Creativity Defined

I thought I'd consolidate everything in one video to make it easier for people to find me. What do you think? confusing? or informative?

Visit My Author Page

My marketing is going high tech into videos. Very easy to make with Canva. That and CJ Adazing's mock up shots tools is a godsend for any author. If you're looking for marketing tools, you're welcome. watch the video!

Here's a banner I made for one of my fics. 

sometimes writing is fun. other times, it's catharsis.

Missing Scenes as Marketing?

 Hi guys,

Having woken up and found my mojo again in this year of our lord 2022 I not only intend to finish writing Marcus Devereux - which is intimidatingly good FYI but also, give my already published books some love. 

Starting with In Search of Paradise, which is really, well, I won't say my best work because they're all good, but it does go its own direction right. Gay Africans, rugby, set in Nairobi but then also the apocalypse...it's real but also fantastical. 

Anyway, I'm trying a thing where I post missing scenes on my hub page.

I've just put up the first one. Go take a look and tell me how you like it.

Book Marketing - We Hate It, But It Has To Be Done

Hi guys. 

As you know, I started this blog to share my experiences in writing, the good, the bad and the ugly. 

I was thinking the other day, that in light of the pandemic, that while I've had a really good season of paid work, my own books have suffered from lack of attention. So today, instead of finishing my allotted word count, I hopped over to Canva and made some videos.

Here is one, reintroducing my books and my writing to you. 

Enjoy.

 

Also, feel free to visit my author page and browse.

Kisses.

Opportunity Seems to Come Out of Nowhere but Nah...

Wow, guys.

The world is changing before our eyes, is it not? When George Floyd's daughter said, "My daddy changed the world" she had NO idea.

We're seeing the domino effect of Black Lives Matter because hey let's face it, not all of us value even our own lives as much as we do white lives or white adjacent lives. Hell, I hear the police in Kenya are harassing black protestors in front of the US embassy and leaving the white protestors alone. 

But let's go back to the genesis of this - Colonialism and the myth of White Supremacy.

Our history has been erased. Who we were, what we are capable of...even now it continues to be erased. The lack of COVID in New Zealand celebrated. But what about Mauritius? Also have eliminated COVID. Nobody is celebrating it. No, the press is waiting for African bodies to start dropping in the streets to train their cameras and say "You see! Africans are dying of COVID in droves."

But here we are, continuing to defy expectations. 

Nobody is talking about it. Yesterday I was thinking about how in other ways, everybody is erased from history except for white men. According to history books, they did everything. But think about it. Marilyn Monroe offered to sit in the front row of a club so that they would let Ella Fitzgerald perform. That's the only evidence of activism I have of the people around JFK. What if, as his sidechick, Marilyn did some whispering in his ear about civil rights? But she's never mentioned in his history aside from anecdotally so we'll never know. The women are never mentioned. But who is leading Black Lives Matter protests on the streets right now?

Living through 'interesting times' as they say really brings home so many revelations to me. Do you think K-Pop stans will be mentioned in the official history books? How they drowned out the voices of racists with fan cam videos? How they flooded Dallas police snitch sites with fan cam videos? How they matched BTS one million dollar donation to Black Lives Matter with a million dollars of their own?

No, I expect that will be buried in favour of whatever speech Al Sharpton will eventually make.

But what has brought us here? I blame food.

You see I write a lot of historical romance for a living and in my research on what a regency household served for dinner or what Scots ate in the 1500s, what jumps out at me is the sheer blandness of the food. So they travelled around the world and found that not everyone was living with boiled apples and roasted venison. They discovered places which had tea, tobacco, and spices. They discovered silk. They discovered precious stones. They coveted.

But they had nothing to trade. Nothing these people would want anyway, so they decided to take. And the way to take would be to use the one skill that they have honed better than anyone else. Manipulation and lying. They turned Christianity into a weapon. They used guns as a tool of power and fear. They decided to use the colour of their skin as a status symbol. They wrote the history books and so they turned myth into fact.

 Centuries of conditioning later, and most people didn't even question it. Not white people, not black people, not Asian people. 

Very many people still don't.

Every day though, those people grow less blind. Thank you, Cheeto Satan, for showing everyone white supremacy's ass.

So here's where opportunity comes in.

A man named George Floyd was killed by four policemen. His funeral, in fact, was yesterday. In the face of the protests, it was easy to forget that at the centre of this latest uprising is a dead man. Yesterday's funeral brought it home to me with a bang. Man, I hate funerals.

Anyway, so.

A man was killed, the four policemen who killed him were fired. And then it looked like that would be the end of that. Except...a video of a man being chased by two white men and subsequently killed had just been doing the rounds. Ahmaud Abery's killers were yet to be tried and convicted. Breonna Taylor was shot in her bed by police, as she slept when they raided the wrong house. George Floyd's death, captured in HD and lasting eight minutes and forty-six seconds was just that last straw. 

It was too much really.

So 1+1+1 made infinity. First locally, then regionally, then countrywide, then international; the cry for justice spread like wildfire. Now it wasn't just justice for George Floyd although that remains the kindling. No, it's justice for everyone who has ever been unjustly killed or hurt by police brutality. It's a cry for an end to that particular scourge.

People are finally seeing the biggest gang in the world for what it is. A racket. A tool of imperialism designed to oppress and suppress rather than to serve and protect. Or rather, they serve and protect the authors of imperialism. They make sure you and I, stay in line. 

And now people are saying NO.

It seems to have come out of nowhere, this opportunity to change the world but it's actually the result of slow attrition. Starting with Trayvon Martin and that jury which set George Zimmerman free and birthed the Black Lives Matter movement. George Zimmerman showing his ass so that anyone with half a brain cell KNOWS that the jury made the wrong decision. Watching Philando Castile die on Facebook live, knowing that Tamir Rice's killers were still working like they did not kill a twelve-year-old boy. Then When They See Us came out and showed how police obtain convictions. And every day, the tide turned a little more. Let's not forget eight years of an Obama white house meant that the generation that is responsible for a lot of change, the K-Pop stans, the Parkland students, the little girl in Flint, the white girls challenging their parents, grew up knowing that a black president is just a thing that happens. And it all came to a head with this one death. Opportunity looks like it just sprang up and yet, every little thing contributed to it. 

Speaking of which, I saw this account on twitter complaining about how libraries always claim they don't have books by black authors in their roster and she knows they lying. So I replied that my books are available on Scribd, Overdrive. 

An hour later she got back to me about one of my books. Like fastest sale, read and book review I've ever had. So because she was looking for black authors, I had my books in online libraries, and I'm black, but had I not answered her post, the opportunity would not have come to the good end it did. 

So in order to take advantage of fate, there must be action. Positive, deliberate action that is met with appropriate REaction.

The Racism of Stock Photos

I downloaded this app that supposed to help you create social media posts. You know the type right? Anyone who does social media marketing should be aware of these.
Anyway, I usually use Canva to make my posts but now with Instagram being all, "You don't even go here," to my web-based social media apps that I use on my desktop, I decided to download something on my phone.
I mean, it's fun to play around with these apps and you can use your own photos...but, however, yet and nevertheless...I have a huge beef with all-a-dem.
The stock photos all have the same white, slim, blonde blue-eyed girl or dark-haired white blue eyes man, in them.
Like, it's not even funny and I wish I was exaggerating.

I just tried to search 'Haitian Zombies' on Canva and I still got white people in zombie costumes.
I remember that I went on Adazing once to get those mockups, you know the ones where your book cover is photoshopped in photos of people on picnics, the library, whatever? They wanted me to pay $60 for that shit and all the models were white.
What?
I actually wrote to them complaining and you know what? They've expanded their repertoire since. There are actually black and Asian people on there now. Not saying I did that but I definitely contributed.
I've been following this mess that happened with the Romance Writers Association where one of their writers of colour was punished for pointing out racist shit in a white writer's story. The WoC was suspended until twitter got involved. Then everyone started resigning from the organization, which then 'unsuspended' the writer of colour. It was a mess. All the officeholders quit. It was a bloodbath. People were finally talking openly about the different ways that writers of color get a raw deal in the romance writing world.
It was beautiful.

Now I am no stranger to being penalized for pushing back against Karen's telling me my views are rude because they differ from theirs, so I can totally relate. What annoys me is the gaslighting. The 'it's not what you said, it's how you said it, I don't see what the problem is' attitude.
I'm an honest and straightforward person. It annoys me more that people try to prevaricate about their racism, more than the racism itself. If you're going to be prejudiced, then wear it proudly on your sleeve. Stop trying to pretend it's something else.
I was talking to one of my internet mentors, "Black Freelance Association" a while back about how hard it was to get the same rates as someone in the West when it comes to romance writing. She told me that there is a lot of racism in the sector. I didn't really believe her because I've been ghostwriting romances for years and getting clients if not the top tier. But after this whole fiasco came out, and people started telling their stories, I realized that not just as a ghostwriter but also as an author with a the last name 'Musawale' I have been handicapped.

Sometimes you're so used to being crippled you don't even notice anymore.
A simple thing like creating a social media post from an app becomes twice as hard because you have to either take your own photos (and I'm no photographer) or google images that might not even be licensed for use.
Have you tried to google 'African'? You will be shocked to find that most of the images which come up are white. If there's a secret place y'all get your black people stock photos, please share.

Four Books, Four Days, Free

Try saying that fast four times.
Yes indeedy, four is the theme of this post.
I love marketing. It's so fun. You come up with creative posts for your social media, and catchy slogans so people will remember to do what you want them to. It's almost like procrastinating except without the guilt. Because you're still working, but it's fun. The returns might be far in the future but one thing I've come to learn is that returns are not the point.
It really is about the journey. I am not even being facetious.
It might be different if I was planning to live on the returns of writing. Maybe one day, but I'm not there yet. I won't get there without your help. So, thank you for reading and downloading and participating and engaging. I do very much appreciate it.

And that does not mean I am not super thrilled by every sale I manage to make. But unlike most people who are discouraged by slow results, I am zen. I am prepared.
That said, go to my author page and at least download the free books - I've gone a year when I've made at least one sale a month, and I mean for that streak to continue and grow. Help me out guys.
So anyway, to create super hype for Marcus Devereux what we're gonna do is help you to read the first four books if you haven't. Now I remember those days when I was too poor to buy books and I came across a good story in a series but it was book five...
Man, the frustration.

So I'm doing this for you guys who genuinely want to read but are financially challenged - the rest of you buy the boxset. It's like...the price of three beers or coffees and you get to enjoy them more than once.
So we're gonna start with In the Shadow of the Styx, which will be free from 1st to 4th April. Four days of free books for four months. In the Shadow of the Styx, The Swamp is Full of Mystery, Child of Destiny and Requiscant In Pace free for the first four days of April, May, June and July respectively.
(I admit, since The Swamp is Full of Mystery is permafree, May might be superfluous but it's the poetic symmetry of it, ya dig?)
Hov and B think that the number four is significant. Seeing their life, I'm gonna assume they are on to something. So I'm basing my marketing strategy on the number four.

Let's see what happens.
Here is an excerpt for your enjoyment.

Macro and Micro Marketing as a Self-Published Author

So proud of myself, look, I have a serious post title. It's like I'm a real blogger or something.
Hi.

Did you already read Cinderella By Any Other Name? If not, it's the featured book right there on my right so just click preview or buy and go ahead and read it. I had someone get back to me right on launch day to say she'd bought it and was about to start reading. First time that has happened. I mean people have gotten back to me but not with such immediacy.
It was nice.
Anyway, if I tell you that she loved the story you're going to think I'm just book marketing, so I won't. I will say we had exactly one of those discussions I talk about wanting to have on here. This one was about the Role of Women in Society and Why We Carry The Burden of Our Family's Wellbeing.
It was very satisfying.
More please!

I have enjoyed marketing this book in a I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing kind of way. It was fun and it connected with an audience I think. I also felt quite a bit of ownership of the subject matter in terms of being able to relate just as a woman and an older child - though not the firstborn. Also, the story was set in Nairobi. My first story set completely in my home town. It does make a difference when you set a story in a place you know through personal experience rather than reading about it or watching movies about it.
And even as it's a very local story, I felt like it told a really universal story. I'll have to wait and see how many of you agree with that sentiment.
This post is turning out very self-congratulatory and it wasn't meant to be that.
I am here to tell you about book marketing because I've been trying various things to try to see what works, what works better, and what doesn't work at all.
Now when it comes to just entertaining my regular followers, I think I am killing it at Instagram. I decided when I opened an author account to just be myself in the most genuine way possible while still trying to be professional. Feedback says people enjoy my posts but my audience grows slowly. Please do follow the link in the top bar and hit the follow. I promise you don't have bought one of my books to enjoy my posts. They are designed to entertain.
I think Instagram helps me move my free books the most. People enjoy the posts and the captions, maybe they see that 'oh, this one's free' and they like the cover, so they go download it. So that's step one done. Hopefully if they like the story, they look at 'other books by' and maybe they buy another book.

I'm not so sure about my Facebook page. I think it's a good place for news and perhaps the very occasional book buyer. It's a more obligatory online presence place where you can find out everything I'm up to as pertains to my books. My twitter is great for connecting with authors, marketers and for creating awareness. Just last week, I saw that someone was looking for book recs, so I tweeted her the link to Child of Destiny. Got a lot of retweets and a book sale out of that. Of course there is no direct correlation between the twitter link and the book sale except that the timing fits.
That's micro marketing.
One on one.
I think I get more sales that way than the macro, go big or go home way.
I'm an Indie Author, I do not have name recognition, but if I ask you personally to check out this link - when you have asked for a rec in my genre - and leave it up to you to decide to buy or not, I find that in one out of twenty interactions, I might make a sale.
It's not even that time-consuming if you spend as much time as I do, procrastinating on social media. It's more a matter of recognizing an opportunity when it slaps you in the face.
I mean I loved my two week launch but I think I look at it as more of an opportunity to create awareness rather than generate massive sales.
I did generate some sales which is always awesome.

So now it's back to my regularly scheduled programming.
Wow, what do you think of this mess with Jussie Smollett? I'm witholding judgement until someone explains the why of it to me. Make it make sense somebody. Sometimes I think the world is going mad and the apocalypse is already here.
That's why you should escape into my books. *whispers* (that's macro marketing).

Book Marketing for Dummies

So tell me, how is my book launch going? How many of you have hit the pre-order link for Cinderella By Any Other Name? Come on, hit me up in the comments, so I can gauge how well this marketing plan is going.

Well...marketing plan might be overstating things.
More like shooting my shot and hoping it hits something. See my plan for this story was quite different. I had submitted it to an African magazine for publication and that was it, I had moved on. But then after about a month or more, they get back to me and say, "Your story is not consistent with the theme of our magazine (speculative fiction) and so if you have another one yada yada."
Which kind of had me going like "Dammit!"
I didn't want to do another book launch for a while. I was saving it for Marcus Devereux.
So I thought okay, what do I do? Submit it to another magazine or publish?
I decided to do both; submit and publish and see which one yielded fruit first.
Hence, my lack of an actual book launch plan. However, I think I've been doing okay so far, yeah? Blogging daily, having a countdown, mentioning the book in any context I find myself in...
Hoping it all works...

I mean don't get me wrong. I have read up on everything, I have consulted all relevant facebook groups...I've done my research people. And what all the 'wisdom' out there amounts to is, "copy what the bestsellers are doing."
But...yesterday I went on to the kindle store just to see if I could find a book to download. The way I shop for book is that I wait for something to catch my eye. To stand out from the rest. This time I said to myself after scrolling through page one and seeing nothing but white people on the cover of what was essentially the same book, over and over and over.
So I said to myself, "First book with black people, I'm buying."
The first book with black people on it was essentially same as the white people except the black people were church people. I loathe church people - such a hypocritical bunch of self-righteous sheeple. Like I cannot stand them. They do not speak in real sentences. Sorry.

So I scrolled on by and five pages in, I admitted defeat. When you try to find something interesting to read on Kindle it really helps you to understand why it's such a challenge making a sale. They show you the bestsellers, the books like Becoming which are already selling millions. And then they use whatever algorithms it is and whoever has the biggest advertising budget to essentially show you the same book a million times over. Unless you've heard of the author or the book before you get on amazon, you're not likely to find it.
That's why it boggles my mind when I see fellow authors complaining about having to have social media while simultaneously complaining that their books are not selling. People really think, in 2019, that you can just put your book out there, sit on your hands and expect it to sell. It's super dumb.
People are so super dumb these days.

I wish that there was a way to wade through the detritus and find interesting reads like you can do in a brick and mortar shop. There is so much regulation online even on just what you are enabled to see, and the censorship gets worse and worse every day, that it's almost impossible to exist outside this tiny sphere of puritanism and policing that we are continuously sucked into.
That's how you know the apocalypse is here.
However, here we still in the out lands, in the free lands, in the badlands.
Here you can still think for yourself.
Now do as I say and buy my book.