion, I hooked up with another horse-crazy girl. We spent hours talking about horses, dreaming about horses, pretending we were horses. . .the boys on the playground were terrified of us!

 

I took it one step further and wrote stories about horses. Girl rescues horse. Horse rescues girl. Horse and girl have an adventure. . . I wish I had some of those stories now. Anyway, when my BFF got her very own horse, I was both thrilled and devastated. She no longer had much time for me and our imaginary steeds, and I began trying to convince my father that a horse would be a good thing for me to have. He relented the year I turned 15 and, from then on, my life revolved around horses—sometimes more, sometimes less.

But one thing remained constant. To this day, even though I no longer have horses of my own, I still get that quickening in the pit of my stomach any time I’m near one.

Write what you know and love. The writing experts have it nailed.

 

When I set off on this journey of writing fiction, I naturally settled into the comfort zone of my addiction.

My first book was a romantic mystery, built around the Arabian horses I raised in the 80s. Though they were long gone, I held them near to me as we worked our way through the story and revisited characters from those years in the “horse business.” The process was sometimes painful and poignant, but it was also energizing. I’d found my niche.

As Winning Ways finished, I was already well into my next novel. Being fairly adventurous, I’d decided to see if I could write a straight romance—follow the formula, but write one with a horsey setting.

I was a little skeptical about the endeavor. After all, when does a busy horse owner have time to date, let alone nurture a strong, loving relationship? And into what niche would an equestrian romance fit? When Hearts Over Fences hit the streets, I quickly learned that I had no clue as to “what works.” The book exploded in popularity and, today—many years later—it is still a top-selling title in both print and ebook.

 

So you’d think I’d jump on this gravy train, right? Nooooo. I was already off on another tangent. I wanted to write a thriller about the possibility of terrorism in one’s own backyard, er. . . barn. After Gambling With the Enemy was published in 2006, I headed back toward romantic suspense.

Deadly Heritage embraced that age-old theme of love lost and found. But my characters were constantly challenged by danger and family treachery.

As the nation’s economy nose-dived in 2009, so did business. Horse farms and breeders were deeply affected as the cost of keeping animals skyrocketed. If you can’t feed ’em, what do you do with them? Horse rescue operations were overwhelmed and the horror stories began to hit the news.

Addressing two similar subjects, I began work on Rescue Me, the story of a horsewoman trapped in a brutally abusive marriage. The research alone on this book made me ever thankful that I didn’t have source material from first-hand experience.

Always a fan of Dick Francis, I began thinking seriously about a mystery series. What I needed was a couple of independent, horse-loving individuals who would save the horse world, case by case. Never did I imagine what hard work this would be! But the team of Kovak & Quaid was born in 2012 with Double Exposure, and they've been chasing bad guys ever since!

My lifelong love affair with horses has served me well...given me joy and inspiration, and a ton of memories. Now if I can just get them all down on paper....

Two Authors, the Man from the CIA and his Horse

What do a Professor of History at Yale who worked for the CIA, Mario Puzo and Graham Greene have in common? Other than the fact they’re all men?

They are all authors of horse and pony stories.

Sherman Kent (1903-1986) was quite possibly the only horse story author who worked for the CIA. A Professor of History at Yale, he pioneered many methods of intelligence analysis for the CIA. He wrote on French electoral procedure, and also, one can only assume as light relief, a horse story called A Boy and a Pig, but Mostly Horses. Published in 1974 by Dodd, Mead & Company, and illustrated by the sublime Sam Savitt, A Boy and a Pig was based on Kent’s own childhood. Like the heroes of his story, he went to the Thacher School in California, where horses and riding were a major part of the curriculum. 

I love the fact there’s a pig in this story – not an animal which crops up a lot in horse stories, unless it’s there to spook the hero’s horse. Simon, the hero of the story, captures and adopts a wild pig called Augusta before going on to have an exciting holiday working on a ranch with runaway horses, a rogue mustang, and the obligatory rescue of a neglected horse.

Mario Puzo’s horse book is a more domestic affair, probably just as well bearing in mind his notorious serving up of a horse’s head on a pillow in The Godfather. The Runaway Summer of Davie Shaw (1966) is the story of a boy whose spectacularly vague parents go away, having completely forgotten to tell his grandparents he’s staying with them. Davie decides to make the most of his parent-less state by taking a pony and cart from his uncle’s home in California to New York, meeting his parents on their way back. 

While I was researching the author, I came across a first edition presentation copy of The Runaway Summer for sale at Peter Harrington, the London-based antiquarian book dealer. The dedication read: “For Carol. If you don’t like it, I’ll kill you.”

I suppose we should be grateful he wasn’t threatening her horse.

British author Graham Greene (1904-1991) is far better known for his adult stories than as a writer of children’s books. As a writer whose work portrayed Catholicism in a world which is unrelentingly full of sin and evil, I wondered quite how his children’s story The Little Horse Bus (1952) was going to turn out: just how dreadful will be the fate of the bus and its horse? There’s certainly evil there, in the shape of bank robbers who steal a hansom cab full of cash, and whip the poor horse who draws it unmercifully; and then suggest they leave her to starve to death in the wharf where they stash the cash. Fortunately, for this is a children’s book, evil is confounded and good triumphs.

All of these authors had ample experience of the bleaker side of life, and knew the depths to which humanity could plunge. It’s interesting that for them all, the horse provided a perhaps nostalgic escape to another life where endings were good and evil was confounded.

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For information on many, many more horse story authors, visit my website.

First Horse

by Toni Leland

I never wanted anything more in my entire 8-year-old-life than a horse. 
Not the occasional ride on a carnival pony or camp horse. Or the few-and-far-between rides on my best friend's horse. 
I wanted a horse of my own.

My parents were terrified of horses, and there you have it. End of discussion. But parents don't always have the last word – not when the world around them sees the longing in a little girl's eyes.

To make a short story long, when I was 15, a good friend of my father's took him aside and said, "Look, Toni's never going to get over this passion. She needs a horse and I just happen to have the perfect one."
(I heard about this conversation years after the fact.)

I have no idea how that man convinced my father to let me have that horse, but at the time, I didn't care. My dream was coming true!

At dawn on the day the horse would arrive, I rode my bicycle a mile to the pasture where he would live. It was the longest morning I've ever spent, because grownups don't get started as early as kids. But finally, a pickup truck towing an old blue horse trailer pulled into the lane beside the barn.

Sonny, the most beautiful horse in the world.

I was beside myself. Mind you, I'd never laid eyes on the horse that would be coming off that trailer. Our friend had told me that the horse's name was Sonny, and he was a 16-year-old retired showhorse. Wow! How much better could it get?

The ramp clanged to the ground and a shiny copper rump backed out of the dark interior. Sonny was the biggest horse I'd ever seen.

He was also the homeliest horse on four legs, but I didn't see that back then. To me, he was Walter Farley's Island Stallion.

Sonny and I settled in quite nicely, spending every one of my waking minutes together. This caused no end of problems with my parents. I disappeared with the sunrise and came home just before dinnertime. I was in heaven.

I did not own a saddle, but Sonny came with a good bridle, and we spent many happy hours exploring the trails through the foothills behind my home in Southern Oregon. Sonny was surefooted and always interested in what lay

Parade Day. What horrible posture!

around the next bend. He and my dog, Lucky, were the best of friends and I swear they were the ones who decided what trail we would take. What a great beginning to summer vacation. We even got to ride in the Memorial Day parade. 

Then, disaster struck. While riding through a field with my best friend, Sonny's front foot hit a chunk of wood hidden in the tall grass. He began to limp and I began to cry. We got down off our horses and my friend examined his leg. She'd had her own horse for several years and knew what she was doing. 
She stood up and shook her head. "I think it might be broken."

My world came crashing down around me. Broken legs in horse meant only one thing. We led the horses back home, me sobbing all the way. Late that afternoon, the veterinarian came out and x-rayed Sonny's leg, which by then was huge and puffy. 

"Not broken," he said. "But you shouldn't ride him for the next eight or nine weeks until the bone bruise heals, and then only on soft ground."

Do the math. My summer with Sonny was over. I was overwhelmed with relief

Lucky with a winter friend.

that he would be okay, but devastated at the implications of his injury.

Every day after that, I applied a black, gooey poultice to Sonny's ankle in the morning and again in the evening. I spent my time with him and the dog in the pasture, dreaming of the day when we could ride the trails again.

By September, Sonny's limp had not disappeared, but had grown worse. The nights were growing colder and school had started. One afternoon, my father's friend came to the house and said he'd be willing to take Sonny back home where he could live in a big warm barn and rest his leg. I was devastated, but could do nothing about it. Truthfully, in my heart I knew that Sonny would be better off, but that didn't ease the pain. 

Sonny died that winter in a big warm barn. A horse would not grace my life for another twenty years.

Foaling Season

By Patti Brooks

With New England desperate to leave winter behind, it makes me think back to foaling season on our Connecticut Morgan horse farm. On any given year, we expected five to ten foals.

It was early June this particular year, and all but one old mare, Dutch, had foaled. Because the grass was sweet and the breezes gentle, Dutch spent 24/7 in a small pasture, with a shelter, easily seen from the house and barn. Dutch wasn’t due for another ten days.

About 2:00 a.m., our young daughter, Trisha, knocks on our door.

“What is it?” I ask, hoping it’s something I can solve without fully waking up.

“Nera had her baby and is running all around.”

Well, that was easy because Nera was a very old mare who hadn’t foaled in years. She has free range of the farm.

“Go back to bed, Trisha.”

Unfortunately Trisha comes back with the same concern.

Sigh. Could I check this out without getting dressed?  

I go to the door and sure enough, the old mare is galloping between the house and the barn with a new foal trying to keep up. My mind sorts through the possibilities. Dutch must have foaled early. But why does Nera have the foal?

This would take both getting dressed as well as getting my husband up. Grabbing a halter, we hurry out of the house into a noisy night, what with Nera’s frantic running, other mares calling out in concern and a thunder storm moving in. We hurry to Dutch’s pasture, forming a plan as we run.

I catch Dutch up and head for the barn, with the mare screaming for her foal. Nera is making another pass toward the barn. My husband stands in the drive, letting Nera slip through and tackling the foal. (He later said he had never felt a foal’s heart pound so forcefully.)  He picks her up and follows Dutch and me into a stall. 

Dutch clearly said to her foal:  “Don’t leave me like that.” And the foal clearly said:  “Where’s my mom?”

After a good half hour of convincing the foal that Dutch was truly her mom and her food source, we figured out what had happened.

Nera, making her rounds on the farm, stopped to visit with Dutch and stayed with her as she lay down to foal.  But....when the foal got up, she got up on Nera’s side of the fence and said, “Mama!” Nera took off. Not my kid. She was finished with having needy little foals to look after. And the foal raced after her.

All the Morgans we raised carried the “Trijas” prefix. This little one, who spent the first moments of her life running while a thunder storm brewed, was the easiest to name: Trijas Tempest.

The Books that Crossed the Pond

When I was growing up in Britain, there was no such thing as an ebook. No one had computers. Amazon hadn’t been thought of. I didn’t even have a book shop. I had to rely on toyshops (never a hardship to go in, of course), Boots the Chemist, who then had a large toy and book department, and the library.

I was lucky with our library. When I first started going there, it was quite obvious that many of the children’s books had been there for decades. It hadn’t yet been pruned of the old and familiar (that was to come). There were rows of blue Chalet School books and tatty Dr Dolittles. Enid Blyton had an entire bookcase to herself. And there were rows of American books too. The Bobbsey twins lived in a whole new exciting universe. Maple syrup! Who knew such a thing existed? It certainly didn’t in 1970s Britain, where a new flavour of Angel Delight was a major excitement.

The library also had Rutherford G Montgomery’s Golden Stallion series. They lived tucked out of the way behind a stone pillar, on the bottom shelf. No one else in our town seemed interested in them; no one else ever stopped me from sinking into the world of Charlie, his stallion Golden Boy, and the Bar L Ranch. This world was just as far away from me as the Bobbseys and their maple syrup, but the horses made it connect with me on a completely different level. I may not have had the faintest idea what it was like to round up cattle, who round us lived calmly in hedge-surrounded fields, but I knew what it was like to ride, and through Rutherford G Montgomery I lived in that world.

Walter Farley’s world was a whole new level of exotic. Boots provided where the library failed; a British publisher, Knight, issued a few of the Black Stallion series in paperback, and I bought them. I longed, more than anything else, for a pony, and I read book after book where girls managed to get hold of one, generally through considerable sacrifice, or sheer, blinding, luck. Alec got his horse because they were ship wrecked together. And what a horse. Like Golden Boy, the Black was no scruffy riding school pony, slopping round the ring half asleep on his third lesson of the day. The Black was hot stuff. He was dangerous. He raced. 

Even where American books did involve ponies, like Marguerite Henry’s Misty series, there was still the environment to contend with. In Britain we are lucky in having weather that is generally pretty benign. Epic floods are thankfully rare. The Chincoteague and Assateague Islands and their dramatic floods again had that gloss of the alien and exciting. But the hero and heroine here, Paul and Maureen Beeby, led a life much more familiar to me. I sympathised with their longing for a pony, and cheered when they got one. 

All these American series fed that great desire so many children have to have a horse or pony of their own, but their settings made them almost impossibly exotic. New York, the Bar L Ranch and Chincoteague were as far away from my small, muddy Midlands town as it was possible to be. I now know that there were many, many American horse stories written in the way I was familiar with. A fair few were published in the UK, but they never made it out as far as the Midlands. It was the gallopingly exotic that seemed to sell here. And it still does. The Black Stallion and Misty books are still in print, enchanting new readers with a world to which the horse provides the key.

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You can read more about the authors I've talked about on my website:

Walter Farley

Marguerite Henry

Rutherford G Montgomery