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The Results of the Big Birthday Sale

Posted: June 15, 2015 in Living and Life, Writing
Tags: big sale, birthday sale, blogging, entertainment, Facebook, horror, living and life, novel, progress report, Reborn City, review, sale, sales, science fiction, Snake, social media, The Quiet Game, thriller, Video Rage, writing

So as you probably already know, since my birthday last Wednesday I’ve had a sale on all my books, where the paperbacks were marked down and the e-books were made free. I called it the Big Birthday Sale and it ended last night at midnight. Now, I don’t know how many of you are actually curious to ask how the big sale went. I’m sure you have better things to do with your life, especially if you have your own book out there and you’re trying to get that into people’s hands. However, I learned some very interesting things from doing this sale, the first time I’ve ever done a sale like this, and I’d like to discuss them. So if you’re not already heading to close the tab you’re reading this in, here’s how the Big Birthday Sale went.

To say the least, it was a big success. In total, I had a little under twelve-hundred books sold or downloaded over the course of five days, most of them e-books from Amazon. Not only that, but the people buying or downloading came from all over the world: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and even India and Japan! I’ve got readers in freaking India and Japan! I feel like JK Rowling or Stephen King, almost!

I think a big part of why I’ve gotten so many people reading was due to the Facebook ads I ran during the course of the sale. Each day I’d do a new ad, spending about ten to twenty dollars on promotional costs. This allowed me to reach a much broader and more diverse audience than I could’ve hoped on my own, and hopefully the many people who checked out my books because of the ads will be interested in finding out more about me because of the books. In fact, a good number of people already have: at the beginning of the sale, my Facebook page had 140 likes. Today, it has about 390 likes. Yeah, apparently those ads were pretty effective. Most of the people who liked my page were from India, it seems, judging by the names I keep seeing in my notifications. Interesting…maybe I’ll become one of those authors who’s really popular in another country, and I’m never quite sure why.

Anyway, I’m not sure how many of these new likes will stick around. With platforms like Facebook and Twitter, people like and unlike pages for the craziest of reasons (I once only liked a page for a soft drink so I could enter a contest. Soon as the contest ended and I lost, I unliked it faster than you can say “Sorry, please try again”), but I’m hopeful at least half of them will stick around to watch as I work on becoming a great horror author.

In the meantime, I’d like to thank everyone who took part in the Big Birthday Sale, getting books or even spreading the word by sharing my posts. It means a lot to me that you would check out my work and want to read it. And if you do end up reading my stories, please let me know what you think, whether in a comment, a blog post on your own personal blog, or a review on Amazon. Positive or negative, I appreciate feedback, and I’d love to hear yours!

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got a few things to take care of today, and then I’m editing Video Rage so that all my Reborn City fans can get the sequel they desperately want to read. I’ll let you guys know if anything new or exciting comes up. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear!

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: June 5, 2015 in Writing
Tags: #FirstLineFriday, blogging, editing, entertainment, Facebook, living and life, social media, storytelling, writing

I’ve been part of a Facebook group for writers for a while now, and we have this thing where on Fridays called #FirstLineFriday (always with the hashtag). Basically we post the first one or two lines of one of our stories, works in progress, or potential stories. It’s a lot of fun, so I thought I’d try it here on my blog, maybe see if I could inspire some other writers to do it on their blogs and start a trend. It would be pretty cool if that happened, don’t you think?

Alright, here’s my first lines, from a story I had an idea for not too long ago. Not sure if these will be the first lines when I write the story, but it sums up a great deal of the story’s theme. Enjoy:

Being human meant surviving, at almost any cost. That was the humble opinion of eight-year-old Marianne Carter, who had endured the whipping Lady McConnell had bestowed upon her rump today–without crying–just so she and her family could survive on the meager pay her job brought home.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Errors? Let me know and wish me luck for next week. Here’s hoping this ignites a trend!

Outlining Short Stories & Novelettes: A Writing Experiment

Posted: May 19, 2015 in Living and Life, Novelette, Reflections, Writing
Tags: editing, entertainment, Facebook, horror, ideas, living and life, novelette, outline, progress report, reflections, short story, social media, Twitter, writing

I might’ve mentioned this a few times on this blog and on my Facebook and Twitter pages, but I’ve been trying something new with my writing. As you probably know, I’ve been working on a couple of shorter works, a short story and what will likely turn out to be a novelette, since I finished the second draft of my thesis/novel Rose. Unlike previous shorter works, where most or all of the story has been laid out in my head and I’m just transmitting it to the page, I’ve been actually outlining these stories on paper so I have a better idea of where I’m going and to see if doing so improves the stories overall.

I decided to try this because of two things I’ve noticed with my shorter works. For one thing, I’m always worried about the final word count. Many fiction magazines only accept stories of a certain length, and I’m always worried I won’t be able to tell a compelling story within that space, so I try to wedge it in. Usually that doesn’t turn out the results I wish.

Another reason I’m trying outlining is that when I usually write shorter works, most of the story is mapped out in my head. But when I try to get the rest on the page, I sit there wondering which direction to go, how to tell the story just right. And depending on the story, this sitting and wondering can take a while before I actually figure something out and start writing.

For both of these reasons, I’m trying to outline my shorter works. The outlines themselves are just basic summaries of the events of the story, which works for me. It’s just enough information that I can work with it to write the actual story.

And the results have been very interesting. Having a clear direction of where I’m going by writing it all down beforehand not only cuts down on the time I spend on sitting wondering where to go, but having a definite idea of where I’m going makes me less anxious over the word count. It’s kind of…decompressing, in a strange way. I can just write the story as I intend it in the outline and not worry how long or short it is.

As for the stories themselves, the results have been rather mixed. For the first story Streghe, which I finished not too long ago, the outline didn’t help as much, but that was mostly because I kept going back and rewriting or changing the direction of the story. I’d like to write another outline for the second draft though, especially since I think there will be a lot that will change between the first and second drafts. We’ll just have to see what I come up with in-between drafts though and what direction I want to go with that story.

As for the story I’m working on now, a science-fiction story currently at about sixty-seven hundred words, the outline has been very helpful so far. I have a very good idea of where I’m going with the story, and in-between sessions of writing I’m able to lay out what I’m going to put down on the page next in my head, rehearsing whole scenes before I write them down. It’s been a lot of fun working on this one.

Based on what’s happened so far, I think I’ll continue to outline my shorter works along with my longer works for now. As long as it works for me, why not use it? It just goes to show that no matter what stage of your writing career you are in, you’re never too old or too late to learn a few new tricks. And boy, am I glad I learned this one.

Do you or have you ever outlined your shorter works?

What’s been the effects of doing so on your stories?

Having a Facebook Page and Being on Twitter

Posted: September 27, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
Tags: authors, blogging, college life, entertainment, Facebook, living and life, reflections, social media, Twitter

I started my own Facebook page back in September 2013, and I logged onto Twitter for the first time nine months earlier in January of that year. I didn’t know if either of those accounts would amount to anything at the time I started them. That was partially because I’m wary of social media in general, even if I use them in my everyday life. I’d also been told by plenty of fellow authors that while Facebook and Twitter can be great marketing tools and maybe increase your following, they won’t necessarily increase your book sales by very much, if at all. I’d seen the same thing in my blog: while I’ve had a steady growth of followers over three years and a tremendous amount of views since last year, it didn’t necessarily mean that everyone reading my blog posts was going out to buy my books.

Still, I thought it was worth a try. Plenty of people had bred huge followings on both media platforms. And if they could do it, why couldn’t I?

So I started posting on my Facebook page and sending out tweets (though I kind of neglected the latter for a while save for links to my blog posts). Do I have a huge following on either yet? Not really. My Facebook page only has 126 likes at this point, and each post usually only gets a small fraction of any of those followers. And blog posts tend to get lower views than regular Facebook posts. Same with Twitter, though the amount of likes seem to fluctuate a lot. Last night I had 71 Twitter followers, then this morning it was 75, and now it’s 74.

And I’m not sure how many people check out my books through these pages, let alone buy or download copies.

Still, that doesn’t mean my forays into social media marketing have been utter disasters. I’ve found the online pages of friends of mine, and we’ve subscribed to each other’s pages/tweets/whatever. Occasionally we’ve even helped each other out, retweeting each other tweets or sharing articles that really speak to us. It’s a great opportunity to support one another and help each other out. And once or twice people I’ve had some pretty important people check out what I’m doing online thanks to Twitter: a director of a movie I reviewed once retweeted the review, and ACX, the company whom I wrote an article about a while back, not only retweeted the article, but now follows me on Twitter. To which I say, “AWESOME!”

So while I don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers through either platform, let alone that many sales, I think I’ve had a pretty successful run on both of them. I get to interact with friends, the occasional important company or filmmaker, and I’ve actually grown to like tweeting really unusual but funny stuff on Twitter. Like this:

https://twitter.com/RamiUngarWriter/status/514890936934215680

That one actually got a few Favorites and one Retweet.

In any case, I’m really happy with the followings I have been able to build, and while I wouldn’t mind bigger ones, I’m glad that I have people interested in what I have to say to begin with. And who knows? I’m early in my career. I could still build those followings with some hard work and plenty of optimism. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Though don’t expect me to get an Instagram (I don’t have the right kind of phone for it). Or a Pinterest. Or a Tumblr. Or a Flickr, Foursquare, Tinder, or…is there any others I’m missing? Never mind. I’m not sure I want to know.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to have a late lunch and then work on a short story for my creative writing class. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

Rami Ungar The Writer: Three Years of Blogging

Posted: August 2, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report
Tags: Amazon, anniversary, blogging, college life, comedy, entertainment, Facebook, living and life, novel, Ohio State University, progress report, reflections, self-pub authors, Smashwords, social media, Twitter, writing

Before you read anything else, just check out this video below.

Now that you’re either laughing yourself silly or wondering what the hell that was,I want to say something important. Three years ago, in a library down the road from where my mom lived, I decided, after much thought, to go on WordPress on create a blog. I didn’t know what would happen. Heck, I didn’t even really know what I was doing! My whole first post, and the first few that came after it, had lower case titles! I had no idea what the difference was between a page or a post, and I did not have categories for the first few posts. It took me even longer to figure out what tags were and why they were so important.

But I learned. I kept blogging. At some point within the first few weeks, I started gaining followers. Just one or two, but they stuck around. I gained more followers. I blogged more and more regularly, finding excuses to publish posts. I tried not to get discouraged when days or weeks would go by and I’d have only one or two views in that entire period. I made more friends, got several new followers, published three books, started writing for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, went abroad, wrote two more books that need to be edited as soon as possible, began work on a thesis, and survived three years of college. And these days, I average at least nine views a day, which makes me plenty happy (I love knowing people are checking out my work)!

You want to know something? I still have no f**king idea what makes a good blog post. I’m not kidding. Every time I think to myself “People are going to want to read this” , or “This could get Freshly Pressed with the right tags” or even “This probably won’t be one of my more popular posts”, more often than not I get surprised. Just the other day two of my posts got more views than I expected. I was like, “Say what?”

Anyway…

A lot has changed in three years. Not just me, though I’ve definitely grown a bit and maybe have gotten some nicer glasses. Basically I’ve grown a nice following. At the time I’m writing this, I’ve got 24.459 views, 1,922 comments, at least 1500-1800 likes (they stopped notifying me of likes after I passed 1337, but I guess-timate it’s around the range I quoted), and 645 followers. I also have 121 followers on my Facebook page and 66 followers on my Twitter feed. I’m very happy that all this has happened (especially the Facebook page and Twitter feed, I’m really surprised that anyone are into those).

So in honor of this great occasion, I’m announcing a week-long sale. From August 2nd to August 9th, all my e-books on Amazon and Smashwords are available for $0.99 to download. So if you’d like to read my books at a discount rate, now is the opportunity to do it. Just type my name into either website, and you’ll find my work. And if you do decide to read any of my books, please let me know what you think once you finish them. A comment or a review, positive or negative, I’d love to know what you think. Just as long as you’re not trolling me or anything. I’d hate that.

And if you see a different price than what I quoted online, check back later. The websites can act funny sometimes.

That’s all for now. I’ve got work to do, so I’m going to do it. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear!

Some Reminders On Social Media Safety

Posted: September 29, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections
Tags: blogging, entertainment, Facebook, ideas, living and life, proper decisions, Reddit, reflections, social media, Twitter

This past week, I’ve seen some things on my Twitter feed that’s got me a little concerned. A few of my friends whose feeds I followed have said or posted some things that I’m not sure they’ll be proud they posted a few years down the road. One acquaintance made references to drugs she wanted to try. All that, plus the crazy Twitter uproar where people said very racist and inaccurate things about the newly elected Miss America, who’s Indian-American, made me decide to do a post reminding people of things they should and should not post on social media.

Now, people who know me personally know that sometimes I have trouble with keeping my mouth shut when it should stay shut. And I know for a fact that regular readers of Rami Ungar the Writer know rules of internet safety like the backs of their hands. But I think sometimes that we’re not doing enough to keep people safe on the Internet, and if this post helps even just one person from making a stupid mistake, I think writing and publishing this post will be well worth it.

Besides, some of the people whose Twitter feeds I follow might bite my head off if I brought up these posts, so this is a safer way to go about doing it.

So to start, here’s some basic things that we should all remember about the Internet and posting stuff on it:

1. Once something’s on the Internet, EVERYONE can see it. Yes, I know your Facebook has a privacy setting adjusted so that only your friends can see it. But honestly, anyone with a computer these days can learn to hack into someone’s account, so don’t delude yourself into thinking your profile is safe from Internet weirdoes.

2. Once something is on the Internet, it NEVER goes away. Yes, I see the Delete button too. But have you ever seen crime shows? The data is never really erased, it’s just been buried. And as any gravedigger can tell you, something that’s been buried can be dug up again.

So now that we’ve established that, let’s go over some common-sense rules of Internet safety:

1. Before you post something, ask if you would say/do this in public and/or in front of complete and total strangers. If the answer is no, then don’t post it. I know, you may feel that airing a couple of N-words and saying sh*t about your ex on your Facebook or Twitter feed may be therapeutic and can get the message across that you’re upset. But people will really see this stuff, people you don’t intend to see it, and they may not like what they see. Would you like a prospective girl you really like to tell you she saw your Twitter feed to tell you she’s not interested in a relationship with a racist bastard who says horrible things about his ex’s vagina? I don’t think so.

2. If you usually hide something under your clothes, don’t take a photo of it! You’d think that this one wouldn’t need to be stated, but as Anthony Weiner and plenty of teenage and college girls have learned, that’s not the case. Every year, people take pictures of their genitals and send it to their lovers thinking they’re being sexy or naughty or risqué. In reality they’re setting themselves up for trouble. These photos have a tendency to get out to the public, and it can lead to all sorts of trouble, including ruined reputations, loss of families, friends, and even jobs, and even legal charges in some cases! So folks, don’t use your phone’s camera to take a picture of your sex characteristics, primary or secondary. It could come back to bite you in the ass.

3. Tweeting/Posting about actual or possible criminal activities is not cool. Don’t even do it sarcastically! I’ve read two stories in the past six months about people who had made passing jokes on their social media accounts about blowing up airports or shooting schools. They got arrested! Also, their was a guy in my state who murdered his wife and posted the proof on Facebook. I think you can guess what happened to him! And even if the police don’t show up on your doorstep, employers these days do look at social media when considering prospective employees. Trust me, they don’t like references to crimes. It makes you look bad in their eyes.

4. Drugs and alcohol should not even be mentioned. Doesn’t matter if it’s excessive or not, employers (and the police) don’t like to hear how you partied it up while drinking a ton of vodka or how you tried shrooms and coke together. For employers, they’re worried that you’ll cost them money coming into work high or drunk, and the police…that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? So yeah, stay away from those references.

5. That comment you made about minorities or someone in a minority will come back to haunt you. Yeah, we may not think much of calling someone by a term that comes with a connotation of prejudice. In some minorities, these terms are used as an inside joke. But really, it will come back to haunt you when someone sees your racist tweet on Obama or your sexist post on a coworker and posts it on Reddit! Trust me, they will trace it back to your account, and you will be embarrassed.

In addition, if you see something about another culture that baffles you, don’t put it online as a way to ask questions or to ridicule someone. A friend of mine who’s a practicing Sikh has a beard on her face even though she’s a woman. She does it as a show of faith. Someone, perhaps not meaning any harm, posted it on Reddit with the words “What do I make of this?” The photo got some negative attention, and so did the poster. <My fiend though came out of it beautifully, not letting anything hateful get her down and ultimately forgiving the person who took the photo face-to-face.

6. If you usually hide something under your clothes, don’t take a photo of it. Yes, I said that already. But judging how often people forget it, I think it needs repeating.

7. Think about how this could hurt someone. Any time you say or do something, it has the potential to hurt someone. Maybe it’ll hurt you personally, maybe a friend or family member, or maybe someone you’ve never met who lives on the opposite side of the world. Either way, think about that when you post. It’ll make you a bit wiser.

I’m going to finish with that last one and wish everyone luck in future posting. And to the reader who may learn something important from this post, I hope you don’t have any negative experiences in the future with Internet postings, whether they be posted by you or someone else. God bless, and have a nice day.

My New Facebook Page

Posted: September 19, 2013 in Living and Life, Writing
Tags: authors, blogging, entertainment, Facebook, ideas, living and life, novel, Reborn City, Snake, social media, The Quiet Game, Twitter, Video Rage, writing

Hey, what’s up everybody?

Well, I’ve got some news. You know how I created a page for The Quiet Game a while back? Well, I decided that since I’ve got Reborn City coming out in November and Snake coming out sometime next year and whatnot, it didn’t make sense for me to have pages for all of my books. It’s just too much work for a college student who already has a pretty big workload, and I can’t afford an assistant (plus I don’t really need one). So I decided to condense everything into a single page: Rami Ungar the Writer.

Yes, just like this blog. Makes sense, right? I plan to post links to my blog there, as well as some updates and other things happening in my life that I can’t put into a blog post for a variety of reasons. And I’m hoping to get plenty of people interested in my new page, talking not just things in my life or my writing, but also thinks happening in the media and in the world, links to the works and blogs of friends, and…well, the possibilities are endless.

If you’d like to subscribe to my Facebook page, you can follow this link here. Also, I still have a Twitter account, so you can click on this link here and check that out if you wish. You don’t have to, but I’d really appreciate it if you did. I’ll also be setting up the links on the About Me page, so they’ll be there if anyone wants to check them out after reading future posts.

All for now. I’m going to try to get some work on Video Rage done. Maybe even get half a chapter written! Let’s see how I do.

The Quiet Game: My First Review

Posted: July 18, 2013 in Living and Life, Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: authors, celebrities, editing, entertainment, Facebook, family, ideas, living and life, publishing, review, scary stuff, short story, social media, television shows, The Quiet Game, writing

Between finishing the last post and getting out of the shower, I realized that there wasn’t enough time to watch a movie before bed (another time, perhaps). Which is why I decided to write this post, featuring my first review of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. (If you’re interested in reading but don’t have the link, click here). It comes from one of my beta readers, and it was posted on her Facebook status. And by the way, this happens to be my mother.

Yes, I know your family is supposed to love everything you write, even if you have your character choking a baby (please don’t ever write anything as sick as that). But my mom’s a little different. For starters, my mother was the one who got me into Anne Rice and Stephen King. Yes, she did. Originally a fan of the two authors, she’s the one who lent me Interview with the Vampire and told me to read Stephen King when I’d read several Anne Rice books. She’s also lent me other books and turned me onto other writers like Dean Koontz and Dan Brown. She also introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files, shows which had a profound influence on me and my writing.

So even though she’s family and even though my mother doesn’t get the same sort of thrills I do from horror movies (I feel delightfully terrified while she’s just terrified), she’s definitely helped in molding me into the writer I am. Which was why I was very delighted when I called her and she told me she was about one short story into the book. And later when I logged onto Facebook, I was greeted with my first review. What did Rabbi Wendy Warren Ungar have to say? Why this:

“Reading Rami’s new book of short stories that was just published, (shameless promotion here), and I’ve discovered that my son is yet another author I can’t read at night!”

If you haven’t noticed, the subtitle on this blog is “Scared yet? My job here is done.” Well folks, my job here is done. Because I’ve always dreamed of giving someone a fright with my writing, and hearing that my mother can’t read my work at night gives me a small sense of accomplishment. I like knowing that I can deliver the goods when I say my stories are scary, and I like knowing I’m getting the sort of reactions I’d hoped for.

So Mom, thanks for reviewing and shamelessly promoting and all that. It means a lot to me and I hope to make even better stories as time goes on.

I also hope to post more reviews for The Quiet Game as they come. I know some friends have said they’ll write a review when they’re done, so I’m sure those reviews will show up in the next couple of weeks. Until then I hope you enjoy reading The Quiet Game as much as I enjoyed writing it, putting it together, and sending it out to you.

Good night everybody!

Rami Ungar The Writer

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