ROSA Membership is now open

In May 2014 ROSA was registered as a non-profit organisation. This year we are formalising the organisation's membership. If you would like to become a registered member of Romance writers Organisation of South Africa, please contact Romy on romy@sommer.co.za for a membership application form.

There is an annual membership fee to cover administration costs, set at R200 for the 2015/6 year. Bank details are on the membership application form.

As a member, you will:

• be eligible to use a ROSA membership badge on your website/blog/social media sites.
• be eligible for a discount on the conference fee. receive a quarterly newsletter.
• be listed as a member on the blog and/or website.
• have the opportunity to promote your work on the ROSA blog.

We welcome volunteers, so if you would like to assist with management or administration, setting up contests, managing social media, or contributing to the newsletter, please let Romy know or contact us via our website: www.romancewriters.co.za.

Note: The ROSA Constitution and Certificate of Registration are available to download from our website here.

#ROSACon2015

The second annual ROSA Conference will take place on Friday 25 and Sat 26 September 2015, at the Devon Valley Hotel in Stellenbosch. To keep updated on conference news, please sign up for our newsletter here.

Conference Report: Rachel Morgan on Self-Publishing

ROSACon2014 closed with a chat with Rachel Morgan, possibly South Africa's most successful self-published author to date. Thank you to author Kathy Bosman for this report back on Rachel's talk.

Report by Kathy Bosman

Rachel was truly inspiring. She’s a successful author who has self-published several series of books and is able to live “comfortably,” as she put it, off of her sales. Many of us aspire to reach this point.

Her talk was given in the format of question and answers, and Rachel was thorough in answering the questions forwarded to her.

To start with, she stressed the importance of investing in a good cover design and how that’s essential to selling a book on Amazon. Series are also vital to attract readers. Publish quickly – don’t leave long periods between books. The good thing about being self-published is you have control over the time periods between your releases.

If you self-publish, you must be flexible and open to change as the market and rules are always changing. You have to be able to format or hire someone to format your book for several platforms. She suggested using Sigil (which is free and makes Epub files) and Jutoh where you don’t need to use code and is the easiest for Amazon and Smashwords.

A participant asked where she gets her editing done. Rachel sends her books to trusted beta readers before she publishes them so she doesn’t lay out large amounts on professional editors.

She said the best way to do promo is to advertise on email subscription services like Booksend, Best Bug, The Fussy Librarian, Read Cheaply and Free Booksy. Putting her books for free gains exposure and having the first book of a series for free helps gain readers.

She uses social media to promote and only sends newsletters out to those who are her genuine readers. There’s nothing more off-putting than sending a newsletter out to those who didn’t subscribe or don’t want to receive it.

To obtain reviews – she asks those who liked her previous books to review for her. She finds them on Goodreads.

Another good promotion opportunity is to combine events with other authors like Facebook parties and blog tours. Put a free book on Wattpad – it helps to improve sales as people read it and then want her other books.

Rachel Morgan

She spoke about tax and how you have to keep a record of your sales and expenses and also how you have to organise an ITIN number with Amazon so you don’t have to pay tax with them although that seems to have fallen away now. You can claim for some of your expenses from SARS as a business would.

With her print books she works with independent bookstores as they’re more open to selling her books. Most of the time, they sell her books on consignment. To sell to the major bookstores requires an expensive distributor.

It was a great session to listen to as it inspired us to work toward that goal of living off our passion. It was very informative for those aiming to go the self-publishing route. I don’t think I managed to get down half of all the information she gave us.

Conference Report: Tristan Banha's talk on Social Media

Thank you to author Rebecca Crowley for her report on Tristan Banha's talk on Social Media & Branding at #ROSACon2014.

Report by Rebecca Crowley

On Saturday afternoon ROSACon welcomed Tristan Banha, the founder of The Juice Box social media agency who’s recently joined the Chat Factory, where his clients include Joburg Theatre, Peugeot South Africa and the Smile Foundation. The Chat Factory is a social agency looking after social media publicity, strategy and account management.

Tristan began with a presentation emphasizing the constant growth in social media use. In South Africa specifically Instagram and YouTube are the fastest growing, while Facebook remains South Africa’s biggest social network.

Addressing Facebook in particular, Tristan said writers must have a fan page. He described Facebook as a “coffee shop”, a virtual place for mingling and sharing, which means it’s essential to divide the personal from the professional. An author-specific fan page provides this barrier, as well as helps authors target their engagement without blurring the lines between professional and more general social interaction.

When it comes to maximizing Facebook interaction, Tristan’s first tip was to ensure your content is mobile friendly, as 78% of South Africans access Facebook via their phones. He then explained the essential difference between being seen and being noticed. Achieving a high number of ‘Likes’ on a post constitutes being seen, but doesn’t necessarily suggest that the viewers will take that click any further (ie buy a book!). Being noticed, Tristan clarified, is better illustrated through an exchange of comments, as that shows engagement with the product (from the viewer’s side) and with the target audience (from the author’s side).

Tristan moved on from the nuances of Facebook to the overarching ways authors can maximize social media to engage with and generate new readers. Broadening from the “being seen v. being noticed” point, he suggested asking questions or crowdsourcing – getting input from audiences on Facebook or Twitter for character names or setting details, for instance – as a way to get readers involved with books or works in progress. The key follow-up step is to acknowledge the comments generated by these questions and interact with the readers who ask them, as that’s what secures their engagement and moves the interaction from seen to noticed.

Tristan described social media as a “community conversation” and encouraged authors to make use of it as such. He emphasized the use of hashtags on Twitter to help people join in the conversation, as they may search on those as keywords, and will expand the scope of the conversation from existing followers to potential new ones.

Overall, Tristan underlined that social media works best when the community provides the content and the author responds to it in an engaged, interactive way. Social media has the potential to massively grow an author’s exposure internationally and exponentially.

Tristan Banha and Rebecca Crowley at #ROSACon2014

Conference Report: Anthony Ehlers on a Plotter's Guide to Romance

Anthony Ehlers led a workshop on Sunday morning at #ROSACon2014 on 'Classic Love Stories: a Plotter's Guide to Romance'. Thanks to Lorna Senior for this report.

Report by Lorna Senior

All love stories are a search for a soulmate. This concept comes from Zeus having split humans in two and banished the halves to opposite ends of the earth. Hence the term ‘other half’ which suggest we are never complete without this mate.

Anthony talked about a few of the original romances, eg Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, illustrating that romance stories all have shared elements.
For example, the stories start with a magnetic attraction which includes a sense of the forbidden. This is followed by a brief moment of happiness then the lovers are ripped apart and everything seems impossible. It’s important to delay the reunion to create yearning. At last, there is happiness at the final rejoining of both body and spirit and the ultimate freedom.

It’s interesting to notice that early romances were frequently tragedies suggesting that the ultimate rejoining could only be attained by death eg Romeo and Juliet, but contemporary romances have the happy ever afters, which is our ultimate wish fulfilment.

Anthony also illustrated the importance of virtue being rewarded and pointed out the heroine couldn’t be a bitch! The readers have to believe that she is deserving of endless love.

It was a fun and informative talk and Anthony suggested that we all reconnect with the classics. Another very enjoyable and informative presentation in a fantastic conference.

Conference Report: Rebecca Crowley's talk on Self-Editing

Thank you to author Rae Rivers for her report back on Rebecca Crowley's workshop on Tips for Self-Editing on the Sunday morning at ROSACon2014.

Report by Rae Rivers

Day 2 of the conference dawned bright and early as we all gathered with great eagerness, notebooks in hand, to listen to Rebecca Crowley share some self-editing tips.

I adore the storytelling aspect of writing a book but sometimes find the editing aspect a bit daunting. The more books I’ve published, the sharper my editing eye has become – even though I still have heaps to learn so I was so keen to attend this particular session. For me, looking at my book objectively and trying to find all its faults is a bit overwhelming so it was useful that Rebecca broke down the self-editing tips into three parts:

• Plot, Conflict and Characters 
Is your plot, conflict and characters well defined? Are you able to sum up your story into a synopsis or a one-sentence elevator pitch?

• Pacing and Consistency 
Is there consistency between chapter and scene lengths? She suggested keeping an eye on word count to ensure that lengths are consistent. Are the details correct and constant – clothing, time sequence, setting, hair/eye colour etc. Another tip is to check these details after edits too as inconsistencies sometimes occur during the editorial process.

• Polish and Proofread
Finally, it’s critical to give your book one last read to polish and proofread. Check for words that are often repeated, delete unnecessary dialogue tags, watch out for repetition and passive voice and be wary of purple prose. (I for one, found that last tip interesting!)

It was wonderful to see such an eager audience, share ideas and gather some tips. A big thank you to Rebecca for sharing her knowledge and experience!

Conference Report: Nicki Bosman's talk on 'The Story of Your Life'

Thank you very much to Lorna Senior for her report on Nicki Bosman's talk at ROSACon2014. Nicki runs an editorial service called Enbeevee.

Report by Lorna Senior

Nicki Bosman has a degree majoring in English and Communications and a B.Tech in Public Relations and Communications. Her primary passion is working with English and words.

Nicki shared the challenges she herself has faced, including her husband’s death due to a motor bike accident, and her diagnosis of MS in 1992.

She advised us to write honestly and most importantly to be believable. For example, although we frequently suspend belief in fiction and particularly in romance writing, it is vital that emotions are authentically portrayed.

She suggested reading real life accounts eg Readers’ Digest or newspaper articles and interviewing the participants, if possible. Dramatic events have to be treated with respect. Nicki also pointed out the importance of using the five senses and having an awareness of how our words are used. The presentation underlined that everything we experience can be used in our writing.