Tara Maya's Blog, page 38

The Christmas Palm Tree (Short Christmas Story)

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My Cover Looks Like Crap! - Cover Fix 02 - Text As Art

Let's say you have to make a cover on the cheap. You're an indie author, for instance, and you foolishly blew your cover art budget on a bowl of instant ramen noodle. Tsk tsk tsk. Always thinking with your stomach!

Your first plan was to hire Stephan Martinière to paint an original scene from your novel. That fell through when you found out it would cost more than your monthly mortgage payment. So now you're back to making your own cover.

Anyway, you figure, no biggie. You don't need a scene fr...

Guest Post: ZINGERS AND SWORD-PLAY: How to Write Sabre-Sharp Dialogue for Fight Scenes

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales(short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors).
She holds a college degree in publishin...

Publishing Statistics – eBook Sales’ Rise Benefits Print Book Sales

[image error] Publishing Statistics – eBook Sales’ Rise Benefits Print Book Saleswww.e[ublishabook.com Publishing Statistics – eBook Sales’ Rise Benefits Print Book Sales According to a report published by the American Association of Publishers , the exponential rise in ebook sales in the last few years did not harm print book sales, on the contrary. The print book sales are also on the increase, albeit considerably less than the ebook sales.The report covers the difference in ebook sale...

Jess Hearts Books: A New Genre: New Adult – What is it?

Jess Hearts Books: A New Genre: New Adult – What is it?:

New Adult is a new genre for books that don’t quite fit as either YA or Adult Literature. But mostly from what I understand of it they are a more mature version of the YA books that I love now, about people my age, venturing out into the world for the first time on their own and with more mature themes too. I’m so glad that publishers have realised there is this huge other market out there that need books they can relate to and already t...

Quotation Marks, Abandoned or Abused

GETT THEM QUOTE MARKS BEFORE THEIR GONE!
I've been thinking about quotation marks.

I can't remember if I've ranted before about how much I hate the convention in some literary books to leave quotation marks off of dialogue. (Probably I have.) Even if the book is in French, I hate it.

Now, I realize this is unreasonable. At first I thought that writers in the literary genre did this just to be annoying but then I realized that they probably did it to be French, and there's a difference, albeit a...

My Cover Looks Like Crap! - Cover Fix 01 - Negative Space

There are so many fabulous book covers out there. And then there are the, um, less fabulous ones. What are the good cover artists doing that the amateurs aren't?

Granted, sometimes the difference is twenty years experience painting fine oil portraits. But so often the fix is not hard at all.

Today I'm going to look at a few examples of covers that make excellent use of white negative space. That's not space that you feel bad about, it's the white around the print and picture. (It doesn't have t...

Color Code Your Manuscript

A great editing technique on QueryTracker Blog:

First, I take an honest inventory of the areas of writing that aren't my strong suit. I make very sure to assign each of those a color. Then I look at what things I might go a little overboard on and add those to the list. Lastly, I add the things that are important structurally to the story.

Then I assign each item a color. So my list might look something like this:

Dialogue (You could even do separate colors for each main character if you wa...

Bonded Novellas Now Available Separately + Buy One Get One Free

The Innocent Flower: Bonded Novellas Now Available Separately + Buy One...:


Don't worry! Bonded is still for sale in collection form, but Rhemalda Publishing has also decided to split the novellas up so they are for sale individually. Have you wanted to readBonded, but you've already read Cinders and didn't want to buy the entire collection? Or do you want to try one story first to see if you like my writing style? Whatever the reason, you can now get the novellas in B...

Guest Post: Writing Sword Fight Scenes 101

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions...