I’ve (almost) reached the halfway mark!
Now of course, this refers to a first draft, and we’re talking ten chapters of a first draft that may ultimately have more than 20 chapters, but that’s all I’ve outlined so far. So this is a very qualified celebration. But it feels like progress nonetheless. As avid readers of this blog know (Lock him up! He’s referring to imaginary people!), I was well into (probably halfway, ironically) a middle-grade adventure novel (working title: Opposite Day) when I decided to shelve the whole thing. One day, I might pull it back out, and one day it might actually be shelved in a physical library, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I’m not sure if it was the voice, the “reining Read More…
Amazon KDP Select Giveaway Part 1: The numbers are in.
As I gear up for another giveaway for Battle Axe–this time for three consecutive days–I wanted to share the results of my previous giveaway, which was two non-consecutive days over Easter weekend. I spent a lot of time in the preceding months reading blog posts and advice from other KDP participants. I boiled their tips down to a “best of” and that was the extent of my plan. Here’s a rundown of the “marketing” I did to announce the giveaway: The Marketing: 1. Posted on my own Facebook page 2. Sent out periodic tweets from my Twitter account 3. Sent an email blast to relevant people in my address book 4. Created an event on Goodreads and invited my friends 5. Sent a Read More…
Interviewed on “Just Following a Dream” blog!
Jessica Sayler, author of the “Just Following a Dream” blog (and author of a WIP tentatively entitled “Awakened”) was kind enough to host me on her blog and ask me a series of interesting–and random–questions. However, as fellow authors know, there’s no such thing as a random question or thought when it comes to fiction. Anything is fair game and anything can lead to inspiration, a plot point, dialogue or a character. The interview deals with both my humorous suspense novels, the recent Kindle Book Review honoree Ring of Fire and Battle Axe, and touches on my own WIP Opposite Day). You can read the brief interview here.
Choose Your Friends Carefully
What I mean by that is, if at all possible, during your formative years, become friends with someone who, a few decades later will offer to design your ebook cover as a personal favor. Make sure this person is someone who displays very little aptitude or passion for graphic design at the time, but through hard work and dedication miraculously transforms into a visionary artist and Photoshopper par excellence. Well, that’s what I did, anyway, and look what it got me. I’m posting a larger cover of my debut novel Ring of Fire here, mainly to give it a place to live so I can send out links. My designer–the multi-talented Mike Sottong–worked with my crude notions of a concept Read More…
^