Pam Lecky's Blog, page 40
July 24, 2015
Book Launch Today!
I am delighted to announce that my debut novel, The Bowes Inheritance, is available on Amazon from today in paperback and ebook format.
The story will take you from the bustling streets of 1880s’ Dublin to the north-west coast of England and into the sweeping majesty of the beautiful Lake District. When a young Irishwoman inherits a property in England, she encounters nothing but suspicion and discovers her property is steeped in dark secrets. One man in particular seems determined to send her back to Ireland as quickly as possible. Will she find the courage to solve the mysteries her property holds and can she find happiness with the man who is surely her sworn enemy?
I hope you enjoy the book and if you do, please tell your friends about it.
Pam
A book trailer is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RySnd...
July 19, 2015
Book Trailer: The Bowes Inheritance
I am delighted to launch my book trailer for The Bowes Inheritance
Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RySnda4z1zY
July 14, 2015
The Bowes Inheritance – Prologue
Prologue
The Safe Haven Inn, Carlisle, England, 1867
Alex Maxwell lifted his head from his hand and tried to focus on the player across the table. As his vision cleared, his whiskey-addled mind struggled to follow. The man’s eyes were hard and unyielding but there was the suggestion of humour there too; but at his expense. Everything about the man suggested the gentleman. He was convivial and charming, spoke with a cultivated accent and was dressed with quiet elegance. But there was just something about him that Alex didn’t trust. Until the last few hands he had shown no great skill at the cards, but Alex had noticed that as the stakes had gradually increased, so had the man’s luck.
Fumes of alcohol and tobacco were making Alex feel nauseous and his hands were slick with sweat as he picked up his cards. His eyes momentarily rested on the piece of paper in the centre of the table, where he had placed it, minutes before. It was utter folly to pledge one of his properties as a bet, but some sort of madness was driving him tonight. He looked at his cards one last time – three queens and two aces – a great hand, but was it good enough? Slowly he revealed his cards, his stomach churning, because he knew he had bluffed once too often.
From the bar came the rumble of talk and laughter, but silence dominated the cramped and darkened backroom where the men were playing.
“I believe my hand wins, my friend,” the man across the table said. He placed his cigar in an ashtray before laying the cards down on the table in a leisurely and confident manner.
Four kings.
Those around the table, who had had the good fortune to fold early, drew in a collective breath of reverence; whoever this man was, he was damn good.
Alex felt the room spin as all eyes fell on him, most full of pity, one pair brimming with derision.
“Where is this godforsaken place, anyway? I hope it’s a decent bit of land,” the stranger said, breaking into the stunned silence. He reached for the bottle of Bushmills and poured himself a glass with surprisingly steady hands; earlier in the evening he had given the impression of being quite inebriated. With an ironic twist of his mouth, he offered to refill Alex’s glass.
Alex shook his head. His tongue felt thick, dry and uncooperative. “It’s down the coast from here, three miles from Newton.” He felt his hands tremble; to lose such a fine farm in a game of chance was unconscionable. But he was an honourable man and he had willingly entered the game. His opponent had not cheated – as far as he knew.
“Never heard of it!” exclaimed the stranger. He eyed Alex shrewdly before leaning back in his chair. “I hope it is worth what you claim.”
Alex glared back at him in horror. “Who are you, sir?”
“Jack Campbell – at your service,” the man said, with a mocking nod of his head. “Perhaps we will become better acquainted now that we will be neighbours.”
Alex drew a ragged breath. Had he really just lost Bowes Farm to this man? His family would never forgive him and, most importantly, he would never forgive himself.
***
Available on Amazon on 24th July 2015
June 22, 2015
Under Cover Operations: My Search for the Perfect Book Cover for my Self-published Book
How important is your book cover? Crucial – pure and simple.
It’s a window to your world for the buying public. It’s marketing – and you need to get it right. If you are self-publishing, the cover is the first point of sale – it will either catch people’s interest or they will scroll past until they see something that says ‘buy me please I’m very interesting ’. If you are a well-known author then its significance probably drops a little, but if like me you are just starting out, it is incredibly important to pull those sales in.
Covers scream genre and you can’t get away from that. At first I balked at the idea of trying to emulate what other authors in my genre were using. I wanted to stand out from the crowd. But think about it. They are the competition and they are selling books – you want to join that particular party.
So now you need to make a decision: go the DIY route or get a professional to do the job for you. I had just spent a fortune on editing and proofing so mainly for financial reasons, but also because I was dying to try, I decided to have a go. (OK; I admit to being a bit of a control freak when it comes to all of this – well this book is like my fourth child!)
First stop was Canva.com. It’s easy enough to use if you want to do a Kindle cover and they look professional. You choose the Kindle ebook template and off you go … except I could not find an image that I really loved. I wanted something that hinted at the story and was simple and elegant.
Here are some of my first efforts using Canva images. I showed them to family and friends. Some had read the book and others hadn’t. I asked them which images appealed the most and what the images hinted at. Opinion was split – I went back to the drawing board.
But you can also import your own images, which is what I did in the end. My search for the perfect image took me to iStock. Canva costs are low – if you use Canva elements and images in your design they cost about $1 each and quite a few are free. If you import your own images there is no image cost at all, but you will have to pay iStock or the source site for your bought image licence in the first place (but it is very reasonable). By using an iStock image you can be sure that it is of the correct resolution, etc., and Kindle and CreateSpace are fussy about that.
I eventually chose an image I liked. It hinted at romance and letters which were themes in my book. But the original image was quite grey. I just used the photo editor on my laptop to pink it up and hey presto I had my basic image. I didn’t mess with it too much for one very good reason – if I cropped it I would lose resolution and get into trouble down the road when I would try to upload to Kindle or CreateSpace. I imported the image to Canva and added the text elements. Lovely … Kindle cover sorted.
BUT … CreateSpace is different. The easy route is to download the cover template that is correct for your trim and interior size and hand it over to a professional or if you have a graphics background you could probably do it yourself. I downloaded a recommended graphics software program but I knew it would take me weeks to get up to speed on how to use it and time was an issue. I was stumped because I could not use the Kindle cover (wrong size, and wrong format).
In the end I decided to see what the CreateSpace cover creator was like. The choice of templates is good but the amount of manipulation you can do is limited (fonts, size of text, etc.), however, if you are prepared to accept that, you can come up with a pretty good cover and I was able to import my iStock image. I’m very happy with mine and so far I am getting very good feedback on it. I changed my Kindle cover in Canva to get it to match as closely as possible and now we are good to go.
June 13, 2015
My Self-Publishing Journey
The publishing world is incredibly scary for the first time author. You’ve produced your lovely book and have every right to feel proud of yourself. But what now? Do you try to get an agent or go directly to a publisher? The answer is: don’t do what I did if you want to be traditionally published.
I completed the first draft of my book in six months and thought I had a masterpiece on my hands. Little did I realise that typescript (which turned out to be draft one of about six hundred!), held every novice writer error it is possible to have. (I still cringe!) So in my innocence I decided that the world definitely needed to see it and that an agent would bite my hand off to represent me. (More cringing!) The response from the publishing world was polite but negative. Worst of all, I had burnt my bridges – a traditional book deal was dead in the water.
Feeling rather glum I sought advice from a published author friend. She recommended two things: get an editor and consider self-publishing. Invaluable advice as it turned out. I contacted Inkwell in Dublin and arranged for a structural edit of my book. This proved pivotal – the editor considered the story was strong, suggested changes, and told me how to eliminate those errors that blatantly proclaimed the script as a rookie effort. My confidence was boosted and I started to consider self-publishing seriously.
In the meantime, I attended the Dublin Book Festival and sat enthralled by authors, agents and publishers – I was starting to get a feel for the industry and how it all works. A Self-Publishing Day in the Irish Writers’ Centre clinched it for me and I could see that my dream could still be a reality. One of the speakers that day was author, Catherine Ryan Howard, who has written and blogged extensively in this area. I ran out and bought her book, “Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing” and I am very glad I did. Trust me, this book is the bible.
At this stage I knew I had to have another more in-depth edit done, preferably by someone who had an interest in my genre. I sought recommendations from historical fiction Facebook groups and found Hilary Johnson in the UK, who did a copyedit on the book and was kind enough to encourage me to publish.
In the world of self-publishing Amazon is king, so you will have to tackle what that entails. Preparation and formatting for Kindle and Print on Demand (POD) isn’t easy. You really do need to have a good grasp of the techy stuff and plenty of wine on standby. But it is possible – hey I have managed it! And, if you feel that is beyond your skill, there are people out there who will format your typescript for you.
And now my book baby is about to be born – next month hopefully.
So if you are starting out and considering this option, my advice is to give it a go. My one proviso is, however, that whatever you publish must be as perfect as possible. Pay to have your book edited and proofed professionally. The quality of your ‘product’ should be so high that unless the buying public actually investigate, they shouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t published in the traditional way.
Of course, now the task of promoting and marketing begins and I have a feeling this might be the most difficult part of the job yet … but I’m up for it.
May 18, 2015
Victorian Medicine – what were they thinking?
In The Bowes Inheritance, one of my characters, Eleanor, is dying due to contracting rheumatic fever, which subsequently damaged her heart. One of the symptoms of her condition was oedema, referred to as dropsy by the Victorians. Naturally enough, off I went to find out what the Victorians considered an appropriate treatment for same. Amongst my research books is, Enquire Within Upon Everything 1890, published by Old House Books. It is a great book to dip into, as it covers a huge range of topics from food, medicine, dancing and manners. I came across some strange and interesting treatments that made me either smile or squirm.
The Humble Leech
Way back in the mists of time, seemingly Ancient Greece, someone had the idea of using leeches to ‘balance’ the blood, (obviously someone with nothing better to do, a cash shortage and a pond full of the little blighters). As ideas go, it was rather good as it caught fire and proved a popular ‘cure’ for centuries to follow. Well, it was popular with the medics; for anything from inflammation of the brain to gout. My sympathies, however, have to lie with the unfortunate patients. Just the thought of even one of them on my skin …
From the Veg Patch
One of my all-time favourite Victorian remedies, which I just had to reproduce in full, is for ‘Restoring Hair when Removed by Ill-health or Age:
‘Rub onions frequently on the part requiring it. The stimulating powers of this vegetable are of service in restoring the tone of the skin, and assisting the capillary vessels in sending forth new hair; but it is not infallible.’
I imagine it was an infallible way of losing friends …
Swoon
A delightful piece of (frankly patronising) advice for those of a nervous disposition, (seemingly only young ladies suffered from this), was to seek cheerful society, rise early, and exercise in the open air on horseback. They were further advised to avoid excitement, study or late meals.
Kill or Cure!
Who hasn’t dreaded toothache? But in the 19th century it was probably better to have the tooth pulled. A home remedy of creosote or chloroform rubbed on to the tooth was common practice in Victorian homes. We have banned creosote because of its carcinogenic properties but the Victorians believed that wood-tar creosote prevented necrosis. It was also used as an expectorant, an antiseptic and a laxative. How did anyone make it to old age??
And Poor Eleanor?
She had to swallow a pretty vile concoction – a solution of sea squill and vinegar. It was a clear yellow liquid with a bitter acid taste. The plant used was Drimia maritime
. The inner part of the bulb was macerated in a solution of acetic acid.
Yes it does sound yummy, doesn’t it? Squill is still used today … in rat poison!
Picture credit: Franz Eugen Köhler
Have you come across any bizarre treatments in books you have read?
