Writers and Authors

Marketing on the Internet: Setting up a Virtual Blog Tour

2013-05-19T07:00:00.000+02:00

One of the most difficult things for me to do is market my books. Yet, these days, it’s important for an author to know how to get the word out about their current and past releases.

There is any number of options open to authors, but one of my favorites is the virtual blog tour. This is a tool whereby an author approaches bloggers, asks for a guest spot, and sets up a tour to promote his or her book. I like this method of promoting because I can reach potential readers all about the world while sitting in my living room.

While this seems like an easy thing to do, there are some general rules that you should follow. First and foremost, you need to be professional in your approach, and you should locate bloggers who have content similar to your genre. You wouldn’t want to ask an erotic blogger to post about your children’s picture book. The best way to find bloggers who might host you is to do an Internet search. When you have a group of potential blogs, stop by and visit each of them on your list. Get to know the blogger by leaving comments about posts and be sure this is a good fit for your book.

Once you’ve created your list of potential bloggers, send out personal emails. Introduce yourself and let them know you’ve seen their blogs and why you think a guest spot would be a good fit. If you have a blog, offer a blog swap—if you host me, I will host you. This helps to increase blog traffic on both of blogs.

Once you hear back from all your contacts, create a list including email addresses, blog addresses, and what the blogger would like to get from you: an interview, a guest post and what the topic is, or a simple media release. Make sure you’ve gotten all of the information you need and store it in a folder on your desktop. As soon as you have your complete list, email the bloggers to set up the date you will visit their blogs. When you’ve heard back from everyone, send out a complete list of blog stops and ask the bloggers to confirm you have the correct dates and blog addresses.

At this point, you’re ready to begin answering questions and preparing your blog posts. Start with the blog at beginning of your proposed tour and work your way down the list. When you send off your information be sure to include everything the blogger has requested. Also send off an author photo, cover art, links, and a short bio. Be sure to thank your blog host in advance and ask if they require anything else from you.

A few days before your blog tour is to start, send off another list of all of your blog stops to remind your hosts of the dates they will spotlight your book. Be courteous and remember to thank them again for their support. At this point, if you have aTwitter service where you can pre-post Tweets, make sure you’ve got everything set up to announce the tour on your various networking sites. Don’t depend on the blog host to promote for you.

On each day during your tour, stop by the blog where you’re being hosted. Thank the blogger in the comment box and check to see if anyone has left any comments or questions for you. Be sure to respond to all comments.

It’s up to you if you want to do a giveaway during your tour. This can be anything from a PDF of your book, a print signed copy, bookmarks, or other swag. Use your imagination.

When the tour is complete, remember to send thank you notes to all of your hosts. If you’ve offered a giveaway, be sure to follow through. If you follow the above steps and promote your tour on all your networking sites, you should reach more potential readers and make some new friends. With brick and mortar bookstores decreasing, the virtual blog tour is the new way to have a book signing!

Penny Lockwood has published more than 100 articles, 75 stories, a chapbook, and her stories have been included in two anthologies. She writes for both adults and children. Her fiction has appeared in numerous genre and children’s publications, and non‑fiction work has appeared in a variety of writing, parenting, and young adult print magazines and on line publications. She edits for MuseItUp Publishing. Visit her web site at http:// pennylockwoodehrenkranz.yolasite.com. Her writing blog is located at http://pennylockwoodehrenkranz.blogspot.com/.

She has recently released Boo’s Bad Day with 4RV Publishing and has three other children’s books under contract with them: Ghost for Rent, Ghost for Lunch, and Many Colored Coats. She has three romances published by MuseItUp Publishing: Love Delivery, Lady in Waiting, and Mirror, Mirror. Her short story collection, A Past and A Future, is available through Sam’s Dot Publishing and Smashwords.

Ten Tips for Becoming a Better Writer

2013-05-17T07:00:00.000+02:00

Practice makes perfect: It’s important to write every day, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. If you’re on a break from your book, try blogging or journaling—just make sure you’re writing daily.
Misery loves company: Join or create your own writers’ group. Don’t just join the first group you find; a good fit is critical. Look for like-minded writers who are supportive but honest; encouraging but not sycophantic. Try to find a mix of both accomplished and aspiring writers; everyone, no matter his or her level of experience, has something to share. If it’s truly misery to share your work with them, move on—it’s not the group for you.
School: not just for kids: Enroll in a class; take a webinar; attend writing conferences; check out some writing books. Never make the mistake of thinking that you already know everything there is to know about writing.
Those who can [write], read: Want to be a better writer? Read.
Emulate, but don’t imitate, the Greats: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it’s true. You can learn a great deal from studying The Greats, but beware of copying them. Rather, study those Greats to help prepare you for your own leap forward.
Get tough: One of the hardest things to do as a writer is to become comfortable sharing your work with other people. My advice? Suck it up. If you want your work to be read, you have to share it. But—you don’t have to share it with everyone right away. Share it first with people who will simply encourage you (your mom, your best friend), just to get over the hump of that initial terrifying exposure, then move on to people who will give you their honest opinions.
Learn how to listen: Speaking of honest opinions…even the best writers in the world rarely get it right the first time. Listen to feedback and take it seriously. There is, of course, a difference between critique, which is helpful, and criticism, which is not. Choose your beta readers and editor carefully and be open to their suggestions.
Find your own rhythm: Some writers work best first thing in the morning; some writers are night owls. Find what works for you and stick to it.
Birds of a feather succeed together: Reach out to some local writers and ask them if you can meet for a cup of coffee. Ask them questions about their paths to publication. You’d be surprised how many generous, open writers are out there who’d be happy to share their experiences with you—particularly if there’s a free cup of coffee involved.
Live: Don’t isolate yourself! Writers can be very reclusive people by nature, but your writing will be richer and more engaging if you are connecting with the world outside of your laptop. As much as possible, get out there—travel, visit museums, people-watch, live life!

Julia Tagliere has been writing since the day she was first able to hold a pencil. Thankfully for her readers, her writing has grown more legible in the years since. Though she is often the first to joke that she became a writer as a socially acceptable method of managing the voices in her head, she is passionate about literature and fierce about freedom of expression. Her work has appeared in The Writer and Hay & Forage Grower magazines, and she is a regularly featured author at Buzzle.com. Widow Woman is her first novel. Buy Now @ Amazon. More details about the author & the book

3 Top Tips for Authors

2013-05-15T07:00:00.000+02:00

1) How to Make Your Characters Believable

Spend more time living as the character and not just writing about them. the more you become the character the more believable they become. I put myself in the story and during my writing I live like them and I allow my living like them to flow in my writing.

2) Why Book Covers are So Important

Book covers are so important because lets be honest people are visual and no matter how great the information or story is inside the cover people will always judge the book by its cover!

3) How to Network Online to Promote Your Book

Use pictures of reviews from tweeter or facebook and upload them encouraging people to buy your book. This is worked so much for me because its the words and face of others talking about your book. Many times people go buy it just because someone else has read it.

Marquis Boone is a pastor, motivational speaker, author, entrepreneur, mentor and spiritual advisor to a host of celebrities. Marquis is the Lead Pastor of Fresh Start Church which exists to revive, refresh, release and restore people back to God. He has been deemed one of America's most influential and talented pastors in his generation. His message of resurrection, healing and restoration is unparalleled and transcending cultural barriers within the church. Boone holds a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership and Masters of Divinity from Luther Rice University. He studied at World Harvest Bible College and completed a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a minor in Management from American InterContinental University. Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords. More details about the author & the book

Review: Author Publicity Pack by Shelly Hitz and Heather Hart

2013-05-13T15:03:00.001+02:00

Title: Author Publicity Pack: Resources to Help You Take Your Book Marketing to the Next Level.

Authors: Shelly Hitz and Heather Hart

Kindle Edition (ASIN: B00BGXAADC)

Published February 2013 by Body and Soul Publishing

Reviewed by Jo Linsdell

"Publicity: It sounds like something that only big publishing houses can afford to do, yet any author can increase their publicity and their book sales – and do so on a shoestring budget.

"Author Publicity Pack" will outline over 115 places that authors of all genres can get publicity for themselves and their books. Join us and take your marketing to the next level by publicizing your book.
What is included in this book:

* 29 Places to Promote Your Book For Free

* 8 Free Press Releases Submission Sites

* 4 Places to Get Book Reviews

* 25 Book Awards For Which You Can Submit Your Book

* 7 Media Sources for Authors

* 36 Paid Advertising Resources

* 6 Virtual Bookshelves and Forums

And More!

Because we have personally published many Christian books, we have also included 39 additional resources specifically for Christian authors.

And in the back of the book, you get access to our bonus 20-page PDF, "Places to Submit Your Free KDP Select Promotion." We have been using the KDP Select program since January 2011 and have seen our book royalties increase tremendously. This PDF shares the process I take for each of my free promotions."

This book is a great resource for authors. The layout is easy to follow and it's packed full of useful links.

What Makes a Good Critique Buddy?

2013-05-12T07:00:00.000+02:00

Finding good beta readers and/or critique buddies is such a difficult thing, honestly. You will also probably get ten different writers saying ten different things about what they want from someone playing this role.

My own opinion on this subject has changed a lot over the years. I was in writing groups for probably the first fifteen years I wrote fiction, and for the most part, that meant giving my books over to other inexperienced writers and having them rip them to shreds based on grammar, plot, character, flow, and so on. I would then lick my wounds, take their feedback home and try to incorporate EVERY LAST ONE of their suggestions into my next draft of the book… even when those suggestions seemed to contradict or cancel one another out (which they often did). Then, the very next week, I would bring that same segment of novel back to the group, and get their feedback on whether they thought I’d ‘fixed’ whatever they had deemed wrong with it.

Sound familiar, writers? This approach is called ‘work-shopping’ and it is considered the norm for getting feedback on your work.

What was the problem with this approach? Well, several things. First of all, not a single one of us knew what the heck we were doing. Worse, we didn’t even know enough yet to know how completely clueless we were. All of us were absolutely certain that we knew exactly what a particular writer needed to do to improve their work. Most of the time, we were expressing our subjective taste, without having a clue that it was subjective, and that, even if it wasn’t and the book had serious structural flaws, we didn’t have a friggin’ clue how to bring that writer or that book to their full potential.

Essentially, we were quoting our high school English teachers and our spotty recollections of college ‘literature’ classes as if that would actually help to make us better writers. We had learned that ‘critiquing’ meant to bludgeon other writers into believing that their stuff needed to look a certain way to be considered ‘good.’ The problem is, most of what we thought we knew was flat-out wrong.

Truthfully, I still don’t have a clue. The difference is, I kind of know that now.

So now, what do I look for in beta readers?

Honestly, I look for readers now, not writers. Some of those readers happen to be writers as well, but we don’t approach one other’s work with the intent of ‘work-shopping’ anymore. Generally, I look for people who read in the genre I write in, and read voraciously. I avoid people who just don’t like my voice for whatever reason, because frankly, they can’t really help me, either, since they won’t really connect with what I’m doing.

That being said, having some variety in beta readers is a huge bonus. Right now, for example, for my Allie’s War series, I have four beta readers. One is super into the plot and loves the world-building but is somewhat ‘meh’ about the love story. I have a second reader who is totally into Revik and Allie’s love story and super attentive to how that unfolds and a third who is way more into the homosexual love story. The fourth reader is into the more fast-paced, adventure aspect of the books, and mostly wants the overall series arc to progress, although she likes the love stories, too, and the sex scenes are important to her.

Only two of the four are writers, the other two just read a ridiculous number of books, and like the genre in which I write.

Do they contradict one another? Heck yes. Do they sometimes love and hate totally different aspects of the books? Definitely. But where they agree and disagree is part of their usefulness to me as beta readers. I think if they all only liked the same exact kinds of books, I wouldn’t be able to see the subjectivity of taste so clearly. On the other hand, if they were overtly hostile to what I’m trying to do, they couldn’t help me, either.

The bottom line is, they read the story as readers, not writers. They read to see if something I do pops them out of the story. They read to make sure ‘the gun is in the drawer’ so to speak, when the character reaches in to grab it and shoot the villain later. They also tell me if they got bored in the first third of the book because the pacing was too slow, or because I didn’t realize I’d repeated the same information in three different ways in three different chapters in my attempt to get it right. They also get annoyed like any other reader if the character does something that feels ‘off’ or unbelievable…or if a scene is just confusing or feels like it’s in the wrong place.

At this point in my development as a writer, that’s exactly what I need, too.

Is that to say that writing groups aren’t helpful for a lot of writers? Heck no. At a certain point, however, I really believe you have to start trusting your own voice, and that’s where work-shopping can become extremely damaging to a writer, if taken too far or indulged in for too long. It’s a nice fantasy to think we can make our work ‘perfect’ if we just pick at it for long enough, but unfortunately, usually all we do is eat our own young.

But what do other writers and readers think? If you are a writer, do you use critique groups or beta readers? What qualities do you look for?

JC Andrijeski

JC Andrijeski has published novels, novellas, serials, graphic novels and short stories, including the Allie's War series, The Slave Girl Chronicles series, and the bestselling novella, The Alien Club. Her short fiction runs the gamut from humorous to apocalyptic, and her nonfiction articles cover subjects from graffiti art, meditation, psychology, journalism, politics and history. Her short works have been published in numerous anthologies, online literary, art and fiction magazines as well as print venues such as NY Press newspaper and holistic health magazines. JC has traveled extensively and lived abroad, including two years spent at the foot of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, India, a location she drew on a fair bit in writing the Allie's War books. She's also lived or spent considerable time in Poland, Prague, Australia, London, Vancouver BC, New York City, Los Angeles, Portland (OR), Albuquerque, Seattle, Eureka (CA) and DeLand, Florida. JC currently lives and works in San Francisco. Please visit JC's blog at jcandrijeski.blogspot.com

Buy THE MORPH Now @ Amazon & Smashwords, Genre – SciFi / Fantasy / Romance, Rating – PG13. More details about the author & the book

a Rafflecopter giveaway

15 Free Press Release Distribution Sites

2013-05-10T22:49:00.001+02:00

Image source: clker.com

I've taken a closer look at the "how to" part of press releases in the past posts "How to write and where to post press releases" and "Tips for Writing an Effective Press Release" so today I'm going to share with you a few sites where you can submit your press releases for free (in some cases you may need to register first).

If you know of another great site for submitting free press releases please leave the link in the comment section.

Review: Sewing a Friendship by Natalie Tinti

2013-05-09T07:00:00.000+02:00

Title: Sewing a Friendship
Author: Natalie Tinti

Reviewed by Jo Linsdell

It is a real pleasure to review a book by such a young talent (Natalie is only 10 years old!). I'd love for this book to be professionally edited and formatted so that the story could shine to it's full potential. Natalie has a real talent and Sewing a Friendship is a great story that will hopefully inspire kids to reach out to others and form new friendships. As you can see from the cover art above this book has won quite a few awards. I see a very bright future ahead for this young author.

A Pantser Reformed (sort of)

2013-05-08T07:00:00.000+02:00

I’ve been a writer since I could remember, spinning tales in my mind and letting them spill across the paper like an overfilled fountain. That worked fine for short stories, college essays, and op-ed pieces for the local city paper, it didn’t work so well for 100k novels. When I wrote the first draft of my debut novel, my plot wandered, infodump filled the pages, and the pacing stalled at critical points. Writing that novel was therapy for me, it allowed me to empty the contents of my imagination and let my characters develop as I wrote. When I finally penned “the end” though, I had a mess. The re-writes were painful. I had to delete entire chapters, add in thousands of words to support the plot framework. I’m thrilled with what I finally put to press, but it bears little resemblance to what I’d first churned out.

My process was terribly inefficient – like taking a fifty foot oak tree and whittling it down to create one toothpick. I found myself exhausted, unable to continue with a style that left me basically writing three novels just to end up with one. Stream of consciousness writing sounds so liberating and free-love, but reality was far from that ideal of an artist channeling her muse. How could I let my imagination flow, let my characters steer their own destiny, but still have the structure, pacing, and plot complexities that I wanted? There had to be a middle ground between stodgy old plotter and incomprehensible pantser.

I tried using a rough outline, but still wound up with a daunting number of revisions to hone my first draft. For my current work-in-progress, I wrote my usual rough outline - conflict, climax, resolution, then added in secondary plot elements, and character development. I envisioned it all in my mind, like a dance, and shuffled things around until I felt the tempo smooth out and build to a crescendo where I wanted. Seeing it like this allowed me to notice holes and inconsistencies that I needed to address – hopefully in the first draft rather than in the third revision. From winging it, to rough outline, to detailed chapter-by-chapter outline with a list of beats and key plot points. What? Has the pantser seen the light? Have I become a plotter?

Well. . . not yet. Surprises happen when writing. A bad guy has a good streak, or a heroine spurns the planned love interest. Should I rein them in, scold the whole lot and make them walk my outline’s generous path? There’s no right answer, except to do whatever needs to happen to produce a great book. Sometimes it’s holding to the original outline with a firm hand.

Sometimes it’s burning the outline and creating a whole new one from scratch. Sometimes it’s finding a middle ground. Whichever path I choose, I know I can’t go back to the extreme pantser method I began with- the one where my characters ramble all over the world just to visit the corner market. We’ll see how this new process works out for me, and maybe by next year I’ll have a flow chart and index cards to complete my transformation.

Debra Dunbar lives on a farm in the northeast United States with her husband, three boys, and a Noah’s ark of four legged family members. Her urban fantasy novels feature supernatural elements in local settings. In addition to A DEMON BOUND, SATAN’S SWORD, and ELVEN BLOOD, she has also published a short story erotica series titled NAUGHTY MOM. Connect with her on Twitter @debra_dunbar on Facebook at debradunbarauthor, and on her website at http://debradunbar.com

A DEMON BOUND: http://amzn.to/MK6nxD

SATAN’S SWORD: http://amzn.to/Tsi1Wr

Debra will be awarding an e-book copy of A DEMON BOUND (book 1 in the Imp Series) to a randomly drawn commenter at every stop, and a grand prize of a Kindle Fire with an ELVEN BLOOD book cover skin to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour (US ONLY) so I e

ncourage you to follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/03/virtual-book-tour-elven-blood-by-debra.html

Interview with Matthew Miranda

2013-05-07T07:00:00.000+02:00

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

A few years after earning my degree in American Studies, I signed up for a creative writing class at my community college. The first prompt we had in class was to describe an object. I pictured a lacquered wooden box with red velvet lining, something I’d never imagined. I knew then I wanted to write.

What genre do you write and why?

Short story, mostly, with a touch of the speculative here and there. I write the world the way I see it—it seems to make more sense on the page than in the world.

Tell us about your latest book.

Superman is a short story collection where single dads, super heroes, sultans, heavenly bodies, earthbound lovers, and photic physicists seek the power to kill, the power to heal; they seek wisdom, they seek love; in other words, they seek the impossible. These stories are about the dangers of wishing for what cannot be, and the hidden costs that come with getting it.

What marketing methods are you using to promote your book?

Well, this interview is a nice start! I’m actually still finalizing whether I want to self-publish or go with an outside publisher, and that decision will ultimately shape the marketing of the book.

What formats is the book available in?

So far, I’m thinking a good old fashioned three-dimensional format. But the internet does have a way of beckoning.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I like to go to the beach. I like chess. I like to watch basketball and soccer. I like to cook. I like to write and play music.

Who are your favourite authors?

Jorge Luis Borges. Jeanette Winterson. Victor Giannini. Mike Carey. Grant Morrisson. Neil Gaiman. Sharon Olds. James Tate.

What advice do you have for other writers?

Write. Breathe.

What's your favourite quote about writing/for writers?

"Fail better" - Beckett.

What's the best thing about being a writer?

Immersing oneself in stories.

Where can people find out more about you and your writing?

My newborn website is www.bluesofnine.com

Anything else you'd like to add?

Breathe. Write.

9 Lessons from a Sophomore Novelist

2013-05-06T07:00:00.000+02:00

With the completion of my second novel, THE JERICHO DECEPTION—a thriller that explores how a secret CIA mind-control operation in the Egyptian desert threatens to start a modern day Holy War (hitting stores now!) - I thought it might be helpful to share some of the lessons I’ve learned through the tough struggles of publishing my first two books.

1. The second book is easier, but it’s still hard.

My first novel, THE BREATH OF GOD, took me six years to write and get published. After many heart-breaking rejections from both agents and publishers (including landing a big NY agent who couldn’t sell the book to a major publisher as he’d expected), mind-numbing rewrites, and endless waiting for responses, I finally got a publishing deal from a small press excited about my book. After it achieved critical and popular success, my publisher anxiously awaited my second book. While writing JERICHO went more smoothly because I avoided many of the rookie mistakes of the first book, I still spent three years (working part-time) researching, outlining, writing, and rewriting. And did I mention rewriting? The easiest part of writing a novel is coming up with a cool idea for a story. The hardest part is finishing the first draft. That’s why so many people dream of writing “the Great American Novel,” but then never do. As Hemingway famously said, “The first draft of anything is shit,” and so it takes discipline and countless hours of labor to improve the book until it’s publishable.

2. Your editor is your best friend.

For both of my novels, I used professional editors, or as they are sometimes called, book doctors. These women provided insight and discipline to my writing that went far beyond what I was able to do on my own, and I come with three Ivy League degrees! While a former English teacher, or a good friend who writes for a newspaper, or a relative who reads nonstop might provide some helpful criticism, there is no substitute for a professional who has worked in the publishing business. In both of my books, I cut, added, and altered characters, scenes, and chapters—dramatic changes I wouldn’t have had the stomach to make without the tough advice from my editors.

3. Conflict is the key to interested readers.

Readers keep turning pages because they want to know what is going to happen next to your characters. This axiom is true whether one is writing thrillers (my genre), romance, or literary fiction. The genre of narrative non-fiction has seen so much success because it also employs this tool. Conflict doesn’t have to be physical or mortal; it can be psychological or romantic. Conflict can occur between characters or internally within a character. Whenever a part of your story seems to slow down (probably somewhere in the middle), examine each scene and see where you can add conflict. How are your protagonist’s goals being thwarted? Put up obstacles. Have characters say one thing, but think something else. Try to begin each chapter with a question that draws in the reader. End each one with a mini-cliffhanger that forces the reader to continue to the next chapter. When it comes to conflict, the more the better.

4. Story and character rule over theme and message.

Because both of my novels revolve around philosophical themes and touch on issues of spirituality and religion, I struggled with this advice in my early drafts. Some tough advice I received early on was “if you want to educate people, write non-fiction.” That axiom doesn’t preclude fiction from being heavy with theme, symbolism, and meaning—most great fiction is—but the story and characters must be even more important. People read fiction to be entertained. Your characters must drive the story, bringing the themes along with them organically. The danger with violating this rule is that the writing can verge on pedantic and preachy, which will quickly turn off the reader.

5. Details matter.

Do your research! Readers are willing to suspend belief (put faith?) in a novel when the author treats the non-fictional parts of the story with a journalistic care for accuracy. Then, the truly fictional parts of your story will seem much more plausible. You do not need pages of detailed description (leave that to Tom Wolfe); just include a few choice ones, but make sure they are precise. If you are going to refer to a medical procedure, speak to a doctor. If your protagonist is an FBI agent who holds a criminology degree from Harvard, choose again: Harvard doesn’t offer criminology as a major. Because my novels are set in exotic locations (India, Bhutan, Egypt, Dubai), I travelled to each of these places to absorb details impossible to capture through only web research. Some great advice given to me was to engage all five senses when trying to describe a location. Move past the visual to the smells, sounds, and feel for the places. Those kinds of details will add realism to your writing and transport your readers into your scenes.

6. Delete your adverbs.

This may seem picky, but it is an easy way to make your writing more powerful. Overuse of adverbs points to a weakness in your verbs. Why write “She walked quickly away from the mysterious man” instead of she hurried, she ran, or she rushed? When I am editing my work (I do not edit when I am writing my initial draft — I try to get everything out first), I examine every single adverb and question whether it is necessary, or whether I could substitute a better verb instead.

7. Limit Point of View to one character per chapter/section.

Beginning writers often struggle with POV, and this struggle can make for confusing and disjointed reading. While there are many variations of types of POV a writer may use, I think that it is simpler for new authors to stick with either a limited 3^rd person view or a first person view. I write in the 3^rd person and limit the number of POVs in the novel to a handful. I also write each chapter from one perspective at a time, so as not to confuse the reader as to whose head we are in.

8. Be as dedicated to your marketing as you are to your writing.

In today’s world of self-publishing where anyone and everyone can become “an author,” rising above the noise has become increasingly difficult. Just as I schedule time each day to write, I also schedule time to interact with fans and to build my readership base. We all know the outlets: Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc. I do them all. I have taken a page from the non-fiction world in which platform is king. I decided with my first novel to begin building a platform, not focused on my book, but around me as an author. I was the brand, and the book was merely the first product. As an author, you are now considered an “expert” on the subject about which you write, so why not speak and blog about the themes and topics in your novel?

9. Keep writing!

Like wine, writing improves with age and experience. Writing is a craft and like most worthwhile activities requires practice. But most of all, write because the creative process brings you joy, inspiration, and fulfillment. That’s why I do it.

Jeffrey Small, Jr. is the author of the best selling thriller, The Breath of God, which won the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for Best Fiction and was hailed as "a thought-provoking masterpiece" by RT Book Reviews, "visionary fiction" by Library Journal, and "a fast-paced adventure" by Kirkus. His second novel, The Jericho Deception, arrives in late April 2013. He is also a popular blogger on Huffington Post, and an acclaimed speaker on religious and spirituality topics. http://www.jeffreysmall.com/JeffreySmall.com/Home.html

How to Make Your Characters Believable

2013-05-05T23:37:00.000+02:00

When I was a baby, the movie Jaws was in theaters. My parents couldn’t find a babysitter so along I went. The film is suspenseful and gripping. But it seems that the audience of that particular showing got more than they bargained for. As a baby, I stood on my mother’s lap, clapped and cheered ever time the shark ate someone. I was a twisted child. I identified with the shark.

This is a classic film with many classic scenes and lines. One such line involves Roy Scheider’s character Chief Brody saying, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” This was right after we see the shark for the first time. And more importantly, Chief Brody sees the shark. What makes this line so classic?

Characters that are believable leave an indelible mark on an audience. They are accepted and embraced by moviegoer and readers alike. The litmus test of a believable character is reaction. What does a character do in response to stimuli? A character who stares down a twenty-five foot Great White shark and shrugs it off without fear is not believable.

But there is more to this than authentic reactions. There are qualities in people, many qualities, many traits. A well rounded character is a collage of traits that makes them unique. Look at the villain who cares about beauty of life or the hero who has some struggle personally. We, like the characters we search for, have a myriad of traits. Some are good and some are bad. And that is the key to a believable character. Someone who displays many qualities, is grounded in those qualities, will react with a believable response.

To get the process rolling, let’s take a look at a few questions designed to get the character makeup kick-started. First question: What does the character want? This could be something as simple as peace and quiet or as complex as obtaining a specific item. The idea here is to find what drives that character, not find out what they want for lunch. This goal, this passion is the basest desire they have. This encompasses their lives. This will help you see what the character is moving toward.

Next question: Why will this goal satisfy the character? Does the character want peace and quiet? Why? Is it because they have lived a life of war, military service? Dig deeper, what is it about peace and quiet? Is it because they feel like they have given enough, it is time to retire? A realistic reason to obtain the life goal will help you see why a character is driven.

How does the character go about reaching the goal? In the case of peace and quiet, does the character withdraw from everyone around him? Does the character fight through obstacles? The process by which a character moves toward their goal is as unique as the person themselves. Each step leads the character closer or further away from that goal. This will help you see how the character understands the world around them.

Finally, how does the character measure success? Is this character satisfied that they are moving toward peace and quiet or are they only truly happy when they have attained it? The perception of what constitutes success defines the character’s commitment. This will help you see the determination of the character.

Take all these answers and formulate a character that has a past, who wants a life goal, whether they know how to get it or not, and reacts to life like you do. This is the beginning of creating a believable character. Finesse and polish your character by talking to them. I know it sounds cliché, but it works. A believable character will know how they will respond if you ask them. Just like Chief Brody, they will reveal a real person.

James R. Johnson began his entertaining career in the mid nineties with schooling at the renown American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. Studying Film and Television acting, James went learned the nuances of movement and interpretation in performance.

After graduating, James stayed in Manhattan and pursued the call of the starving artist. Working full time and attending open "cattle calls", he tried to make a name for himself. Unfortunately, open auditions brought hundreds of actors that looked just like him. There just wasn't enough time in the day to work to support life in the city and put all the effort necessary into making a successful acting career. Without an agent or union affiliation, James felt it best to build his resume in a small market.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG13

More details about the book

Top Tips on Book Marketing

2013-05-03T07:00:00.000+02:00

Today I'm joined by a few of the marketing pro's that will be presenting at this years Promo Day event on Saturday 25th May. Each has dropped by to share a tip on book marketing.

Jessica McHugh

"The ability to create original characters and plots is an amazing talent to have. It’s also a talent that a lot of people have. So what makes you different? What makes you noteworthy enough to win new readers by posting social media updates? No one can discover that but you, but hey, being inventive is your job, right? If you can create characters out of thin air, you can figure out how to use your asessets to grab the internet's attention. Take the time, have confidence, and brainstorm what makes you special--aside from your amazing writing skills. Plus, it never hurts to have fun with your audience. There are too many “I'm drinking lots of coffee and writing a book that you should BUY NOW” updates out there, and they're easy to scroll on by. Use your imagination to make people want to stop, take notice, and share your work with everyone they know." - Jessica Mc Hugh

Virginia Jennings

"Quote pictures, everyone loves them! You see them all over social media. Create some book quote pictures and ask your fans to start sharing them around for you. Help a fellow author friend out by creating a book quote picture for their book too!" - Virginia Jennings

Sandy Lender

"A simple tip authors may forget is to use the name of their product. Strangers on the street don't know the title of your latest book. They'll forget your name by the time they get to the local brick-and-mortar on the corner or to Amazon after a long drive in traffic, so you want to give them as many references as possible. Never say, "I love what my heroine does in my book." Instead, be precise. "I love the way Chariss crinkles her nose in Choices Meant for Gods." When you give an example in an online forum, don't tell the visitors/chatters that your new book was released sooner than you anticipated. Tell them Problems Above Pangaea Moon was released in December, before you expected it to be released. Specifics will stick. "My book" isn't searchable. The actual title is." - Sandy Lender

Linda Randall

"Create a book trailer for YouTube that looks like a mini movie in two minutes. Not only will this help sell "any" product. It will give your fans a piece of your face, voice and an idea of how your characters look when they come to life..." - Linda Randall

These ladies, along with the other fabulous presenters at this years event, have loads more tips for you too. Register now at www.PromoDay.info to take part in this fantastic free event. You'll be glad you did!

Building Strong Stories is Like Putting a Jigsaw Puzzle Together

2013-04-30T18:15:00.001+02:00

Nothing is more frustrating to a reader than to begin a story, investing emotionally, getting attached and, part way through, realizing the writer is not taking you anywhere; you are lost with no resolution, let alone any satisfying denouement, on the horizon. The TV series, Lost, is a recent case in point (how appropriately named). How does this happen?

I’ve spoken to a number of writers over time and one thing always amazes me - how differently writers approach the writing process. On one side of the spectrum, some tell me they methodically plot out their narratives. On the other side, others tell me they sit down and just start writing - they say their characters come to life and guide them as to where to go (these folks usually report they are satisfied with their story after 20 or so rewrites). I’m one who likes the middle ground, although I tend toward the later folks, wanting to know where I am heading, if not my destination, before I begin the trip. I follow the design, craft, then write process.

L. R. W. Lee

When you shop for a jigsaw puzzle, how do you choose which one you buy? The picture on the box. Put another way, the destination. You bring your jigsaw puzzle home and what do you do? You look on the box to see how big it will be when assembled. Then you locate a table large enough that will not be needed for something else while you construct the puzzle. You locate a pair of scissors and finally open the box. What have you done? You’ve designed the environment in which you will construct your puzzle.

Now that the puzzle box is open, what’s the first thing you do? You begin sorting similar pieces in piles. You put similar colored or textured pieces together in their own piles and put edge pieces in another pile. You have crafted how your puzzle will take shape. Only now do you begin constructing the puzzle.

Writing is no different. The design and crafting phases help organize your thoughts so you more easily reach your desired destination with fewer rewrites.

Design your story beginning with a few questions:

What am I trying to accomplish from writing this? Am I trying to convince someone to do something? Am I trying to explain something? Am I trying to discourage some outcome?
What events, thoughts, feelings could contribute to accomplishing this objective?
What kinds of characters will I need to invent to accomplish my goal? (hero, villain, sympathetic, miserly, etc)
What background do my readers need to know about the situation and characters? How can I weave this back story through character and situation introductions?
How can I introduce questions in my reader’s mind that keep them engaged and turning pages to know more?
How do I want my reader to feel during each phase of the narrative?

Once you have a firm grasp of the design of your story, begin crafting your narrative with these questions:

Who does what? When? Why? How? Where? Demand that your answers work with the physics of the world you are creating.
At what point, in story-time, will the narrative begin? End?
How can I best show, and not tell, what is happening?
Which of the five senses will I appeal to as I introduce characters and situations?
What tools will be introduced and when? If your character needs a sword in a middle chapter, where/when is the sword introduced before he needs it?
What themes will you trace throughout the story to build suspense and a coherent narrative? Is it a character doing something? Is it a mystery waiting to be revealed? Is it an object mysteriously showing up periodically?

Notice, you have not yet committed words to paper. The design and crafting phases are primarily exercises that help you organize your thoughts. I believe they are the hardest parts of inventing any story. This is where your skill at inventing characters, places and conflicts shines. While difficult, I believe these are the two most critical elements to writing great stories. Only after completing your design and crafting should you begin writing.

With your narrative thought through, your characters are now free to emerge and realize their potential. I am always amazed at how my characters respond to the freedom that designing and crafting produce. They go where I hadn’t imagined, have more attitude than I’d expected, and become bigger personalities, while arriving at the desired destination with a minimum of rewrites.

L. R. W. Lee is the author of Andy Smithson: Blast of the Dragon’s Fury, a middle grade fantasy adventure that entertains while also teaching uncommon life principles designed to make your life more satisfying. You can connect with her at www.lrwlee.com.

Buy the book at http://amzn.to/15BlTKk

Practical Advice for Beginning Fiction Writers

2013-04-28T07:00:00.000+02:00

I’m not a grizzled veteran of fiction writing. POISON PILL is my first work of fiction, and I began writing it in November 2010. I cannot offer decades of experience, but I’m still close enough to the beginner’s stage to remember my mistakes (and repeat them – so please consider this a “best practices” compendium as opposed to an honest representation of my writing process).

Write every day. In my experience, writing is surprisingly similar to playing an instrument. It’s the mastery of the unsexy, plodding nuts and bolts of the craft that will allow you to produce beautiful, ethereal art. Growing up, I studied to be a classical pianist. It wasn’t a hobby — it was a three to four hour a day commitment. A break from playing, even for a couple of weeks, produced a noticeable drop in my technical ability. I’m now seeing the same thing with writing — step away from writing fiction for a month, and the prose doesn’t flow as well. The characters sulk and don’t talk to me. Writing feels like hard work. On the other hand, writing becomes much less effortful if I do it every day (even after just a couple of weeks). I see my characters moving and doing things, and I just hurry and report on their activities.

Learn from the greats. In my day job as a lawyer, I write a lot. But I also don’t reinvent the wheel. If I need to write a brief, I find a good brief that discusses the same issues of law and crib liberally. That’s OK – that’s considered good form in lawyering, and it saves the client lots of money. In the process of rewriting the briefs that came before mine, I see the construction of the argument, I ponder why they chose to order the issues in the way that they did, I notice the phrasing that gives a point its persuasive punch. I learn.

I don’t suggest you crib from a writer you admire for your fiction — that wouldn’t be OK — that would be plagiarism, copyright violation, and just plain bad juju. But I do suggest that you read the books you love in a forensic manner. Why is a particular paragraph so effective? How are characters introduced? How much space is devoted to the description of the setting vs. the action or the dialogue? Try reading aloud and/or copying the text either longhand or by typing it – I promise you’ll see patterns that you didn’t see by simply reading with your eyes.

Write what you’re passionate about, not necessarily what you know. Write about the stuff that doesn’t let you sleep at night. The writing process is arduous enough and can seem low-reward enough that if you’re not interested in your subject, you won’t go the distance. You can always do research and find answers, but you cannot manufacture passion that isn’t there.

Write as if no one will ever read it. In order to write great fiction, you have to write the story you’re living with honestly. It may have embarrassing parts like the shmexy stuff, or the curse words, or describing your mother-in-law’s loud belching. It may require that you revisit a painful episode from your own life, like a rape that you’ve told no one about. Unless you’re a sociopathic narcissist, the thought of someone reading what you wrote with this kind of candor is paralyzing. So pretend that you’ll erase the novel as soon as you’re done writing it. Can you delve into that difficult scene now?

Write first, edit later. POISON PILL was started as a National Novel Writing Month novel (www.nanowrimo.org). I made a commitment to write a 50,000-word first draft during the month of November. That works out to 1667 words a day (including Thanksgiving). At this pace, you don’t have time to write a sentence, ponder its ugliness, erase it, write a different sentence, erase it too… You write garbage and it stays and it adds to the word count. Quantity is the name of the game. This insanely compressed deadline is brilliant at silencing your inner editor, and suddenly you are free to write. You can’t edit what you haven’t written, so don’t worry about the niceties now — just get that first draft out of your head and onto paper. Or into a computer file.

And finally…

THE FIRST DRAFT OF ANYTHING IS SHIT. That’s not me. That’s Ernest Hemingway. A copy of this quote is framed, and has been standing on my desk since the first day I sat down to write POISON PILL. I draw strength from it daily.

M. A. Granovsky uses her background as a cancer biologist and lawyer, and her international travels, to craft fast-paced, intricately plotted capers, where the protagonists rely on their wits rather than their brawn, and the body count rises only as much as is necessary. M. A.'s writing is influenced by her life-long passion for observing and understanding human behavior, and provides a window into the worlds of scientists, attorneys, and financiers, the passions and fears that motivate them, and the unintended consequences of untempered competition.

She currently lives in New York City, but has lived in many other places, from the exotic (Wilmington, Delaware), to the normal (St. Petersburg, Jerusalem), to the entertaining (Florence -- in a convent). While it's difficult to be the new kid on the block repeatedly, this nomadic existence - in terms of geography and career - continues to yield a rich vein of thriller plots.

Buy Now @ Amazon

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Maria Granovsky on Twitter & GoodReads

One Year Lived Give-Away

2013-04-27T18:42:00.002+02:00

Today I'm reviewing One Year Lived by Adam Shepard and have an awesome give-away for you all. You can win a free e-copy of this book just for helping to spread the word. That's right all you need to do is share about this give-away on your own site (with a link back to this post) and post the link to your post in the comments section below along with your email address and I'll send you your free book. Simple!

About the book & author:

One Year Lived is available at Amazon.com, BN.com, and the website www.OneYearLived.com

Adam Shepard has been featured on NPR, CNN, Fox News, Today, and 20/20 and profiled in the New York Times, New York Post, Christian Science Monitor, and Atlantic Monthly. He currently spends his time empowering audiences to take initiative. His keynote speech What Will You Do Next? details strategies for capitalizing on both triumph and misfortune.

My review:

One Year lived is an inspiring book about Adam's own personal journey visiting various countries over the course of a year. I really admire him for doing this and felt an immediate connection (I had done a similar thing back in 2001 when I left the UK to travel through Europe. I got as far as Rome in Italy and ended up staying but the intention had been to visit as many places as possible). Anyway this book starts with a list. A bit like a bucket list of things to do before you die but with the emphasis on living. What things would you like to do? Where would you like to visit?

The book then takes you through personal accounts of his trips to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines and Europe. His casual style takes you there with him and you really feel like you get to know him and the places he visits.

An excellent read for all but especially for those of you that have ever written a list of your own or thought about exploring different countries. Warning though, this book might just be the push you need to make it reality!

Now go and share about this post and drop your link, along with your email, in the comments section below to get your free copy of this book.

This give-away is valid only for those who leave a comment on 27th and 28th April.

Virtual Book Signings

2013-04-25T12:41:00.000+02:00

Whilst it's always nice to get out there and do in person events, where you get to connect with your readers face to face, it isn't always easy. You need a location, copies of your book and a whole host of other stuff that can take time, effort and money to organise. For those writers that prefer to be writing away in the comfort of their own homes as opposed to under the spotlight doing public appearances the idea of doing an in person book signing can be more than daunting.

What if I told you that you can do a book signing without leaving your home, without being face to face with people, and completely free?

Well you can and it's super easy too! The guys and girls at Author Graph have created an awesome tool that is perfect for virtual book signings.

Once you open a free account with them and upload your book information people can start using the site to request a digital autograph from you.

To make more of it, turn it into an actual event and advertise it via your social media accounts, website, and blog as a virtual book signing.

Readers can then request a digital autograph via the site just by clicking on the "request autograph" button

Example from my own author page

They can even send you a message so you can personalise your autograph just for them.

Make it personal and unique for each reader

If you're not camera shy you can take it to the next level and film the book signing. A fun way to do this is via a Google+ hangout. You can invite readers to join you for a quick meet the author session and then record your computer screen as you sign a copy of your book for each of them. About as close as a virtual book signing can get to being like an in person book signing.

Have you done a virtual book signing yet?

A Round Up of London Book Fair 2013

2013-04-24T07:00:00.000+02:00

The London Book Fair took place 15-17 April 2013 at Earls Court in London, UK. I really wish I could have been there myself but sadly it didn't happen this year. I did follow it virtually though and there was some great information and advice shared. From what I saw it was also quite the social setting with loads of networking taking place.

You can find out more about the event at the website http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/Home/ but I thought it would be nice to give an overview of what happened at this years event.

Photo's from London Book Fair 2013:

Some tweets from this years event:

"The KDP stand reported this year’s No. 1 question was, 'Why isn’t my book selling?'" @byrozmorris ow.ly/kgC7F #LBF13
— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) April 21, 2013

"Online is crucial for generating publicity as a large proportion of the audience are now online"@bloomsburybooks #lbf13

— The London Book Fair (@LondonBookFair) April 16, 2013

Have a plan, keep talking, provide awesome stuff / exclusive content, use every point of contact. HC dos for successful #communities #lbf13

— Imola Unger (@ImolaUnger) April 16, 2013

@pressfuturist #lbf2013 publishing career is as much about what you do in your spare time as what you do in the job. Explore.

— PWA (@Profwriting) April 15, 2013

In this video Joanna Penn chats with Amazon's Thom Kephart, Kobo's Mark Lefebvre, BookBaby's Brian Felsen, Smashwords' Mark Coker and Gareth Howard from Authoright PR at the London Book Fair

Some blog posts about the event that you might want to check out:

Defining the New Role for Literary Agents

Young Debut Authors Fetch Big Advances

Empowered Authors and Digital Revolution

The London Book Fair 2013 – An Aspiring Author’s Guide: The Brilliant Authors’ Lounge and the Terrifying LitFactor Pitch

The London Book Fair 2013

For a look at what happened in the Author Lounge check out http://www.authoright.com/authorlounge-whats-on/lounge

Did you attend this years event? What was the highlight for you? Got any tips for others wanted to attend this event? Anyone thinking about going to next years event?

Interview with Joseph M Rinaldo

2013-04-23T07:00:00.000+02:00

When did you know you wanted to be a writer? While reading Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks, I learned he received a million-dollar advance. I thought, "He's good, but I can do this." That was in 2004, and I've been writing ever since. The confidence to do this came from my English teacher in my freshman year of high school. For the short story we had to write, she told the class that I was one of five people who wrote so well she could help them with their stories. She was a tough teacher and never dispensed any compliments unless they were true. At that moment I knew I could write, but never thought much about it again until 2004.

What genre do you write and why? I am proud to say that my books do NOT fall into a genre! When you read one of my books, I refuse to guarantee a happy ending like you know is coming in a Romance novel. The conclusion might be to your expectation or not; however, I hope it's unexpected.

Tell us about your latest book. A Mormon Massacre - A Mormon militia slaughtered a wagon train of 150 Arkansas emigrants in Utah Territory in 1857. This ranked as the largest mass killing of Americans by Americans until the Oklahoma City bombing, excluding the Civil War. When the bodies were accidentally uncovered in 1999, Mike Leavitt, the Governor of Utah and allegedly a direct descendant of an 1857 militiaman/murderer, ordered them re-buried. Jeremiah, in present-day Nashville, decides to go undercover and see what else the Mormons are hiding.

What marketing methods are you using to promote your book? We try everything we can think of, and we perpetually try new approaches. We've paid for advertising and hired a marketing firm - both expensive and a complete waste of money. We hit Facebook hard and consistently, but I'm convinced that people who use Facebook never read anything longer than two sentences. FB is only helpful in that it might help you find outlets and contacts for promoting your book, but you won't sell more than two or three copies advertising on Facebook alone.

What formats is the book available in? The novel is available in Word, html, epub, mobi, and pdf formats as an ebook and in paperback format.

What do you like to do when you're not writing? As a family, we enjoy boating. During the summer, we spend a lot of time sitting in the boat on a lake doing a whole lot of nothing. I also like to jog, and my wife will join me once in a great while.

Who are your favorite authors? I read all kinds of things. For a brief two-book period, I was reading about people who live aboard boats. I like boats, but that seems kind of odd even for me. Specifically, Without Remorseby Tom Clancy was pretty good. I read that so long ago. Recently I devoured all three of the Hunger Gamesnovels. Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and Gone Girl were outstanding. Naming a single favorite is like naming the one ice cream cone that was best. Who knows? You just keep going back for more.

What advice do you have for other writers? The road to getting a book on the market is a long one. You better have thick skin, or you're going to get crushed. Also, you have to find someone who is willing to tell you the truth about your writing. Sounds easy; I promise you it is NOT. People generally do not want to hurt someone else's feelings, or worse, they know you'll get mad or defensive, so they won't bother pointing out any negatives. The right person is tough to find.

What's your favorite quote about writing/for writers? I don't really have a quote that I use for inspiration or that motivated me to become an author. For me being a writer is about the story. Jeremiah's journey from lackluster college student to going undercover in the Mormon Church came into my head, and that's what motivated me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is about bringing to life all the voices in your head.

What's the best thing about being a writer? The thrill of having a set of facts mold themselves into a story. After learning that the slaughter of 150 people at Mountain Meadows stood as the largest killing of Americans by Americans outside of the Civil War until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, I wondered how someone alive today who lost an ancestor at Mountain Meadows might feel about Mormons. That thought kept rolling around in my head until it gelled in A Mormon Massacre.

Where can people find out more about you and your writing? All three of my published books - A Spy At Home, Hazardous Choices, and A Mormon Massacre - are for sale only on Amazon, each in both ebook and paperback formats. My Amazon author page can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-M.-Rinaldo/e/B003APFY62/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1359078024&sr=8-1. I also have my own website: www.josephmrinaldo.com.

Anything else you'd like to add? A Mormon Massacre will feed your curiosity about religion and specifically Mormons. One part of the book that I would like to note here as fact: In 1999 Utah Governor Mike Leavitt did order the bones accidentally dug up with a backhoe at Mountain Meadows reburied. He is allegedly a direct descendant of one of the killers at Mountain Meadows in 1857. If your family records are anything like mine, you might doubt that someone would know that. However, for Mormons, family lineage is of vital importance to their sense of self-worth and they keep detailed records. This is something a Mormon would know.

Social Media Demographics

2013-04-22T19:40:00.000+02:00

With so many social media options available it can all feel a bit overwhelming. How do you know which are the best sites to use for your marketing efforts?

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a comprehensive social media survey, conducted over several years to evaluate which demographics were using social media, and on which platforms.

Of the online adults surveyed at the end of 2012:

67% use Facebook
20% use LinkedIn
16% use Twitter
15% use Pinterest
13% use Instagram
6% use Tumblr

A huge 71% of women use social media (9% more than men) and the age group that dominates across most sites is young adult (18-29 year olds). The age range 30-49 year olds did show an increase though, going from 73% to 77%.

Source: DocStoc Premium

Each social media site attracts a slightly different type of user.

"You may be able to better target your specific markets by keeping the demographic tendencies of each platform in mind:

Pinterest: Significantly more rural residents, women, Caucasians, people with some level of college education and individuals with a middle to higher income
Twitter: Significantly more slanted towards the 18-29 demographic, African-Americans and urban residents
Instagram: Greater use amongst African-Americans and Hispanics, urban users, 18-29 year olds, and women
Facebook: There’s less demographic distinction on Facebook, since it’s already so ubiquitous. However, there are 10% more women than men, and like most networking sites, it is heavily used by the youngest adult age group."

Are you using the right sites for reaching your target audience?

Ten Successful Tips For Independent Authors

2013-04-21T07:00:00.000+02:00

With as much humility as I can muster, I think it is safe to say that I have written a successful novel. Collapse is closing in on 6K paid downloads and has 221 reviews, 172 of which are 4 and 5 stars. My point is not to brag, but to give you the qualifications to write this post. I would like to impart to you what I think are some tips to success.

1. Recognize the limits of your genre. Take a peek at this article. What genre does your work fall under? The most successful fiction genre is Mystery, Thriller, and Crime. I must say that surprises me, I would have picked Romance as the top genre. If your genre is towards the bottom of the list, it is unrealistic to expect great financial or critical success. My advice, approach your writing with realistic goals in mind based on these figures.

2. Hire an editor. Let’s be perfectly clear, your spouse is not an editor, your best friend is not an editor, your friends and family are not editors unless they edit professionally and have professional experience. They can still serve a vital function as proofreaders, which we will discuss in the next point. It doesn’t matter if you made straight As in English or even have an English degree. Professional editing has lots and lots of rules and you need someone who knows those rules backwards and forwards. Let’s take a little test to prove this point. Take the number 1309. How do you put that on the page? Do you type the digits or the words? How do you type the words? One thousand three hundred nine or one thousand three hundred and nine? Another example: You reference a TV show and a particular episode like Star Trek: The Next Generation with the episode The Inner Light. How do you put that on the page? Is the TV show italicized or underlined? Is the episode also italicized or is it in quotation marks? Is your head spinning yet? Here’s one more: president. When do you capitalize it? “President of the United States” or “president of the United States?” “Someone needs to contact the president” or “Someone needs to contact the President?” I could list many, many more examples. Afraid of the semicolon? I am. I still have trouble trying to figure out when to use it. How confident are you that you know all of these rules? Hire an editor. Mistakes on the page yank the reader out of the story when they notice them. My editor is Susan Hughes, visit her website and consider hiring her.

3. Use proofreaders. You need as many sets of eyes to read your work prior to release and proofreaders can help you to clarify confusing elements of the storyline or even point out factual errors in your work. In my latest work, one of the chapters deals with a naval encounter. I was never in the Navy, my knowledge of naval officer dialogue is limited to Kirk and Picard on the bridge of their respectiveEnterprise. I sought out a valuable resource I had at my disposal – a former navy officer. He read the chapter and sent me back notes on what naval officers would say and pointed out a glaring mistake on what goes on in a torpedo attack. Proofreaders can also give you honest input on what portions of the story are too slow or might even wound your pride and tell you that a particular chapter is pointless and needs to be cut. Listen to the input and take it to heart. Your proofreaders are representatives of every reader that will read your work. If portions of your work confuse or bore them, the same will be true for any reader.

4. Have your book cover done professionally. I am a horrible artist. There, I said it. Terrible doesn’t even begin to describe how bad I am. I was so terrible at the game Draw Something that I deleted it from my phone. I’m that bad. My next plan was to utilize my computer skills and become proficient at a graphic design program. I figured I could come up with something simple yet elegant. After six hours I had a solid black background with the word “Collapse” in a cool font right in the center of the image. My name was at the top, the tagline “America Will Fall” was at the bottom. It looked awful. It was time to hire a professional, which every indie author should do. I found a wonderful graphic designer on Twitter by the name of Laura LaRoche. Visit her website at www.llpix.com at take a look at her work. Her rates are very affordable. I simply gave her a detailed description of what I wanted and after some more input from me, I had an amazing cover.

5. Go exclusive with Amazon with the KDP Select Program. I can’t emphasize this enough. My success both financially and in terms of downloads is owed to KDP Select. Once enrolled in the program, you get paid per borrow in the Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL). If you are not enrolled in KDP, you get nothing from the KOLL program. At roughly $2 per borrow, I’ve had months in the $300 to $500 range simply from KOLL alone. Some of you might be wary of this, thinking that you will find more success making your work available across all platforms. In my own personal experience, for every 1 download from Barnes & Nobles, I have 20 from Amazon. In my non-KDP months, I’ve had 1 download from Kobo, Smashwords and 0 from iTunes. The numbers are there and they speak for themselves. The money I make from KOLL will never be made up from the other platforms. If you have found great success from other platforms, I’d love to hear about it in the comments with some tips on how you did it. During your free promos, it is imperative that you put the word out. Author Rachelle Ayala has a wonderful resource on her blog that will help tremendously.

6. Social Media. This outlet is a must for any indie author. I have sold a great many books from Twitter as detailed in this post. As I mentioned in that post, I highly recommend the program TweetAdder. It does all the heavy lifting for you and can gain you 200-300 followers a day if done right. You can also create lists of tweets talilored to certain needs like free promos, pushing your audiobook, pushing your novel, or pushing your blog. This blog gets 600-800 views a day and over half of them come from Twitter.

Facebook can also be a valuable tool if used successfully. Create an author page on Facebook and use it to promote your work. FB also has very effective advertising options to reach the masses. You can create a post about your novel and for increments of $5, $10 and up to $50 you can promote that post to thousands of people.

Do you have a blog? You should. Over the past year I’ve put a lot of work into this blog and have done my best to tailor it to advertise my book on every visit, no matter the content. Someone visits this blog, they will see the details for Collapse. Use your blog to promote other indie authors as I have done. The indie community is a very open and sharing one, use that resource to your benefit. I promote other indies on this blog for no monentary compensation, the only thing I ask in return from them is to help me promote my free promo days when they come around.

7. Master the very tiresome art of advertising. Advertising is a full time job by itself. Get your name out there whenever you can. It might seem like a complete waste of time that gives nothing in return at first, but plant those seeds early on and they will bear fruit in the future. I have been very, very lucky to cultivate some influential people in my advertising ventures. You never know when that one special someone will read your book and contact you for an interview or a podcast. A few weeks ago a wonderful woman by the name of Lisa Bedford, aka The Survival Mom, read Collapse during a free promo and she loved the book. She contacted me for an interview and I was honored to be the first guest on her upcoming podcast. When she posted her review of Collapse, my Amazon ranking was in the 9K range, in the days following her review, the ranking shot up to 1,353, almost breaking my record. Her review also caught the eye of Lew Rockwell, a prominent political commentator, who reposted her review on his blog.

Along with The Survival Mom’s podcast, I have done two others. The first was withThe American Preppers Network which helped boost my rankings in the early first few months of release. My most recent podcast was just a few days ago with Jim Harold, the top paranormal podcaster on iTunes. He featured the interview in The Consipracy Corner. Jim also gave me some very exciting news. He has a contact at Fox News, a man he used to do podcasts with, and he is going to pass along the word of Collapse and gave him my contact info. He made no guarantees, but having my book plugged on the weekend edition of Fox and Friends would be HUGE in terms of exposure.

Put yourself out there, never turn down a promotional opporunity and constantly search for advertising ventures. That lucky break is around the corner. I cerainly never dreamed I would be so lucky as I have mentioned above.

In terms of paid advertising, my primary piece of advice is to never gamble what you can’t afford to lose because there is no guarantee that you will get it back. If you have the funds to do so, there are many affordable resources out there. Kindle Nation Daily has some of the best in the business. They even have the numbers to back it up. Do your research and find out what best suits your budget. I have recently offered a $25 monthly promotional packet here on this blog. I think you can get a lot for your money, please look over the details and consider it.

If you are willing to spend a decent amount of money, I highly recommendBookBub. They have very large email lists and you can really get the word of your novel out there to tens of thousands of potential readers.

Another piece of advice in terms of paid advertising is not to over-saturate the market. It is unwise to use Kindle Nation Daily three times in one month, chances are you’ve reached the majority of their readership on the first one. Space it out. BookBub knows this and they only let you use their services every three months.

8. Interact with your readers as much as possible. At the end of Collapse, I included all of my contact info to include email address, FB, Twitter, and blog. I have been fortunate to interact with many fans over the last eight months. Glowing emails simply make my day, however, be wary that by putting yourself out there you are open to negative interaction as well. I receive dozens of tweets a day from readers and potential readers and I always reply to each one.

9. Receive praise, ask for a review. I have received a few negative reviews that make accusations that all of the four and five star reviews are questionable if not fraudulent. This is not the case. I honestly can’t explain the current 221 reviews my novel has received in just eight months. I certainly have not paid for reviews or created fake accounts to give myself positive reviews. I honestly wouldn’t know how to do that if I were so dishonestly inclined. One thing I have done in my interactions with fans is to ask them to leave an honest review on Amazon. I greatly appreciate complementary emails, tweets, and posts on FB, they truly make my day. I reply to them with my gratitude and a humble request to leave a review on Amazon. Since I am not actively soliciting people for reviews and instead interacting with fans, I see no issue with it. I’m certainly not telling them what to put in the review or asking them for five stars, so I see no harm.

10. Advertise your other works at the end of your novel. A reader has finished your work and enjoyed it, what’s the next logical thing they are going to do? They will seek out your other work. Between books 1 and 2, I have written a short story that deals with one of the characters from book one. At the end of Collapse, I provide a link to that short story. I also provide links to the audiobook version of Collapse. If you have written multiple books, advertise them at the end of the book and make it easy for your reader to find them.

I look forward to your comments and more suggestions for being a successful indie author.

Richard Stephenson was born in 1975 in Denison, TX and spent his childhood in North Texas. In 1992, he graduated high school after only three years. He then pursued his degree at Oklahoma Christian University, once again accomplishing the task in three years. Richard then married his best friend before going off to basic training to be a military policeman with the US Army. With his new wife joining the adventure, they spent the next four years at Fort Polk, LA and had two children.

Just before his son turned five, Richard and his wife were told that their oldest child had Asperger's Syndrome. Nine years later, Richard's son would become the inspiration for the character of Howard Beck.

After leaving the armed forces, Richard continued his law enforcement career in the federal sector and has been with the Department of Justice for twelve years.

Richard enjoys many things. He reads constantly with the thanks of his trusty iPad. When he can find the time, he can be found playing Mass Effect, Fallout: New Vegas, or Modern Warfare 2. When a friend or a friend of friend needs a computer fixed, Richard is on the case.

Buy now @ Amazon

More details about the author & the book

Speak Your Book into Being

2013-04-20T07:00:00.000+02:00

Writers are known for their way with words and through the years we have all seen them depicted hunched over typewriters in dusty rooms as their minds spun tales translated by their nimble fingers tapping onto the keys.

I’ve often wondered how the process of creativity overlaps the necessary concentration needed to write. Is anything lost in the process of needing to slow down or pause to type out what we are thinking, seeing or feeling.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi tells us "Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does." But if we are truly “fully absorbed” then how can we write?

Am I to assume then that writers are channeling their information? Or do they concentrate and simultaneously create, deliberately scheming to make the story more engaging, more frightening, more of any feeling they are trying to have their reader experience? Does writing come from that place of creativity that can be seen as a gift or is it manipulated and constructed from the imagination? As as for the readers, are we having our own experience relating to the story or are we being taken on a journey by ath author, a journey of their making?

Book Cover design credit: April Sanson

In my own process of writing, I can feel states of flow coming on but I could never capture what comes to me at the speed of light with my fingers. My chosen genre is non-fiction and I feel moments of clarity and inspiration to share different parts of my journey. I experience a need to share in order to help others on a similar journey avoid the same pitfalls and mistakes and gain benefit from shortcuts I’ve discovered or research that helped me move along faster.

So I “cheat” at writing and I record myself. Technology is a wonderful thing. I then take the recordings and have them transcribed. But is it cheating? Over the last 5 years I have had the pleasure to meet and interview hundreds of authors and the majority of them shared that they have the same challenge. When they sit down to write their information, time becomes an issue as does the “flow” of content. They pause to choose better words or edit their explanations. What happens then is that they lose the essence of their message and either stop or throw away what they have created.

These authors confessed that they too record themselves as they drive, do the dishes or pick up their children from school. They lead busy lives and they want to share their information, but time is a barrier. I began to see a pattern in most non-fiction writers of recording their content, having it transcribed and then editing their own material, adding in whatever they feel needs to be added or taken away. They use this as a framework to build upon and it makes writing their books feel almost effortless. As a result they move on to creating full lines of training products and even more books.

They ask me not to share their “little secret” and I never know if it is because they are ashamed of not truly “writing” or if they just like living with the illusion that they too spend years and years hunched over their typewriters or keyboards.

I suppose people would judge if they knew. Or not. Perhaps they would be inspired to speak their own books into being and share what they know. My question to you, the reader is this? Are you assigned the title of an author or a writer because you actually write or for the content you create? How does content come to you and when it does come, are you able to fully capture it in its purest essence when writing or does something get lost in the process? Or do your write to allow your imagination to take others on a specific journey?

A good exercise would be to try to do it differently and see if there is an improvement. If you write, why not try to speak your next chapter into being? Imagine the time you will save if you are planning a multi-book series or have been stuck without the necessary time to write. I know recording works for me, and I have done both, recording and writing. But I must confess, when I record myself, my message is much more clear and authentic. Because my genre is non-fiction, my speaking resonates with my readers and my style translates exactly through the book as it does when I meet my readers live. This is a bonus in my business and makes life much easier.

Kytka Hilmar-Jezek image credit:
Simon Shakespeare

Kytka Hilmar-Jezek is the author of Book Power: A Platform for Writing, Branding, Positioning & Publishing, where she teaches authors the power of gamifying your book and how it can grow your business. She believes that everyone has a book in them and should be inspired to write. You can connect with her at www.BeMoreThanYouAre.com

Buy the book at http://amzn.to/15cNYY5

Plotter or Pantser

2013-04-19T11:15:00.000+02:00

When it came to my first book, I just wrote it, in complete ignorance of the “rules” of writing books. The characters and the plot had been rattling around in my head for years and a fortuitous skiing accident left me alone with a notebook computer in a ski chalet. For the next few months I used every spare moment in getting that story down. It had a beginning a middle and an end and is now, after many, many rewrites, my award winning novel ‘BY THE SWORD”.

Once I had written that novel, I started learning about the “craft of writing” and it seemed I had done it all wrong. Apparently I was supposed to plot my book in meticulous detail before I even considered starting writing. I went to writers’ conferences and sat through workshops on plotting, character arcs, hero’s journeys and my writing completely froze. My muse, fickle miss, deserted me completely as I agonized over synopsis cards and mind maps and time lines. None of those stories were ever written. I was bored with them before I even started to write. Where was the magic of creating my characters worlds, learning their motivations as I went along? The creative process that had led me to write that first book had been completely stifled.

It took a workshop given by NYT best selling author, Jo Beverley, to free me up. In her workshop she talked about “Flying Into the Mist” which I discovered was the polite way of saying “pantser”. She told us that she never plotted her books and I sat and stared at her as if she was some sort of second coming. She gave me permission to write books the way I wanted to write books.

So, I am a pantser, a flimmer… I start my books with a vague notion of characters, a rough idea of setting and a few, what I will call “lily pads” of plot ideas. During Nanowrimo last year, in a departure from historical romance, I wrote a mystery novel. I knew the principle characters and the setting but, to be honest, I had no idea of who was going to be murdered or why or by whom. With the imposed discipline of the 30 days, I let the characters lead me on their adventure. I love this story and I can’t wait to get back into it and start the rewrite because I have decided that the first rough draft of my stories are MY version of plotting.

Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, don’t ever expect your first draft to be of a “submissable” quality. Mine are as rough as guts with big holes and little asides such as or . Since discovering Scrivener, my writing has freed up…as I learn a little more about the characters I jot it down in the character templates, likewise the settings (which are often characters in their own rights) but a discussion on Scrivener is for another post.

The real art of writing is in the rewrite and that is the bit I love with a passion. I liken it to being a painter, your first draft is your sketch, the rewrite is where you get to layer the paint on and that is where the joy of creation lies.

Every writer is different and it is presumptuous of one writer to say to another. “What you are doing is wrong… this is the right way of doing it”. There is no right way of doing it. If you are a new writer who is struggling to plot your work, let it go, just write. I give permission for you to fly into the mist, just sit down with your characters and let them lead you on the journey. It is OK to be a pantser.

Alison Stuart is an award winning Australian writer of historicals with heart. Whether duelling with dashing cavaliers or waywards ghosts, her books provide a reader with a meaty plot and characters who have to strive against adversity, always with the promise of happiness together. Alison is a lapsed lawyer who has worked in the military and fire service, which may explain a predisposition to soldier heroes. She lives with her own personal hero and two needy cats and likes nothing more than a stiff gin and tonic and a walk along the sea front of her home town. She loves to hear from her readers and can be found at her website, facebook, twitter and Goodreads.

Find Alison on the Web

Website: http://www.alisonstuart.com

Blog: http://www.alisonstuart.blogspot.com

Alison will be awarding ecopies of her two previously published books THE KING’S MAN and the award winning BY THE SWORD, which are set in the same period as this story, to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a gift pack of Alison Stuart products to a randomly drawn host.

I encourage you to follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/02/virtual-book-tour-secrets-in-time-by.html

Naming Fictional Characters

2013-04-18T07:00:00.000+02:00

People often ask me how I name my characters. Sometimes I mash the keyboard and see what name I can make up with the letters that come up – yes really, that is now I named the characters from my first ever book. BUT sometimes I choose to name them after fictional characters I myself love.

For my 1 Night Stand stories, I chose to name the brothers after X-Men characters. For this series, I’ve chosen to use the names of my favourite princess and her father.

Princess Adora is also known as She-Ra. My favourite female character growing up.

To me, she represented everything I wanted my princess Adora to have. Power, vulnerability, sensuality, a fighting spirit and above all else, she was tough. Once I’d picked a name for her, I wanted to name my hero after someone else in the same universe that she lived. Unfortunately the names are all either plain (which I don’t like at all) or just weird. So I chose Randor from the He-Man & She-Ra universe too.

Luckily, the names are where the similarities stop. I know of some authors who name characters after loved ones, people they know or used to know, but I have never been able to do that. If I even read of a character named Richard or Dennis, I instantly think of my brothers and am instantly taken out of the story.

Which is why I like my random, sometimes made up and literally unique names. This book has Adora, Randor, Polara, Kiel, Elvira and my absolute favourite, Maleficent. The most wicked witch of all deserves to be named after Sleeping Beauty’s evil witch J

So, I have to ask, how do you react when you see the name of someone you know in a book? Do you not even bat an eye? Are you pulled from the story like I am? And do you think that having different and unique names like I do is just a bit weird?

Liia Ann White is an Australian author, hailing from Perth, WA.

She spent her childhood daydreaming about far off lands, creating her own unique characters, reading books about witches, faeries, demons, ghosts and a host of supernatural creatures. Eventually, she gained the courage to put her imagination to work.

A self-proclaimed geek, Liia collects Disney and Star Wars memorabilia and loves all things nerdy.

A vegan animal lover, she wishes to one day have her own rescue shelter for unwanted and 'unadoptable' animals. When not writing, she can be found reading or spending time with her dogs.

Liia is a member of Romance Writers of America, Romance Writers of Australia, Passionate Ink, Futuristic, Fantasy & Paranormal Chapter of RWA and Young Adult Chapter of Romance Writers of America as well as being the webmistress for YARWA.

Always interested in meeting new people, Liia can be found on facebook or twitter almost constantly.

Website: www.liiaannwhite.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/LiiaAnn

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LiiaAnnWhite

The Writer’s Dilemma

2013-04-17T07:30:00.000+02:00

In the old days (just a few years ago, actually), a writer strived to make it to a major New York publisher. It was (and is) a struggle. None of the publishers would consider an author who did not come through a respected agent. Unfortunately, most agents were (and are) inundated with proposals and manuscripts and rarely have the time to read more than a few pages from a new author. Most authors have drawers full of rejection slips. My friend, Steve Berry, now a best seller, calls himself the king of rejections, having written either six or seven novels and having them rejected eighty or so times before he finally sold one. Most other authors will tell similar stories. I wrote my first novel, So Help Me God, and knew that it would become an instant best-seller. Wrong! It was rejected by every agent and publisher who received it. Frustrated, I even paid a free-lance editor $1500 to give me some help. She told me it was so bad that she could not even offer suggestions (She did not offer to refund my money). Undeterred, my wife and I went the print-on-demand route and self-published in hard cover. We promoted the book, including booths at Book Expo and the ALA annual meeting. Finally, Ken Atchity, a great literary manager, discovered me and liked the novel. He sold it to Tor/Forge who published it in paperback. Shortly thereafter it was available everywhere books were sold. He sold a proposal for my next novel, The Trial, to St. Martin’s Press for a modest advance, and there I was, published by a major New York house. Then, I learned of the problems rampant in the industry. Publishers do not promote new authors. St. Martin’s’ promotion consisted of sending the book to a few reviewers, and that was it. The same thing occurred with Dead Peasants, my current legal thriller that has been praised by nearly every reader (check out Amazon reviews). Only, once again St. Martin’s promotion was non-existent.

That brings us to the dilemma. Stick with a major publisher or do what is now called direct publishing with Amazon. It’s a dilemma I face as I polish the first draft of my next novel. I worked hard to get to a major publisher, but without promotion by the publisher, I doubt if I will get anything beyond my modest advance in return. I don’t really blame St. Martin’s. All publishers are financially strapped. They are guaranteed to make money with their big name authors. On the other hand, it’s a crap shoot with first time authors or those of us who are considered mid-list. So, there is no real reason to promote a well-known author (Grisham is going to sell a million or more books just by putting his name on the cover). As to the rest of us, they will publish and hope that the author will somehow break through on his own. That leads us back to direct publishing and its advantages. With Amazon, an author can get his or her novel available in two or three months for two or three thousand dollars while a major publisher will take over a year from receipt of the manuscript. More than fifty percent of books are now sold as e-books. In my case, for every hard cover I sell on Amazon, I sell about four e-books. With Amazon, the author payment is quite good, around sixty percent of the purchase price. So for a book sold for $5.99, the author is making about four bucks. Then, publishers don’t want to have an author write more than one book a year. There’s no such restriction on Amazon. The author still has to promote the book on Amazon, but that has proven to be true with St. Martin’s, at least with me. On the other hand, it’s good for the ego to be published by a major house. And the New York publishers can get books into bookstores. Unfortunately, my books have ended up on the back shelves, hard to find unless someone reads some of my promotion materials. So, I’m wrestling with this dilemma now. I don’t know which way I will go. It will probably largely depend on what kind of advance St. Martin’s offers.

And one last comment. I think I can say that for first time authors, the way to go is direct publishing.

Larry D. Thompson is a veteran trial lawyer and has drawn on decades of experience in the courtroom to produce riveting legal thrillers. Dead Peasants is is third After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, Thompson founded the Houston trial firm where he still serves as managing partner. The proud father of three grown children, he lives and works in Texas but spends his summers in Colorado, where he crafts his novels and hikes the mountains surrounding Vail. His greatest inspiration came from Thomas Thompson, his brother, who wrote many best-selling true-crime books and novels.

Interview with Scarlett Savage

2013-04-16T17:58:00.002+02:00

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I learned how to read when I was four years old; by age five, I’d read every picture book I could get my hands on. One snowy Saturday morning a couple of weeks before Christmas in Maine (where I grew up), we lost power. My sisters were at my grandparents house, so I was trapped at home alone with no one to play with or torture… AND no cartoons!! Before I could have a complete meltdown, my Daddy told me he’d just read a good book and he thought I’d enjoy it. As my little chest swelled with pride, he went and raided the Christmas present stash and brought me “Little House in the Big Woods”. I’d never read a book without pictures on my own before…but after the first few pages, I realized something. There didn’t need to be pictures, because the words made pictures in your MIND. Big, splashy, amazing, sensation-drenched pictures.

It took me about a week to get through it, and the minute I did—being the kind of kid I was—I thought to myself, “I can do that, too!”

As a side-note, that Christmas when I was five, as impoverished as we were, he scraped up enough money to go out and buy me a briefcase, several notebooks, two boxes of pens—one red, one black—a highlighter, folders, and a little stamper with my name on it. That Christmas morning, I announced that I was going to be a writer to anyone who would listen—and I never swayed in that desire from that moment till the moment I won my first award in school, then professionally, and began having my work produced all over the country. I lost my Daddy when I was eight, but I think of him every time I sit down at the typewriter.

What genre do you write in, and why?

That’s the funny thing with me; I have several genres. (More than one agent of mine in the past has had great angina over this fact for reasons well beyond my understanding). I’ve written several books that would be qualified as “Chick Lit” (my novel, “Thinking With Your Ring Finger”, based on a pilot that I wrote about my close friendship with my ex-husband’s first wife, is definitely “Chick Lit”, as well as the novelization of my award-winning off-Broadway play “She F*&king Hates Me: A Love Story”; I’m also working on the novelization of another “chick lit” play of mine, called “Naked Pictures of My Ex-Husbands”). But several of my works are much darker—“Narcotic Nation” is what I would call adventure fiction, as is my novel “The Madman’s Clay”. “Not This Girl, Not This Day” would be classified as young adult fiction—it’s based on a play I’m hoping to open soon in LA, about what rape does to the men in the lives of a rape survivor, which has been a strangely silent POV (except for the occasional movie in which the rape victim’s family tries to avenge her in a painful bloody way). And the novelization of my play, “Chase a Killer, Catch a Killer, Run, Run, Run…” would be categorized as crime fiction.

So, I’m all over the map, as you can see!! I’ve written screenplays and novels based on my plays, but at heart, I’m a playwright. I’m endlessly fascinated with the way we communicate with each other; we talk in subtext, in code. We rarely if ever say what we mean.

Tell us about your latest book.

“Narcotic Nation” is the name. It’s the first book I published, but not for lack of trying. I completed it fifteen years ago, and I got the standard, “This is BRILLIANT, but we can’t touch the subject matter!!” from every house in NYC. It’s an alternative America, in which all drugs were legalized fifteen years ago, and while it’s resulted in a stable economy—jobs for all who want them, help for those who need it; we’ve put the farmers back to work as a thank you for starting this country, and cops, firemen, teachers, and social workers et al are finally earning the salaries they so richly deserve. However, the country is split by this decision like no other matter since the Civil War. Half the country make up the “Realists”…people who believe prohibition of any kind does nothing but make criminals rich and waste literally trillions of dollars fighting something that people have proved over many, many years they have no intention of giving up. The other half are the “Idealists”—people who believe that making so many improvements off the taxes that are imposed on the now-legal narcotics is nothing more than taking advantage of America’s sick, weak, and self-indulgent.

The story follows a rock band, Deus ex Machina, who’ve just won an Idol-type competition and are embarking on their first world tour. The members of the band are like a small example of where the country is. Roped into participating by his lead singer girlfriend, Raven Lashua, bassist and aspiring politician Ashe Brecken is actually dismayed when his band wins. Hoping to turn his instant celebrity toward a purpose, he begins working with Stay Straight, an organization dedicated to overturning the Legalization. What he doesn’t know is that Raven has reasons for supporting the Freedman Bill…and is willing to secretly sabotage his life’s work to protect it. After a public humiliation spurs his desire to overturn the Bill, Ashe employs deadly designs to make the statement that the Bill Equals Death. Turning to someone he’s long despised to assist him in this dangerous efforts, this longtime band of musicians and friends are now in the midst of changing not only the nation, but the whole world…but at what cost?

I’m not now nor have I ever been a druggie, but looking at what the world has become, I think this is an option we need to explore. With this one action, we could put the farmers, to whom we owe everything, back to work; in fact, the manufacture and distribution of drugs would create hundreds of thousands of jobs; we could regulate, and monitor, and tax the hell of out it. We could pay policemen, firemen, social workers and teachers what they’re worth. We could save the trillions we spent fighting drugs, and take all that money and put it to use in this country of ours that’s failing.

One in six American children are “food-insecure”—and of all the BS PC terms I’ve ever heard, that one is hands down the bull-shittiest. It means one in six children live in the most grinding, back-breaking, terrifying poverty and they don’t know where their next damn meal is coming from. People are not going to stop doing drugs—to quote Raven, “People will smoke their own hair if they think it’ll take them away from the here and now.” So, let’s stop pretending we can make this go away, and stop spending all that money in an effort to stop something that will never go away. Let’s get the conversation going.

What methods are you using to promote your book?

I’ve created my website, www.scarlettsavage.com, I’ve been online and posted my work on Goodreads, I’ve contacted many people through Writers and Bloggers; I’ve got interviews lined up with several radio stations. There’s a wonderful site, http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/18-top-websites-to-promote-your-book-for-free/. My publisher is setting up some virtual book tours as well. Ted Arabian, who has done a number of wonderful interviews online, is going to post a “commercial” for my book on youtube; and I’m in talks with Charlie Barrett, one of the most amazing book publicists ever, to take it to a national level.

What formats are the book available in?

Right now, contact my website; I was extremely disappointed in my first eBook company—the paperback version of the book had over a hundred special typos in the first half of the book. When I asked about good ideas for promoting, they said, “Hand out flyers.” And they got very, very upset if you mentioned any of these issues to them.

I’m currently in talks with two different houses, but if you email me directly, I’ll sell you one for half the asking price until I decide which one to go with.

Scarlett Savage

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Spend time with my kids—fifteen-year-old Daphne Juliet Ellis and eight-year-old Jessica Juliet Savage (and no, it’s not a Shakespeare homage! Shakespeare makes me crazy—he’s brilliant, to be sure, but every single year we lose a handful of brilliant playwrights to history because everyone’s so busy doing freakin’ Shakespeare…as a playwright myself, I take great umbrage!).

I live in Santa Monica, and I love to go down to the Promenade and/or Venice boardwalk to watch the street musicians and other artists; I’m a serious read-o-saurus, and I usually read three books a week.

I love nothing more than sitting down with a cup of coffee, and watching people interact. Everyone has their own little brand of language, communication, body language. I also love traveling; London and New Orleans are two of my favorite places in the world.

And I go to whatever theater production I can squeeze into my schedule! I love finding small theaters off the beaten path and see what art they’ve created. With your bigger houses, they’ve got budgets to do all kinds of things, but in the smaller places, they’ve got nothing but their creativity, and that is the kind of art that really gets my blood pumping.

Who are your favourite authors?

Stephen King. I grew up in Maine, and I went to UMaine at Orono on full scholarship to study with the same professors he did—that was back before I realized you can’t really teach writing! Judy Blume, absolutely. She wrote about things that no one else dared to write about, but things that kids have questions about and parents were, at that time, reluctant to discuss. Bullying, divorce, your first sexual experience, getting your period for the first time, masturbation…she covered it all. Michael Kimball, a dear friend of mine, wrote a book called “Green Girls”, which knocked “The Stand” out of slot #1 of my list of favorite books; just brilliant. Elizabeth Whurtzel’s books are brilliant, as well.

On my NOT favorite authors list…it absolutely KILLS me that E.L. James’ work has gotten any recognition at all. This is porn, pure and simple, and it teaches young girls that a) no doesn’t mean no b) if a man stalks you, it’s a compliment c) that getting beaten is not a horrible crime, but something you do in the name of foreplay. And her leading lady is a brain-dead ingénue who couldn’t think her way out of a wet paper bag open at both ends. It absolutely enrages me that someone could write garbage like that, and be successful at it.

What advice do you have for new writers?

Write every day. Don’t copy other writers, write what you’re passionate about. Do your research. Have more than one project going—that way if you get blocked, you can step over to the other work, and then when you go back to project a, you’ll find the block, often times, has cleared itself up. Get online and contact your favorite authors—you’d be surprised how many of them are willing to strike up online friendships, and they know the drill and give great advice.

Read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read the paper, read new novels; read biographies. I LOVE reading biographies, because they’re just as fictitious as novels, and everything doesn’t have to all tie together and make sense in the end.

What’s your favourite quote about writing/for writers?

“I try to create sympathy for my characters…then I set the monsters loose.” --Stephen King

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Getting to explore new things all the time; having an excuse to ask people questions about their passions, their work, their private lives. Getting to live vicariously through your characters. Being able to study the human condition so thoroughly on this short, short trip of life we’re allotted.

Where can people find out more about you and your writing?

www.scarlettsavage.com. You’ll find out everything you ever wanted to know and more…I’m also starting a blog. And various interviews and past events you can find by googling me.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Get a Kindle!! It’s better for the environment, and in ten years it’ll be the only way to get books. Don’t hurt the planet when there’s a better alternative!!