On Being a Writer

FINDING STUFF ONLINE

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes we need to know some of the strangest things, or we require something and have no idea where to find it. It constantly amazes me how many questions Google can answer. I once thought that I could only look up a keyword or two, but discovered lately that a long question will receive a pretty good answer. So don’t hesitate to ask Google questions, such as “How do I format for Kindle?” Or “Is there a tutorial for Mobi Creator?”

Maybe you’d like to know some trivia. Try out the weirdest requests and have some fun with the answers. Want to have some more fun. Movie fans try out a site or two when you have a little time to kill. Here’s one that will give you a kick and likely keep you playing around with it for hours. And another along the same lines.

Did you know that if you’ve ordered a Kindle book you can actually get it autographed by the author online?Check it out here.

If you’re searching for photos that you can use without copyright infringement, there are several good sites, but the one I’ve found that is easily searched and has literally millions of photos is here. The photos aren't free, but cost very little.

As an author you may want to publish online articles and short stories that you can link back to your website and books. I like Sign up free.

Did you know what the top search engine online is? You might be surprised to learn that it’s You Tube. More people search for subject matter there than on any of the main search engines. So what does that tell you as a writer? Better get some videos posted on You Tube. Still, the most important thing you can do for your platform is to get noticed by Google and other search engines.

You’ve probably all Googled yourself, but are you listed on Google alerts so you know when someone mentions you or looks for you? If not, go to Google, ask for alerts and follow the directions. Make sure to list book titles as well as your own name so you’ll be notified when someone looks for you or mentions you or your books. Subjects that you write about are good to list too.

Were you aware that if you don’t have a Kindle reader you can download Kindle for PC and read those books on your computer? There are also Kindle apps for iPads, iPhones, etc., so you can purchase and download Kindle books to enjoy.

These are only the tips of some very huge icebergs that make up the Web. There’s no end to the information you can glean there. Be cautious though. Not everything you find is factual. Don’t trust it all, check it out with other sources, especially if you’re using the Internet to research for historical writing of any sort. I’ve found a lot of false information, so consider the source, then double- and triple-check it anyway.

DEALING WITH CODEINE, WORD AND WORK

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-06:00

It's difficult to get the brain working while on codeine and other stuff made especially to kill germs. Because I'm rarely sick, even the common cold comes as a surprise, so this bout with bronchitis really knocked me for a loop. But being a writer means we "man up." After all, we don't have to look our best and run off to an office where strangers can peer in at us periodically. and say something like, "Gee, you look terrible," or "Shouldn't you be home?" If we need to moan and hold our head, we're free to do so. We can wear our Batman pjs with the feet in them. Long as we get our work done. Deadlines wait for no one, even when they're self imposed. The only way to turn out good writing is to work on it every day. Even when the Kleenex box goes empty, the head pounds and that tickle in the throat signals yet another coughing seizure.

Well, enough about me. Hope this post finds all my writer friends and followers feeling much better than I do. I often wish I could afford to hire an assistant, but in this world that ain't gonna happen. Besides even if I found some eye candy, he wouldn't do things my way.

Recently I've learned a lot about working with Ebook publishers. There's a lot more to it than getting the formatting done correctly, submitting by email and learning to edit on that evil Word program. You know the one? It draws red circles around your work, makes all sorts of marks on the manuscript, then leaves the befuddled writer to figure it out without any help. I have learned to use Word…sort-of. But it wasn't created for writers, it was created for big businesses who wanted to produce complicated forms. They have no interest in manuscripts. There are programs that are much more suited to the writer. Word Perfect and Open Office are a couple that come to mind. More manuscript friendly, these leave out the complications needed to format sales data and the like. But, left to deal with publishers who have adopted Word as their program of choice, we writers, especially those of us working online with Epublishers are left with no choice.

Having trouble with Word? Perhaps you wonder how in the world you can indent the first line of each paragraph. You'd better learn because using the space bar or tab bar is a no-no to the formatting. Most everyone I asked for information on how to do that just shrugged and told me they used the space bar. I did learn, and I'm not going to tell you it's easy. Even after you learn this little trick, it's not easy to remember how to do it. Because it's not a matter of clicking on something, you have to click on several somethings, because Word thinks the best way to format pages is to block the paragraphs with no indents. Why? Because a lot of business writing uses this method.

At the top of your manuscript page, go to Page Layout, then move the cursor over until you come to a box that says Paragraph along the bottom. Up top there'll be an Indent, but don't click there, and don't ask me why. On the right you'll see Spacing. Go down to the lower right hand corner, see that tiny arrow? Click on it. Up will come another box, filled with measurements and directions. You'd better hope that some of the blanks are already filled in. The one you want reads Special. If you click in the blank you'll get "none, first line and hanging." Click on First Line. A box to the right of that will come up 0.5" as a default. Most Ebooks want 0.35" which you can type in. This will set up your first line indent. On the same box you'll find line spacing and you can set up single, 1.5 or double spacing.

I am no expert on Word, but once I learned this I felt really smart cause most people have never figured this out all by themselves. I didn't either. Now will you tell me why this must be so difficult? And what the heck is the Indent box for on Page Layout? I don't have the nerve to try it for fear it'll throw my manuscript into such a mess I'll never get it fixed. No, I'm teasing. Actually, it's used to indent left and right when you went to put a letter or journal in the body of you manuscript. To add even more confusion, if you click on Home at the top of your file, along the top is a box that says…guess what?...Paragraph, and it's got a bunch of stuff in there I'll probably never look into. All I know for sure is that the first box in the bottom row must be orange for a manuscript. I know nothing else about the rest of it. Oh, I'm lying, there's one more symbol that I understand because I use it when formatting for Kindle. It's that paragraph symbol in the very top row all the way to the right. When that's clicked, you get that symbol in your manuscript everytime you've hit the enter/return key. It's really handy when editing for Kindle, but that's another blog altogether. The one that will tell you all the good stuff about Word if you're a writer, which doesn't take a lot of room.

Check out my latest books. Order Wolf Song now. If you're interested in reviewing this book, let me know and I'll send you either a PDF copy or a CD of the book.It's a paranormal mainstream set in Pinedale,Wyoming during the Gray Wolf Restoration program carried out by the U.S. Fish and Game Service. Love, murder and mayhem.

Stone Heart's Woman will be released in February. This Western Historical Romance is set during the struggle of the Northern Cheyenne to break free of the reservation and return to their home in the land of the yellow stone. Secrets about Custer, and love on the high plains. Read a first chapter.

SENSE OF PLACE - HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

2012-01-16T07:00:00.001-06:00

I love to write description. It makes me more comfortable with my story. But, how much is enough?

As writers we’re often told to include sense of place in our work. So we promptly get busy and write reams of description in each scene or chapter, thinking this will solve the problem. Well, it won’t, it only creates another one. Readers will skip over that and we’ll still have failed to put the reader into the story.

So, as writers, we can write all that description if it makes us feel good, but in the end, very little of it will go in the scene.

For example:

The hills spread out at his feet, the trees lush and green in the summer sunlight. Behind him, the long climb over craggy rocks, clinging to tree roots and saplings to gain the peak.

Not a bad two sentences, but think about this:

He placed a booted foot on an outcropping of rocks, reached to grab at a tree root, overhanded to a sapling and hoisted himself to the top of the mountain. Gravel scattered down the path at his back. Wind in his face, he scanned the hills, spread out below. Thick trees, lush and green in the summer sunlight, blocked his view of the trail and the hikers who continued to elude him.

Now you’ve written a much more interesting paragraph. Why? Because you included your POV character and the action in the scene. The first example is more like author intrusion, or an omniscient statement that means very little to the story.

If you were to place your character in a room, how much of that decor do you have to describe to put your reader there? Not much, really.

Your character can walk across a thick carpet that mutes his footsteps, sit in a brocaded chair, stare past heavy drapes or none at all through huge windows that let in the gloom of a rainy afternoon. Let him internalize about what is about to happen. Someone he is meeting who will mean a lot to the plot, or his childhood spent there. Something that feeds the reader’s constant appetite for action, information, characterization and most especially his need to be encompassed by the story.

So think about it, are you drowning your reader in unnecessary description or giving him none at all? Hit a happy medium and remember it’s the characters who are most important. What they want, what keeps them from getting it, and what they’re willing to do to get it. It’s pretty simple really. Only trouble is, exceptional writing is difficult. And we have to work at it. Who knew?

Order Dream Walker and The Montana Trilogy here:
Pre-Order Paranormal Wolf Song here:
Watch for the release of Stone Heart’s Woman from The Wild Rose Press in February, 2012
Read first chapters on my website.

PROPER ENGLISH AIN’T PROPER WRITING

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000-06:00

Not to insult anyone, but I’ll bet I’m going to. Over the many years I’ve written and helped oversee a writer’s critique group, I’ve notice something very odd. English majors, teachers, etc., have a hard time writing fiction.

Now, before you throw rocks at me, I know, there are exceptions to that rule, but they are rare. I think all exceptions to the rule were talented writers first, then decided to teach ‘cause making a living writing is pretty difficult. People who major in English and especially those who go on to teach English and/or creative writing immediately have their hands tied behind their backs if they get hit by the writing bug. What ties their hands? Conforming to the strict rules of English grammar. They almost can’t help themselves.

My apologies to a few close friends who are working at both. Hopefully you’ll be the exception, a few of you already are, but for the most part it ain’t gonna happen. You know why? Cause not one of them would have the nerve to write it ain’t gonna happen in an article or a fiction story. They wouldn’t use fragment sentences, most wouldn’t end a sentence in a preposition but would opt to rewrite the blamed thing if it took them all night and it read: Up with this I will not put. That’s not mine, originally, but I like it so much I stole it from Winston Churchill, if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me.

For a few years some time ago we had a delightful woman in our critique group. She had a great sense of humor, could critique and/or edit stuff other folks wrote with flair, but when it came to writing, she had no sense. No sense of place, no hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, though she did allow her characters to see something once in a while. Not often. What did she do for a living? She taught high school English.

Now, I know I’m going to be in trouble with her if she ever reads this. When she first came to our group, she introduced herself and told us what she did for a living. After a few weeks she began to read some of her work. We tried to be kind and helpful, but it was difficult. As I mentioned earlier, she had a marvelous sense of humor, and I soon learned to tease her about some of her weaknesses in writing. Once, jokingly I told her that English teachers couldn’t write fiction. Sounds snarky, I know, but my hope was she’d prove me wrong. She laughed and listed some writers who had done just that. I don’t recall their names, I hadn’t heard of them.

Each week we would tell her that her dialogue was great, though everyone sounded highly educated in her 1800s western town. But there was no internalization of the POV characters, no sense of place. She would nod and smile and bring another five pages the next week with a dab of sense of place and a smear of internalization that told us nothing valuable about the character. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed her company, looked forward to hearing her read in the hopes she’d taken at least a bit of our advice. We were, after all, a critique group.

Ah, you say, what the heck do we know anyway? After all, we never took one single course in creative writing. Okay, I admit it, mostly our published novels appeal to the masses. Those great, if not unwashed at least middlingly educated, millions who devour genre fiction by the tons, but most of us couldn’t write a literary book if we had a thousand years to try. I wouldn’t know the difference between a declarative sentence and prepositional phrase if they both bit me. And I couldn’t conjugate a verb in my lifetime. I almost failed high school English, but redeemed myself when we only spent six weeks on grammar and the rest of the time on reading the great novels, writing reports and essays, and what was then called Magazine English. I was never quite sure what that was, but I did well enough to make up for the Ds in grammar. Writing essays came easy for me, even if I didn’t know proper terms regarding grammar. I knew how to write properly, knew what was correct and what wasn’t, though I had no idea why. Then I learned how to break those rules and develop a voice. My new friend just shook her head in dismay.

But she was of great value to our group. She could make sure everyone was not breaking the grammar and punctuation rules. She shuddered at fragments, but we ignored her. After all, it is genre fiction, isn’t it? Too bad she finally gave up after starting three novels and quitting in the middle of each one only to begin yet another. Somehow, she was never quite satisfied, but didn’t know why. By then we’d given up trying to tell her.

The truth of the matter is, somtimes too much knowledge ties knots in our efforts to create good fiction.

FROM NEW YORK TO KINDLE

2012-01-03T07:00:00.000-06:00

A bit over 17 years ago, my first nonfiction and a western romance were published. The nonfiction found a home with a small, regional publisher, but the historical western landed on its feet strongly at Penguin/Topaz in New York. For a gal living in the Arkansas Ozarks, this was quite a coup. Stories of successful publishing were not so unusual then, though I was told the chances of this happening were about as remote as getting hit by a meteorite.

Well, believe me, when that first book was published in late 1994, I felt as if I'd been hit by a meteorite. My life changed, but not in the ways I expected at all. But that story, I'll leave for a later post. You'll love reading about the half-naked hunks, hot candy, whatever they're calling them today, but on to the subject of this post. From 1994 through 2001 I was a New York published author. My books were selling well in the mid-list and given another few years I would've been well on my way to some best sellers. Then the bottom fell out for mid list writers in my situation. Four books under my belt, readership growing and I was kicked out of the program when Topaz went belly-up. After two more with another much less prestigious publisher, I walked away and into the arms of small regional publishing.

There I remained, getting a total of six nonfiction regional books published. But while that was going on, I continued to write fiction. A couple of western historicals, ideas for some more, a mystery that never really got past the tenth draft, a paranormal, a book about a demon long before they were popular and three women's fiction novels flowed from my keyboard while I promoted those nonfiction books.

Then a good writer friend, Cait London, called me one day and said, "Velda, I think you should get a reversion of rights on your New York books, and do it now." She's one smart lady, so I took her advice, learned how to submit to my to publishers for those reversions and received them. Had I waited another year, I would've had to fight for them. As it was New York didn't see coming what writers like Cait did see. That something was E BOOKS .

The explosion of Kindle on the scene was the Internet's gift to writers, and some of us were ready to take advantage of it. So there I was, at 74 years of age, learning all the formatting, uploading, cover designing and all that went with getting my books republished, this time on Kindle where millions of eager readers could find them. No longer relegated to the bottom shelf in brick and mortar bookstores, my books are now available round the world to readers of western historical romance.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you, New York said that genre was dead? Forget to mention that little item. I've taught one workshop on publishing to Kindle and have another scheduled for March 17, 2012. If writers are smart, and most of us are, they'll all have their books available to the world, not only through Kindle, which is the hottest right now, but to every other E Book reader out there. Though, all of those readers offer an app so readers can download a Kindle book. If you go no further than posting them to Kindle, then do so.

Learn the proper way to do this. You can publish books you have converted the rights on, original books, short stories, articles, blog posts, anthologies. Check it out. Get an editor if your book hasn't been previously published. That's the number one requirement, next get a nice cover. Look at some, check out some designers through Kindle Boards, do this right. Formatting is available through a free book available on Smashwords. Check out CJ's directions to uploading to Mobi Creator. Download Kindle for PC and Mobi Creator/Publisher, both are free. What are you waiting for?

My E Books: available on Kindle. Pre-Order Wolf Song, the story of a reluctant shape shifter and a woman who runs with the wolves. Read first chapters

GETTING ONLINE REVIEWS

2011-12-26T07:00:00.000-06:00

Recently someone posted on one of my list serves and asked how they could get reviews for their book. In an interesting turn, replies came through for both magazine and newspaper reviews and online reviews. I was able to steer her toward online reviews because I've been working on promotion for my E books for the past few months.

So it occurred to me that my readers might like to have some information on obtaining reviews for their E books. My first suggestion was to go to blog posts of other writers and see what links they had up for their own reviews appearing online. Then approach those people for reviews of your book. It's important to take part in social media by commenting on postings, following their links and commenting there. Once your name is known by these reviewers and they've possibly followed your posting and taken a look at your website, you're more likely to get a review, interview or an invite to do a guest blog.

All three of these are equally important when promoting your book(s). An interview on a popular blog can be as effective as a book review, as can a guest appearance. I noticed a peak in my sales on Kindle after appearing on Morgen Bailey's blog. I was asked to appear after I had participated in interviews on other blogs and Morgen read them. I'd also guest posted on a couple of them.

Another Morgan (different spelling) has a great blog where authors interested in getting noticed should comment and get acquainted. What you have to offer is very important in getting you noticed so that interviewers and reviewers want to talk about your book. What are you offering to your readers online? You must have some expertise. You've researched your books, haven't you? What have you learned? Share it. Offer to host a post for other authors in your genre or field of expertise. They will return the favor. Some blogs don't have a huge following, but you can help boost that following by sharing your posting with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

When you're on Facebook and you see something shared, follow the link, read the post, then in turn share it to your friends. This is the way the Internet is meant to work. It's like tentacles that reach out in ever widening circles, with everyone sharing what they enjoy, and their friends sharing in turn. Once you're doing this on both Twitter and Facebook, you'll have a broader following.

Another way to get your book mentioned in reviews, interviews and blog postings is to join two or three writer or reader groups and begin to interact with the members. When someone asks for blog hosts, volunteer. It's not difficult to host someone else, then they in turn will probably offer to host you. If they don't, ask them to. All of these opportunities lead to more and more of the same.

Sites like Savvy Authors offer opportunities to get noticed online. Google for sites of bloggers in your field of expertise. If you write westerns it isn't difficult to find a lot of blogs in that field; paranormal is the same, but branch out so that you're not only interacting with writers but with readers as well. Oh, yes, writers are readers, but not all readers are writers. Find them too.

Yes, I know, all this takes time, but once you get it all rolling, you can devote either an hour a day or a day each week to promotion and it won't be long before you're known all over the web.

Women Who Won the West
Check out the Montana Trilogy on Kindle
Pre Order Wolf Song

CULTURE SHOCK AT RT

2011-12-19T13:38:00.002-06:00

In the good old days of publishing, pre-midlist crisis and the scramble to survive by the big publishers, Romantic Times Magazine (RT) held a convention every year for romance writers. This year it will be held in Chicago.. I'm sure that it's not what it used to be.

In those days we romance writers ruled the publishing world. We sold more books than any other genre, even the mystery/thrillers that are so hot today. And we knew how to have a good time. The first RT conference I attended was in April of 1994. My first book with Topaz wasn't due out till October, but my editor wanted to meet me and asked if I could come. Who could turn down an invitation like that?

So I flew out of our small airport here in the Ozarks not knowing what to expect when I arrived. I'm trying now to remember where it was. I attended several: in Dallas, Nashville, Ft. Worth, and ??? Louisiana. They are all a whirl in my mind today. There's been a lot of water pass over the dam since then. But what I do remember are the cover models.

My mouth fell open when I saw them, most of them attired in very little, just like they appeared on book covers. And were they ever sweet. Many of them carried around a bundle of long stemmed roses to hand out to the authors. My cover model the first year was the Topaz Man himself, Steve ????. I was surprised to find him in jeans and a flannel shirt, and that's how he posed with me for a photo. I later wrote in my journal that ny mother would have been proud of Steve. His manners were perfection, yet he didn't appear to be acting the part. In later years when the Topaz Man was Mr. Universe, he posed with me dressed in very little. It was like being held by a finely formed marble statue.

These guys had a ball, too. There was a stage production where they danced and writhed around on the floor and posed with the young ladies who were very beautiful and sadly mostly ignored by the huge, almost all female group of writers. I later learned that this part of the program was to get writers to request certain of the models for their upcoming books.

By the time it was over, I was truly in culture shock. I had flown from a small Arkansas town environment into a group of naked men and squealing writers, and I wasn't quite sure how to react.

When the next convention rolled around, at least I knew what to expect. And I had a book out and another on the way. Georgina Gentry told me that I would be a star of Topaz, but sadly that wouldn't come true. There wasn't time. But I didn't know that yet, so the fire burned hot in me. We were at Ft. Worth the second time because I remember going to a dinner at the Stockyards, held for all the Topaz writers and The Topaz man. It was an orgy of food. We ate from 8-10 o'clock, all the while chattering wildly. There were only two men there, Steve and one of the writer's husbands. Being there was a surreal dream.

At the book signing event, I wore my Topaz Man T Shirt and it was a wild day. The publisher supplied boxes of books. Buses pulled up outside in a steady stream, letting off readers who filled the huge arena. We signed books, T shirts, some on people's backs, book marks, anything they could lay their hands on. It was one of the wildest experiences I've ever had.

For me, those days are gone, but I don't regret their passing, I appreciate the memories of that fleeting experience in a world I never knew existed. Now I'm content to hold my presentations and meet authors and readers and talk to them about my books and their stories. The conferences I attend are exciting but much more sedate than an RT convention, but I enjoy them. Every phase of our lives should hold great meaning for us, and we shouldn't be sorry when one passes because another awaits.

How Women Won the West
Read my Montana Trilogy on Kindle
Pre-Order Wolf Song The story of a reluctant shape shifter and a woman who runs with the wolves
Watch for my latest Western Historical Romance, STONE HEART'S WOMAN out in February
Read first chapters of all my books.

A VISIT WITH JENNIFER JAKES

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Jennifer Jakes, the author of RAFE'S REDEMPTION, and more recently, TWICE IN A LIFETIME.

Jennifer, after reading yourwebsite I’m inclined to ask different sorts of questions of you than I usuallyask of my guests. When the Ozark Creative Writer's conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was visited by David Morrell, who isthe author of---or as he says the father of--- Rambo from First Blood, he advisedthat until a writer digs into the darkest part of himself/herself she will notbecome the writer she is intended to be. I believe you do a bit of that in yourwriting.

Q. Where did you go withinyourself as an author to “dig out” the characters for your books?

A. Well, I like my stories tohave a darker edge or some danger. The few times I’ve had an idea for a lighterstory, the characters always take off in a tension filled direction – someonedies, or is about to get killed, or a devastating secret is looming. Happensevery time. So I’ve decided I’ll get more writing done if I just go with whatI’m good at! J

Q. Do you have a certainritual to put you in the mood to write? Music, meditation, reading, etc?

A. If I’m stuck or want toget in the right frame of mind for a scene, then music helps. I usually have asong or two for each story.

Q. Give us a littlebackground on how and when you began to write, the successes and failures ofyour career and where you are now.

A. I began seriously writingabout 5 years ago. Up until then, I just had a stack of notes in an envelopelabeled: The Story I’ll Write Someday. That story eventually became, RAFE’SREDEMPTION, my debut novel.

Q. Why would anyone choose tobe a writer when it’s such a tough career?

A. I think because we havestories in our heads that have to come out.

Q. Tell us how you manage :Promotion? Research? Writing?

A. Promotion: This is the most mentally draining for me. When I promo– which for me means a Blog Tour – I can be on 2 blogs a day for up to 4 weeks!

Research:Since I’m a Civil War re-enactor, that research is easy – I live it during thesummer. My latest story, TWICE IN A LIFETIME, is a pirate historical so I didhave to research that time era and ships etc etc.

Writing:That’s the fun part. I do seem to be more creative in the afternoon and eveningso I try to write then if possible.

Q. What is your opinion onwhere publishing is headed today?

A. Oh, if I knew that I’d bethe richest woman in the world. I will say that my motto follows the “Don’t putyour eggs in one basket” theory. I’m not putting all my books in one publishingbasket – meaning I have one novel withThe Wild Rose Press, a small press and now I’ve self-published this shortnovella. I can say I’m not looking for a contract with one of the Big 6 publishersnor am I looking for an agent.

Q. How do you feel about theemergence of e books and indie publishers?

A. I am ALL for them and havebeen since before it was a popular idea.

Q. I tend never to read booksin the genre in which I’m writing for fear of subconsciously using something Ishouldn’t. How do you feel about that and what do you read?

A. Actually, since I mostlywrite Western Historical and there are not a lot of authors writing that genre,it’s not a problem. LOL I tend to readauthors I really like no matter what genre.

Q. What is your favoritenon-writing pastime and why?

A. Watching TV. I lovefinding a good series or movie with a great plot.

Q. If you could tell a novicewriter three absolute things they should do for success, what would they be?

A. Learn the craft. Thinkoutside the box/or the Big 6. Don’t give up.

How about a blurb from yourlatest book?

BLURB – TWICE IN A LIFETIME

Be Careful What You Wish For.. .

No-nonsense stuntwomanIsabella Douglas will do anything to stop an unwanted divorce and reclaim thehappy life she had, even allow her old friend to concoct a magical spell toturn back time. But when the spell goes awry, Izzy finds herself trapped aboarda 1768 Caribbean pirate ship with a captain who’s a dead ringer for her sexy assin husband, Ian. Convinced he’s playing a cruel joke, she’s furious – untilshe realizes he doesn’t know her or believe they’re married.

Captain Ian Douglas does nothave time to deal with an insane woman who claims to be his wife; he has tosave his kidnapped sister. But as Izzy haunts his dreams and fills him witherotic memories he can’t explain, he’s forced to admit he feels more than lust.

Trapped in a vicious cycle ofpast mirroring present, Izzy knows they only have days to find Ian’s sister andprevent disaster from striking a second time. If she doesn’t, their marriagewill be destroyed again – along with the man she loves.

Here are Jennifer's links, check out the hot candy blog, you'll like it.

Buy Links:

.99 cents on Amazon

.99 cents on SmashWords

Website

Blog

CHRISTMAS IN THE 1800s

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

Did you know that many early settlers did not put up Christmas trees? As a matter of fact, Christmas was not declared a Federal holiday until June 26, 1870. Prior to the Civil War, those in the North mostly saw celebrating Christmas as a sin. In the early 1800s a Christmas riot broke out in New York City. It was thought of as a pagan holiday. Oddly enough, the Southern states embraced the holiday. The first three states to declare Christmas a legal holiday were Alabama in 1836; Louisiana and Arkansas in 1838. Still celebrations did not resemble those of today.

A story familiar to me is one about a school teacher who realized that many of her students had never seen a Christmas Tree. She rode horseback to the nearest town and using what few coins she had saved from her meager salary, bought material for decorations as well as a tiny gift for each student. She then asked some of the older boys to go into the woods and cut down a likely cedar tree. They brought it back to the one-room log school and the children made decorations of paper chains, strung popcorn and berries from the woods. Families were invited to join in the festivities by bringing food and the gifts were presented to the children by Santa. For some, this was the first time they had seen a decorated tree or met Santa. The date? Christmas, 1920 in the Ozarks.

It wouldn't be until after the Civil War that the celebration began to take on the connotations we see today. Decorations, caroling and shopping began to grow in popularity. Even so, those who headed West rarely carried with them a need to celebrate Christmas. The religious celebrations centered around churches and schools, but rarely moved into the small settlements that sprung up in the West during the great Westward Movement.

So, when you read western historical romances, you might think about their way of life and how very different it was from the way we live today.

A super gift for those you know receiving Kindles for Christmas this year, my western historical romance trilogy reveals life in Montana in the 1800s beginning with the end of the Civil War and continuing into the glory days of big ranching and the land wars of the late 1800s. Montana Promises, Montana Dreams and Montana Destiny are all available on Kindle. At $2.99 a real bargain.

For a history of how Christmas celebrations began in America.

ANTICIPATING PUBLICATION...AGAIN

2011-11-28T16:10:00.001-06:00

Back in the 1990s, I finally received "that call" from a publisher in NYC telling me they wanted to buy my book. I'd only been at it for ten years, but to be fair, the first few I had no idea I'd ever actually submit something to a publisher. I was content with newspaper and magazine articles while I wrote long novels that didn't belong much of anywhere.
After settling down to a genre that actually surprised me more than it did anyone else, I began to pitch western historical romances. Secret admission: I'd never read a romance at that point. It's just that a western with a woman protagonist wouldn't sell, but if I turned it into a romance, an editor told me, they'd be interested. And so they were. I did enjoy writing westerns. They signed me to two two-book contracts before the bottom fell out of the mid-list. We writers refer to it as the mid-list crisis. It was actually the signal that all was no well with big publishing. I managed two more with another publisher before the end.
We've seen that tower crumble ever since, as most of us turn to Indie Publishers. Then along came Kindle and some of us who'd been wise enough to convert our rights to earlier books began back list publication.
Before that happened, however, I submitted three books to Indie publishers, all three of which are E book publishers who also publish a print book under certain restrictions.
Now I've learned, in an entirely different way than in the 1990s, that two of those books have been accepted and the third made it to top consideration for publication in 2012.
Am I any the less excited? No, and double No. I had almost given up continuing publication of my books when notification came, first from The Wild Rose Press, a book I had pitched at a conference and back to my first love, western historical romance STONE HEART'S WOMAN due out Feb. 2012; then from SynergE Books for a book the editors at TWRP suggested I submit to a paranormal mainstream since it didn't really qualify for a romance, WOLF SONG due out Dec. 2011; and finally a really crazy story about demons and possession, A SAVAGE GRACE is being considered by Oak Tree Press for next year. I wrote it long before the current craze for this type of story.
What I'm getting at here is a message to all writers toiling in the back rooms of homes all over this land. Do not give up when things look bleak. Keep writing. Turn out what's in your heart and soul and mind. Listen to the voices and write and don't stop because you don't think you'll ever sell.
During that dry time I produced some non fiction books, which did pretty good and wrote three more novels which I'm planning on uploading to Kindle after the first of the year.
You won't be published unless you have a body of work. Don't pin all your hopes on one or two books. Keep writing and hoping; keep creating and listen to those voices. I can't say that often enough.
I'll let you get back to writing now. Do it. Unless you'd rather ... nah, you don't want to give up. Not if you're a real writer.

PROMOTION TIME AGAIN

2011-11-23T13:30:00.001-06:00

I've learned in the past few months that one of the most difficult things about promotion is persuading my readers to post a review on Amazon. I'm guilty myself of reading a good book, then not giving it a review. Since most of my reading is done on my new Kindle Fire now, this means a lot of good books published to Kindle are going without a review from me.

So, because I'm feeling the pinch on my own Kindle books, it's time I practiced what I'm preaching. From now on I will review every book I read and enjoy. There's a clue in that sentence. Personally, I won't give a bad review. The fact that I don't review a book should be enough to tell the writer that it didn't meet the standards for good writing and good reading. For more on reviewing to Amazon check out this article. It's excellent and will help if you're not sure about how to post reviews or reasons you should and shouldn't.

Another thing I'm trying to learn is using Twitter to more advantage without making my tweets spam. You know the drill. Don't spend all your time shouting "buy my book" on any of the social networks. Instead spend your time sharing information. It doesn't have to be about writing. In fact, you should branch out to your readers. If they will read your book, then chances are they'll read a blog post that goes into things you learned while researching that book.

Recently, I began blogging about How Women Won the West on my journal blog. My western historical romances are about women doing just that. By plucking up a character from one of those books and showing how she came to be where she is when the book begins, I'm hoping to get potential readers interested in what her role is in the book. I could also write about things I learned about the role women played during the gold rush, which is a backdrop to the Montana trilogy. Branching out I could write about building railroads from the east coast to the west coast, and how both men and women met the challenge of living, traveling and working during that era. Or women who worked ranches in those days.

Just because you write fiction doesn't mean you don't have tons of research material to draw from for your blog and FB postings. How did women make a living if their men had gone off to strike it rich? What if a woman ended up in a gold mining town, how would she survive? Ask a provocative question on Twitter and link to your blog or perhaps a site where you learned about women's role in gold mining towns. Also link to your website and keep it up to date, not stagnant.

Make sure you like your own postings so they will pop up on Facebook and Twitter. I'm no expert at this, I am learning new tricks every day that will help my potential readers notice my books. I know one thing. You have to remain active on social networks if you expect to promote your books.

Oh, yes, I'm writing a new series and continuing to prepare already written novels for publication to Kindle. It's a matter of scheduling and sticking to it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and get back to work Friday. We're writers and we love it.

DANGERS OF SELF PUBLISHING

2011-11-08T16:27:00.001-06:00

While I've written several blogs with information on E Book publishing and how good I think this is for writers, I've recently been reminded how bad it can be as well. I've purchased a few books off Kindle that sounded good, but when I started to read them they were poorly written.
I'm not talking here about not liking the subject matter. Over the years I've learned to judge writing on its quality, not on my opinion of what interests me. Some writers don't understand structure, others can't handle pov, I've even read one or two who did not understand present and past tense and the inadvisability of using both on one page, never mind shifting back and forth for one chapter or an entire book.
Sadly many writers do not know that they haven't reached the point where they are ready to be published. For some it won't matter, for they will give up and go on to another career when their books don't sell. For those who intend to keep at it until they learn their craft, a poorly written book published today can bite them in the *ss for months or years to come. Readers are reluctant to try a second book when the first one was bad.
The worst thing you as a writer can do is publish something that isn't ready to be published. Please, please, let a good editor read your book and take his or her advice. Or better yet, sit down and write another book, then another, until by practice you become the best writer you can be. Or quit writing now if you're not willing to hone your craft.
Writing is a profession, and as such cannot be learned overnight. No one can teach you to be creative, but those of us who have a lot of experience in the trenches can help you learn the mechanics of turning that creativity into a well written book.
If you think good writers became good overnight, then you aren't thinking straight. Or, go ahead and publish your book because you can do it in today's market, but it could be the last one you publish if you don't take the advice of well-published authors who know what they're talking about. Study the Trade Like a Graduate Program.
One piece of advice I give novice writers who truly want to be the best that they can be is, go buy a copy of Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain and study it like you would study for a Masters Degree. Do the exercises and pay attention to what this fabulous writing teacher has to say. If you are going to become a good writer, then Swain can get you there if anyone can. If you aren't willing to work toward a successful career as a writer, then get a good day job you'll enjoy.
For information on structure, check out Kristen Lamb's blog.

WRITING FOR ANTHOLOGIES

2011-11-01T15:33:00.001-05:00

In the past few years many writer's groups have started to publish anthologies containing short stories, articles and poems written by their members. This can be a valuable tool in getting your work noticed, but there's also a caution attached.

If you are invited to enter a short story, article or poem, the first thing you need to know is who else will be published in the anthology? Who will edit it? What will it sell for? Who is the publisher?

These are important things for you to know, for if the quality of the anthology is poor, that can be detrimental to your platform building. I've noticed many times visiting editors and agents picking up copies of anthologies when they are guests at conferences or writer's groups. These are also sometimes given as gifts in baskets presented to the visitors. Just as you want to put your best foot forward with your own writing, you need to make sure that the writers you are associated with also do the same.

It's most important that all the work be edited by someone qualified to catch all the problems so the work shines. So make sure you check all these points before submitting to any anthology. Then help publicize the books, offer them at your book table when you attend conferences and support the publisher in any way you can. These anthologies can be very valuable for spreading the word that you are indeed a fine writer worthy of publication.

VALUE OF BOOK SIGNINGS

2011-10-27T15:36:00.001-05:00

More and more I've realized that traveling large distances to take part in organized author signings is rarely worthwhile. Many people who set these up talk a good talk, and certainly have good intentions, but they either lack the ability to publicize the event, or simply don't have enough help to get the necessary work done.

The event itself may be very well organized, but if no one attends, then it's really not worthwhile, is it? I'd blame it on the economy, but other types of signings where I talk and/or read from my books generate reasonable sales for the effort.

Perhaps we as authors need to experiment with something other than attending events with many other authors as ways to publicize and market our books Though they are enjoyable and a good way to interact with our peers, it might be more profitable to our careers to concentrate on single speaking appearances.

As you may have guessed I've recently returned from just such an event, which was very well organized yet attendance was poor. I saw no directional signs going in, in fact had to stop and ask directions myself, and am not sure if any of the local newspapers, radio or tv stations mentioned the event.

How about some feedback on your experiences with author festivals, fairs and the like? Do you get any positive sales and contact results? What is your favorite way of connecting with your readers?

ENTERING CONTESTS

2011-10-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

Having just finished judging and critiquing entries for a conference contest, I noted some of the errors made by those who send their babies out into the cold cruel world. Here's a list for you to follow next time you enter something somewhere:

1. Did you format properly, or just throw it at the page and let it fall where it would? Proper formatting means a header, whatever is needed for the contest, on the top right with page number included. The first page should begin halfway down the page with a title. We had some entries that weren't titled. Set the margins at 1" clear around and use a 12 point font.

2. Did you spell check and make sure punctuation and grammar were done as properly as possible? While this is usually the last thing that matters in a contest, it could mean the difference between placing and getting tossed out cause your great story tied with another just as great and something had to break the tie.

3. Did you edit carefully to get rid of repetitive words and phrases? Such things as using was over and over, or as in every-other sentence can get you tossed out. Or in the bedroom, on the bed, above the bed, under the bed...on and on with bed. Fix them without turning your sentences into awkward attempts at saying what you want to say.

4. Did you fix those noun/verb sentence beginnings that stretch on, and change that noun (character's name) to a pronoun once you've established characters in a scene? She said, she talked, she went, she hit, she cried. It gets monotonous real fast. As for he and she, his and hers taking the place of the character's name, that should be a no brainer. Clean 'em up.

5. And my pet peeve. Did you stop saying she thought, he knew, she saw, he imagined, she decided? That's the author telling the reader something. The pov character should be the one who passes on information in his or her own words. Not she thought Mama ought to come to her senses and stop crying all the time. Rather: Mama ought to come to her senses and stop crying all the time. Why she thought? Dang, we're in her head, we know it's her thinking. Learn to write with a pov buried deep in your character's mind. Some say that's only possible with first person, but it's important in third person as well. Drag that reader into your character's mind and keep him/her there. And please don't italicize this type of thinking on the part of your character.

Clean up your entries, do that final edit you don't think it might need and you'll come out on top more and more often.

2011-10-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

Isn't it lovely weather? I have a couple of links to pass on to my readers that might answer questions you've had about writing.

If you have trouble making time to write, take a look at Making time to write.

Those of you getting involved in self-publishing, whether via Kindle, Smashwords or a various amount of places, look at Self Publishing.

Doing lots of busy stuff for a while. See you soon somewhere.

INDIES, KINDLE AND OTHER STUFF

2011-10-03T14:54:00.000-05:00

Last week a comment wanted to know about Indie Writers Unite. This is a Facebook group and you can search for it under Indie Writers. I mistakenly identified it as a list post. Many indie writers are posting there and a lot of good information comes up about independent writers. That would include those with small independent presses and thos self-publishing on E Books such as Kindle.

And speaking of Kindle, the all day workshop at Ozark Folkways, which I led, was a great success. Not only did those who attended learn how to format properly and upload their books to Kindle, they taught me some cool short cuts and gave me ideas. Long ago when I first began to do writer's workshops, I discovered something wonderful. I'm never too old to learn, and I learn from those who come to learn from me. It's amazing the things people know and can share if only we listen. Like my mother used to say, "You never learn anything with your mouth open."

So when I get ready for my next learning project, I'll consult some other people and see what they know. I want to make some trailers and I want to learn how to use the # on Twitter. That's just the beginning. My big job now is to learn some cool tricks for promoting my books without spamming people to buy them.

It's important, I know, that I share what I know with others on my blog and in my comments on their blogs. There are other places where I can share some of my expertise, though often I wonder just what that might be. I know a lot about Ozark and Arkansas history, but don't think a whole lot of people care about that. I know how to research for regional history for books and articles. Perhaps I'd be better off finding interesting links online and sharing those.

At any rate, I'm going to try to do better in the future about sharing links here.

DRAGONS AND A TOUCH OF MAGIC

2011-09-26T13:40:00.005-05:00

FROM CONNIE BARRETT

I hope my readers are enjoying this change of pace. I've been interviewing authors who belong to Indie Writers Unite!, which is a super list serve or writers loop to connect with those who are publishing with independent publishers or publishing themselves. It should give my readers a look at alternative publication and what type of books are coming from those authors.

Welcome, Connie Barrett, author of what she refers to as mythology fiction. Thanks for being a guest.

Q. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer of fantasy.

A. I was a child who preferred reading to almost everything else, except being in the woods and climbing trees. As a result, I was well-read. Because my grandmother and mother were compelling story tellers, the idea of writing came naturally to me. I especially enjoyed reading Greek and Roman mythology (with occasional dips into Nordic myths). In some ways, I think of what I write as more like mythology than the usual brand(s) of fantasy. I also like turning accepted beliefs upside down, and there is an element of satire in my stories. The land of Oasis, which is the starting point for A Dragon's Guide to Destiny, my series, is in many ways very much like contemporary so-called civilization.

Q. Tell us about your books.

A. The first two books are part of a series in progress. Based on the idea (prominent in Celtic mythology) that different kinds of dragons represent the four elements, they follow the adventures of a melancholy dragon, fearless kitten, reluctant female psychic, and the Guardian of Oasis, who isn't having much luck in keeping either his nation or himself together.

Big Dragons Don't Cry: A cunning opportunist incites the people of Oasis to kill the local dragon so that he can convert Druid's swamp into suburban housing. The would-be dragonslayer also plans to have the Guardian assassinated and assume power. Unless the dragon joins a kitten with attitude and a human with unlawful psychic gifts, Oasis is finished.

Dance with Clouds: For centuries, a priestess cult has ruled the land of Dolocairn. Now drug lords seek to take control. As part of their campaign to broaden their power, they use drugs that induce amnesia and death to attack the land of Oasis. Serazina, the Heroine of Oasis, must go to Dolocairn to stop them. Tara, a fearless kitten, and Druid, a melancholy dragon, accompany her. They may not get out alive.

I've also written a non-fiction book: Animals Have Feelings, Too: Bach Flower Remedies for Cats and Dogs. If you have behavioral issues with your cats or dogs—or they have issues with you, you may find this book helpful.

Q. Why do you prefer small indie publishers to the traditional publishing houses?

A. I am a freedom-seeking being, and I love being able to write what I want without interference. I was originally contracted to a publishing house, but I began to not like the direction things were taking, and I was able to opt out of the contract. At first, the idea of being on my own was intimidating, but I'm coming to like it more and more.

Q. What are you working on?

A. I am working on the third book of the series, as yet entitled. It will feature fire dragons and lots of wickedness. I'm also thinking about how to publish a collection of short stories. In addition, I have some more mainstream novels that I will probably publish next year. I have a blog written from the point of view of one of the characters of my series that could end up as a book.

Referring back to question 3, I find that being an independent author allows me to contemplate publication without having to think about whether a Big 6 publisher will agree that the book is worth publishing. That, of course, is a double-edged sword. I have only my own judgment to consult, and if I misjudge from the reader's viewpoint, the book won't sell. However, I'd rather let the readers decide, as opposed to numbers crunchers.

Q. Do you manage to write every day?

A. I manage to do some writing every day, but because I also write non-fiction and two blogs, there's no telling what I'll be writing on a given day. My writing day depends on what else I have to do, my level of inspiration, and whether any really good distractions are showing up.

Q. Do you plot or outline your stories or do you just get an idea and take off?

A. I lean more to taking off. I have to warm myself in the creative fire and wait until later to gather up the ashes. Once I'm launched, I'll begin a kind of outline, and a plot will take form, but both will change a lot. I've found that my most creative approach is to let the characters tell me what they want to do. They haven't failed me.

Q. What do you like the most/the least about the writing life?

A. What I like most is writing, and what I like least is marketing. As I learn more about the latter, though, I'm developing a better attitude.

Q. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

A. Do it, and write without worrying about whether it's ever going to get published. That is a fantastic creativity crusher. You're in this to write and get lost in the creative process. The other stuff comes later.

If you can't quite get it together to launch a novel, write a short story. If you need aerobic writing exercise, write a journal as often as you can. If you're having trouble quick-starting the creative spark, keep a dream journal. Just move those fingers on the keyboard, or wrap them around a pen. Movement counts.

Q. Who are some of your favorite authors?

A. I am an omnivorous reader, and it's difficult to pick favorites, but in the fantasy field I love Terry Pratchett and Ursula LeGuin. Overall long-time favorites include John Steinbeck, James Joyce, Jane Austen, and Maeve Binchy.

Q. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

A. I am mostly clueless about networking sites. This is the dark terrain of promotion that I've only begun to explore. I have, however, gotten great value on many levels from being part of Indie Writers Unite (IWU!). The value goes far beyond practical information. Writing is a solitary endeavor, and it's wonderful to surface and spend time with fellow authors.

Q. What do you think the future holds for a writer?

A. The world of publishing has changed so much in the past few years that I find prediction impossible. The only thing I know for sure is that we will continue to live in interesting times.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

A. I think that covers it. Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog.

Big Dragons Don't Cry Dance With Clouds

Website A Blog on Creativity A Blog for Cats

Please feel free to comment and ask questions of Connie. When you visit her sites, please like her Facebook page and make comments on her blogs. This type of interaction between genres helps all of us in our promotional efforts.

LIZ SCHULTE SPEAKS OUT

2011-09-20T14:57:00.004-05:00

I'd like to welcome Liz Schulte, a writer of things that go bump in the night.

Tell us a little about yourself Liz:

I am just a normal girl, nothing too terribly exciting or scandalous about me. I was born—it went pretty well, I think. Then I was raised in the middle of nowhere with very few people my age around. Those quiet country settings seemed to have started my imagination off on the right foot. I used to make up stories and always had a thing for scary anything. My best friend and I made up a Freddy Krueger-inspired in game in the second grade and used it to terrorize our classmates, not to mention the countless sleepovers we ruined by scaring everyone so much they had to call their parents to come and get them. What can I say, girls will be girls! Muahahaha! I developed a love for reading as well: loving RL Stine, Christopher Pike, and LJ Smith. It may seem like writing would have been a natural fit from all of this, but at the time I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. It wasn’t until I completed my undergraduate degree that I decided maybe law wasn’t for me. I took some forensic classes still trying to decide what I wanted to do—then writing finally came into the forefront.

Liz shares an excerpt from her latest book, Dark Corners:

Ella Reynolds knew from the first moment she walked into the old house someone or something was watching her. Waiting. Her husband's violent murder sent her spiraling into a world of grief and isolation, but Ella isn't alone. Who or what is responsible for her husband's death is still with her. Darkness has engulfed the past year of Ella's life. Everyday reality slips a little more between her fingers as she struggles to break free from her memories. She must look deeper into her past as well as the present to discover truth of her husband's homicide. A string of uncanny events takes place and practical explanations run thin as Ella follows the terrifying road to closure. As the past and present come to a head, Ella must decipher who or what the murderer is before it takes her as well.

Many authors claim to have known their calling from a young age. Liz Schulte, however, didn't always want to be an author. In fact, she had no clue. Liz wanted to be a veterinarian, then she wanted to be a lawyer, then she wanted to be a criminal profiler. In a valiant effort to keep from becoming Walter Mitty, Liz put pen to paper and began writing her first novel. It was at that moment she realized this is what she was meant to do. As a scribe she could be all of those things and so much more.

When Liz isn’t writing or on social networks she is inflicting movie quotes and trivia on people, reading, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family. Liz is a Midwest girl through and through, though she would be perfectly happy never having to shovel her driveway again. She has a love for all things spooky, supernatural, and snarky. Her favorite authors range from Edgar Allen Poe to Joseph Heller to Jane Austen to Jim Butcher and everything in between.

VB: How long have you been writing and how did you get started down this slippery slope?

Liz: I have been writing for a few years. I started writing because I had an idea and people who encouraged me to try. Without that support I don't know that I ever would have considered writing--as much as I love doing it, it was always just a hobby for me.

VB: Please tell us something about your writing day

Liz: Well I work a normal 8-5 job then I get home and exercise, have dinner and I spend my evenings writing and editing until bed then I wake up and do it all over again.

VB: Do you prefer to write novels, short stories or non-fiction, and how do you choose what to write?

Liz: I prefer novels. I have written a few short stories but mostly my mind seems more geared towards longer works. Many idea that were originally going to be short stories once I started writing them turned into novels. I have an ongoing idea list and I write whatever story is talking to me most. I try to be very organic in my approach to writing.

VB: Do you have anything to share with other writers that might help them in their quest, be it publication or simply having a successful day at the keyboard?

Liz: I think all writers need to find a good, supportive, honest writing group to help you hone your craft. As for having a successful day writing I always find it helps to really clear your mind and get into your characters heads before you start writing. Normally running or talking about my book with someone helps me do that.

VB: What would you consider success for yourself personally in your writing career.

Liz: I would consider myself successful in my career if I build a loyal fan base. I don't expect to become famous (that though rather scares me) or even rich. If my writing supported itself and perhaps even me someday I would be very happy.

VB: Where do you see yourself as a writer in five years?

Liz: Hopefully, I will still be writing only to a slightly larger audience.

VB: What do you like to do besides write? What are some of your favorite things?

Liz: I love to travel. I like TV, movies, games, and reading. Basically, anything pop-culture related. I am a horror movie junkie and total Halloween enthusiast.There is also nothing I love better than a long trip were I get to explore somewhere new. If I even made enough money from writing I would take a Route 66 road trip and see all of the fun attractions.

VB: Who are some of your favorite writers, and do you study their techniques or read simply for pleasure.

Liz: My favorite authors are Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Harris, Jim Butcher, Joseph Heller, Brett Easton Ellis, and so many more. I love to read. I am inspired by everything I read, but I don't really pattern myself after anyone's writing style.

VB: What are you working on now?

Liz: I am working on an urban fantasy trilogy. The first book, Secrets will be out in November. It is about a girl whose life is about to change because of the secrets people keep.

VB: Is there anything you'd like to say that we haven't asked about?

Liz: Thank you so much for having me on you blog. This was such a fun interview!

Here's Liz's contact information:

Website/Blog- http://enteringbatcountry.blogspot.com/

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Liz-Schulte/182081915177084

Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/LizSchulte

THIS BUSINESS OF E PUBLISHING

2011-09-12T13:55:00.008-05:00

It's been quite a while since I led readers through the steps of publishing to Kindle. Excitement continues to build for not only Kindle publishing but all self-publishing, which has become a big part of E Book publishing. After speaking on a panel on this very subject Saturday at the Fayetteville, Arkansas public library, I've realized just how many writers have no idea where to start when it comes to preparing their own work for this type of publication.

Some of the questions made me stop and think about how much we who've learned how to do this fail to realize what information remains a mystery. It took me about three months of online and person to person research to decide which method of publishing I wanted to use.

I settled on Kindle first, as it's probably the most complicated to prepare for, but the highest selling. Since Amazon owns this "publishing house" if you want to call it that, Amazon does a lot of promotion of books published there. And boy do they know how to promote. But, you must know how to get their attention, too.

A question about tags was raised Saturday. Tags are one of the ways to get the attention of those searching for something to read in the genre and style they want. And on Amazon Kindle, you only get 7, so make them pay. First list the genre. Such as: Western historical romance, then go on to pick up phrases from the blurb you have written.

Blurb? I have to write a blurb? Yes, and you should use all the characters allowed if you can. And make sure each sentence contains lots of information about the contents of your book. Then go back and pick up some of those most informative phrases for your 7 tags. When a reader Googles for a book to read, you want your book and/or name to show up.

Other questions: How much does it cost? There is no charge to upload a book to Kindle. But let's back up a step or two. Before you format, and that's another subject, your book should be professionally edited. That will cost you something, but you don't want to ruin your reputation by putting out something that needs editing.

I told the audience that the pitfalls for a novice writer in self-publishing is they will upload a book that is not ready to be published. The pitfalls to a veteran writer is: they will upload a book that is not ready to be published. So please, find a good editor, one you like and trust, and turn loose of some money to assure that your book is ready to go out into that cruel world. Reviews can indeed be destructive if you're not careful.

Next, don't try to upload a regular Word document to Kindle. You could have a big problem. First, learn to format properly. You can get that information by going to Smashwords and downloading their free book on formatting. This formatting will work for all E Book publishing, though ways of uploading differ. However, you have to wade through a lot of whys and wherefores. I weeded out the actual steps and made myself a sheet I could easily follow.

I decided to get all my back list on Kindle first, then go on to upload to Nook and Apple. You may want to do them all at once, but I don't recommend it unless you are very expert on a computer and have a lot of patience. Something to remember is that Apple products have an APP that allows users to download Kindle books.

It's important that you follow instructions on formatting carefully. Just because you don't want to go back and put only one space after each period doesn't mean you can ignore that. Prepare your document exactly like you are told, then you'll need to download two free programs to your computer. One crucial step is to save your document to Word 2007. Kindle will not accept the new Word docx format at this time.

One program to download is Kindle for PC and the other is MobiCreator the publisher's version. If you're adept at HTML you can format in that for your upload, if not MobiCreator is your best friend.

Another thing that's important to know is that you must design a cover or get someone to do it for you. You can use Photoshop or the Paint program from Microsoft, which should be in your PC. Apple users can create covers easily because Mac is built for design work. Take advantage of copyright free images available online. I recommend Dreamstime. It's easy to search, inexpensive, and has millions of photos.

Mobi Creator will turn your Word document into HTML and a PRC file, which is the little blue book that shows it is what you upload to Kindle, as well as incorporating your cover design. There's a great tutorial to help you in the steps to putting your document into MobiCreator.

It there's anything wrong with your document you'll get it back, otherwise it'll go through the steps and you'll be notified.

Next time: Some of the things you can do to help in promoting your book.

WELCOME AUTHOR JANET SQUIRES

2011-09-07T22:55:00.007-05:00

This week I'd like to welcome Janet Squires, the author of The Gingerbread Cowboy, who has agreed to post some of her thoughts on writing. Janet has a special offer plus some tips that should be helpful to all of you. I hope you enjoy todays post, and thanks Janet for taking the time to visit with my followers.

The Gingerbread Cowboy Anniversary Blog Blow Out

I'd like to begin by thanking Velda for hosting today's Blog Tour post. To celebrate The Gingerbread Cowboy's Fifth Anniversary, I have something special for her readers:

I will select one name at random from people who comment on this blog tour post to receive a $50 dollar gift certificate to OutWest Marketing, an online store for shoppers who are wild about the west. The Gift certificate will be good for 60 days and include a 10% discount and free shipping so be sure to leave your email contact information.

I was invited to share some thoughts on writing so here goes.

I began my career writing for adults, but I now spend at least half my time immersed in children's literature. I write for children, blog about children's books, work as the Library Media Specialist in an elementary school library and mentor authors on the topic of writing for children.

I'm hearing from many new writers who want to bring a stronger ethnic or cultural emphasis to the children's book market. It's wonderful to see the growing presence of culturally diverse characters. As a library media specialist, it is my goal to see every child represented in the collection. As a writer, I need to think carefully about how I craft a book.

A successful story will be both universal and individual. What I mean by that is the theme is universal enough to appeal to readers of both genders and multiple social/cultural backgrounds and at the same time individual enough that each reader will identify personally with the character's trials and triumphs.

Here are a couple of picture book examples:

Brothers -- written by Yin, is a story centered on the Chinese and Irish immigration of the mid 1800s. Young Ming arrives in San Francisco's Chinatown to find that the family store is failing because most of the Chinese customers have relocated to work on the Transcontinental railroad. He's warned not to leave the safety of Chinatown, but curiosity about his new country sends him exploring and he encounters Patrick, an Irish immigrant. Brothers introduces two cultures that made important contributions to this period in American history through a heartwarming story about the universal power of friendship and the spirit of discovery as exemplified by these two young protagonists.

Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding -- is a contemporary story written by Lenore Look. You might ask how a story that reveals, step by step, the details of a Chinese wedding is universal. Granted that the context of the story is going to be unfamiliar for most readers, but the theme is about jealousy and the fear the protagonist, a little girl, has of losing her special relationship with her soon-to-be married favorite uncle. As a consequence, the appeal is quite broad.

In both of these examples, all of my students, boys and girls alike, enjoyed learning something about another time period and/or culture, but all of them understood on a personal level what the stories were really about and could identify with the main characters' feelings.

I'm sure all of you can think of similar examples. If you can't, you need to visit your local library or bookstore and catch up on your reading.

Janet Squires began her career writing articles for regional and national magazines and won the Los Angeles Pierce College 5th Annual Writers’ Conference Award for outstanding magazine article. She’s a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and Women Writing the West (WWW).

Squires has co-chaired Young Authors Conferences, taught writing workshops, provided seminars for teachers, and given presentations on children’s books and the creative writing process for children and adults.

Her picture book, THE GINGERBREAD COWBOY, was declared the Arizona Governor’s 2007 First Grade Book and a special edition of 100,000 copies was printed for distribution to every first grade student in Arizona.

Click on the following for links to her sites.

website.

blog

Book Trailer link

Don't forget to leave a comment. Janet will select one name at random from people who comment on the blog tour post to receive a $50 dollar gift certificate to OutWest Marketing, an online store for shoppers who are wild about the west. The Gift certificate will be good for 60 days and include a 10% discount and free shipping so be sure to leave your email contact information.

SETTING AS A CHARACTER

2011-08-29T14:18:00.006-05:00

Virginia City, Montana at the close of the Civil War when gold was discovered

Here's an excerpt from Montana Promises that shows how setting can become a character, and yet not interfere with conflict, suspense or characterization and especially not hold back the action.

Tressie has set out to follow Reed, who sneaked off in the middle of the night to keep from taking her with him west to Virginia City and the gold rush. Read the first chapter posted on my website to place yourself in the story.

Too many authors write without a thought to placing the reader in the story. It could take place anywhere: New York to Montana and no one would know. Do not describe things, but rather show them through the eyes of the POV character (s) so the reader's six senses go into play and he/she is transported into the story so deeply she forgets where she is.

Excerpt:

The sun rested on the rim of the earth when she finally made the riverbank. Hunkering on her heels, she gazed into rushing sworls of muddy water, made angry by the storm. The current ran mighty fast, the froth and roar enough in itself to frighten her out of crossing, never mind that she couldn't tell how deep the murky water was. Crouched there in the dense shadows of early dusk, she probably was invisible to man and beast. Beneath the thick canopy of cottonwood branches would be an ideal place to spend the night, lulled to sleep by the singing leaves. The forest along the riverbank reminded her a bit of the Ozark wilderness, and she'd spent many a night alone there cradled in the arms of the deep woods. But if Reed walked on into the night, she would never catch him. Exhausted and confused, she bent to drink, unsure of what to do.

Above the roar of the rushing waters and the wind through the cottonwood trees came the sound of galloping horses. Harsh shouts cut through the rain-washed air. Peering between thick underbrush, she made out several riders upstream and on the far bank of the river. Indians! Afraid to move, she clapped a hand tightly over her mouth. Fear dried her tongue so that it stuck to her teeth. Obviously the Indian party hadn't seen Reed, wherever he might be, for several dismounted and let their horses drink while they stretched and spoke casually. A couple even relieved themselves right out in the open. Spying on them sent a chill trailing up and down her backbone. She shuddered. Any moment they might spot her, and that would mean death or worse.

A hailing shout from the bank directly opposite her hiding place fueled her fear. Were there more of the savages? While the Indians were distracted, she edged deeper into the brush. There she huddled as the men grew quite boisterous. She dared a cautious peek. Someone had joined them. A white man. She expected at any moment to see them fall upon him and scalp his hair right off his head. That didn't happen. A friendly visit ensued that seemed endless. Finally the Indians mounted up and rode off, everyone waving friendly-like. She squinted her eyes and glared at the man they left behind. It was...no, it couldn't be. But it was. The man who had spoken so casually with the Indians was Reed Bannon.

An explosive breath from deep in her lungs sounded awfully loud and Tressie hunkered back in hiding, terrified that the Indians would swing around and ride her way. She stayed there until her legs were tingly stumps and a cramp held her back stiffly. She'd dropped the rifle in her earlier haste, and so backed out of the brush at long last, bent on retrieving it. She bumped solidly into a pair of legs clothed in soaked britches.

Screeching, she tried to scamper back into hiding. A hand snatched her overall straps and dragged her to her feet. "You can come out now," the stern voice said. Letting out a yowl, she flailed at the air with clenched fists.

Her Kentucky rifle in one hand, the crossed straps of her overalls fisted in the other, Reed Bannon spoke in a soft voice, "Hush, girl. You want to bring them back? Hush, now. Thunderation, what are you doing here?"

"Reed? Is that you?" Blind panic dissolving, she peered into the familiar face. 'Turn me loose this instant. Let me go! And give me back my gun."

She kicked at his shins with the heavy shoes. He dodged easily out of range, grimaced, and let go of her. The shoulder wound had to still be bothering him, but she didn't care. She just landed on both feet with a grunt and glared at him, ready to do further battle.

"Behave yourself. Is that any way to treat the man who just saved your hide?"

"Oh, sure. After leaving me out on the prairie to die, you save my life. How gallant." She took great pleasure in throwing his words back at him.

He ignored it and continued to scold her. "For goodness' sake, I didn't leave you to die. You were safe there. You had a roof over your head, food to eat, water to drink. What do you have out here, girl? Indians and wild animals, that's what. Do you know how many men die crossing these plains? Not to mention the weaker sex. Now what am I going to do with you? Two days lost if I take you home. There ain't many women in the camps. Lord sakes, girl, how can I protect you?"

She seriously considered leaping on him and giving him a good pounding. His eyes snapped and she changed her mind, speaking instead. "Forget that; I'll protect myself. You're not taking me back. Not unless you hog-tie me and drag me. If you do I'll just follow you again."

He snorted in derision. "Hog-tying you isn't such a bad idea." Though she could scarcely see his face in the darkness, she sensed him studying her. "What were you going to do come dark? Or suppose I'd a gone on when I spotted you coming down off that rise, instead of hanging around? Them Indians would have had you if I hadn't sent them off in another direction, and then what would you have done?"

"A lot you care. Taking advantage of me just like some animal in heat, then running off. I thought we were…we had...I felt like—"

"Bull hockey, girl. You lured me into that trying to weasel your way into my good graces. You think I'd want it so bad I'd take you along so I'd have it at hand?"

She doubled up her fist and belted him dead on the point of his chin. The blow jarred her to the top of her head. She sucked at her knuckles and did a dance while he staggered backward. The jolt didn't actually knock him off his feet, but his eyes glazed momentarily.

"Woman, what's the matter with you?" he finally asked in an amazed tone.

Sucking at her aching fist, she looked up into his black eyes. Eyes that revealed more hurt than anger. She felt the tears coming and could do nothing but let them flow. Down both cheeks they poured and plopped onto the ground. Soon she began to bawl in earnest and slumped to a sitting position. With moisture-laden words she tried to explain her actions, but couldn't make herself understood. Weariness had defeated her.

Montana Promises from Kindle

SURELY I DIDN'T WRITE THAT

2011-08-22T14:08:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I opened the scan of my first published historical romance. Time to format it for Kindle. This shouldn't take long. I'd already finished another, which was actually my fourth to be published. It's going by the name of Dream Walker now. I knew the formatting pretty well, though the cheat sheet still stays next to my keyboard.

Well, imagine my surprise when I began to edit this book and found passages that begged to be changed. What was I thinking? I couldn't have written that phrase. Why did I keep doing that? Could it be that I've learned a lot about writing since Goldspun Promises came out from Topaz in 1994?

Most writers think that once they get published they don't have anymore to learn. They can rest on their laurels, so to speak, and simply write. Wrong. I discovered tons of things to change to make the story tighter, more tense, to add more conflict and internalization. The one thing I didn't change was the surroundings. The setting, if you will. I had researched Montana up and down, back and forth, even down to a tiny mouse the heroine plays with. I'd spent hours, days, weeks, months making sure the Montana setting was realistic.

But some of these sentences. Oh, dear, they could be so much more clear. And what are all these adjectives doing sprinkled all over the place? Well, formatting that book taught me a lesson. I've always said we can all learn something new every day and we never stop learning our craft, but I never realized how much I still had to learn when I sold that first book. And learn it I did.

So, why did Topaz sign me to a two-book contract, then another, before the bottom fell out of the publishing industry? Because I had stories to tell, I was professional when dealing with the editors and other people at the house, and I always met my deadlines. Even the one that occurred a scant two-months after the death of my dear mother. I met them all without a whimper. And I was easy to get along with. When they sent a box of my books to Winslow, Arizona, I didn't yell and scream. I boxed up a load of Arkansas items, mugs, hats and Razorback stuff, and mailed it to them with a little sticker on each one that said, "Elizabeth Gregg lives in Arkansas."

My editor called me laughing and thanking me for all the cool Arkansas stuff.

So here's a lesson to be learned. Not that you can write junk and get published if you follow all the rules, but that you can write one heck of a story that may lack some of the finesse of the experienced writer, and still get it published.

Today, though, there's one huge change. We as writers should be dealing with small presses. That's where our future lies. Along with E Books, of course. But I don't recommend that someone who is really new to writing self-publish a book that just might ruin their reputation because it's badly edited or poorly written. Before you upload that book for yourself, you'd better be sure you know your craft and your story telling.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

2011-08-08T13:50:00.006-05:00

Ozarks in the fall, an enticing image now.

I recently received an email from an old friend who is having a lot of her books published this year. She told me that her publisher is urging her to get on Facebook and other social media and write a blog. He is even willing to help her get started. She wondered if I thought this was important.

That reminds me of the writers who bring this up everywhere I go. "I don't have time for such nonsense," is a common remark. Writers who don't have time to promote their books to millions of potential readers around the world worry me. How do they think people can find out about them in the "millions of books out there?"

There's only one way and that's with a growing platform online. I've stressed this before on this blog, but not recently. Last year I spent three or four days a week promoting "In the field." I sold a lot of books, but I was worn to a frazzle when summer ended. I made the decision not to put myself in the position of having to promote that way anymore. In fact, I'm going to turn down a publisher who wants me to write a book this winter. I can't do that anymore. He'll want me to do book signings and travel around promoting the book. And only rightly so.

My decision is to only write for E books from now on. Check here for two of my back list western romances available on Kindle. At my age, I can't afford to wear myself down physically. I want to continue writing for many more years, but I'm weary of lugging boxes of books from one place to another. Loading and unloading them, sitting in hard chairs for hours waiting for a crowd to gather. I do love the process of meeting and talking to them, and I'll miss that, but Facebook and emails and LinkedIn and . . . All those will have to do.

My advice to my friend? Learn to post to several online social media spots and write a blog. Do it all one day a week, don't let it eat up your days you could spend writing. I like Mondays for social media, and only write my blog once a week. I think Google + is probably a must, the way it's growing. It's easier than Facebook and will serve writers much better. LinkedIn is also very good. I'm trying out a few more of these. One I signed off of after about a month when all they talked about was movies and tv stars and stories. It's wise to test the waters first and if you get nothing unsubscribe.

Another thing I intend to continue with is attending two or three favorite conferences each year, if for no other reason than to recharge my batteries. Once in a while an editor will be there I can pitch something to. I have to repeat what I've told so many. Every book I've sold, I sold at a conference. And that's 13 and counting. Not a huge number, but impressive enough. My latest book, Stone Heart's Woman, due out soon from The Wild Rose Press, was sold at Ozark Creative Writers in Eureka Springs to an E Book publisher.

That conference is coming up the second week of October. Check it out here.

Check my other blog for the latest about a workshop I'm planning and other goodies.

SIGNING KINDLES AND OTHER STUFF

2011-08-01T14:21:00.006-05:00

Writers who are currently converting their books to Kindle, the primo E Book reader, can now sign those books through a site called Kindlegraph. Today I signed a copy of Dream Walker for a reader through the site. This is a cool concept. Thanks to Ronda del Bocchio for sending me the link. She's a great gal and is always on the ball where online sites are concerned and so sharing.

I'm almost finished with my second book conversion, but haven't done much about the cover yet. Have a photo I got from a great site that might be useful for many of you. For photos at a very inexpensive price, go to dreamstime. Just type in the subject matter and I'll bet they have photos. I typed in first ghost towns, but needed to narrow that down when so many began to pop up, so I put in the name of the town from my book, Virginia City, Montana. I was able to download a perfect photo to fit my next book, Montana Promises. Of course, I'm tweaking it a bit, but I was amazed at the huge amount of photos in their stock and the low cost. Hint: download the smallest photo. I took the medium and it's rather large for a book cover, though it's fixable.

While I work I'm taking notes for teaching my first workshop on converting and formatting your book to Kindle. No matter how many tutorials there are out there, when we actually get to work, we learn a lot of little things that make the work much easier and quicker.

I just looked down at my temperature and it's 102. I gotta tell you folks, we don't normally have this type of summer in Northwest Arkansas. Further South, maybe, but we'll usually hit the mid 90s a few times separated by cooler weather, then maybe 100, but not often. The last time we had this hot a summer was 1980 the year my grandson was born. My poor daughter was miserable. Who ever heard of having an air conditioner out in the country?

Okay, back to writing. It's the wrong spacing that messes up the Kindle formatting worse than anything else, and that is seldom mentioned in tutorials. Probably the best tutorial put out comes from the Kindle people who finally got on the ball and quit saying, "Oh, it's easy. Just upload a Word document to KDP." Uh huh No sir, it'll never get past the first try.

In their latest Newsletter they included a complete tutorial for formatting and uploading to Kindle. It says just about the same thing as what I'm developing from doing it myself using the best parts of tutorials plus advice from a couple of authors who've done it a few times. It's been a tough learning curve, but I think I have it now. Time will tell as I finish and upload Montana Promises, the first of a stand-alone Montana trilogy that begins before the end of the Civil War and finishes in the late 1870s when the cattle barons ruled in Montana.

Amazing how in reading these books for the first time since they were published from 1994 through 2001, I constantly say," I don't remember writing that." Or, on some days, "How could I have written that?" and changing it quickly. My writing has continued to improve over the years, even while I was being published by Topaz and Dorchester in New York. Won't go there again, either. But that's a story for another day.

I'm feeling very comfortable in this new E Book world and hope to continue to self-publish and submit to E Book publishers, then promote online. I'm tired, folks, but can't stop writing, so I'm making this choice willingly, even though I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time. It's coming.

ME AS A CHARACTER

2011-07-22T16:17:00.004-05:00

If I were to write myself as a character, I'd make me and lot smarter than I am. I'd know things that would make the reader's heads spin. Like how DSL works, or why when we get older we forget the simplest of stuff. In reality, I'm a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, but in my books ... oh, these would be a series, I'd be a really smart detective ... think Lauren Bacall in her early years. I'd kick ass and take names, and make those sorry who ever crossed me. And I'd know how DSL works. I'd also know why men are the way they are. Can't close anything they open and that includes their fly.

Anyway, I might not be beautiful, but nice looking, but with a mouth on me that would keep the worst guys at bay. And I'd own a 2011 Thunderbird, red as a fire engine.

Here's a link you need to follow.

SUMMER DOLDRUMS

2011-07-18T15:45:00.004-05:00

Last winter's record snow. Did this cool you off?

The dictionary says that doldrums is a spell of listlessness or despondency, or a state of inactivity, stagnation or slump. There's also a location in the ocean near the equator abounding in calms that is referred to as "the doldrums."

It you're suffering from any of these definitions, then there are things you can do to overcome them. They tell me folks like to read lists, so I'll make one here.

Take some time away from whatever you're doing to do something completely wild.
Call a writer friend and engage them in a short conversation about what they're doing.
Draft a short story about something totally out of the realm of your usual writing.
If you're a prose writer, write a poem, the sillier the better.
Find a movie or tv show on Hulu that you've always wanted to watch, kick back and enjoy it on your computer.
Take off all your clothes and run through the yard singing. No, wait, that's only if you live in the boonies. Otherwise your friends might have to visit you in jail. No more doldrums.
Edit the first chapter of a published book that could be a lot better.
Post a blog like this one.
Eat chocolate, drink champagne. This should go without saying.

Then, to finish it up, ask all the readers to send one suggestion to help everyone drag themselves out of their summer doldrums and get back to creative writing.

Okay, everyone. What do you do to get rid of the doldrums during these long, hot summer days?

DREAM WALKER, An excerpt

2011-07-04T14:25:00.002-05:00

An excerpt from my book soon to be out on Kindle

DREAM WALKER

CHAPTER ONE

Early evening shadows sent long, dark fingers across the alley at the back of Stirman's Mercantile. Rachel crouched behind a stack of wooden crates, breath catching in her throat.

If Doaks found her he would drag her back to that filthy shack to cook and clean and God knows what else. She covered her mouth, held her breath against a threatened cry. Tears of anger, sorrow, and raw fear flooded her cheeks.

He was coming, him and those drunken friends, making no effort to silence their approach.

"Come out of there, ye dirty heathen savage. Come out and maybe I'll not beat ye half to death."

The worst he'd ever done to her was fling her across the shack when she displeased him, but that whip he carried coiled at his hip frightened her into thinking he might do worse. She cringed and tried to make herself smaller.

Doaks kicked aside the crates, crashed through them with a splintering of wood, and grabbed her up by the back of her shirt like a kitten. She kicked and clawed, but he only laughed and held her out of harm's way.

"Mangy little wildcat. Spit and claw all ye want. And then settle yourself down. Paid good money for you, ain't letting you loose, so you might as well stop fighting me."

The hot stench of his sour whiskey breath washed over her and she gagged and went limp. He was a huge man and could do a lot more to her if he took a notion. There'd be other chances to get away.

She let him drag her from the alley like a gunny sack filled with feed. Even though she had quietened, he kept her at arm's length and stayed out of her reach. Recollecting her earlier escape probably made him more wary, for he carried the bloody marks of her nails along one cheek.

From out on the street, someone hollered, "Sic her, you old drunk." Another voice answered, "Ain't gonna let that skinny Injun get away, are ye?"

The crack of a distant shot cut through the crisp spring evening.

Roaring in victory, Doaks hauled his prize into the street, bellowing curses.

Grim and silent she hunkered on hands and knees and glared at him. The men who had gathered to watch only laughed and continued their sport, stomping the packed earth and egging on the trapper in his game.

If he came too close she'd bite his dirty ear off. The chance didn't come, for he was too quick and kept her out of reach of his vital parts. And so she waited, bided her time, and glanced up and down the street drenched in early twilight.

Surrounded by the rowdy men, Rachel and her captor squared off, he almost too drunk to stand upright, but still much the stronger. He laid a hand on the whip, flicked the long leather tail out across the hard packed earth of the street. His bleary eyes gleamed. She hunched her shoulders, covered her head with both arms, and waited for the first sizzling lash of the burning whip. She would grab it and choke him to death.

"Don't you kill her now, you old fool," someone shouted with glee. "Even red Injuns is good for something, 'specially female 'uns."

"Hear that, Injun," Doaks snarled. "They don't want me to kill ye. What do you think?"

She wanted to cry out that she was as white as she was red. White like her father. It would mean nothing to these men. To them it only took a drop of her mother's blood to make her a filthy Injun. Instead she steeled herself to take her punishment from Doaks. This time she had gone too far and he would probably beat her. But not much, because he enjoyed her waiting on him hand and foot. She would get back at him sooner or later. The chance would come, he would have to sleep. When he did she would cut off his privates and feed them to him for breakfast. Fried.

Doaks grumbled and flicked the whip so that the end popped above her. "That brother of yours is counting his money, I would 'spect, while I'm dealing with a crazy savage. Ought to have knowed myself better than to dicker with 'em. Red bastard sold me a lazy, good for nothin' runaway. Ain't even purty." He leaned down, jerked up her chin.

Choked by the sour whiskey on his breath, she gulped down bile and kept her eyes closed tightly. She loved her brother with all her heart. He had kept her alive, carried her at times till his feet were bloody during the removal. What had happened to him brought her great sorrow. One day perhaps she would understand why he had sold her to this terrible man. But she knew for sure, Eagle must have had no choice.

Doaks squeezed at her jaw until her ears rang. "You know that, gal? You ain't even purty. And what do I have to show for my trouble? Paid good honest money and what do I have? Nothin' but trouble, that's what. I git through with you, you'll damn well know how to pleasure a man."

He staggered backward on the slope of the street, feet tangling. His grip loosened. She doubled both knees into her chest, kicked out, and caught him hard in the stomach.

He let out a tremendous whoosh and doubled over.

She bounded away, drinking in fresh air. Free.

Behind her he retched, the others whooped and hollered. She chose a route that would take her up the hill onto the square and raced through the dusky dark. Rounding a sharp curve in the road, she caught a second wind and took off, only to slam broadside into the haunches of a plodding horse. With a gasp she bounced off and landed flat on her backside. Momentarily breathless, she managed to roll over and scramble to her hands and knees. In another instant she had vaulted once more to her feet.

The rider, a big man dressed in buckskins, dismounted agilely and headed for her. "Here now, what's your hurry?"

A quick glance over her shoulder told her that the drunken crowd was fast approaching.

The man's silver eyes glittered, he breathed the stench of whiskey over her. Was there nowhere to go, no escape from such men?

He had a hold on her and she jerked to get away. "Let me go, you pale-eyed snake." Switching to Cherokee she spat quick, insulting words at him, but he wouldn't turn loose.

Daniel held onto the ragged Indian girl while he eyed the passel of men charging up the hill. Didn't seem like too fair a fight, all those men against one scrawny girl, even if she did act wild as some cornered mountain cat.

The worst of the lot shouted, "She belongs to me, mister. Grab her 'fore she runs off." Wrapped in a badly cured fur skin and stinking like a skunk, the man lurched forward, knocked Daniel aside, and grabbed the girl.

Dispirited by the entire episode and not too steady on his own feet, Daniel raked his glance down past her flashing eyes to her unsightly garb, men's pants hitched up with a piece of rope and a ragged linsey shirt. He let her go, turned his back on the foray, and walked off. This sort of nonsense was exactly why he stayed away from towns, from gatherings of humans. None of his damned business what happened.

He'd drunk too much, should have stayed in the wagon, gone to sleep. Let this go on without him seeing it. Wouldn't know the difference then. He ground his teeth, shut his eyes. Girls died. Innocents died every damned day, and he couldn't do a thing about it.

The whip cracked behind him, the girl screamed, and he hunched his shoulders against the vivid images that engulfed him. A dead girl's head lolling over his arm, her long black hair matted in blood hanging down into the mud. The stench of gunpowder and fear, and screams, dear God, the screams. Tearing at his gut, rendering him nearly helpless. The burning Mexican village, children running and crying, soldiers scooping up the women and riding off with them. Screaming, screaming, killing, killing.

With a roar he suppressed the memories and swung around. He yanked a long-bladed Bowie from his belt and leaped on the fur-clad man before he could swing the whip again. He sank the weapon deep into the enormous dirty thigh.

The man bellowed like a raging bull, but the knife buried to the hilt in his flesh didn't slow him down much, it just turned his attention toward Daniel. Smelling blood, the other men closed ranks. Daniel sent a quick glance toward the girl, who knelt in the dirt, a bloody slit across the back of her shirt. He damn well ought to have stayed out of this, but with the trapper lunging at him, it was way too late.

"Run, girl, run," Daniel shouted, and took the brunt of the man's attack. The two of them went down in the dirt, the trapper's thumbs locked into Daniel's throat, his bulky, stinking weight smothering him.

Daniel gasped, grunted, freed his hands, and popped the man smartly on the ears with the heels of both palms. The thumbs buried in his gullet loosened momentarily, and Daniel grappled for the handle of the knife sticking out of the man's leg just below his hip.

Darkness closed in as he ran out of air to breathe past the choking fingers. He grabbed the Bowie and yanked with all his might, twisting the blade as he did so. It was too much for the wounded trapper. He turned loose of Daniel's throat to paw at the leg and shriek.

With a final jerk Daniel freed the knife. Blood spurted from the wound, the man rolled away, eyes glazed. Daniel came to his feet, gesturing with the bloody blade.

The deadly calm of his voice caught the bleeding man's attention. "Leave her be, sir. Leave her be."

Daniel shot another quick look over his shoulder, hoping to see the Indian girl gone. She remained there in the street, both hands over her mouth, shoulders heaving.

He waved an arm at her. "Git to hell and gone, I said." But she didn't move, just blinked and stared.

One of the men in the crowd spoke up. "He ain't gonna do no more harm, mister. Not tonight, he's done for fer the time being. But was I you, I'd look to my back when he heals. Ain't no one wants to make an enemy out of Jasper Doaks, not unless he's looking to meet his maker."

"I'll keep that in mind," Daniel said, and bending over, wiped the gory knife blade on Doaks's disgusting fur wrap, reversed it, and cleaned the other side.

Doaks muttered "Bastid," and spit, but that took the remainder of his energy and his eyes rolled up in his head as he sprawled backward.

The girl remained in one spot, entranced. She had the eyes of a frightened doe who knows it should bolt but can't move.

Daniel gestured at her. "Git. Git on out. He won't come after you now. Go on, git home." He started toward his piebald mare. Up the street a ways the animal waited patiently, reins twined on the ground.

A TASK COMPLETED

2011-06-27T15:37:00.004-05:00

There's nothing more satisfying than setting a goal and completing it. Several months ago my decision to get one of my back listed books formatted and uploaded to Kindle was only a dream. I had my doubts I could accomplish it without paying someone to help me.

Thanks to so many others who are willing to share what they've learned, I was able to complete the task, including designing my own cover. It wasn't easy, but thanks to people like Cait London, Amy Shojai, and "CJ's Easy as Pie," I was able to accomplish this myself.

Aren't writers the most generous folks in the world? Since the earliest years when I was struggling to get that first book finished, writers have shared their knowledge with me. Over the years I've tried to do the same, and hope "paying it forward" has paid them back in some ways for all the help they've given so freely.

Back in 1983 when I was working on my first novel and writing newspaper articles and columns, I met the first writer who influenced my writing. Sadly, over the years I've lost contact with her. She was writing a romance, had been to New York to a conference and met some agents, and I was so in awe of her and her experiences. As far as I know, she's never been published.

We began to get together every Saturday, at her place or mine, we both lived in the back hills of the Arkansas Ozarks, and worked with each other. Reading, brainstorming, anything we could do to help each other. We attended a couple of groups, but found no satisfaction there. She had a computer, I used a Sears electric typewriter. Her computer, a Kaypro, was no more than a word processor with a 6" screen and two slots into which one inserted a program disc and a work disc. The printer was a daisy wheel and I could out-type it any day. Then she left her husband in the dark of the night, telling him she was coming to my house.

She left word she wanted me to have the computer, but I felt better paying him for it, and so I sent him $50 a month for a while, I don't remember how long, and went to work on that fabulous machine. I suppose I've worn out ten or eleven computers since then, including the Mac I used when I went to work for a weekly newspaper in 1990.

During that time I met someone else who would have a lifelong effect on my writing life. His name is Dusty Richards, and neither of us could have imagined the excitement and experiences that lay ahead of us. Our critique group is in its 25th year and is turning out published writers. He's now published over 100 western books, has won so many awards I can't list them all here, but was recently voted by True West readers as the greatest living western writer. He's won Spur awards among a lot of others.

Over the years we've supported each other through thick and thin. I'll never be the prolific writer that he is, but I've had my share of successes that make me happy. This is a great life and I'm content with it. Meeting new people in the writing life is so enjoyable as is seeing old friends who have been around since the beginning of my career.

Not once have I ever had to make myself sit down to write. If anything I have to make myself quit at the end of the day. Sometimes there's much more to do than I can get done in a day, a week or a month, but I keep on plugging and learning.

And that's why I'm so excited to have produced this first Kindle book. I hope to have many more including some original novels and nonfiction that has never been published. My latest nonfiction book, The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks, will soon be available as an e book, thanks to my publisher.

I hope all my writer friends and all my readers can attain their dreams whatever they may be and enjoy life as much as I have.

MY BOOK IS KINDLEIZED

2011-06-22T13:58:00.005-05:00

I'm so jazzed I'm not sure what I'm doing. After preparing my manuscript in Word, which I'm very ignorant in, and going back and doing things like putting each chapter title in "heading 1" under Styles, using ctrl/enter to make a break between each chapter, I decided to give it a try.

Using CJ's guide, which I posted a link to in an earlier post but here it is again, and following it step by step, my book and cover were accepted in Mobi Creator. This is an incredibly simple way to get your book up. I think I still need to learn a few things, like a TOC that has hotlinks. But I went ahead and put the book up. It looks as good as many I'm reading on Kindle, and better than some. I can't believe how easy it was. I'm such a computer dunce.

When you have your manuscript ready, and remember to follow some of the do's and don't's I published in earlier blogs, like proper spacing and how to check that, and forget about the paging that will show up on Word and make a hard break between each chapter. I know I'm repeating myself in places, but that's because some of these things can cause your book not to convert.

Look at some of the Kindle books and prepare your copyright, dedication, title page with breaks between each section. If you want it on another page in Kindle, do a page break.

Mobi Creator is fantastic in the way it produces a prc file (that's for Kindle) an html file (that's where you can go and fix errors if necessary) and another I'm not sure what it's for. I'll find out and bring you up to date on that when I can. Remember, follow CJ's step by step guide and don't miss anything.

I can't wait to see the book on my bookshelf at Amazon. I priced it at $2.99. Originally, this back list paperback sold for $6.99 in 1997, so just look at the savings for my readers.

Good luck. Sorry I can't help anyone with images, tables, etc., inserted. Check out Amy Shojai's blog. She's doing a great one on nonfiction that doesn't use Mobi Creator but goes directly to KDP.

Another link to using Mobi creator

2011-06-20T13:29:00.003-05:00

This is a great guide to using Mobi creator to format your Kindle books.

Using Mobipocket Creator To Create Your Own Kindle Ebooks

2011-06-20T13:12:00.000-05:00

Using Mobipocket Creator To Create Your Own Kindle Ebooks

2011-06-13T10:48:00.003-05:00

Here's the updated cover of Dream Walker. You can see the changes that were made from the original posted last week.

Working in Photoshop is quite an experience. Everyone I talk to tells me how difficult a program it is, and I've found that true. I can manage a simple cover like this one, but to layer on over images has so far escaped me. I'm going with this cover for the present as I finish the edits on this book and get ready to format it in Mobi Creator. I've decided to use that program because I've heard good things about it. You'll find so many ways of formatting for Kindle that it makes your head spin. Look at everything you find and decide which looks the best to you.

Once you've formatted, please check closely before uploading it to make sure it looks good. Then take another look when it's published to Kindle. You can do this by downloading Kindle for PC to your computer and reading it there. You can see if everything looks the way you want it to before settling. If you don't like some things, fix them and re-publish. You can also upload a new cover at any time should you want to.

Mobi Creator is a free program which you can download. There's also a manual that will help you. I've taken a look at this, but am still doing final edits. I'll let you know what you need to look out for and any problems you may have with Mobi Creator and how I solved them, if I did.

Take a look at my other blog to see another book cover from The Wild Rose Press on my first book to come out with them, Stone Heart's Woman. Like this one, it is a western historical romance steeped in the history of the Northern Cheyenne as they struggle to return to their home in Montana.

FULL LENGTH E BOOK IN THE MAKING

2011-06-06T15:23:00.006-05:00

As of now, I'm working on a book cover for the first back-list book, originally Trail to Forever, which is now called Dream Walker, for reasons that will be quite evident to the reader. I had no control over my titles first time around, but as my own publisher, I do. To make the cover, I used Photoshop, which is a difficult program. I've kept this first cover fairly simple, then sent it around to my writer's group for critiquing. Got some good suggestions, and as with any critiquing, intend to keep those I liked and toss those I didn't. Though I appreciate each and every one.

I'm posting the cover as it is now here. Then when I finish polishing, I'll put it up once more so you can see what I did and perhaps approve --- or not. I'm not experienced in Photoshop, but think I'm going in the right direction with this cover. I can't wait to get the book up to Kindle.

At last I found the time to edit the first of my back-list books as it came from Blue Leaf. Found very few errors, but one strange thing happened. After reading line by line and editing only the scanning errors, I returned to begin the actual reading for my own editing of the original and found an odd occurrence. Every few paragraphs there were spatial errors that were not there on the first read through. Looked like this concern---,ing. The dashes were one long em dash in the middle of the word followed by a comma. I can only assume these occurred or followed my edits. What must I have done to cause them? There were too many to have been something I missed on the first read through. They were all alike, only occurred in different long words. This means another complete comprehensive read-through of this long book. I wish I knew what caused this. They weren't there on the first edits. My nightmare: suppose something else like this follows my current edits?

At any rate, that's what I'm up to now, along with setting up the Word document for Kindle. I've decided to use Mobi creator as it's said to be the easiest to get what you want. I have instructions from several sources for formatting for Kindle, and understand that all are worthwhile. I think it's just finding what suits you best.

If I'm not happy with Mobi creator, I'll go to one of the others, such as creating a Word doc, then saving as html, which is said to be an easy way to do it. I still don't understand how to make hyperlinks, which are necessary for the Table of Contents (TOC) but I will keep checking that out.

For the first two weeks once it's posted, I'm offering this first book for .99 cents. After the launch and those two weeks, it will go up to $2.99. I'm shooting for a launch by the first of July if I don't run into trouble. Originally Trail to Forever received 4 stars from Romantic Times and a super review.

Following this launch, I have a three-book stand-alone series, also western historical romances, but without the touch of the paranormal. The series takes place in Montana beginning with the Gold rush at Virginia City, Montana, then into the railroad era, then to the rancher barons. I will probably space these out over several months time.

FOURTH EBOOK UPLOADED

2011-05-27T14:35:00.004-05:00

Just before our power went out for nearly a week during the bad storms, I managed to upload two short stories under the title Outlaws and Glass Coffins. Both are longer than any previous stories. Used the same formatting, but I have been talking to several people who urge me to publish my novels to Kindle. Their reasoning makes sense. Kindle Apps are available for IPhones, IPads and various other readers as well as for laptop computers. And formatting for Kindle is a bit easier, I'm told, than going through Smashwords.

Another reason, of course, is financial. Smashwords takes a percentage on top of what is taken wherever your stories are sold (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) With Kindle it's a straight deal. If you price within the recommended price range, the author receives 70% of all sales. It's possible, though, to price at .99-cents to get sales rolling, then go up to your preferred price. At .99-cents you receive 35% of the sales. Some writers even offer their first effort free to get the ball rolling.

I, for one, am tired of writing for nothing half the time, and would think any full-length book I've toiled over, and especially already had published with a big New York house, is worth at least .99-cents, and that's what I plan to do for the first week or two of launch. Then I'll go up enough to earn 70%. As business people, we have to be smart. Much as I love to write, I do need to make something from the effort.

I'm now through six chapters of editing the first book of my back list which was scanned by Blue Leaf. I'm pleased with the overall results of the scan and am finding very few errors. It's going well, and I look forward to beginning to format to Kindle within a couple of weeks. I'll keep everyone posted how that goes as well as some links to check out and things to do to make it easier.

Check out The Story Lady for some great tips here.

EDITING EBOOK IN WORD

2011-05-17T15:22:00.005-05:00

Here's the book cover of my third ebook that contains two short stories. I'm getting better.

For the greater part of today I've edited my latest ebook which consists of two rather long short stories. As I went through the final stages, I thought how easy this one was compared to the first, when I had little idea what I was doing. I'd like to share some of the things I've learned about the final edits that include making sure the formatting is proper.

By the time you have followed Smashwords guidelines to format your story or novella---I'm working with short publications at this point---and think it's ready. You've followed their instructions on the copyright statement, etc., separated each section by an extra space, added something personal from you the author, it's time to check your work.

The first thing you need to do is turn on the paragraph symbol in the tool bar of the home tab. This will put a visual paragraph sign everywhere you've hit enter, but it will also put a black dot between each word. That shows each space.

What you are looking for as you edit:

Make sure you only have one dot after each period (one space)
The only P sign follows the end of a paragraph.
There is no black dot after the period at the end of your paragraph, only the P sign.
The three periods used for a pause do not have any spaces between them.
Do not put spaces between paragraphs.
Only one P between text and *** which separate titles etc.
Two P after *** before following text is best.

I found as I edited this last work that I could spot the problem areas faster, so take heart if you're doing your first one. It does get easier.

If you are planning on uploading a long book to Smashwords, there are things you'll need to learn that I haven't gotten to yet here. In fact, I'm planning to edit my first book next week and then I'll begin working on the instructions for uploading a long book. I have writer friends who have shared their knowledge with me. I also attended some workshops last week and received handouts on publishing to Kindle.

Long books present many problems not found in short stories, short books and novellas. But I'm determined to learn and will share my adventures with you. I reiterate that I'm no expert. I still can't make an in-depth cover that looks professional, and some of the instructions for uploading books to Smashwords, Kindle and/or Epub make my head spin.

Perhaps we can learn together. I'd welcome any comments from those of you who have advanced or learned some new tricks that make this easier. It is not as easy as the Kindle Digital Platform makes it out to be. Not if you want a well-formatted book without glitches that make it difficult to read.

Once you've uploaded to Smashwords, make sure you check your manuscript in HTML after it's published. I also check mine in Kindle and EPub. I think I've brought this up before. You can download Kindle for PC to your computer to check it there, but you'll have to check HTML where your book is listed at Smashwords. Click on your book's title and it will open a file that contains your book cover. Scroll down and all the different ereaders are listed. HTML is first, I believe. That version will show you if you've made some errors you'd rather not see in your finished work.

Please make sure your book has been edited by a professional before you begin to publish to any ebook platform. There's a danger that some of these epublishers will be inundated with badly written and badly edited work that will cause those of you with good books to get lost in the shuffle. We don't want that to happen. Let's keep the quality top-notch on books we self-publish to the Internet or readers will shy away from buying our work.

Till next time. Good luck and hang in there.

SMALL STEPS IN E PUBLISHING

2011-05-09T16:19:00.003-05:00

Just last week I received word that my first ebook of short stories has been accepted for the premium catalog at Smashwords. That means that the formatting was correct and they didn't see any problems. The other is still in line. Smashwords lets writers know by email when this process is completed.

I have two more ready to upload, but have been told by several others doing the same that I should opt out of Kindle and publish them there myself. So, another learning curve. Among the handouts at OWFI Conference was a step-by-step guide for getting uploaded to Kindle, but I haven't found it yet. It's in some of my stuff somewhere.

Other writers are freely sharing what they learn, and as one says, there's more than one way to skin this cat. So it's best to find what works for you, then make sure it suits Kindle (Amazon)

It wouldn't hurt to check out some websites. Here's one on marketing. Here are some tips from a techi. And don't forget one from a very successful ebook author.

This is short this week, but will surely have more info once I dig out the handouts and get back to work formatting some more e-books. We heard from authors whose sales are soaring on Kindle, so this seems to be the place to be, but they stressed you must promote your books once they're up.

Will have more later.

SEEING E-BOOK OUT THERE

2011-04-30T14:01:00.005-05:00

Since next week is going to be short and busy what with the big conference at Oklahoma City, I'm going to update what's going on with publishing my e-book short stories today.

First I'm going to answer a few of the problems I've been having. Smashwords doesn't want writers to opt out of Kindle or UPub, two of the most popular of their readers. So I didn't. Open Office will work well for formatting after you've cleansed your work, but you will have to save to Word 2003 prior to uploading to Smashwords.

Here's the answer to the biggest problem I had after my first story was uploaded, accepted and put "out there." I was told to click on my book in Smashwords to locate the way to download a copy to Kindle for PC and Adobe Digital Editions. This is not quite how it works and was why I couldn't accomplish it. Double click on your book in MY Smashwords, then when your book comes up larger on the screen, click on the title and that will take you to the download site where you can read online in html or download a copy to read on your PC. Note: You do have to have downloaded the programs Kindle for PC and Adobe Digital Editions to do this. They are both free.

Also, let your readers know that they don't have to have an E-reader to read your book. All they have to do is download Kindle for PC and they can then buy and read your book on their PC. Cool, huh? Typically, your book will be published at all the sites in about two weeks after it's posted for sale at Smashwords.

After discovering all this, I uploaded my second book - two short stories about women dealing with the struggles of life in the Ozarks in the past. It's title is Going to Freedom. I designed simple book covers for both -- out of necessity since I haven't learned much about Photoshop yet -- with the same color and design. They have a different photo in the center. This way my readers can easily spot the new short stories from my other books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I have now checked out both e-books for formatting problems and am very happy with their look. Sometimes we can make it much too hard when it's not. Just follow directions from Smashwords in their free guide. I made that simpler by cutting and pasting each direction into a document for my own use, leaving out all the asides included in the book. Then I printed it out and put it in a looseleaf notebook where I could follow step by step what to do. After doing it twice, I'm still going to be careful to follow those because if I don't I'll probably forget a step and mess things up.

I don't like running my file through notepad, I prefer to use another text file. My Word Perfect offers several text files that will cleanse the formatting, but Word does not, so do what you have to do. Since I still create my original file in WP I make sure to cleanse it of unnecessary hidden format code before putting it into Word. Besides, WP won't save directly into Word for some unknown reason known only to Bill Gates. At least, I haven't been able to get it to.

Enough rambling. I'm off to see if I can make heads or tails of Photoshop. I get so far, then can't add anything to my original illustration or photo. It just refuses to go there after I cut and copy it. There must be a step I'm missing. I'm using a lot of my own photos to avoid copyright issues and getting permission or worse, paying for the right to use someone else's work. If I need a photo, I take it with my digital camera and drop it right into my computer.

Think of things like close-ups of spring flowers or other subjects, scenic shots that you can cut something from. Most of my short stories take place in the Ozarks so I have plenty of lovely photos to choose from. If I could only learn how to layer in additional items. More in a few.

UPLOADING TO SMASHWORDS

2011-04-26T13:26:00.003-05:00

It’s been a rough week, but I hope this one will go smoother. After attempting to upload my short story from Open Office and failing, I saved the formatted file to Word doc 2003 and it uploaded easily.

Though Smashwords says it accepts Open Office files, the error message was that I was attempting to upload an Open Office text file. I was unable to get OO to save to a doc file, so that’s why I used Word 2003, their preferred program. Make sure that you have disabled all the automatic formatting and set the Word doc file to Normal, just as requested in the free formatting book from Smashwords requests. Submit in Times New Roman 12 pt font. Last week I discussed other formatting requirements.

Before going to Smashwords to upload your file, have a cover ready as well as a blurb for the story, article or book. You’ll also need tags so the search engines can find your book easily. You’ll be asked to choose a price from .99 up. You can give your work away, but writers have done that way too often in the past. It’s time we were paid something for our hard work.

Now, as to the cover. It’s important that it not be amateurish. Keep the first one simple if you haven’t previously used Photoshop or another program to make covers. Use a dark color for your background and a very light color for your name and title. Your name should be at the top in 100 pt font. Make sure the title shows up well against the background and is large enough to read when the cover is posted in the smaller version. You’re on your own learning to use Photoshop, or find someone who knows how and is willing to talk you through it. I’m still goofing around with it. Check out Cait London’s blog for the past few weeks for valuable information.

Don’t worry if you aren’t happy with the book and cover after they are put up on Smashwords. You can fix what you don’t like and upload a replacement cover and book if you want. Instructions for that are posted at Smashwords. I printed the pages that were posted after I uploaded my book so I could follow any directions needed to keep up with its progress.

So far I haven’t learned how to read the book in their HTML reader to find any formatting errors. This is problematic and I’m trying to find out how to check out my uploaded story in that reader while I prepare my next story. Since I have 15 short stories that have been previously published in regional anthologies, I’ll be working on them for a while to get them all published.

My intention is to learn this all well before I tackle the first of six of my backlist historical romance novels which I’m having scanned. Because I don’t want to spend the money to pay someone else to format them, I’ll need to be well acquainted with the process myself. I can see that making the covers will be the most difficult. There are places, however, where covers can be purchased for a reasonable price. Though I plan to make all my short story covers, I may buy those for the novels. If you need covers for romance novels, take a look at featuring cover model Jimmy Thomas here.

Next on my agenda. Publish my novels that have never been published anywhere else.

If anyone knows how to check formatting in Smashwords’ HTML reader, please comment or email me.

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK COVERS EBOOKS

2011-04-18T15:52:00.005-05:00

I promised to keep readers updated on how work is coming on my ebook formatting, which must include the creation of a cover. Everything published in ebooks must have a cover that can be used to sell your book online, either through Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any of the other ebook readers.

I was steered toward Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, and since I will have a lot of book covers to make which I want to look professional, I decided to splurge. I found a copy for $79.99 with a $20 rebate, so that's not bad for an investment. Happily, I have a friend who has made some lovely covers using that program, so she spent about two hours on the phone with me getting me up and running with a basic understanding of this difficult program. It's wonderful to have friends, and I'm grateful to every one of you who has come to my aid during this journey.

I'm pretty much a klutz when it comes to understanding computer programs from this new electronic age. Today, after making one cover that looked like my five-year-old great grandson had drawn it in a Big Chief Tablet, two or three more that didn't even make it through to the end stage because I grew disgusted and deleted them, I finally came out with a decent enough cover -- I hope -- to lift up my first short story, Hard Way Home and it's bonus story, The Traitor, to Smashwords along with the cover.

If you are familiar with Photoshop, then you can easily make your own covers. Just be sure they don't look like my aforementioned childish first attempt, unless of course, that's deliberate because of the content of your story, article or book. I've asked three of my honest writer friends to take a look at the cover and give me an opinion before I take the final step and "lift up" to Smashwords.

A few clues for your cover: It must be 600 x 900 pixels and 72 resolution. Create in many layers from cover color to text to photo, picture or design. Make sure when you're happy with the look, to save it to Photoshop, then save to jpg. Once you have done that it can't be worked on any more and you'll have to start over in a new file on Photoshop. I kept this one fairly simple so I could get used to using the program. Later I will try to improve on my designs, especially for the books. I think a good, simple clean cover for short stories and/or articles is okay.

Look over your finished jpg carefully, then make it smaller as if it were on Amazon, and make sure it's still good and readable. Good luck and send some comments on how this is all working out for you.

PUBLISHING EBOOKS MEANS PERSEVERE

2011-04-11T14:49:00.003-05:00

When faced with a steep learning curve, we all handle it differently. I'm prone to be driven to tears, which makes me angry. When much younger, I'd attack the source of my frustration, often my new sewing machine when I was learning that craft, or a baking pan when I ruined a favorite cake recipe. It didn't take long for me to learn that I had to clean up whatever mess I made, so it wasn't worth tossing a crumbly frosted cake or burned meringued pie against the wall.

Those lessons are preventing bad reactions as I work on learning to become a publisher of my own ebooks. I haven't resorted to tears nor have I tossed my laptop out the window, but the temptation has been there.

Giving up on what one of my writer friends called "Funky Word" I downloaded an Open Office file after I learned that a much-published author is issuing her backlist like crazy using Open Office, or as we in the trade call it, OO. Looks sort of like eyes opened in wonderment, doesn't it? At any rate, if she can do it, so can I. And she's right, it's so much easier. It doesn't come equipped with all that "funky" automatic formatting that makes Word so difficult to use when formatting for ebook publishing.

So, I cut and pasted my short story into OO and it wasn't but a little while before I had it set up properly.

Here are a few hints for formatting for ebooks:

Don't throw the carriage--ha ha, showed my age there-- Do not (hit enter) more than twice at a time. If you do any more, you're apt to create a blank page in your book or story.
Forget about the pages in your file. Do not create page breaks.
Divide one page from another for your ebook by hitting enter once, centering asterisks, hit enter once and begin your next page. IGNORE PAGE BREAKS IN FILE
Once you have finished formatting in OO, in toolbar click show Paragraph sign and double check that there are none except where you intend a paragraph.
Make sure there are no spaces at the end of a paragraph before you hit Para, not even one.
Only use one space between a period and the beginning of the next sentence.
You want to create a title page. Besides your dedication, etc., follow directions in Smashwords Free Guide for what else must be included on your front page and back page.

Those are all the hints I can think of as I'm working my way along this steep and slippery slope. If you have any questions or any hints you've picked up that help with formatting for ebooks, let me know. You can check your formatting by saving the finished product to html and reading it there. It will look like it will in your ebook. You can go back to OO and fix anything you catch there before uploading.

Creating a cover comes next, and every thing you upload for epublication must have a cover. I'm waiting for the arrival of a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. This is supposed to be the best program to create covers. You can buy one through Amazon or Adobe, or if you already have Photoshop you might try downloading this upgrade. I'm not sure about that as I haven't checked it myself, but was told it's possible. Anyone who is going to do much epublishing will need a good program to make covers. There are a few standard covers available, I think on CreateSpace, for instance, for those just wanting to publish something short now and then.

Until next time, when I may be even more frazzled, this new publisher will sign off.

FORMAT THAT MANUSCRIPT

2011-03-29T10:43:00.004-05:00

Well, here I am in my second week of learning how to process a manuscript and upload it to Kindle and other ebook publishers.

After closely following directions I'd found online, I later learned that since they were posted in 2008, things had changed a lot. So, look at me starting over. I turned to Smashwords, where there's a book you can download free to your computer and Kindle --- now that's interesting --- which leads you step by step through the process. Your best bet is to follow these directions, then post to Smashwords. You'll realize more profit if, once you get there, you opt out of Kindle and Nook so you can upload your book directly to them. More about that later.

Since my document was created in Word Perfect, I have to wipe it clean of all formatting. Nuclear cleansing, it's called. After several tries to do it the way I was instructed, I ended doing it my way. I dropped the file into Word, then copied and pasted it into note pad. That wipes the formatting. Then I opened a new Word file, copied and pasted from note pad back into the new Word file.

Then I was ready to begin with the formatting in Word following directions from Smashwords. If you begin in Word it is recommended that you do the nuclear cleansing if you want to be sure the old formatting is all gone.

I'm working my way through the instructions, having a lot of trouble because I'm not familiar with Word at all.

Here it is, a couple of frustrating days later. I'm having some trouble with the formatting directions and have been advised that I might want to download Open Office, which is free and is said to work just as well when formatting a file to upload to Smashwords, Kindle and Nook, yet is easier to use than Word. I am determined to learn how to do this for future books I want to publish.

If you don't want to do all this -- essentially what you are doing is becoming the publisher of all your work -- there are people who will do the set-up for you. Invest the money if you want. I'm going to continue to try to do this myself. I have a short story which I'm experimenting on for this first attempt.

Everything you upload needs a "book cover," even short stories, articles, etc. If you have articles or short pieces and don't want to bother with getting them to Smashwords, give Amazon's Create Space a look. It appears to be a bit simpler. However you go, Amazon will post your published work once you have it done just right.

If you want to try to make your own covers, that's another steep learning curve. There are programs online you can order to do that. One is Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 available at Amazon. There is cover art available online for romance books at a very reasonable price if you find something you really like. Check it out too. Another cover art for romances. Don't forget istockphoto, where you'll likely find something to suit any subject.

If I haven't torn my hair out, I'll post again soon to give you some tips on formatting that I hope to learn as I go. Remember, I'm no expert, I'm just sharing what I learn, and with the different Word programs out there, finding some of these formatting tricks can be tricky. Couldn't resist. If any readers have suggestions or can help out, please post a comment.

Till next time in the journey to publication on the Web.

PUBLISHING TO E BOOKS

2011-03-21T15:28:00.004-05:00

The more I learn about publishing my own work on e-readers, the more I need to know. One piece of information leads to others. So I guess what I’m going to tell you all who are interested in e-publishing your work is that you’ll just have to learn along with me, or get out there and dig this stuff up yourself. I’m going to share with you, but you might be faster on your own.

Because I have a back list of six published western romances, my goal is to get them all on Kindle, et al. I’ve learned that Kindle is the driving force for genre writing. There are places you can publish like Smashwords and Create Space where you can publish your work if you have Word documents available. Check out these sites for yourself to see what you’ll need to do to publish there.

Check out this one for lots of information. Also wouldn’t hurt to sign up here to be ready for what’s to come.

My plan, and I’ll blog about how I do this as I get to it, is to publish a small collection of short stories and give them away, to lead readers to my books.

For those of you who have books you want to publish to Kindle, but you don’t have a document anymore, you can get your book scanned by Blue Leaf. I bought used copies of all my paperbacks and will let them destroy (destructive) the books in order to scan them. They will also do a non-destructive scan, but it costs more. So while I’m getting my short stories ready to publish, I’m having the first two books scanned, which will take a few weeks, as I understand.

After the scanning, I will have to proof and edit the copy myself. Because I was a newspaper editor for eight years, I can do this, but if you aren’t sure of your own proof and editing prowess, you may need to get an editor for this. I understand it’s pretty intensive.

There are people out there who will format your manuscript and get it ready for Kindle, Nook, Upub, etc. I’m still exploring that. One place is recommended by J.A Konrath who is a best seller with his books online. Check this one out, but there are others too. Google them. My advice is to make sure whoever you get to do this does a good job. Ask for the name of an e-published book they have formatted that you can download onto your reading device and check out. If you decide to do your formatting yourself, I can’t help you, cause I don’t intend to try. Check out this blog post on formatting.

Some of the novels I’ve downloaded to read, especially free ones, are badly formatted and it’s annoying after a while. You don’t want to annoy your future fans, do you?

Now, let’s get back to publishing poems, short stories or short books on Create Space or Smashwords. I’m just beginning to crack this. As I understand it, the document should be saved to rtf to clear up all formatting problems before being transferred to a Word document. I don’t use Word, but do have a copy of the program because publishers, agents and just about everyone else does. So I create in what I’m most comfortable in, Word Perfect, then save to rtf, then on to a Word document. A rule: Do not use space bar or tab bar to indent first paragraph of sentences. Use the code in the program.

This is a lot to absorb if you check out all these sites. Maybe I'll know more next time.

Anne R. Allen's Blog: Slow Blogging Works: A Blogiversary Success Story

2011-03-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

Anne R. Allen's Blog: Slow Blogging Works: A Blogiversary Success Story

AN OLD DOG LEARNS NEW TRICKS

2011-03-15T15:58:00.006-05:00

This morning I told my husband I felt like I was back in school again. This preparing for a totally new venture in writing is hard. For the past few weeks I've been studying to begin my entry into the world of E books. I know the E isn't supposed to be capitalized, but it looks better, more important, and since it's a difficult learning curve, it should appear to be important.

First, I'm grateful to everyone who has been helping me as I claw and scratch my way toward getting my first electronic publication online. Writers are such marvelous human beings, and probably the most generous of any profession. Most don't hesitate to lend a hand when the word help shows up in an email or on a social network.

I've learned a lot, but am by no means ready yet to take the plunge. I've learned there are tutorials for publishing to Kindle, a directory for converting short stories and books, information on Google that helps, and the list goes on. A thorough list includes places to market, the most important being Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Good Reads to name only a few.

Early on, it never occurred to me that book covers would have to be designed for E books. Online they simply look like a photo. And no, if it's a book that's been published, you can't use that cover. You see, it belongs to the artist who originally painted the picture that became your book cover. So, if I don't have the talent of a graphic artist, it might be a good idea to pay someone to design my covers. And I don't.

I have six books in a back list that I hope to publish to Kindle and other E book readers such as Nook. Can I afford to pay someone to design the covers? Friends have sent me names of several artists who may be able to work with me for what I can afford. I promised to share these names with others, and I will do so by email.

I haven't been in touch yet, so I am not able to vouch for them, but I'm sure each has great services to offer. I also learned there is a site online posted by a male cover model. He offers a huge selection of covers for romance books.

As we embrace this brave new world of publishing, I wish us all the best in conquering the learning curve so that whatever we dream of can come true. I understand that the sales in the E book market are growing, but am told the most important thing to remember after we get our quality book out there is it takes a lot of promotion online to bring about those sales. But hey, what's new about that? We all have had to promote our work over the years, this is just a brand new world with lots to learn.

Get in touch if you're experiencing the same things, and maybe we can help each other, or at least be supportive.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA

2011-03-07T13:26:00.007-06:00

How many times has someone said to you, "I don't have time for Facebook ?" or "I just don't understand how to Tweet." Frankly, I also have trouble finding time to devote to using social media for my promotional purposes. But if you've got books coming out or hope to in the future, you'd better get used to finding the time. Those links will take you to my sites on these two where you can see just what goes on in my world. The Facebook site is not for promotion, but I have a group, Fans of Velda Brotherton and a writer's page Author Velda Brotherton where I can do all the promotion I want to do. Learn how to set these up so they can help you get a buzz going on your books.

If you have a book out there now, why not allow your fans to read the first chapter. Freado does this nicely for you. It will post your book on your blog or other sites and allow readers to open it up and read whatever amount of the book you set. See an example on my blog where you can open Fly With the Mourning Dove and read some of it.

Another site highly recommended for writers is LinkedIn. Here again I have linked you to my site there so you can see what I'm doing there.

The other one every writer should use is GoodReads. I have only begun to understand how this site works and how it can help promotion wise. Authors may not actively try to market or promote their books here. Rather, they are asked to review books, post a blog that is helpful to other writers, and just generally be helpful. The idea is that when we help others, they just naturally will want to review our books and help us in return. It's an idea making its way around the Internet, but I still feel that outright promotion on the Web is viable and can be put to good use on YouTube, You Publish, Author Nation, Writing, Best Seller Bound and of course we can't leave out the groups on Yahoo and Google. Sure, there you're promoting to other writers, but hey, we're all avid readers and it can't hurt to have a following of writers who read our books.

There are tons of other sites where writers can promote their work. Some don't get enough hits to be worth your while, so check them out, then take some time each day for a week or two to get involved on those you like, posting a profile and information about your writing and your books. Another one that gets lots of hits each day is Authors Den. I've been a member there for many years. This could be your first website if you don't already have one. There you can easily set up a newsletter, a news page, pages for your books, etc. Check it out.

Now, I'll leave you to begin your promotional walk on the Internet. If you've already begun, then add some more. Google Writer's sites for your particular genre too. And while you're there, Google yourself. See what postings by you or about you are showing up on the search engine. Investigate the sites when others mention you and link to them on your blog or website.

Promoting online has the potential to reach millions of people. By the way, don't forget to share your blog postings on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz. Blogger has a share button at the top to help with this.

HAVE YOU WRITTEN YOUR BIO?

2011-03-01T14:48:00.001-06:00

Since signing two new contracts, I've struggled to update my bio to fit the planned new publications, the publishers wishes and my own desire to say it right. In several places I've read that all bios published online should be the same. I can't see a really good reason for this. I would rather learn something new about a writer with each published bio. And on top of that, I find that each publisher has different requests for what is included in your bio.

There's usually a need for a short, medium length and longer bio, depending on where it will be published. The bio I posted on my website is much longer than one I would send a publisher. One publisher wanted less than 150 words, another three paragraphs that aren't too long. And then there's the need to keep it updated. One wise editor told me to use dates instead of length of years. For instance, "She has been published in newspapers since 1990," rather than, ". . . in newspapers for 20 years." In this way it doesn't become dated.

Sometimes the titles of your published works are needed in a bio, at other times, only those that stand out for awards or great reviews. Oh, and you did notice that a bio is written in third person, past tense, as if you were writing about someone you know rather than about yourself.

Is what you are writing relevant to the particular publication for which you are writing it? One of my editors asked that I not refer to any books by name that were not published by her company. So you see, it's not so simple that one can write one bio and let it stand on any site. And they need updating regularly, don't they? Something exciting happens to you and your writing that would be a great addition, so you can add that to some of your bios, but maybe not all of them, because it might not apply.

No, I don't agree with one size fits all when it comes to your bio, and if you think about it, I'm sure you won't either. The more our readers can learn about their favorite writers, the happier they are, so post a different bio on your website than you post on your social networks, and make each of those different too.

The basics, of course, will be the same. Where you were born, where you live, that sort of thing. Obviously there are those who disagree with me, but that's okay. This is my opinion and I'm sticking with it.

EXCITING TIMES TO BE A WRITER

2011-02-22T14:35:00.006-06:00

The revolution has been a long time coming, hasn't it? For the past few years we writers have struggled to stay alive in the faltering publishing business. Something is badly broken, and at times we've had to wonder if we're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe we ought to just chuck it and go to work for Walmart.

But then along came a huge surge in the digital or electronic age. For a while we scoffed at the idea that being published in the Ebook format was anything but a silly quest. It's just a fad, we heard. It'll never last. No one will buy into the craze. Just keep on writing and struggling against the huge tide of failures in the publishing houses, as one by one they were chewed up, until very few remained on which we could pin our hopes of publication.

For a while, Ebooks were scoffed at as representing the worst of writing. No good could ever come of this, we thought. Then Kindle rose from the crop of Ebook readers, many of them cumbersome, heavy, hard to manage. Soon, competition loomed on the horizon as other companies tried to keep up. Amazon clearly led the way, but others followed. We all know that the best thing that can happen is competition. Prices dropped and soon many people who would soon search for good books to read could afford to buy these readers, whatever their name.

Then a few months ago, Amazon announced that Ebook sales had overpowered the sale of hard cover books and they expected that trend to continue to explode. Writers figured it was time to get their bid in. Some began to publish straight to Kindle, others gathered their backlists and republished them to Kindle. Online businesses offered ways to do this such as Smashwords and listed services that would enable us to turn our books and manuscripts into viable submissions for publication to all E readers.

For more than a year I've told myself I needed to get published in this new market. Needed to get back into the fiction world I love so much. Finally I met an Ebook publisher at the Ozark Creative Writer's Conference in Eureka Springs and, after a good friend urged me to, pitched two of my books. In January one was accepted, the other rejected. Not to be defeated, I celebrated the one and submitted the other to another large Ebook publisher. Last week it was accepted.

If you are writing and having problems getting published, you'd better embrace this new world of publishing. It was once called "getting in on the ground floor." Probably something else now, but my advice. Try it. Make sure and do your homework, research the publishers, check out their sites, email some of their writers to see how they like working with the publisher. But most of all, publish your work. This is not a market that accepts shoddy work.

Soon you too, may celebrate a new publication.

QUESTIONS TO ASK AGENTS

2011-02-15T16:06:00.004-06:00

As you schedule conferences you can attend during the upcoming year, make sure to find those that offer what you want. For those who are looking for an agent, here's a list of questions to ask when you get that appointment and sit down for your five or ten minutes.

Don't forget to be businesslike, not cutesy, be polite and offer your business card and nothing else unless it's asked for. And by all means remember, you are interviewing someone you want to hire. Once you've made your pitch and the agent asks you to send something, ask the following questions. If you don't have time, make sure when you are contacted and offered a contract, that you get answers to these questions:

1. How long have you been an agent? Tell me about your path to becoming an agent.

2. Are you a writer yourself? (Writing experience can give an agent a better perspective. However, if they're immersed in numerous projects of their own, it can possibly mean that the agent isn't totally focused on getting your book published.)

3. How many other clients do you represent? Will this stay approximately the same? (Some agents have short lists and like to keep it that way so they can focus on each client. Others sign many writers in hopes of placing as many books as possible.)

4. Will you be handling my work, or will there be someone else on your staff with whom I will work?

5. Can you tell me about a few recent sales you've made? (Though an agent's track record is important, new agents can make up for lack of experience through enthusiasm, time, and hard work. Also, keep in mind that you can track agents' sales on sites such as Publishers Marketplace, so you may be able to skip this question.)

6. What publishers do you have in mind for my project?

7. How frequently do you update authors? Do you have a preference for our communication? Will you keep me abreast of where and when my work was submitted—and the outcome? (Don't enter into a relationship with someone whose communication style will leave you frustrated. A good way to determine this is to ask the agent to describe the ideal client. Is this you?)

8. How close is my book to being ready for submission? Do you foresee much editing and rewriting before it's submitted? Will you be working with me on this?

9. What co‑agents do you work with for foreign rights, film rights and other subrights? Is there someone in‑house who specializes in this? Can you tell me about some recent successes selling subrights of a project?

10. Why do you want to represent me? (This will give you a great sense on what they like about you and the project.)

And have fun out there.

FREE CONFERENCE DATE SET

2011-02-07T15:48:00.007-06:00

For about 8 or 9 years (I'm bad about keeping track of stuff like that) our critique group, the North West Arkansas Writer's Workshop, here in Fayetteville, Arkansas has held a free all-day writer's conference or workshop. It fills both needs. It truly is free. If you want to eat that'll be $7 for building your own sandwich, grabbing some chips, a drink and something sweet. Attendees are welcome to brown-bag it if they wish. We consider this the way we give back for all the help we've received along the way. What do they call that? Pay it forward?

At any rate, we've always asked speakers to donate their time to help out, but this year we decided to show off some of the talent within our own ranks. Many of our members are getting published, learning how to market and promote and work online. So this year our kick off speaker is Linda Apple, who is quickly growing famous around here as the Chicken Soup Lady. At last count she had 14 stories published in the Chicken Soup books and she's going to share how you might do that. Then Patty Stith will show us all how to make our own book trailers for the Internet. I for one am looking forward to this one myself. Then Jeanie Horn will share how to find and get published in paying markets. Jeanie has been doing this successfully for several years.

After lunch, as usual Dusty Richards and I will share some of our acquired knowledge of the writing craft. I'll lead off working with everyone on developing a sense of place, something beginning writers seem to have a lot of trouble with. Then Dusty will present Writing 101. He ought to know what he's talking about, he's on book #104. That's published, folks, as well as written.

If we all counted all the books we've written, we still wouldn't come close to that. But that's a subject that needs touched upon, as well, for the more books we write the better writer we're going to be, even if they are never published.

Back, now, to the subject of the free conference. It will be held at Ozarks Electric on Wedington Drive, one mile west of I 540 and Fayetteville on exit #64. It's on your left. Park on the west side of the building, you'll see the door to enter. We begin registering you at 8:30, a necessity because of the door prizes and paid lunch. The conference begins at 9 a.m. and will end about 4 or so.

Please email Dusty or I to let us know you're coming so we'll have some idea of the size of the crowd to expect. vebrotherton@gmail.com or dustyrichards@cox.net

Upcoming Event: My Spring Writer's Workshop at Ozark Folkways, April 9 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. $25 Email me for a flyer. Preregistration required by mailing a check to Ozark Folkways, 22733 N. Highway 71, Winslow, AR 72959

A CONTRACT FOR MY BIRTHDAY

2011-01-31T16:06:00.004-06:00

It looks like this year is shaping up pretty good for my writing. First I have a story accepted to be read on NPR Tales From the South --- see my other blog --- and today I receive an offer of a contract for a western historical romance, Stone Heart's Woman, from Wild Rose Press. A great birthday present coming one day before that auspicious date.

It's been a while since I've had any fiction published, and I'm very excited about this. For several years I've worked on novels off and on, but continued to publish in the nonfiction field. For those of my readers who think after being published quite a few times, it gets easy . . . sorry, no, it doesn't. Not if things don't happen fortuitously. When the bottom falls out of the market for which you're writing, then it's like starting over. Unless of course, you've written some best sellers.

I've never stopped trying to get my fiction published, and have had plenty of rejections, for one reason or another. Usually, at least, I wasn't told my writing sucks. Not for us. Too commercial, not commercial enough, etc. This book won a first place in historical fiction at OWFI last year, and I pitched it at Ozarks Creative Writers in Eureka Springs last fall. Everything fell into place, the editor and readers love the book, and so, at least for a while, I'm back in the romance game. My romances are very historical in nature, and for some it's too much.

This should show that we should never stop trying, no matter how many rejections we receive. I'm also working on getting an agent to sell my women's fiction novels because they are too difficult to sell except to large publishers who require an agent before they'll look at your work. I've pitched them to editors a few times at conferences, which opens up that market to taking a look, but haven't gotten anywhere.

I'm seriously considering publishing a couple of my books to Kindle to see how they do in that market. But hey, with this sale, looks like I'd better get busy on another historical romance to follow up this one.

AVOID WINTER DOLDRUMS

2011-01-24T14:03:00.005-06:00

As writers, we can sometimes be depressed by cloudy, cold days, and eventually let this affect our creativity. But a wise woman once told me, "Honey, you need to embrace the winter days as a time to catch up on everything you have let go all summer because of work in the garden or yard."

This woman came from the old school, where women harvested, prepared and canned all the vegetables and fruit they would eat all winter, but nevertheless she had a point. I find myself having much more time in the winter when outdoor chores and fun doesn't beckon. So as January winds down, I've tried to devote those hours not used up by summer duties toward catching with my writing related chores.

I find many things connected to writing that have to be done. My work table that contains magazines and newspapers that need my articles or promotional material clipped, scrapbooks brought up to date, historical articles that need filed and on and on. The books and papers I've dragged out to look up information need returned to their files. The office needs a general cleaning and sorting. Then there are manuscripts I've agreed to take a look at for other writers, books to be read for reviews, materials I agreed to judge for contests, all there waiting for my attention.

So two or three mornings a week I try to devote time to these projects so other miscellaneous chores don't inflict themselves upon my writing time. Not being a morning person all creative writing is done after lunch. Every day is scheduled for specific duties. Of course, as with all plans, they sometimes can go awry, which explains why no blog was posted here last week. Too much came up that had to be attended to.

In planning upcoming speaking events, there's work to do on speeches and workshops, handouts, etc. There's a free conference March 12 sponsored by my critique group, then April 9 is my workshops, which take place every spring and fall at Ozark Folkways.

Like you, when I became a writer I never expected to take on so many other jobs connected to writing. Learning to say No to many things not related was necessary. But it's difficult to say No to writers who need help or have problems.

The only thing I can recommend to all of you is keep a strict schedule, treat your writing like a job you go to during the hours when you write best. Don't let anything interrupt that schedule. That said, remember family always comes first and when there's a crisis that schedule can go right out the window. My two grandchildren grew up within throwing distance, and their mother worked away from home, so when the school bus let them off each day, one or both of them might drop in to talk about their day. I would never turn them away. Our children grow up much too quickly.

I'm glad I did that, because they're both grown now and are busy making lives of their own. The school bus doesn't stop here anymore, and frankly I miss that. So find time for each and every thing that is important to you, and use these winter days to help put your life in order.

INCOME TAX: WHAT CAN I DEDUCT

2011-01-11T13:59:00.003-06:00

Before I begin, I'm not a tax expert, but I've been a writer for a long while, a writer who has to keep receipts and records in order to do the best I can when it comes to filing a tax return. I don't do my own, and haven't since I got into this business. Be smart and find a CPA who can do your returns, unless you're a tax expert. In that case, you probably can stop reading right here. I know what my CPA has me do.

If you are actively writing and submitting materials, whether they be articles, stories, novels or books, you need to keep records of your expenses. The first thing my preparer told me was that the IRS does not decide your business is a hobby. Be active, keep everything and as long as you have an income, you can deduct the items.

The most important deduction you will have is your mileage. Carry a book in the car and keep good records of date, mileage and odometer reading every time you do anything connected to your writing. That's meetings, conferences, research, travel to interviews, anything. You'll get a bigger deduction there than anywhere else.

Internet costs when used for your business. Your domain name and upkeep, webinars online, the cost of your DSL or whatever gets you online. My cell phone is used for business only. I do not give out my number to anyone but my daughter for emergencies, and use it strictly for travel and business contacts when traveling, so I deduct the entire cost. I have a phone with no contract, so this isn't a lot.

Postage expenses if you still mail manuscripts or do any other business through snail mail. Costs of belonging to writer's organizations. Cost of conferences, motels, meals, and of course mileage. Keep track of everything. If you don't keep receipts, there is a maximum allowed for meals each day during conferences and travel to and from, and I usually take that because we don't eat out high on the hog. If you do, keep the receipts.

My preparer cautioned against deducting for a home office. That usually sends up a red flag and you'll probably be audited. There are so many rules about that office, like it can't have anything that isn't used in your business in the room, like a sewing machine, a hobby table, etc. I've never claimed my home office, but you can if you like. It's difficult to figure electricity, heat, etc., but it can be done by an expert.

Cost of all supplies for your business from paper clips to reams of paper, as well as equipment like printer, scanner, computer, anything else big. My preparer takes big expenses off over a period of time, rather than all at once, like if I replace my entire computer system at one time, or buy all new furniture for the office.

Books, magazines, online subscriptions are all deductible. If you have books out there already and you buy them from your publisher, that cost is deductible, but must be kept separate from the cost of books and magazines you use for research, not resale.

If you receive a large advance, you'd be wise to file quarterly. Consult a CPA for his take on this.

If you like, set up a spread sheet on your computer and keep records that way. It's not necessary. All your preparer will want is the total of each deduction you're claiming. He doesn't need to see your receipts, but if you're ever audited the IRS will, so keep each years' in a labeled envelope. I like to staple them together by category so they're easier to check if it ever becomes necessary. Don't throw everything into a shoe box or an envelope without some type of organization, and keep them for 5-7 years. Depends on who you listen to on that requirement.

As you might guess, I'm going through my receipts and organizing, totaling, etc. at present. I don't make loads of money as a writer, but I've been filing as a writer since about five years before my first book was published. I was doing some writing and making a bit of money prior to that sale, but I actually filed prior to earning any money as a writer, since I file jointly and we did have an income. I painted and consigned to a local craft shop and taught piano, so I had a small income besides my husband's.

Another hint. If you do a lot of research for a book, wait until you sell it to deduct the costs of that research. For instance, in 2009 when my husband and I took off and drove all over four counties of Arkansas for an entire summer doing research, finding places to write about and interviewing people, I kept a record of mileage and any other costs in my notebook of scheduled trips. The book was not due out until the next year. When the book came out in 2010 and began to sell, then I dug out that notebook and those expenses will be deducted from sales of the book when I file this year for 2010.

It's wise to keep all rejections handy, this shows you are actively pursuing your craft, rather than writing as a hobby. If you're not submitting to publishers, or self publishing, then I wouldn't file as a writer. That's my suggestion and others may disagree.

I reiterate, I'm not an expert. So many writers I meet ask me questions about what records to keep and what they can deduct I decided to answer some of the questions I hear a lot. It's best to consult a tax expert, preferably one who prepares returns for writers, before you make a final decision to file as a writer. He or she can advise you.

I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING

2011-01-03T15:49:00.004-06:00

Because we writers want to write, we resent anything that takes our time away from that pursuit. Mostly, I hate it when I know I have something and can't find it. To spend thirty minutes searching is to steal time from writing. So this year, if I do nothing else, it will be to organize my office so I can find my "stuff" when I need it. It might be a phone number, or the name of someone who has information I need or directions to the nearest pizza joint.

To add a photo to this blog, I had to stop and search through a pile of business cards to get the name of the people who took the photo so I could give them credit for doing such a great job making me more attractive than I am. So something has to be done with the two huge stacks of cards. I've tried keeping them in plastic envelopes in books made especially for that. Fine, but they're full and some of the cards in there are so outdated I'm sure the information is no longer viable. Should I call each one and update? That'll never happen.

Then there are the interviews I've done over the years, all written on yellow legal pads, ripped out and stapled. I solved storage, I believe by making file folders labeled for each area and sliding them in. Not alphabetized, of course. When I need something about that area, I can find all the interviews in that folder. We'll see how that works over the year.

Because I write a lot of historical articles, I may need a date or name or place when I'm in the middle of an article. Some historians can keep that information in their heads. My hard drive up there is full, and I have no control over what it decides to throw out to keep something else. Therefore, notes are what I have to rely on. All my published articles are on discs in the order of publication with each year in a separate file, so it's pretty easy to pop a disc in the computer and find what I'm looking for. Isn't it nice that the computer puts the file titles in order and includes the date written so I don't have to? I simply label them by the name of the place I'm writing about or the person, and the search is simplified.

I also find bank boxes great for keeping research materials handy. One wall is taken up with cubicles that each hold a box so I can simply pull out the proper one, already labeled, before the real search begins. Those boxes hold a heck of a lot of pieces of paper, photos, etc.

Even with these conveniences, my office still has stacks of "stuff" I'm not sure what to do with. I have two swollen file folders that read, "Stuff from desk top." When I get so many notes I've made with URLs, telephone numbers, people's names, that I seem to have no place for, I stick them all in a file folder. I only wish I could figure out how to arrange this information. I have begun a book with URLs that I want to check out someday. The awful truth is, that day may never come.

Besides all the above, I have a two-drawer file cabinet, a four-drawer file cabinet, two huge book shelves totally stuffed, three enormous plastic tubs slipped under one of the units that hold manuscripts, galleys, etc., that I wonder how long I need to keep. Probably ought to simply dump all those, but some of the ms hold promise and one day maybe I can rewrite one and sell it.

Ah, the life of a writer. Especially one who is not very well organized. I don't think I could work if my desktop was clean and I had no stacks piled around me. It's somehow soothing to know all this is at my fingertips, if I only have time to go through it. I sometimes worry that I have the symptoms of being a hoarder. Who knows?

Any suggestions or solutions are welcome.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF 2010

2010-12-27T13:55:00.010-06:00

My good friend, Linda Apple, got me to thinking a lot about what I've been up to this past year and what might be coming in the new year. And most especially what I might have had to do with the mistakes and successes. Linda's weekly Inspire always makes me think hard, and sometimes that's painful. Go to Lindacapple on Facebook to join her fan page and receive this weekly inspirational writing. It's uplifting and gives something to think about.

In good writing, we know that for every action there's a reaction. That holds true where our process of writing is concerned too. Every action can have a good or bad reaction. Acceptance by publishers is of course the very best, but sometimes no matter the effort, rejections come. That should not lessen our joy in the process of writing.

Besides acceptances, I've had my share of rejections over the years and particularly some heartbreaking ones this year. I'm sure that's true for everyone actively writing. It's easy to give up, far too easy. Or to get so down we decide we're not good enough. But the reaction to that sort of thinking is we quit writing. We find it difficult sometimes to remember that only quitters fail.

So as this new year begins, let's put all that behind us. The rejections, the stories that didn't jell, the book that sort of drifted to a halt. Dig in and write something new and fresh. Or dig out old stories and fix them. But don't give up. Writers have to write. If you don't truly feel you have to write, that you can't live without it, perhaps you should consider doing something else, but if you can't go a day without voices in your head, if you daydream stories washing dishes and dusting, if you pull over and park to record new ideas while on your way to the grocery store, then you can't quit. You mustn't. No matter how tough last year may have been. Suck it up and hit the keyboard. On the other hand, there are things we try that simply aren't meant to succeed, and it's best to back off and try something new and different. When we do that, we aren't failing, we're just reconsidering what's best. It can be a painful process.

Back to Linda Apple. She suggested making a list this week. What we did that worked and what we did that didn't work in 2010. Then consider each list and decide what our priorities will be in the coming year. Thanks, Linda for that idea. I'm going to try it out.

IT'S OKAY TO TAKE TIME OFF

2010-12-20T13:55:00.003-06:00

Writers, I'm giving you permission to take a few days off and concentrate on family and this wonderful season filled with hope, joy, love and generosity of spirit. Now that I've said that, I'll bet you're wondering just who I think I am. Well, if you read this blog every week, you know I give writing tips, so it's probably okay for me to let you off the hook for a few days. I'm always dictating what you as writers need to do.

Seriously, we sometimes get so wound up in our work that we forget to stop and share ourselves with family and friends. Writing can be a tough taskmaster. I should know, for 28 years I've spent four to five hours, six days a week at the task. Since it's difficult for me to let it go for a few days, it must be for others too. We get so involved with our characters and our stories that we're afraid to leave them. No telling what they'll be up to when we're not around to exert control.

Since publishers and agents take time off, we should too. There won't be much going on in the publishing world until mid-January, so don't submit anything now. Don't expect that agent you queried to get back to you this week or next. Don't even email her and ask what's up. Wait till everyone is back on the job and has cleared their desk. Then we can all start afresh in 2011.

Our critique group is taking time off. And yeah, some of them object to missing even one week. We had our Christmas party and when we told everyone there wouldn't be a meeting until Jan 6, the groans went round the room. Can't say as I blame them. Some of our members are hot on the publishing trail, others tracking agents. Two have recently signed contracts, one with an agent, the other with a publisher. A good critique group can bring about that kind of results.

But, let's everyone kick back, wrap those gifts, cook those goodies and have a great and Merry Christmas. For some good recipes for the holidays, see my blog

MINGLING WITH OTHER WRITERS

2010-12-13T13:19:00.003-06:00

Saturday, most of the 42 members of our writer's critique group gathered for our annual Christmas party. At first glance it might seem we all took a day away from our writing to celebrate this important anniversary of Jesus' birth. However, on second look with the perspective a couple of days makes, I realize that we were all practicing our craft.

What did most of us talk about? Our writing, of course. And we had the opportunity to approach that discussion from a different point of view. We were no longer critiquing our work or having it critiqued, but we were talking about how we approach what we do. What motivates us. How we feel about writing itself. These were all topics of my discussions with different people. And as I listened to others, I found they too were talking about how they go about their writing.

It's not difficult to understand why. Just try talking about what you do with someone who doesn't write. After a while, their attention wanders, their gaze goes blank and the smile on their face begins to look pasted on. The same thing would occur should a Professor of Physics walk into the room and begin to talk to writers about what he does. We'd go blank, too. So, when we want sympathy or understanding, we talk to other writers.

That's why it's important that we network with others in our field of endeavor, no matter what that might be. I've been writing for close to 30 years now, and I finished my first novel when I was 50. It took several years to write that first one. I knew nothing, had not been schooled or studied the craft in any way. I was writing something I needed to say, and also something I wanted to know much more about. To write the book properly would call for a lot of research into the field of my interest. Probably six months or more were spent digging through books at the library. Hours and hours each day I pored over magazine and newspaper articles, books and yes, novels, about my subject. No Internet available to the common folk then, you know.

Even so, after years of working on the book, it still took networking with others who wrote before I could actually get that book whipped into the kind of shape it needed before I could approach an agent and publisher. So many people feel like they can write their book, find an agent and a publisher and hit the jackpot. That is, until they are educated by other writers who know better.

I received an email recently from a woman who has written a novel and wants me to tell her how to get it published. Actually, if I could tell her that all those books I've written that have never found a home would be out there for all to read. Of course, I've had some books published, 12, to be exact. Not terribly impressive for all the years I've written, but better than none.

I tried to help her, and my first suggestion was to get someone to read it; my next was to join a group of writers, preferably a critique group. Next, I told her to be prepared to rewrite that book several times, then we could get back to how to get her novel published. One thing I didn't mention was to get ready for rejections, lots of them. That can wait until she's developed a thicker skin from being critiqued.

These are all things we in the business finally learn, and it can sometimes take a while. That's why we continue to gather with other writers at places like Ozarks Writers League and conferences around the area. It's a part of our learning process, one we should never stop. The day we stop learning, we stop making progress in our career.

GETTING BACK TO WRITING

2010-12-06T14:44:00.003-06:00

Oft times, we writers have to leave a book in progress and turn to promoting one that has recently been published. If we put a lot of time into that promotion, and we should, it means the work in progress sits on the shelf until we forget where we were and what we were doing.

This happened to me after a summer filled with traveling to promote and being on the Internet for the same purpose. I usually have at least two works in progress, one nonfiction and one fiction. I was able to do some work on the nonfiction one during the summer, as well as continue to submit a current novel and try to find an agent to represent my work. But my newest novel, about half finished in draft form, went ignored.

What is the best way to get back into a book like that? This isn't my first experience, and I find I have to begin at the beginning reading, and of course one can't help a bit of editing, to get back into the story. My normal advice to beginning writers is to write the entire book before beginning the editing process. Sometimes, though, in the situation I faced, this isn't possible. There was no way I could pick up where I left off, because I couldn't remember how I had handled some of the important scenes. There was nothing for it but to read from the beginning.

We all have our own ways of writing. I have plenty of notes, a list of characters, who they are and their importance to the plot, but no outline. I put down the ms at chapter 12, which is roughly halfway through the book. An important place that usually takes a lot of work to get through. It's necessary at this point to bring in a new twist, something that helps us get through "a sagging middle." My favorite instructor, Dwight Swain, calls it dropping a corpse through the roof. Not literally, in most cases, but we understand what he means. Stir things up, not only in the plot, but in the subplots as well. This is where things ought to take a turn, usually for the worse.

My normal schedule calls for writing on WIP from Wednesday through Saturday. I post to blogs on Monday, work on Facebook and anything else online to do with promotion. Tuesday is for short works, articles, short stories, anything I'm writing that isn't a book.

Now, I've finished my book tours until spring, where I've already begun to set up presentations and events. It's time to return to that weekly schedule. This week is as good a time as any, though I did work on the WIP last week as well. It'll be good to settle into a set writing framework. I hope the book takes shape quickly, and I also hope that the one at St. Martin's makes the grade and the agent who's reading it likes it as well.

And I hope for all of you, a good start or finish to something you're working on. Let the year end on an upbeat outlook.

VIVIAN ZABEL AUTHOR OF STOLEN

2010-12-01T07:00:00.003-06:00

Burdens Shared are Burdens Halved

Oklahoma author Vivian Zabel brings the subjects of bigamy, abuse, death, and child abduction to the forefront in her latest release, Stolen. You know this is going to be a challenging drama-mystery when the lead character, Torri Adamson, describes her first husband Mike’s propensities for infidelity as “extra-curriculars”.

Stolen is a multi-generational story that keeps your mind busy contemplating all the connections, and realizing that close, supportive family relationships are a “good thing”. Torri has a strong bond with her young children, Leann and Lyle, and with her grandparents who own and operate the Light House Inn (a bed & breakfast in Edmond, Oklahoma). The thread of the extended family’s relationships runs throughout the story, mitigating horrific tragedies that beset them.

Written compassionately, Stolen dramatically observes life’s losses and gains, close familial and social ties, and the agonizing experiences of losing family members. A lesson is learned from Torri’s friend, Alice Thomas, as Alice faces death: ” … love doesn’t leave when a person does; love just continues, surrounding the person who is loved.”

The story emphasizes the exemplary relationship Torri pursues with her children, despite her marriage being torn apart by her first husband’s bigamy and abuse. Shortly afterwards, Torri is faced with helping her dear friends, Alice and husband Jason, go through the decline and death of Alice. Through all of that, Torri excels in motherhood and – for a time – covers all the bases of parenthood. She also excels in helping Jason overcome his own grief. They both learn to step back into life’s journey, their friendship growing: ” … from shared grief to finding shared interests.” Romance eventually blossoms as they observe each others’ extraordinary capacity for loving and helping others.

The text of Stolen is tender, respectful, bringing back memories of special times - as well as memories of your own personal struggles. But the manner in which Torri and her family manage to reestablish their lives following each tragedy, finding unexpected relief along the way, provokes a kind of peacefulness in your heart. As for Jason, who felt that his life with Alice had been “stolen”, he found his way back to happiness with encouragement from Torri’s family, including the children who adored him as a friend, a Deputy sheriff, and as their baseball coach.

Torri and Jason’s love leads to marriage, which quickly leads to Mike Adamson’s reappearance. Celebration of their second wedding anniversary is then interrupted with a heartbreak neither of them could have anticipated. They felt ” … trapped in a nightmare that robbed them of everything but pain.”

Sorrow from the tragedies eventually began to recede into the shadows. The family’s ultimate success in relationships and jobs was primarily the result of a rudimentary faith in God. That faith was buttressed by the motto: “burdens shared are burdens halved.”

Stolen is a sad, but inspiring, story that you will want to experience.

More information about Vivian Zabel.

Blessings….

~ ~vehoae

P.S. With information from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, author Vivian Zabel expands Stolen with stunning statistics on child abductions. In the U.S., an estimated 200,000 children are stolen annually. Why estimated? Zabel explains that many abductions go unreported for various reasons, ” … including the fear of harm for child or remaining parent, feeling that reporting wouldn’t help, or the choice to handle the situation without involving law enforcement.”

Here's a brief bio about the author:

Vivian Zabel always has had a vivid imagination and, when a child, used it to tell her siblings and friends stories. As soon as she could write, she began to put those stories on paper. She wrote her first poetry when she was eight, and still writes it. Poetry was and is her therapy. When a “friend” laughed at her announcement that she would write a book someday, Vivian didn’t share her goal any more, but she didn’t stop planning on writing that book.

As she reared her children and was a stay-at-home-mother, with spells of working in the business world, Vivian wrote short stories, poetry, and articles, which were published. Vivian taught English and writing for 27 years and retired in 2001. Every year she taught, she attended writing classes, workshops, and clinics, not only to learn how better to teach her students, but also to hone her own writing skills. Finally in 2001 she was able to write full time and write longer works, after she retired from teaching.

At present, Vivian has six books to her credit, two co-authored. Her latest books are Prairie Dog Cowboy (written under the name V. Gilbert Zabel) and Midnight Hours (written under the name Vivian Gilbert Zabel).

Her interests besides writing include her family (husband, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren), reading, helping other people publish their books (through 4RV Publishing), and traveling.

Links:

To Order

To order

As an editor for over thirty-five years, an English and writing teacher for nearly thirty years, an author with poetry, articles, short stories, and novels published, and the head of a small publishing company for over three years, Vivian Zabel experienced both sides of the submission experience.

Her publishing company 4RV Publishing produced the Oklahoma Book Award winner in fiction for 2010: Confessions of a Former Rock Queen by Kirk Bjornsgaard. Other books have received regional awards in their categories. 4RV has released children’s books, middle grade and young adult books, novels, and nonfiction books.

Vivian has also received emails from rejected writers thanking her for sharing evaluation comments that help and swearing at her for being so blind she can’t tell wonderful writing when she reads it. She’s very qualified to discuss submission etiquette.

Next blog stop here.

LIFE GETS IN THE WAY

2010-11-29T13:30:00.005-06:00

For all the years I've been writing, I've listened to nearly every excuse there is for not writing. I think the one heard most often is "Life got in the way."

Writers, if you're sincerely into your creative profession, that's a significant part of life. At this very moment, I'm sitting at my computer writing. Blogging is writing. In the room next to me are two huge bags of Christmas wrapping paper and gift bags, ribbons and bows. Piled nearby are all the Christmas gifts I've bought for the past two months. Granted I spent some of my valuable writing time online shopping.

During that time, however, I wrote a short story for an upcoming anthology, two features stories for a local newspaper and four columns for another local newspaper. As co-chair of our huge critique group, I've also sent several group emails concerning our upcoming Christmas Party as well as worked on updating our membership list. Recently I was asked to be co-editor for a newsletter for our group, Women Writing the West, and I've handled about eight articles so far.

One week I had to reformat a manuscript to submit to a publisher.

Tomorrow I will post a blog for a writer who is involved in a blog tour for her latest book. There's also that hour-and-a-half webinar I signed up for. Saturday my summer-long book tour in a four-county area will wind down at our local library at a Christmas Bazaar where I will display my newest books which came out in April and May of 2010. There's also the two days spent at Ozarks Writer's League where I learned more about my craft.

Life? Yes, it gets in the way, and we all know how busy we can be. But still, if you aren't exercising your creative abilities, you're short changing yourself. You want to be a writer? Then you have to write, read, network online and in person, promote, speak, attend conferences, and the list goes on.

We all can only do so much, and if you're pushing yourself beyond your capabilities, then something has to go. If it's writing, then so be it. You probably weren't really ready yet to devote yourself to your craft. I can say this because I set my writing aside in my younger days because I found I couldn't give enough of myself to a job, raising children and a husband if I spent the hours I wanted to spend writing. It could wait. And so it did. When I finally came back around to the days when I had the time, I had plenty to write about.

Friends told me I probably was a better writer for having waited until I had more life experience. Oh, there are plenty of young writers who are doing very well, but they have found a way to do what I couldn't, and possibly what a lot of us can't. Find your own way, decide what's important and hang in there. Even today, my family comes first, but they have other pursuits than hanging on my leg yelling Mommy all day every day, and so I now have the time for my next love: Writing.

Yes, I'm busier than I ever was, but most of that busy concerns my craft. Let's not even get into keeping house and cooking. We women seem to have a way of working that in no matter what. So don't forget to write something every day as we countdown the days to Christmas and have a very Merry one.

AFTER A DAY WITH WRITERS

2010-11-22T15:27:00.004-06:00

There's nothing like spending an entire day with 80 or 90 writers to inspire one to write. Though I've never suffered from writer's block, I'm some days not so eager to put words on paper as I am other days.

But Saturday's Ozark Writer's League meeting with speakers like Melina Lott, who taught us all the ways we can promote ourselves after we write that perfect novel, which she also gave pointers on; the panel that discussed the ins and outs of ways we can get our work out there; and Mary Nida Smith who spoke on blogging, I'm ready to hit it again.

As a novice writer, I thought my work was to write the best book or article I could. I've since learned better. Most of us don't think of those other hats we wear. Hats that help us to edit and rewrite, search for and find an agent and/or publisher who likes our work, then promote and build our platform. Changing from one hat to another is oft times difficult. My old friend Dusty Richards always recommends moving to a different location to edit work, and that helps in changing hats.

It turns out that we also have to change our mindset for pitching and for promoting. A different side of our brain must take over because we are no longer creating, tough pitching and promoting does take a certain amount of creativity. What works for one writer and her books may not work for another. Nonfiction calls for a different approach to both pitching and promoting than does fiction. For those of us who write both, we are challenged doubly.

Nonfiction writers are often pitching something they haven't written yet. There's an idea rattling around in their head, they have some notion of where it will go and what they will say. By the time promoting rolls around, the book is finished and we know where will be the best places to try and market it. The subject matter decrees that. In ways, it's much simpler to promote and sell nonfiction to the public than it is fiction.

We are challenged ten-fold to promote our fiction. Think about the subject matter. Where the book is located, what the profession of the hero and heroine is, perhaps even what they do to solve their problem. Then think of all the organizations and businesses you know of that might in some way be related to these things. One friend went to look at a specific gun in a sports shop and when she told them she was writing a book that featured that gun, they invited her to come back when it was published and they would have a book signing.

One never knows from where these opportunities will come, but remain open to every opportunity. If a specific vehicle is featured in your book, contact someone who sells that vehicle, see if they would be willing to help with promotion. Perhaps not a book signing, but something else. In this way, we have to remain creative, even when we wear the promotional hat.

For more ideas by all means, attend gatherings such as the quarterly OWL meeting in Hollister, Mo. It's one of the best and least expensive writer's gatherings around. Check out their website here.

IT'S A KINDLE

2010-11-15T14:26:00.005-06:00

For several months I've watched ads for the Kindle. For those who don't know, that's a reader for ebooks produced by Amazon. There are plenty of various brands of readers out there. They've actually been around for quite some time, but until recently hadn't attracted much attention. There are those who pooh-pooh ebooks and say they'll never last. But take a good look at the latest statistics from Amazon, the biggest online bookseller in the world. In their last quarter sales report, 48% of their sales of books were ebooks, and they project that number to double by the next quarter. That's all books, best sellers, hard cover, paper backs, etc.

Then look around at the best selling authors. Almost all now have their books available as ebooks. Dean Koontz's latest book came out as an ebook only. Kindle leads the way, mostly because Amazon saw the change coming and met the demand for a sleeker, lighter, easy to read unit.

Some of us older fogeys may prefer to read a "real" book, but watch what and how the younger generation is getting their information, including the fiction they read. They are the future of the book business, and we as writers better see the writing on the wall, pardon the pun, if we want to continue to sell our products. With this in mind, I was quick to jump aboard when Publish America offered to Kindleize my WILLA finalist, Fly With the Mourning Dove. My only question is, why are they charging such a large fee to do so? Nevertheless, this is a step I want to take.

Writers who are interested in seeing their books on Kindle need only to get on Amazon and search for the information. Many writers with a backlist are working to get those books on Kindle as well, a project I intend to get started with this winter. It's also important for those of you who already have books on the market online, to get an author's page on Amazon. That too, is pretty simple. I just finished putting all my books that Amazon carries on my author's page there. Anytime you want to learn something new, I find the fastest way to get my information is to Google a question concerning that subject. You'll get plenty of sites that will help you accomplish your goals.

Also, here's something you all need to do. Google yourself with quote marks around your name to weed out the other Marys and Smiths. See what comes up on the first two pages. Is it your Facebook fan page? Your Author's Den posting, your blogs? This will tell you what work you do online is being noticed by Google and put out there for searchers to find. And work on your key words that help searchers find you. Did you know you don't have to stick to a single word per label? You can use a phrase that someone might use in looking for the information you've posted.

Learn how to use the Web to your advantage. One of the best ways to do that is offer information that is helpful to others, rather than simply promoting your own work. That goes for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blog postings, considered the most important places to get your name and work known.

SOMETIMES I COULD KILL MY COMPUTER

2010-11-10T16:23:00.004-06:00

I began writing so long ago that my first computer was a Kaypro word processor. It was known as "the tank" and was recommended for writers. No hard drive at all. Just big floppy disks and two slots. Actually, when I think back, I worked in an office on Long Island, New York earlier than that. We had an IBM Selectric equipped with one of the very first commercial computers. It was loaded with a reel of tape punched with information. It sat behind my desk and when I loaded a formatted letter into it, it sat there and typed until it came to a personalization, then paused until I turned around and entered a salutation or other uses of the persons name, then it moved on. Meanwhile I was usually typing away on my boss' dictated letters. Talk about a challenge.

At any rate, this I tell because it's important to my story that you know I've been computing for many, many years, and we won't discuss how many. At my first job in Arkansas we had a Mac with a screen that was about six inches across and up and down. That was a newspaper.

So, we come to the reason I'm ready to kill my computer, much as I wouldn't want to do without it when I begin to write. Recently I was forced to load a Word program into my laptop. I've always used Word Perfect. Learning Word has left me nearly bald. (pulling it out, don't you know?) but I've just about figured out everything, except what I forget from day to day.

I agreed to help judge a short story contest, and the stories were sent to me in a ZIPPED file. Some were Word documents, others were RTF, which supposedly any program will open. Yes? No. The Word stories opened just fine, but I can't get the RTF stories to open, with the exception of one. Now, that doesn't make much sense, even to someone who accepts that computers are self-centered and will do whatever the heck they want to, no matter what.

I've been reduced to tears more than once trying to accomplish something out of my area of so-called expertise. This time, it's pure anger and I'm glad I don't have a hammer handy.

So now, if you'll forgive me I'm going to bat my head against the wall for a while, then ask the sender to please send me the stories in Word and not ZIPPED. Perhaps, then I can finish my judging and get back to writing.

READERS SEARCH ME OUT

2010-11-03T16:07:00.000-05:00

I stay up late at night and, as a consequence, sleep late. This morning my hubby arose at his usual teeth-gritting 6 a.m. and by 7:30 had left to go to town. Bobbi, our cat and I curled up and settled in to go back to sleep for a while. Just as I began to drift off, I heard a loud knock on the door.

You have to know that we live out in the boonies, and very few people wander through by accident, so it must be important. Still in my flannel nightgown, I arose to peek out the window. Bobbi took off for a hidey hole, as she doesn't care for visitors.

A large double cab pickup sat in the drive, engine running and a woman in the passenger seat. So I stumbled downstairs in time to see a tall, white haired gentleman on his way back to the truck. I opened the door and he turned and smiled.

"I'm looking for Velda Brotherton who wrote that book about the Boston Mountains," he said. He gave me his name, one I immediately recognized, and headed back toward me. "You used to teach my girl piano many years ago," he added.

"Yes, I remember. That's me," I replied. "Come on in."

He opined that his wife would probably like to come in too, so I asked them into a living room slightly messy from a departing husband who never puts anything away once he's dragged it out.

So, this morning at 8 o'clock, dressed in my flannel gown and groggy from lack of sleep, I signed a book for this nice couple, wished them a good morning, I hope you'll like the book, and shuffled off to get a cup of tea. Awake now, I knew I'd never go back to sleep.

So, that's what it's like to have written a regional nonfiction book about our Ozarks when you live where nearly everyone knows who you are and where you are. Despite my loss of sleep, I much prefer such an occurrence to living where no one knows or cares who I am or how I am.

I've been visited before by fans bringing flowers or books to sign, but this one will stand out in my memory for quite a spell.

FALL WORKSHOP SUCCESSFUL

2010-11-01T15:48:00.006-05:00

Saturday I welcomed a dozen eager writers who had registered to take my fall workshop. We always meet at Ozark Folkways, a non-profit organization that preserves native crafts and anything about the Ozarks. The shop is an old historical rock building that sits on top of the Boston Mountain. From there, the view is spectacular in two directions. The blue-green mountains can be seen for miles. This year the trees haven't yet turned color enough to show off, and because of a late drought they may not. Here and there a splash of red, orange and yellow announces the changing seasons.

Together all of us eager writers worked on blending truth with fiction in our writing. We decided on a true event around which to place our characters. The event could either drive the plot or serve on the sidelines through which the characters moved. It always amazes me the ideas writers can come up with in a group such as this. Not only are they innovative, but once brainstorming begins between the writers, the ideas sprout wings and fly.

Because I like to work hands-on with each member, I limit my workshops attendance. In that way everyone's ideas will get plenty of attention. We listened to a young girl on a wagon train traveling west, the true idea that spurred a novel in progress called Bigfoot Blues, a school teacher in the 50s dealing with a hungry child, and many others. Everyone wrote their initial scene that would kick off a new writing experience or help spur them through a work in progress.

Attending writer's workshops is an important part of being a writer. We discussed how good it is to be able to talk to others who understand the writers' life, and what a mistake it is to remain constantly alone with our writing. Without others to spur us on with new ideas, we stagnate and our writing slows to a dull grind. Asking for and sharing ideas with others is an integral part of creative thinking.

Everyone there was happy to add their thoughts and ideas after each scene was read and discussed.

The first workshop I ever attended was with award-winning short story author Pat Carr. Some of the ideas she shared on that long-ago day remain with me today, and every time I start to write something, her words echo in my head. She taught me how to cluster ideas and come up with a story, and I use the method today.

If readers are interested in attending an inexpensive all-day conference where many writers gather quarterly, try Ozarks Writers League to be held on November 20 at the Plaster Building on the campus of College of the Ozarks in Hollister, MO. Check out their website here. Read the newsletter, which contains some valuable information and come on over. I'll meet you there.

BREAKING INTO THE EBOOK MARKET

2010-10-21T14:18:00.004-05:00

Do you pitch to editors every time you attend a conference? Well you should, and in today's market you should be looking at the Ebook market. Don't believe for one second that the quality of these books is not as good as print books out of New York publishing houses. That may have been true a few years ago, but it isn't any longer.

Did you know that Amazon reported that 40% of its sales were in Ebooks the last quarter, and claim that in the next quarter the sale of Ebooks will exceed that of print books. That's hard cover and paperback combined.

For several years I've wanted in this market, but have been so busy with other tasks and writing some regional print books that I didn't check into it.

At Ozark Creative Writers Conference in Eureka Springs a few weeks ago, a representative who is also the founder of The Wild Rose Press took pitches, and I decided to talk to her about two books I've submitted to a few places with little interest. Since I've written and sold for New York in the past, it must be something besides the quality of my books. This press is publishing multiple genres of romances and selling like wildfire since its founding a bit more than four years ago.

Not only that, Rhonda Penders, the Editor in Chief is one of the most down-to-earth people I've met in a long while. She was open to everyone who wanted to talk to her. Not because she's desperate for writers, but because she likes us and enjoys discussing our work. As a result of this meeting, I've submitted two of my books. That's doesn't mean they will buy them, but they are looking seriously at my submissions.

This company isn't the only one buying manuscripts for Ebooks. Get online and Google to find more. Make sure to check them out at preditors and editors before getting on board.

I'm looking into Kindlizing--a new verb in the market place today--my back list as well. That can get a bit dicey. First I'll need a copy of each old book, but since they're available online I guess I can buy them. There's a site online, Blue Leaf Scanning, that takes the book apart and scans it into a word and PDF document for a minimal charge. That's only the beginning, though. I'll have to edit the entire manuscript for errors as scanning makes a few, then take the next steps through Amazon.

I haven't even begun to learn much about this, but as I do I'll be glad to share it here. It's my understanding that manuscripts that have never been published can also be Kindlized. I keep capitalizing that verb because I still think of it as a noun.

If you're interested in such a project, get online and Google until you find out. Or find someone who is involved in doing so and have them teach you. If you don't have an Author Page on Amazon, get one. I'm in the process of doing that now. Oh, yes, these things take up a lot of precious writing time, but if you don't keep up, your writing may end up in boxes back in the corner of your office or writing room.

Some days I feel like my hair is on fire and someone is chasing me. There's always something new to learn, but I think that's what keeps me in the business and out of the recliner.

As I see it, we authors who have been around since before the Internet or any of these electronic marvels came along, have to keep up or get out of the business, because the publishing business is not going to wait for us to catch up.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS AND VILLAINS

2010-10-11T14:27:00.003-05:00

Last week's blog told about creating characters who charm. Now that we have the hero and heroine created, it's time for the rest of those who will live in your story, some not so charming.

Heroes are only one segment of the characters you need to create. Secondary

characters take some work too. There’s a danger they will be flat because you haven’t

spent enough time with them. So take the time to develop friends, the boss and family

members who will play an important part in the story.

In this gathering there should be someone who lends a bit of humor to the story,

someone else who looks at life with disdain, yet another who is paranoid. It takes all

kinds to make a book, but each one must lend something to the plot, not just be there

for window dressing. Don’t create anyone you won’t use in the story line.

WAYS TO STUDY CHARACTERS

CHARMING CHARACTERS

Think of your best friend. Why do you like her? Make a list of all her good traits and her

flaws and try to see why you like her in spite of her flaws.

Now think of someone you dislike. Why? Again, make a list and try to understand why

you don’t like her.

Here’s a difficult one. Why do you think people might like you? Make a list of your good

traits. Then write down your worst flaws.

Chose some characters from books that particularly charm or fascinate you. Re-read

specific scenes that reveal their strengths and weaknesses. Write down why you

admire them and how they make you feel. Notice how much internalization adds to the

character. If a character doesn’t evoke strong emotions, then the writer hasn’t done her

job.

If you’re a movie buff, think of some of your favorite characters. Rent a movie they’re in

and watch it again. Not because a movie can tell you how to write, but you are studying

what it is about this character that makes you like them or hate them. Make a list.

Include their flaws and their strengths.

Maybe you like a particular series on TV because of the characters. Why? Study their

actions, speech, shortcomings, strengths, goals, etc.

We can learn from these other forms of entertainment as well as from the work of other

writers without copying them. Call it research. Treat it as if you were using other

publications to research for an article or nonfiction book.

A couple of writers who are good at creating characters are LaVyrle Spencer’s. If you

haven’t read her novels, you should. She’s so adept at presenting her characters that

you either love or hate them.

Larry McMurtry created some of the best characters ever in Lonesome Dove. Re-read it

or read it for the first time and pay attention to the role each of these characters play.

You’ll see what I mean.

LAST OF ALL ARE YOUR VILLAINS:

Don’t restrict these studies to your heroes. Remember, without a strong and vivid villain

your character isn’t challenged and can’t show his strengths to good advantage.

If we think of Silence of the Lambs what character comes to mind? Clarissa, the hero,

or Hannibal Lecter, who is probably the best known villain in modern literature? And

author Thomas Harris was so adept at creating him that most of us secretly liked

Hannibal just a bit and cheered when he escaped, yet all the while we were terrified of

what he might do.

It’s fun to create a villain based on the person you dislike most in the entire world. Of

course, don’t use their real name. Then add even more traits that would make this

person truly evil. Get even with him by making him oh, so evil that the reader will cheer

when he suffers all the consequences coming to him. Make sure no one can recognize

him, though.

Remember anyone or anything that stands in the way of the hero reaching his goals is

a villain, he doesn’t have to be overly evil, just set in his ways. In some books, of

course, the villain is the weather, or the setting or specific circumstances.

You plan a story, then build the characters to function within that story. I didn’t say plot,

I said story. An idea that you can fill in with the necessary people to get through to the

end. Good characters will weave a plot as they struggle with life’s problems and

challenges.

Your goal is to create characters your readers will either love or hate, they can laugh

with them, cry with them, curse them, cheer for them.

MORE CHARACTERIZATIONS

We are all a maze of inconsistencies, but we do have a dominant impression. Don’t

load up your characters with the same dominant impression. One may be dignified, but

he could lose it when specific things happen to him.

Some dominant impressions are: dignified, cruel, sentimental, sexy, flighty, rowdy, dull,

bright, etc. Each of these can be hiding the true self.

Does dignity hide stupidity? Does cruelty hide naivete?

Try to figure out the dominant impression of some of your writer friends. Ask them what

yours is. This helps us learn more about creating characters.

Creating our characters is sort of like drawing some stick figures in a sketch pad, then

adding faces, hair, then moving on to personalities, weaknesses and strengths. What

motivates her, and again what does she fear and what does she want?

Don’t say to me: “Oh, she wants to marry the hero and live out on the hill above town,”

or “She wants to go to the prom with the football hero.”

You are telling me what your story line is.

What she might want is to find a cure for cancer, or discover a new animal species, or

something as simple as make her parents love her. This defines her character.

The main thing to remember is to get to know your characters very well, but don’t spend

hours and hours writing down everything about them and making endless charts.

Work with them for a while as if they were real, get acquainted, live with them for a few

days, then begin to write.

BEGIN TO WRITE: Ah, we’ve reached that point, so a few more things are important.

TAGS: Four categories 1. Appearance – hair color; 2. Speech – stutter; 3. Mannerism –

shuffling feet; 4. Attitude – apologetic.

Again, go to the expert Dwight Swain. He says that these tags should be used

frequently throughout the book so the reader can always tell one character from

another. But use them in action or showing, not in telling.

Example: Don’t write: Her hair was black and long. Write: She tossed a lock of black

hair off her face and smiled.

Don’t write: He stuttered. Write: Excitement colored his features, but he couldn’t get the

words to come.

You get the idea.

For a novel you will likely create at least two major characters. In most genres the story

will belong to one of them. Don’t add more secondary or minor characters than are

needed to tell the story. The rest of the people may only have first names and one

piece of general description. Like a bald bar tender, a bearded cab driver, etc. And their

tags will be very few.

Remember, your main characters should grow and change. Only psychopaths and

sociopaths are all bad.

THEY HAVE A SECRET and it will be hinted at but not revealed till near the end of the

book, at least not before the climax.

And most of all, they must charm the reader, enthrall him with a desire to find out what

will happen and how the character will survive.

Some information from Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain, a book

every writer should have.

CREATING CHARMING CHARACTERS

2010-10-04T14:52:00.002-05:00

This is a portion of the talk I gave at Springfield Writers Guild a couple of weeks ago. Hope you get something new from it.

Life’s not about success, it’s about happiness.

In searching for redemption, we find the place we belong

To have a future, we must live with the past.

Dwight Swain states that even the longest book can capture only a tiny segment of a

human being.

Human beings are much too complicated to create them in their entirety. So we as

writers must simplify, and develop our characters to the degree each needs to be

developed in order to fulfill their function in the story. Give an impression and

approximation of life rather than attempting to duplicate life itself.

As the author, you need to know something about your character beyond the story you

are about to write. But don’t spend so much time analyzing them that you get bored and

want to kill them off.

Here are a few basic questions you should ask that will help you begin:

What do they want out of life, and what do they need?

What do they want to accomplish in their life?

What are their beliefs? A kind God? Life sucks or is unfair? Money is more important

than love? Vice Versa. If we are very good we go to Heaven.

Some more questions that will help us know them better are:

Have they ever betrayed or failed anyone?

Has anyone betrayed or failed them? If so, how did it affect their outlook on life?

To uncover your character, have a conversation with her. Sit on your porch or patio and

talk to her. Let her answer in first person. Don’t forget to take notes. This will help you

write your story with more conviction.

You know the joke: Writers are the only people who hear voices and aren’t crazy.

Once you know her life story, then it’s time to discover what’s going to fuel your story.

Often we begin with a happy character and it’s up to you to not let up on her until she’s

sad, then finally angry enough to fight back. Learn what she’s afraid of and hit her with

it. What does she regret? Rub her face in it.

Or begin with a sad or angry character and drag her through all it takes to finally

become happy.

Usually, I’ve written at least three chapters before I begin to understand my characters.

By then I know my major characters as well as the direction the story will go. I will

continue to discover things about my characters far into the book. Are they honorable?

Do they keep promises? What are their weaknesses and strengths? First Draft Stuff.

Characters soon become real people. They take over the story line. You may have to

rein them in once in a while, and that’s what happens in real life, isn’t it? We go off on

tangents but life says whoa, you can’t do that. You, as the writer, must make them

behave or in the least make them pay the consequences when they don’t. If you’re too

kind to them your book will be dull and boring.

If you get stuck, have your character write you a letter telling you how she feels about

what’s going on in her life. Often, this will break down the barriers.

Some writers prefer to have the character keep a journal during the writing of the book.

It isn’t included in the book, but will give the writer more insight into this character who

has taken on a life of her own.

A character who is too dumb to live does not charm anyone, so while a flaw or

shortcoming is necessary, don’t overdo it.

On the other hand, she can be larger than life. Maybe she can’t leap tall buildings, but

when cornered she can get herself out of a fix, be it by using her mind or her physical

strength.

Be realistic, though. Create her so she can handle what’s going to happen to her. Not at

first, but she will learn.

One of my favorite characters for flaws, strength and fortitude is Nevada Barr’s Anna

Pigeon. She takes a licking and keeps on ticking. She’s tough and believable and

smart. And Barr never lets up on her throughout the entire book. Once in a while Anna

does something so dumb I want to holler at her, but that makes her human. And boy

does she have regrets. No one is perfect.

Next week: Secondary Characters and Villains

HOW DO WE WRITE?

2010-09-27T15:39:00.003-05:00

You can’t be taught to write. You can learn the mechanics, but the creativity comes from your right brain, your heart, your soul, your life experiences. Don’t let anyone steal it, not even your left brain. How many times we sit down to write and that niggling left brain begins to dictate rules. Don't listen. Let the words flow as they come to mind. Forget grammar and punctuation and rules. They stifle your writer's soul. Write like you feel, no matter how far out there it is.

Daydream, fantasize, lie. As fiction writers that's what we do. We build worlds, we enthrall our readers with our imagination. We take them to places where they cannot otherwise go. We introduce them to people they can't even imagine exist until we show them. Editing comes once we've written it all down, just the way it flowed from our brains.

If you write nonfiction, learn about Creative Nonfiction. At all times you must stick to the facts, but creative nonfiction opens up many other possibilities. Study the time and place until you could live there yourself, then put words in the mouths of your real characters, words you are sure they would have spoken. Internalize their thoughts, desires, secrets because you have learned what they were by researching their life and times.

Google Creative Non Fiction and read the journals of Lee Gutkind, the father of the genre. His ideas will create a whole new world of nonfiction writing for you.

Read, read, read, write, write, write, and tell stories every chance you get. Eavesdrop on conversations, look at people so closely you can recreate them in your words. Pay attention to body language, and speech patterns.

Study, hone your craft. It often takes years to come up with a salable product, be it short story, poem, articles, books or novels. How many do you have to write before you get them right? Often quite a few. Most successful authors have a stack of manuscripts that have never sold, but they learned from writing them. Find a writer's group that suits your needs, or start one of your own. Together you can learn and share what you learn. It doesn't have to be a critique group, just getting together with other writers on a regular basis helps your writing career. Don’t expect to succeed overnight. It’s like becoming a lawyer or brain surgeon, or teacher. It takes time. Go to Yahoo and Google groups. Find writers groups and try them out, one or two at a time. Settle for a couple. Don’t let the Internet eat up your writing time. Use it for your purpose.

Write every day. Write poetry, stories, essays, journals, diary entries. Find yourself in the words

Discover your niche and study other contemporary writers to see how they make things work.

It’s fine to read classical writers, but today’s writers will give you more insight into what and how you need to be writing.

Above all, don’t stop writing. A writing career is exciting most of the time, glamorous some of the time and tough all of the time. And you'd better love it. If you don't, then do something else.

PLACES ON THE WEB

2010-09-20T14:24:00.004-05:00

Today I'm going to share some links that are valuable to writers both beginners and those well on their way.

If you're ready to do a book tour, here's a site to check. Promotion

To convert your book, chapter or story to PDF online. PDF

To check out agents and publishers. Publishing

Learn how to make a one-line pitch. Pitch

And just in case you want to read the first chapter of my latest book. Boston Mountains

These will keep you busy for a week or more if you dig into them.

INTERVIEW WITH A PUBLISHER

2010-09-13T13:32:00.004-05:00

Following last week's great reply to my first question, here is my publisher Mark Stepp of Old American Publishing as we finish the interview with several specific questions about the business. Hope you enjoy it.

VB: What sets Old American Publishing apart from other small presses?

MS: Old American Publishing is my third publishing company. Publishing is a tough business. You either have to be crazy or rich to make this type of business work, and I’ve never been rich. Hardly any of our income comes from the books we publish. We edit and rewrite a myriad of products for Houston based oil companies under our other company name. It is a boring, tedious industry, but the money is good. That income allows me to pursue publishing as if I were a rich publisher. Like any company, we have operational costs, but most of those are absorbed by my parent company. For that reason, I am able to send most of the actual profits (when there are any) to the authors themselves. It’s nice to know that I can boost an author’s career and put money in her pocket. A publisher must always have his eye on the finances, though, and it is easy to lose a lot of money on a book.

VB: How and why did you start OAP?

MS: I originally began working with a Houston based publishing company that was funded by a group of local investors who thought publishing was the road to riches. Boy, were they ever confused. Fifty years ago, any kind of publishing was as good as money in the bank, but things have taken a drastic change in the last ten years. When the investors pulled out after three years, they owed me money. Instead of taking their money, I accepted the publishing company in payment.

VB: What specific genre do you publish?

MS: What we are good at is history books about hometowns. Our tastes are a little eclectic, but historical significance is our general theme. Now that we’ve gotten things better established and are not going to go out of business the way so many struggling publishers are, we’ve decided to expand a little. We plan to publish a zombie book sometime late next year. Right now we are finishing up a book on historic inns and eating establishments in the Oregon area. Our next project is a biographical sketch of pioneer women in northern Texas. We would always consider an historical novel, but we don’t really have a proper marketing program for fiction yet.

VB: What do you look for in submissions beyond the requirements of subject matter?

MS: I love a great query letter. It tells me the author can actually write, and it lets me know she understands the industry. New writers often have unrealistic expectations, and publishing is not a business for the feint of heart.

VB: How important is an author’s platform to you?

MS: If you are going to sell a book to a publishing company, you need to convince them that you can make them a lot of money. I know that sounds awful, but the truth is that we really cannot sell your books for you. You are going to have to market yourself and your book. If you don’t have a good marketing plan for your book, then no publisher with any sense is going to gamble on your book. It’s just a cold hard fact of life. An author’s platform (the latest buzzword for explaining how you are going to market your book) is vital to your success.

We send out press releases and sample copies to reviewers. Not counting personnel costs, postage and printing are biggest expenses. But you have to tell us who the local reviewers are and who (and why) needs one of your books badly enough for us to send them a free copy. I’ve had writers who turned in their manuscripts and then barely talked to us except to gripe about their royalty checks. Those people need to write for hire. When I realize a writer is that kind of person, I cut him off immediately and do not publish his book. I cannot afford to.

VB: Do you have a slush pile?

MS: No, a book is either in the editing phase or production. We do not sit on manuscripts.

VB: Typically how many unsolicited queries do you accept, and how many go on to publication?

Only one this year.

VB: Is there a particular type of book you are currently looking for?

MS: Historical books with a local audience. We do not cater to a national market.

Since we plan to publish an anthology next year of fiction stories about zombies, we’d like those short stories. We’ve decided to limit the scope to zombies in Texas or stories that relate to Texas in some way. We figure that will help us overcome some of our marketing issues.

VB: Do you have any upcoming projects that you’re excited about?

MS: The historic inns project is my favorite unpublished book at this time.

VB: What do you suggest hopeful authors send to peak your interest in their work?

MS: A great query letter. Tell me about yourself and why people in your area would purchase your book. If it’s a fiction book or a fictionalized account, convince me that we can make money from it with our limited marketing abilities. You might have written the best biography about Colonel Custer that anyone has ever seen, but I do not have any avenue for selling to mass American market. Keep it local.

A special thanks to Mark for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have a book such as he describes you'd do well to query him. Working with Mark on The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks has been a joy.

PUBLISHER SPEAKS OUT

2010-09-06T14:11:00.004-05:00

A week or so ago, I wrote Mark Stepp, my publisher at Old American Publishing and asked if I could interview him for my writing blog. When he sent back the reply, I was so taken by the valuable information he shared in answer to my first query, that I decided to publish it in its entirety. Writers can learn a lot from his adventures as a writer, editor, journalist and publisher.

VB: First, would you tell me a little about your background in writing, editing and publishing?

MS: I studied professional writing at Oklahoma University under a fabulous instructor named

Foster-Harris. He forever changed my attitude about myself and my writing. I knew sitting there in his class that all I ever wanted to be was a writer. He made us write stories for every kind of magazine, including True Confessions. I suppose the two most important things he taught me was how to write a good query letter and how to accept a rejection letter without giving up on

writing as a career. He made me understand that no matter how good (or how bad) an article was, there was probably a market for it somewhere. He also taught me that it was better to write for a publication rather than trying to find one that wanted something I had already written.

I graduated college from Northeastern Oklahoma University. I went there for summer school and fell in love with their journalism department. They hired me as their alumni publication editor. A year later, I was an editor on the school paper and writing a weekly column. They opened a world of information about how to actually produce a newspaper or magazine, and I learned it all, from writing the news to handing it to the printer.

I began my professional career as a reporter and photographer for a small group of weekly county newspapers in eastern Oklahoma County. As a small town reporter, I found myself writing obituaries and covering social events for different organizations. But after a couple of months, the publisher let me work on the police and city beat, which mostly included attending town meetings and making the rounds of police and fire departments looking for news tidbits.

The pay at a small town weekly was miserly at best, so I supplemented my income by shooting

wedding photography and selling freelance photos to an international photography sales company named Globe Photos. Additionally, I worked a few hours per week for a monthly newspaper where I rewrote news clips from around the state and then laid out their monthly newspaper for them. While there I met a number of unsavory characters, including a group of ex-convicts who paid me to do freelance work for half a dozen monthly newspapers they were hyping through a telephone sales soliciting firm. When I realized their operation was a sham, I quit. But before that they introduced me to a woman who was the recently jilted girlfriend of state politician who was part of the Little Dixie Maffia. She would not even tell me her name because she was so frightened.

She met with me at a friend’s home and discussed the inside workings of the Little Dixie group

for nearly ten hours. I wrote so many notes that my hand ached for three days, but that insider

information helped me launch my career as an investigative reporter. I never told my boss how I

got my leads, I just began pursuing everything one story at a time.

From that small beginning, I went on to work as editor of The Wewoka Daily Times and as one

of the City Life editors at the Oklahoma Journal. Both newspapers are defunct today, as are two

small town weeklies I later owned and operated.

After nine years as a reporter, editor, and photographer, I wrote my first novel: a survival novel

about a group of futuristic settlers. It took me most of a year working on it part time. My agent at the time was very excited about the book and managed to get it to one of Robert Redford’s

producers. They said they wanted to turn it into a movie. They kept it for nine months and then,

one day, just sent the manuscript back to me--no note, nothing. Another lesson about rejection.

Currently, I am trying to finish a novel about my experiences with the Little Dixie Maffia, and

am attempting to market a western novel.

When I left the newspaper world, I used my connections to once again pursue a freelancing

career. That’s when I got involved with Odie Faulk through a mutual friend who owned Guffey’s

Journal in Oklahoma City. Odie taught me the publishing business. Or rather, he taught me how

to put an historical book about a city together while he was working on histories about Muskogee

and Tahlequah. He is not the best writer I’ve ever met, but he is certainly the most prolific. At the time I was editing small town newspapers and area magazines and then jobbing them out to local printing companies. I was writing and the money was good, but I liked what Odie was doing. Besides, not only was he having more fun than I was, he was also making more money as just a

writer.

His secret was simple. He would contract with a community, usually the chamber of commerce,

and then write a history about their city. Once the book went to press, then he solicited the

successful local businessmen about writing books on them and their companies. He told me once

that he could write a biography or company history in six weeks from start to finish. Finished for

him meant handing it over to Guffey’s Journal for typesetting. It sounded like a dream job to me,

except I was not interested in moving from town to town every six months, and I loved the

production of the business almost as much as the writing. So I decided instead to start my first

publishing company.

Next week: the rest of the interview.

UTILIZING THE WEB

2010-08-30T17:26:00.003-05:00

Okay, I have to admit it. The work load covered me up last week and I didn't get something written here that might help all those struggling writers out there.

As my readers all know I've been heavily in to promoting the two nonfiction books that came out this spring. Also, it being summer, I'm taking time out to play a bit more than I do in the winter. The pool beckons every sunny day and we've been having a lot of those. My boss being ME, I give myself permission to spend time out there with my daughter when she is off work. So, that's why no one received even a bit of information about writing last week.

This week, the day is almost over and I've struggled to come up with something to lend a helping hand. So I decided to direct all of you to a couple of super sites that should help you out.

The first site will be of help to those checking out those agents for just the perfect fit. Study this one and go back to it regularly as new information is posted. Even if you aren't looking for an agent, you can learn a lot about today's market by reading what these agents are looking for. You can bet if they're looking for something, then it's selling. Remember, you need a target to aim at.

The next site has tons of information related to writing and other subjects. Join up, it's free and see what you can learn about the listings.

For those of you looking for updated information on whose looking for what in the publishing world, please subscribe to this site. And check it out every time it arrives in your email.

I'll try to do better in the future and share more information on this crazy craft of writing. Have a good week.

A GOOD TIME FOR AUTHORS

2010-08-16T13:41:00.004-05:00

Today it's difficult to get a book published the traditional way. Perhaps some writers should back off and consider newer, nontraditional publishing possibilities. I got to thinking about this after reading an article by Ray Connolly who has some ideas we might profit from. At least they are worth considering. This man is publishing chapters of his new book, The Sandman, online, up to a point. Then by October he will put the "rest of the story" up for sale. Read the article to get the full impact of what he's doing.

I have a small back list of historical romances that I'd like to republish as ebooks, but the complications of doing so myself keep me from it. I don't have the knowledge necessary and don't want to spend months and months learning this technology. Connolly's idea has given me one. There are plenty of readers out there who've never read my early books. Suppose I posted oh, say six or seven chapters online, then put the remainder of the book up for sale online. You too, might be able to consider something like this.

The times, they are indeed a changing. At my age, I'll probably stick to the traditional way of submitting manuscripts to editors for publication, but if you're young and adventuresome, why not try some of his ideas? Or better yet, come up with your own.

Another article gave me pause about the future of book stores in our country. Barnes & Noble, a bricks and mortar bookstore that has been responsible for driving most small Indies out of business, now finds itself in deep trouble. People are buying on the Internet, downloading to Kindle, or otherwise purchasing their reading material without going out to the store in the Mall. So Barnes & Noble is up for sale. Read the article, if you're interested in keeping up with what's going on in the publishing and sales world today.

Because most of us don't have a way to distribute books should we decide to publish through a print on demand company on our own, our prospects are dim for selling even the prerequisite 500 copies to really make some money. And I do mean some, not a lot. But if you are involved in a business that sends you around the country, perhaps speaking or attending many conferences where you can make contacts and sell your "product," your book, then maybe you ought to go for it.

While most publishers today don't offer a good marketing plan, they do offer a few things that most of us can't manage. Distribution is one of them, another is acquiring reviews by the use of ARCs (Advanced Reader's Copies) After that, even with a big publisher, you're pretty much on your own for promoting your work. Today, with the Internet, you can reach billions of readers, but you're awash in the sea of others doing the same thing. So you have to do more than produce a so-so trailer and get a few online reviews and radio spots.

Prior to your book coming out, spend some time, say a summer, increasing your Google or search engine pages. You do this by posting blogs, using appropriate tags, posting short stories, articles, etc., on sites online that you can find by Googling them. Join several writer's groups through Yahoo and Google and keep up with what's going on so you can get in on anything out there. It takes work and time, but you're investing it in your business. That of selling books after you've written them.

Sadly, we're not just writers. We're entrepreneurs in that we promote and market our product. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best. We writers are all in this soup together.

RECOGNITION APPRECIATED

2010-08-10T15:56:00.003-05:00

An email arrived a couple of days ago from the International Blogging Recognition Council (IBRC)

They wrote: your blog (On Being a Writer and the July 19th posting Working With

Small Publishers) received IBRC’s designation of “Recognized Blog”. IBRC reserves this

honor to those blogs that effectively connect with the audience and promote the sharing of ideas

and experiences.

This is indeed an honor to be recognized in such a way. Sometimes we write our blogs and are never sure how many are actually enjoying them. Writing a blog is difficult for me. As a writer, I'm slow and steady, and I do a lot of rewrites before I get things just the way I want them. With so much to do in promoting and writing every day, it's difficult to take the time to see that a blog is special. Rather each one tends to be a flow of words as they occur to me.

This week I wanted to write about unique ways to create characters for your fiction. Remember when thinking about your theme and the characters' goals:

Life’s not about success, it’s about happiness. In searching for redemption, we find the place we belong. Redemption occurs in small doses of happiness and contentment. To have a future, we must live with the past.

There are hundreds of questions you can ask your character. First, as the author, you need to

know something about your character that has nothing to do with the story you are about to write. Such as: What do they want out of life, further what do they need? What do they want to accomplish in their life? What are their basic beliefs?

Some more basic questions that will help us know them better are: Have they ever betrayed or failed anyone? Has anyone betrayed or failed them?

Once you begin to delve into their minds with these questions and let them answer them, you will begin to reveal a character. Their replies in first person help you write your story with more

conviction. Once you know their life story, then it’s time to find out what’s going to fuel the

book or short story.

If you know what makes them happy, angry, or sad; what they’re afraid of and what they regret; what haunts them, you have a basis for the plot line.

By the time I get this far, I’ve probably written at least three chapters, to get to know all my

characters as well as the direction the story will go. Often times, I will continue to discover

things about my characters far into the book. Are they honorable? Do they keep promises? The

list goes on and on, but you can see that the weaknesses and strengths of your characters are what will form the story line.

If you get stuck, have your character write you a letter telling you what’s going on in her life,

how she feels about these occurrences, etc. You might try this with each POV character, and perhaps some of the minor ones as well. Often, this will break down the barriers to continuing

to write.

Writer's block doesn't exist if you continue to live the lives of those you write about.

PROMOTING AND BUILDING A PLATFORM

2010-08-02T14:27:00.003-05:00

Many writers, on the verge of marketing their novel to an agent or editor, make the mistake of not working on their platform. They believe it's too early, but it's almost too late by the time the query letters go out. Much better to spend a few hours a week building that platform online while the book is still being written and edited. Your chances of snagging an agent or selling your work increase if you have a good presence online.

Even now, after I spent a lot of time doing just that, I still work a few hours every week upgrading, finding new sites to get listed on, places where I can get reviews or be interviewed on a blog or Internet Radio show.

To begin, go to sites like Blog Catalog where you can get your blog listed; Linked In where you can begin to link your work with that of other writers; Writing where you can post short stories, articles, excerpts from your book; and of course don't forget Twitter and Facebook. Sign up, sign on and begin to build that platform. There are many, many more.

I schedule one day a week to work on a variety of promotional sites, such as blogging here and at my other site which is a journal of sorts, but lets readers and writers in on how a writer works and plays, writes and promotes. All these sites help get my platform, my brand, my books noticed.

I am constantly on the lookout for more sites. Some I don't like, others turn out to be just what I'm looking for. Google for writer's groups and check Yahoo for its groups. If you don't get something out of them, then drop them. Be the professional you must be to succeed in this business.

SENSES AND VOICE COMBINE

2010-07-26T15:59:00.001-05:00

This isn't the first time I've written about our senses and our voice, but this has a slightly different approach than I've used before. Over the years of preparing to speak I've written a new approach with each appearance. I ran across this one and though it had some good hints in it that I haven't used here before.

We have six senses. They are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and --- no, not seeing dead people --- emotions. You shouldn’t write scenes without some or all of those. They must match the mood or tone you are trying to convey. A cloudy rainy day for a funeral, a bright sunny day for the fair, or switch them to alter the tone; the smell of flowers for happiness or a wilted rose in a vase for sadness, the smell of dank mold for terror or fright. Pretty simple, but it gets more complicated than that, right down to the proper verb or noun that conveys the mood. Think of the difference in the blast of a supersonic jet and the purr of a kitten. Or the cool touch of a snakeskin or downy warmth of a child’s cheek. Or the character who lurches as opposed to strides across the room or hunches as opposed to leans against a tree. All these and the way they affect you go to voice.

[See how many action verbs you can create for the usual walk, look, sit, stand, etc.]

You are who you are because of the lullabies your mother sang, the stories your father told, the most precious love of your grandmother. All these attribute to a voice unique to yourself, but you may have to dig it from your very being.

It is more than the voice of an individual character in your book, but is the sum total of how you present your story. Tell someone a story and listen or tape record what you say and how you say it. That is your true voice, not what you put down on paper when you begin to write and follow all the rules you’ve learned so painstakingly.

Too many of us try to write oh so properly that the voice is lost. All the characters and the narration are made up of these proper words put together so carefully that they are boring. Good writing should read like a song that flows with its own rhythm, circles back upon itself conveying messages that surprise and awe. That is voice. Think of the difference between an opera singer and a country and western, or between Chopin and R & B. Again, voices.

Rip out your soul, make yourself bleed, write down things you’ve always been afraid to say and say them as only you can. All these things are buried deep within you and they need to come out. When they do you will have the voice you have searched for.

[Think of picturesque nouns for words such as building, house, tree, pasture, mountain, church, etc.]

Study other books for voice alone. Check several books by the same author and you will find an underlying voice no matter who or what they are writing about. My voice is the same in non-fiction as it is in fiction, as it should be. My favorite author is James Lee Burke, a man whose voice is of a quality to be worshiped. I'm awed by his ability to set the tone, a sense of place, his characters and his story, all with a gathering of words.

Only writers can hear voices and wander into a fantasy world without being locked up so turn loose and let it fly and don’t stop till you’ve gotten it right.

WORKING WITH SMALL PUBLISHERS

2010-07-19T14:21:00.004-05:00

The first publisher of books that I worked with was a small

publisher. At a conference many years ago, the owner/publisher

announced that he was looking for good non-fiction manuscripts

about the Ozarks for his new publication. I went straight home,

put together a proposal and sent it off.

Not too difficult for me, since I’d been writing about folks who

live in the Ozarks for several years. He bought it immediately

and I had my first book. Didn’t make much money, but I was

published and I had some terrific reviews from prestigious

people, including professors and respected newspaper and magazine

editors.

I found I enjoyed working with these people. The publisher would

do things like set up a booksigning for all his authors, then

appear with us at the bookstore and make sure everything was set

up for our comfort. Working with them was a fine experience, but

I had no idea what was yet to come.

For while I was editing this book, I sold a manuscript to a New

York editor, again at a conference, and I was thrown into the

hectic business of dealing with one of the largest publishers in

the world, Penguin, under its imprint, Topaz.

Of course working with a New York publisher was exciting, mind

bending and wonderful. At the same time the hassles were ongoing.

Books were sent to the wrong address, covers didn’t arrive in

time for promo, they instructed their rep to promote me in

Arizona instead of Arkansas.

Naturally I dealt with it. The good news was Topaz was a new

imprint and the publisher was doing some good promotion. The bad

news? The imprint didn’t survive, and after four books in four

years, not enough to build a following, Topaz folded and all

authors were dropped except best sellers.

But you’re here to learn about the joy of working with small

publishers.

Let me tell you what Arcadia Publishing does for its authors, and

I think any of you who are already published with small presses

will tell the same stories.

First and foremost, they are writer friendly. Their editors work

well with their writers and there is a lot of one on one contact.

The contract is simple and fair. While there is no advance, the

royalties are good and paid every six months, about two months

after the sales are tallied for that period.

Arcadia furnished me with post cards depicting my book cover, a

variety of posters which I dressed up to suit the occasion, free

author’s copies of my book and a good discount on further

purchase of author’s copies.

I did have to help with promotion in that they asked me to

complete an extensive questionnaire that included listings of

businesses in the area, as well as radio and tv stations,

newspapers and regional magazines. They wanted to know what

events they might tie sales of the book to. In our area we have a

huge arts and crafts market in the spring and fall and I sent

them listings of shops and fairs involved.

Once the book came out, I was assigned a promotional person who

began to set up book signings for me. We were in constant

telephone contact. This proved to be very lucrative for them and

me because she booked me into places that would never have bought

copies of the book, and they ordered books for the signing

through her.

Arcadia also publicized my signings and sent a promotional packet

to everyone who booked a signing. I’m sure that this alone added

greatly to sales. They mailed media packets to radio stations and

newspapers when a signing was upcoming.

As a result I had a radio interview on National Public Radio, and

several good newspaper articles. I signed at places I would never

have thought to approach, such as Hanna’s Candle Outlet, and a

framing gallery, and a county historical society event.

And, oh yes, they distributed the books to stores such as Barnes

& Noble and others, making it easy for readers to find them.

My latest experience with small publishers came when I met Mark Stepp publisher and editor at Old American Publishing. He attended the Women Writing the West Conference in San Antonio. I'd gone there to pick up my finalist award for Fly With the Mourning Dove and he was in the audience. Since I prepare a pitch for nearly every editor I can get in to see at I conference, I soon found myself sitting across from him. He accepted my book almost immediately. That book came out in April, 2010, and I couldn't be happier to again be working with a small publisher. I call, he talks to me, I email, he replies, and if I have a problem he solves it right now.

All of that being said, I continue to submit my fiction to New York publishers because most fiction does better there than at small presses. There are, of course, exceptions. And publishers in New York are a pretty savvy group, despite what some writers say. They know the best covers and titles and story lines. I urge you to continue to knock on their doors as well as the small guys.

There are small fiction and non-fiction publishers out there, and

it’s no harder to find them than it is to find NY pubs on the

Internet. Go out and buy some of the books they publish and study

them. See if your work is suitable for them. This is a business

and like any other, you must invest money and time and learn your

craft if you are to succeed.

Next week: information on writing queries to editors and agents.

On Being a Writer

FINDING STUFF ONLINE

DEALING WITH CODEINE, WORD AND WORK

SENSE OF PLACE - HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

PROPER ENGLISH AIN’T PROPER WRITING

FROM NEW YORK TO KINDLE

GETTING ONLINE REVIEWS

CULTURE SHOCK AT RT

A VISIT WITH JENNIFER JAKES

CHRISTMAS IN THE 1800s

ANTICIPATING PUBLICATION...AGAIN

PROMOTION TIME AGAIN

DANGERS OF SELF PUBLISHING

WRITING FOR ANTHOLOGIES

VALUE OF BOOK SIGNINGS

ENTERING CONTESTS

INDIES, KINDLE AND OTHER STUFF

DRAGONS AND A TOUCH OF MAGIC

LIZ SCHULTE SPEAKS OUT

THIS BUSINESS OF E PUBLISHING

WELCOME AUTHOR JANET SQUIRES

SETTING AS A CHARACTER

SURELY I DIDN'T WRITE THAT

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

SIGNING KINDLES AND OTHER STUFF

ME AS A CHARACTER

SUMMER DOLDRUMS

DREAM WALKER, An excerpt

A TASK COMPLETED

MY BOOK IS KINDLEIZED

Another link to using Mobi creator

Using Mobipocket Creator To Create Your Own Kindle Ebooks

FULL LENGTH E BOOK IN THE MAKING

FOURTH EBOOK UPLOADED

EDITING EBOOK IN WORD

SMALL STEPS IN E PUBLISHING

SEEING E-BOOK OUT THERE

UPLOADING TO SMASHWORDS

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK COVERS EBOOKS

PUBLISHING EBOOKS MEANS PERSEVERE

FORMAT THAT MANUSCRIPT

PUBLISHING TO E BOOKS

Anne R. Allen's Blog: Slow Blogging Works: A Blogiversary Success Story

AN OLD DOG LEARNS NEW TRICKS

THE SOCIAL MEDIA

HAVE YOU WRITTEN YOUR BIO?

EXCITING TIMES TO BE A WRITER

QUESTIONS TO ASK AGENTS

FREE CONFERENCE DATE SET

A CONTRACT FOR MY BIRTHDAY

AVOID WINTER DOLDRUMS

INCOME TAX: WHAT CAN I DEDUCT

I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING

THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF 2010

IT'S OKAY TO TAKE TIME OFF

MINGLING WITH OTHER WRITERS

GETTING BACK TO WRITING

VIVIAN ZABEL AUTHOR OF STOLEN

LIFE GETS IN THE WAY

AFTER A DAY WITH WRITERS

IT'S A KINDLE

SOMETIMES I COULD KILL MY COMPUTER

READERS SEARCH ME OUT

FALL WORKSHOP SUCCESSFUL

BREAKING INTO THE EBOOK MARKET

SECONDARY CHARACTERS AND VILLAINS

CREATING CHARMING CHARACTERS

HOW DO WE WRITE?

PLACES ON THE WEB

INTERVIEW WITH A PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER SPEAKS OUT

UTILIZING THE WEB

A GOOD TIME FOR AUTHORS

RECOGNITION APPRECIATED

PROMOTING AND BUILDING A PLATFORM

SENSES AND VOICE COMBINE

﻿WORKING WITH SMALL PUBLISHERS

WORKING WITH SMALL PUBLISHERS