Adam Blumer's Blog, page 10

Fatal Illusions for Kindle only $1.99 this week!

My publisher, Kregel Publications, is holding a special sale this week. Fatal Illusions is only $1.99 this week for Kindle and select e-readers. If you haven’t read my first novel, a real labor of love that was four years in the making (the writing alone), here’s your best chance! If you purchase a copy, e-mail me at adam@adamblumerbooks.com, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a free e-copy of my second novel, the sequel, The Tenth Plague. Other Formats:  Google Play (can be used for Nook)

Get Edges of Truth for Your Kindle at a Discounted Price!

First Time Kindle Price Reduction of this amazing true story! Note: I’m pleased to announce a special sale for a friend’s book I had the honor of editing—and a book I highly recommend. When a baby dies from head injuries, an innocent babysitter is accused, and uncertainty forces experts to define the edges of truth. This intensely personal story will grip your heart and challenge your faith.  It gives a vivid account of Mary Weaver, who was presumed guilty of shaking and slamming a baby to death; and one of her lawyers, Steve Brennecke, who fought to clear her name. Dr. Ruth Ramsey calls this book “a wake-up call for anyone who is ever involved in child care.” Reduced Kindle price June 21-26, 2014: Saturday-Sunday—$3.99 Monday-Tuesday—$4.99 Wednesday-Thursday—$5.99 Friday—regular Kindle price: $7.95 Get it here at Amazon. Companion Bible Study—Free for a Limited Time! I Survived! gives a personal, inside view of…

Speech Tags or No Speech Tags?

Each novel manuscript I edit for my day job is a learning experience. It either reveals what doesn’t work in fiction writing or reinforces what does. In this post I want to talk about the speech tag. I briefly wrote about it in this post, but I wanted to expand on some key ideas here.  Why? Because strong dialogue is so important for good fiction. It reveals character, it depicts drama, it reveals vital information, and it pushes the story forward. Used correctly, it can do so much for a story. But use it unwisely, and it can really be a drag. Of course, the primary purpose of speech tags is to ID the spakers, but I’ll just come right out and ask it. Are speech tags even necessary? What do they accomplish other than giving the reader more words to read? Because, I would argue, there’s a better way…

Book Review: Double Blind by Brandilyn Collins

NOTE: Don’t miss the drawing for a free book, mentioned below. I always enjoy reading the latest Christian thriller by Brandilyn Collins; in fact, her novels are part of the inspiration that got me started writing my own stories. Not to mention that each novel offers a wonderful blueprint of how a Christian suspense novel should be written. Each time I read another of her novels, I learn more about plotting, pacing, and all the other necessary ingredients for a good plot to work. But this novel especially caught my attention when I read the back-cover burb. The novel I’m working on now, my third, has a few similarities to Brandilyn’s premise (the protagonist needs brain surgery and gets an implant that offers more than anyone expects). So when I read her blurb, I thought, Oh no. Somebody beat me to it. But thankfully her story goes in a very…

Turning Off That Internal Editor

Over the last few weeks I’ve been making some excellent progress on my third novel, tentatively called Drone. I’m hoping to finish the first draft this year. But lately I’ve been facing a problem. What some  readers may not know is that I’m self-employed and work my day job as a book editor. This type of job requires that I edit numerous pages of text on my computer screen every day. This job demands an ever-vigilant internal editor. My problem is learning to turn off that internal editor when it’s time to work on my own book. When I reread what I wrote during my previous writing session, a little voice in my head says, Oh, that’s stupid. The writing here is really sad. This scene is falt. Your story stinks! I don’t need the negativity right now. I struggle enough with self-doubt and insecurity with each project. That internal…

Want to Make Phone Calls for Free? Part 3

See Part 1 and Part 2.  Last fall, I began a series of articles about my journey to “phone independence.” Basically, I found a way to make and receive free phone calls (yes, free) using an actual telephone and a free Google Voice account. This is possible through a gadget called the Obi 100 or Obi 110. This graphic pretty much says it all: If you are fuzzy on the details, please see Part 1 and Part 2 (listed above). I don’t plan to rehash everything here. Unfortunately, I’ve now hit a setback, and I wanted to be honest about it, since I agreed to document every step of my journey. This spring I was planning to port my landline phone number to Google Voice and take the next step. But then Obihai, the company that makes the whole phone-calls-through-Google-Voice thing possible, announced that Google plans as of May 15,…

Buy Your Way to the NYT Best-Seller List?

When my first novel came out, I had no notions of being a best-selling author. My goal was simply to sell enough copies to make my publisher happy and ensure future contracts. An odd thought struck me. Hey, I know how to be a best-selling author. I just need to be rich enough. I could give tons of money to a friend, who could then buy up all my copies. Then my publisher could proclaim that I have an instant best seller! Does that idea sound fanciful? Not so fast. It appears that others have entertained the same idea. I recently saw an article in World magazine about Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, who authored the book Real Marriage. According to the article’s author, Warren Cole Smith, Mars Hill Church paid a marketing company up to $210,000 to ensure Driscoll’s book made the New York Times best-seller list. How exactly the marketing…

Making Something from Nothing

Photo courtesy of George Hodan Someone recently asked me, “When was the last time you made something from nothing?” At first I was baffled. Based on my understanding, God is the only Being who has created something from nothing. Ex nihilo. Then I got to thinking. When was the last time I watched God produce something in my life I knew I was lacking. Memories came to me, and I decided to share them along with my answer to this question. When my father was diagnosed with brain cancer in January 2009, my parents moved near me so he could be close to our hospital for cancer care and so a son could be nearby. What I didn’t realize at the beginning was how I would  be called on to serve as a caregiver in so many ways. I knew nothing about this role and didn’t know how best to…

Write for My Blog or Work on My Novel?

This is what the question has come to. I wish I could be Superman and do all of it—write for my blog and work on my next novel—but I simply can’t do both well. That’s just the simple truth. Not with my editing schedule to pay the bills. Working on my blog frankly means less time to work on my novel, and I’m committed to finishing novel #3 this year. So what’s gonna have to give? The blog’s gotta give. Going forward, I plan to write an article every other week instead of every week. I hope to continue writing insteresting content for fiction writers or lovers of Christian suspense or both. I’ve also recently updated the look of my website and recently programmed a store, showcasing some of my favorite books. Let me know what you think. How’s the novel coming? It’s coming. Just not as quickly as I would…

Book Review: Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors

I’ve been a fan of Kathy Ide ever since I learned about the Christian Editor Network and The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network, two organizations that were a tremendous help to me when I began editing from home in 2006. Kathy was especially gracious in helping a newbie like me learn the ropes in the scary world of editing books from home. She even referred some projects to me, which helped me earn income to support my family. I’m saying all this in the interest of full disclosure before I talk about her new book, Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors. What Is This Book About? What a treasure this book is, especially for book editors like me. I refer to the online version of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) almost every day. If asked, my book editing buddies would probably agree with me that sometimes putting our fingers on…