Sharon E. Cathcart's Blog

Hi, everyone. As the title says, As most of you know, May is Mental Health Awareness month. I haven't talked about it much, because there has been so much else going on. I have faced many struggles with depression, and I shared some of them in a book I published a couple of years ago. You may obtain a copy of Les Pensees Dangereuses free of charge with coupon CJ26A (valid through June 30, 2013) at this link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... . Thank you, as always, for looking.

I've completed Draft 3.0 of His Beloved Infidel and had another meeting with cover artist James Courtney. We've made some modifications to the initial concept and he'll have something for me to review after Memorial Day Weekend. I'm aiming for a mid-June release on this novella.

In The Eye of The Storm? Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm almost afraid to start working on it. After four years of false starts and frustrations, the editing process feels dreadfully daunting. And yet, if I want to ever get it out there, edit I must.

And all of this is going on while I continue to read books for the Global eBook Awards and prepare for my workshops during Clockwork Alchemy's Author Salon.

No wonder I'm tired!

Since Amazon bought out Goodreads, we've all been watching to see what happens.

Well, in my specific case, four 5-star reviews, from four different titles, have suddenly disappeared. Amazon's policy of removing reviews if they suspect the reviewer has a financial interest in a product is clearly now in process at Goodreads. There is no appeal to this policy, as we have learned from unfortunate experience; Amazon makes an assumption, whether or not it is based in reality, and starts pulling reviews.

It now appears that they are applying the policy here at Goodreads. I find this truly unfortunate, on a number of levels. This has been one of the few truly useful sites for connecting readers and authors ... and if reviews are going to start disappearing, that could change drastically.

I'm reading a book right now called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Sarah R. Yoffa. It's specifically aimed at indie authors, but I think it makes sense for traditionally published authors to read it as well.

In the chapter I just finished, Yoffa talks about the "Law of Opposites." In a nutshell, this is about figuring out how you're different from other writers. That is, if your most immediate competition is "red," you want to be "blue" or "not-red."

Now, this is not as easy as boiling it down to one word, so far as I can tell. In fact, I was having a struggle to figure this out where my own work is concerned.

Here's what I came up with: I write fiction with atypical characters. In The Eye of The Beholder: A Novel of The Phantom of the Opera, for example, has a physically disfigured hero and an older (early 30s) heroine. His Beloved Infidel has a Persian hero and an American heroine, dealing with cultural conflicts that result from the Islamic revolution.

I could go on, but that's the one thing I realized is true of all of my fiction: my stories feature atypical characters.

This is a good thing to understand. Now to figure out how it works into marketing/discoverability!

Hi, everyone. I went away for the weekend, primarily to see a very intimate performance by singer/songwriter Ramin Karimloo. (If you don't know his work, you really should check him out.) He's very nice, and brilliantly talented.

While I was 500 miles away from home, I made use of my uninterrupted free time. First drafts of both His Beloved Infidel and In The Eye of The Storm are completed! Of course, there'll be edits and tweaking to follow, but that's a given.

After four years of research, false starts and frustration, I'm especially pleased about ITEOTS.

Next steps: the aforementioned editing, cover design, formatting and release!

Thanks, as always, for being such great friends and fans.

Hello, everyone.

Longtime fans of In The Eye of The Beholder: A Novel of The Phantom of the Opera are sure to enjoy what I have to share today. It took me nearly a month to finish compiling on-line albums of our recent trip to Europe, but I've finished now.

I particularly want to share our photos from the Palais Garnier, the original Paris opera house which figures so heavily in my novel.

Thanks, as always, for being such great friends and fans. I hope you enjoy the photographs.

Hi, everyone. Over on Pinterest, I have several story boards for my work.

The latest one is for His Beloved Infidel. I've been collecting images related to my research and story concepts.

I hope you will have a look at my story boards, as well as my other Pinterest items. If you're on invitation, please send me a "follow" request; I'd love to see what you're up to.

Thanks, as always, for being such great friends and fans.

Hi, everyone! I'm working on an exciting new project. The working title is His Beloved Infidel. It's historical fiction, set in Paris against the backdrop of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

The two main characters, Farukh and Catherine, are instructors at a language institute. He's Persian, she's American ... and they fall in love during a very difficult time in their cultures' history.

I was in high school when the Islamic Revolution occurred. We had an exchange student from Tehran, Hamid, who could not go back to his country because of it. Hamid's story is not what inspired me, though; I recently read Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution, by Sattareh Farman Farmaian, and I gained a whole new insight into Iranian culture and politics because of her book. I started thinking about what the revolution might mean to regular people who were caught in the middle of it, just as Farmaian and her family were ... and the story has been tumbling from my pen since the moment I decided to write it. I do have some working cover art on my website (click here), but that's not the finished product.

Watch this space for updates on His Beloved Infidel and my other projects. Thanks, as always, for being such great friends and fans.

Hi, everyone. I'm this week's guest blogger for author Maggie Secara.

Check out my thoughts on Seeing is Understanding.

Thanks to Maggie for having me, and thanks to all of you for taking a look!

Hi, everyone. We're back from Europe and I'm trying to catch up. We had a wonderful vacation overall, with a few glitches toward the end in Rome ... but for the most part, despite a blizzard that struck Europe, we had a delightful time.

Anyway, it is only now that I have had an opportunity to tally up the outcome for this year's Read an eBook Week promotion. As I always do, I offer my paid titles free of charge during the event. I had a total of 44 transactions, some of them for multiple sales. Here's how it all fell out:

2010 Hindsight: A Year of Personal Growth, In Spite of Myself: 4
Through the Opera Glass: 20
You Had to Be There: Three Years of Mayhem and Bad Decisions in the Portland Music Scene: 3
The Rock Star in the Mirror: 5
In The Eye of The Beholder: A Novel of The Phantom of the Opera: 19
Les Pensees Dangereuses: 8

That's a total of 59, which represents an improvement over 2012, but still a decline from 2011.

Thanks to all who took advantage of the opportunity.