Cerece Rennie Murphy, Author, Motivational Speaker and Entrepreneur
Listen to her Sisterhood message: http://www.audioacrobat.com/sa/WHZvXJFW
Topic: Loving Yourself on Purpose - How to Move Past Fear to Live Beyond Your Dreams
References: Here's a link to Cerece's website with resources on how to buy your own ISBNs and more (scroll down to the section titled "Don't Pay ANYONE to Copyright Your Work), then click on the hyperlink: https://www.cerecerenniemurphy.com/for-authors
National bestselling and award-winning author Cerece Rennie Murphy fell in love with writing and science fiction at an early age. It’s a love affair that has grown ever since. In 2012, Mrs. Murphy published the first book in what would become the Order of the Seers sci-fi trilogy. Mrs. Murphy has since published ten books.
In addition to recently publishing her first time-bending romance titled, To Find You, Mrs. Murphy released the 2nd book in the Ellis and The Magic Mirror children’s book series with her son. Mrs. Murphy is currently developing a fantasy adventure, titled The Wolf Queen and a 2-part space opera.
Mrs. Murphy lives and writes in her hometown of Washington, DC with her husband, two children and the family dog, Yoda. To learn more about the author and her upcoming projects, please visit her website at www.cerecerenniemurphy.com.
What I Have Learned From Publishing My First Book
by Cerece Rennie Murphy, author of the Order of the Seers Trilogy
by Cerece Rennie Murphy, author of the Order of the Seers Trilogy
A few years ago, I published my first full-length story EVER– a sci-fi novel called Order of the Seers. It took me about a year to write and almost as long to get up the courage to publish it. But on September 4, 2012, I took the plunge, hit the send button, uploaded my file to Amazon and waited for the masses to collectively shudder in awe at the little piece of my heart that I sent out into the world. It has been quite a journey since then, and ever since I got my head out of my you-know-where and started using it, its been kind of fun too. How hard this journey has been hasn’t exactly been a surprise to me, but watching myself slowly evolve into a publisher has. This is a short list of some of the things I have learned so far.
1) Welcome to the REAL world AKA you are NOT an overnight sensation. The day my first book was published, I spent the entire day sick in bed with worry and fear. After a week, I think I had only sold about 20 ebook copies. I was devastated. I told myself my book was horrible and I shouldn’t have even tried to publish it. It took me a week to start THINKING about what I might have done better or differently. That’s when I really started to move into the new career that I have chosen.
The Lesson: If you don’t become a bestseller your first week out, it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s just where you started. Where you end up is up to you.
2) One blog tour and one eblast does not a marketing plan make. Seriously - that was pretty much my marketing plan for the release of my 1st book. Yes, I was very naïve about what it would take for people to find out about my book. Most of my reluctance to developing a marketing plan had to do with a) my fear of putting myself out there and b) my general ignorance about what methods and resources were available to me. I did a little bit of this and a little bit of that for a while. Some things worked (I built my mailing list by going to comic/sci-fi conventions, did a cover reveal blog tour for the 2nd book along with a $.99 week long sale promotion for the 1st book) and some things didn’t (spent a ton of money on a Christmas ad campaign that cost way more than I sold in books).
The Lesson: If you have the guts to publish a book, have the guts to market it. One barely makes sense without the other. One of the best marketing pieces of advice that I have gotten so far is, “pick a monthly budget, no matter how big or small and do something every month to promote your book. Keep writing and keep marketing. Consistency will pay off.” It has taken me over a year, but I am finally seeing the maturity and wisdom of these words. For most writers, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
3) Guard Your Headspace AKA Read Reviews Sparingly. I have read this time and time again from accomplished veterans of the writing profession, but this advice is so hard to heed. In the beginning, I used to check my reviews every day. It would stress me out so much that, at one point, I was literally afraid to go on Goodreads. A glowing review would be met with relief, quickly followed by skepticism. A strong, but not effusive review would be picked over to death for the rest of the day. Neither one helped me write any better, but one could shut me down for a good 24-48 hours.
The Lesson: Everyone isn’t going to like your book. That’s a fact and it’s okay. Find some people you trust and respect. Get them to read and critique your work. Modify as needed, then let it be. Periodically, I will check the number of reviews I have when I am in the middle of a promotion. Sometimes, if it appears that I’ve gotten a few good ones, I’ll chance a glance and feel happy, but I don’t let myself linger. It’s just not that helpful to my state-of-mind.
4) Building Buzz Takes Time AKA Give yourself more than 4 month before you publish your 1st novel. I decided to publish my book at the end of May 2012 and I published my 1st book in September. This was stupid. The process of trying to learn what I was doing while I was doing it was so stressful and crazy. At the time, I didn’t want to give myself the chance to chicken-out, so I think I just tried to plow through it, but in the process, I missed opportunities for reviews and using other promotional resources that might have made my first release more successful.
The Lesson: Don’t do what I did. Give yourself time to learn the business before you dive in. (But don’t use your research as an excuse to procrastinate!)
5) The doubt doesn’t go away, but it gets more manageable as you go. I wish I could say that, a year later, I feel like a super-awesome self-published author, but I don’t. Most days, I feel the weight of all the things I still need to learn and do, but I can also acknowledge how far I have come. The release of my second book in the Order of the Seers trilogy this summer was a bit less personally traumatic and much more thoroughly planned out and executed than my first release.
This was made possible only with the help of an author’s assistant, street promotion team, 3 book blog/promotion services running simultaneously, a small, but positive, collection of pre-release reviews, a week-long free sale of the 1st book and an uber-coordinated mailing list, Facebook and twitter campaign. The result - my second book stayed on Amazon Kindle’s best-seller list for over a month in the sci-fi/genetic engineering category and made it into Amazon’s Hot New Sci-fi releases list.
The Lesson: Believe in your story enough to work on writing it, honing it and sharing it, every day that you can.
Explore Books by Cerece Rennie Murphy:
http://www.amazon.com/Cerece-Rennie-Murphy/e/B008G6XXBS
The Wolf Queen Duology by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Read excerpts here: https://www.smore.com/zympn
The Wolf Queen duology follows the journey of Ameenah Yemini, a young woman who after years of rebuilding her life from a terrible tragedy is confronted with a secret that shatters the quiet comfort of her existence - bringing a long lost hope and a new destiny to light. Inspired by the culture, language, and traditions of ancient northeast Africa, the story explores themes of female divinity, elemental magic, belonging, and the many layers of personal identity.
Book II finds Ameenah struggling to understand her place in a magical world she can no longer deny. But, time is not on her side. While she is just discovering the potential of the magic in her blood, the Hir has sought the power of the Amasiti all his life and has every intention of taking her birthright for himself. To stop him from assuming control over her power and the land she loves, she must both reclaim the legacy of her people and build a new coalition of creatures and men with the will to come together and fight behind their true Queen.
Listen to a reading from the novels:
The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi (Book I)
Have you read The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi (Book I) yet? You can read the prologue on her beautiful website today: https://www.cerecerenniemurphy.com/adult-books
The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi (Book I) by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Once great and powerful sorcerers, the Amasiti were hunted to the brink of extinction by the Hir and his followers. For four hundred years, their legacy faded from memory waiting for the hope of Aferi to be renewed…
In the Land of Yet
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest
A young woman lives alone.
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest
A young woman lives alone.
Forced to fend for herself after the brutal murder of her family, Ameenah Yemini has made a life for herself as a master tanner and farmer, only venturing into the world to earn her living then return to the safety and seclusion of her home.
Until a chance encounter brings her work to the attention of the powerful Hir. And her careful life begins to unravel.
Drawn to the hidden magic that lingers in everything she touches, the new Hir insists on having her for himself, using the people around her to force Ameenah into his grasp.
When she realizes that her greatest enemy may hold the key to a secret she thought lost to her forever, Ameenah is determined to reclaim her stolen past. But, at what cost? As an ancient power waits to be unleashed, Ameenah's choices will make the difference between awakening a new magic or delivering it into the hands of evil.
Listen to a reading from the novels:
The Wolf Queen: The Promise of Aferi (Book II)
To claim their future, Ameenah Yemeni must avenge her past.
War has come to the Land of Yet and though the wolf has awakened within her, Ameenah Yemeni has just begun to understand the legacy behind its magic.
Without the wisdom to wield it, she knows she is no match for the treachery of the Hir, whose lust for absolute power threatens everything she holds dear.
Her only chance – Yet’s only hope – is for its people to band together and fight.
But the Hir’s iron grip reaches deeper than they ever realized and the land that once stood together is more divided than ever. While Ameenah travels to the isolated Province of Harat in search of allies and the remnants of the mythical Amasiti, the man she loves must take a different road, each uncovering terrible secrets, centuries in the making that could unravel their rebellion before it has time to take root.
In a desperate race to rally a force strong enough to defeat the Hir, Ameenah's quest plunges her into the depths of a cursed land to recover what remains of an age-old promise—but the cost of saving her people just might be her life.
The final chapter of The Wolf Queen adventure is here.
The Wolf Queen: The Promise of Aferi (Book II in The Wolf Queen Series) by Cerece Rennie Murphy. Order today: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XDZTCVH
Purchase The Wolf Queen (2 book series) By Cerece Rennie Murphy: https://amzn.to/2kIc4ub
Purchase Other Books by Cerece Rennie Murphy today:
About the Platform Creator Cerece Rennie Murphy
Cerece fell in love with science fiction at the age of seven, watching “The Empire Strikes Back” at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. with her sister and mom. It’s a love affair that has grown ever since.
Cerece is the national bestselling author of ten books, including the Order of the Seers science fiction trilogy, two books in the award-winning Ellis and The Magic Mirror children’s fantasy series, and To Find You, a time-bending, historical romance.
Cerece launched Narazu in October of 2016 because she believes, as all sci-fi fans do, in the power of independent, yet like-minded individuals to save the world. To learn more about Cerece and her upcoming projects, please visit her website at www.cerecerenniemurphy.com.
Order of the Seers Trilogy by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Join the #SeducingThePen Tour, share the material from this page:
https://www.smore.com/d299-order-of-the-seers-trilogy
https://www.smore.com/d299-order-of-the-seers-trilogy
To Find You by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Read an excerpt from To Find You: https://www.smore.com/prg4
Listen to the author read: http://www.audioacrobat.com/note/C7GN8vWk
Indie Sci-fi Author and Narazu Founder Cerece Rennie Murphy
She introduces Narazu, a new online platform designed to bring the best in independent sci-fi and comic-culture content to the fans who love it most. Read more: http://narazu.com/about-us
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