Linda Welch's Blog, page 7

The Self-Publishing Revolution

Would the so-called E-book revolution would be such a success without the Indie author?

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says:

“I am emphasizing the self-service nature of these platforms because it’s important for a reason I think is somewhat non-obvious: even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation. When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there’s no expert gatekeeper ready to say “that will never work!” And guess what – many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity.”

Who are the expert gatekeepers? Until now, readers have relied on Big Publisher to tell them what they should read, and they sure have slowed innovation.  Look at some of the rubbish they churn out just because it is (ghost) written by a celebrity. I shall refrain from naming those books, but I’m sure everyone has their favorite “what is this trash?” example.

“Kindle Direct Publishing has quickly taken on astonishing scale – more than a thousand KDP authors now each sell more than a thousand copies a month, some have already reached hundreds of thousands of sales, and two have already joined the Kindle Million Club. KDP is a big win for authors. Authors who use KDP get to keep their copyrights, keep their derivative rights, get to publish on their schedule – a typical delay in traditional publishing can be a year or more from the time the book is finished . . . .“

More than a thousand authors on Amazon’s KDP, and thousands on Barnes and Noble and other E-tailers. Do you think they have an effect on the E-book Revolution? I do. Not all are new writers taking advantage of the ease of self-publishing. Traditionally published authors are self-pubbing their backlists and works rejected by Big Publishing. And although some new authors may self-publish because they have been rejected by trad publishers, they are becoming the minority. Writers are deciding to forego the pleasure of submitting dozens of queries, receiving rejection letters, and if they do get a deal, waiting years for their books to appear in print and giving up 15% to their agent and considerably more to their publisher. They are publishing now, finding their audience now, and making money now. And as most self-published authors will tell you, the financial benefits are far outweighed by knowing someone out there enjoys their work.

“Kindle Direct Publishing is good for readers because they get lower prices, but perhaps just as important, readers also get access to more diversity since authors that might have been rejected by establishment publishing channels now get their chance in the marketplace. You can get a pretty good window into this. Take a look at the Kindle best-seller list, and compare it to the New York Times best-seller list – which is more diverse? The Kindle list is chock-full of books from small presses and self-published authors, while the New York Times list is dominated by successful and established authors.”

Yes, readers benefit from self-publishing platforms such as Amazon.  They can preview a book and see reviews from other readers. And if they download an e-book and decide they don’t like it, returning it is as easy as pressing a button. They are snapping up self-published works. One man’s meat is another man’s poison is never truer than when applied to individual taste, and while I may hate a particular book, a thousand other readers will love it. Although there are the few who vilify everything Indie because it is Indie, the discerning reader makes up his own mind, and discovers gems.

Would the E-book revolution be as successful without the self-published author? You may disagree with me, but I don’t think so.

“Mouse” photo by Rob Bouwman l  Dreamstime.com

 

 

 

 

Rambling about brain farts.

I think it’s time for a Rambling post! In this one, I hi-lite my lack of intelligent brain cells.

I haven’t written anything since I published Demon on a Distant Shore and I think lack of activity is affecting the gray matter. You know how it works – what you don’t use, atrophies. Take this morning, for instance.

My sister’s birthday is coming up. She’s in England, so I have to get the card mailed now. In fact, I’m a little late getting it off. So this morning, I realized I forgot to get a card for her when I picked up several birthday cards yesterday. I keep a supply of cards for different occasions, so looked through them, but didn’t see anything suitable. Great. I didn’t want to drive all the way into Ogden for one card and hoped the local market had one I liked. I’d have to take a pen and return address label and prepare the card while I sat in my car.

I needed to check her address, because I can never remember the postal code. I booted up my laptop, found my address book and started to jot her address on paper. But as I looked at it, I wondered if had the wrong house number. I had recorded #3, but was it? Mum’s address is #3 – did I duplicate that for sister’s address? Is her address really #4. Damn!

I went into Facebook and messaged my niece. “Is your Mum at #3 or #4?” Then I impatiently waited for her reply, watching the clock.

While I waited, I went in the kitchen to sip my soda, and saw the lovely card I bought for my sister at least two weeks ago, propped up beneath the phone so I wouldn’t misplace it.

Duh.

The address was still a problem, though. How can I forget my sister’s address? It’s ridiculous! I decided to use MSN maps for a visual of her street. I’ve used it before and it actually did a better job than Google Earth. If I looked at the row of terraced houses, surely I could spot which one was hers. But the aerial view didn’t cooperate on my laptop. I couldn’t get it to shift around so the camera faced the front of the terrace, not the back.

I went into the office and booted up the desktop. Checked Facebook again, but no reply from my niece. Found sister’s street using MSN and I was able to shift the view so it faced her house.

I still couldn’t figure out which was her house. There appeared to be six houses in the terrace.  Her house wall is darker than the others and I thought that would help me identify it. But two of the houses had darker facades, and bushes could hide another front door,  making it seven houses.  Or maybe one of the houses has two doors at the front, making it five or six houses. Counting houses from either end of the terrace was no help at all.

Going back in the kitchen, my gaze rested on a large manila envelope.  I needed an envelope to store some papers, didn’t have a new one, but found this used envelope in the cupboard.  Squinting, I moved closer. The envelope was originally from my sister, with her address on the back.

Sigh.

So I guess I’d better start writing again and kick my brain back in gear.

 

 

 

Talia Jager proves a woman can be a busy mom AND a published author.

Paper, Pen, and Chocolate

"Mom!" a voice yelled from the other room. "Make her stop!"

"I didn't do anything!" another voice yelled before I could even get up to see what was going on.

I sighed and struggled to get off the couch where I had just started writing a scene. Four months pregnant with our sixth child and the varicose veins were already causing problems for me. I wondered where my husband was hiding that he couldn't handle this.

Fortunately, the yelling quieted down. Instead of checking on them, I made an Executive Decision. I snuck into my closet, grabbed some Hershey's chocolate from my stash, and slipped into the bathroom where I ate it with the lights turned off. Nobody would find me there.

Flicking on my flashlight, I took out the notepad and pen I had stashed in the magazine rack and wrote down some thoughts on the scene I had been writing.

The quiet lasted 3.5 minutes. Then my time in the bathroom was up. I crept back out to the living room where I settled a new argument, secretly wishing I could go back to the bathroom.

Now, you may ask…Married with how many kids? And you write books? WHY? HOW? Let me tell you.

From the time I was a little girl, I have had two dreams. One: To have a large family. Two: To be an author. There was a time not long ago when it seemed neither would come true.

Maybe it was being an only child that allowed my imagination to run wild and my mind to create stories; it definitely made me wish for a big family of my own. It's lonely to grow up without a sibling.

In school, writing was my passion. I wrote constantly. I'd slip my story under a notebook in class and when I was supposed to be taking notes, I'd really be writing my story. At night when I was supposed to be asleep, I'd hide under the covers in bed with a flashlight, pen, and paper.

Time went on, and although I had many stories written, I was too chicken to do anything with them. So, they sat. When I fell in love and started a family, writing got pushed to the side. Sure, I still loved it, but I never had time. Deep down, I was mad at myself for not at least trying to do something with them. But, at the time, I felt I couldn't. Family came first.

My dream of having a large family wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but it had begun to come true. We had two beautiful little girls and wanted more. Unfortunately, I suffered through many miscarriages over the years. After having a number of tests done, I was diagnosed with a blood disorder so complicated that I have no idea what it actually is except that it can cause miscarriages. Getting pregnant had never been an issue; staying pregnant was. When I didn't get and stay pregnant for over a year, the depression got worse.

Losing a baby is a devastating thing to go through; losing six is downright depressing. There's no amount of crying, begging, negotiating, or praying that brings them back. Believe me, I tried it all. It didn't matter how many people told me it wasn't my fault–I blamed myself anyway. Finding out that it was due to a blood disorder made my guilt that much worse. It was my fault. My body's fault anyway. Then I started asking myself: Why do some of my babies live and others don't? What did I do different? I had children before I started medication for the disorder, and I've had miscarriages since getting on the medication. None of it makes sense and it's still something I struggle to understand. I was in such a deep depression; it was like my creative button had been turned off. I had no desire to write.

When we finally "gave up" and decided that we'd be a family of six, we found out I was pregnant again with our fifth daughter.

This pregnancy was much harder on my body than the others. I found myself on the couch most of the day with my legs up. It was around this time that some online friends found out that I loved to write and encouraged me to share my stories. I did so nervously and they loved them! I reached deep down and found the courage to start submitting queries to agents. Each time my hopes were smashed to pieces.

My husband started talking about eBooks and self-publishing. I wasn't too sure about going that route. I wanted to see my books in print, so I could hold them in front of my face. I wanted to smell my book. But, as time went on, eReaders became more popular and I figured…why not?

So, here I am, with five children, trying to find the time to write, while juggling mom-duty, wife-duty, household chores, errands, and more. During the earlier part of this year, you could find me up until the wee hours of the morning writing. You see, that is the only time it's quiet enough to get anything done. Three a.m. is the time when all little girls are sleeping, the husband is snoring away, and my mind is clear. I can throw myself into a character's psyche and let my imagination flow. Everything was going perfectly. I was getting a lot of writing done and then we got a surprise. Baby #6 was on the way.

As happy as we were, this put a serious damper on staying up until three a.m. I just couldn't do it. My one-year-old is at the age where she needs to be followed around and supervised constantly. If I don't, I find my computer monitor has become a coloring book.

My four-year-old is in between the "play with me" stage and the "playing alone" stage. The older three are in school, which provides a break for me, but since my four year old adores her older sisters, it makes it hard. She's constantly whining for them to come home.

It's hard enough juggling the four younger ones, but throw in a hormonal teenager and chaos ensues. Dealing with her has made me positive that my mother cursed me for acting out as a teenager. Not a week goes by that I don't find myself in tears over something she does or says. Like the time recently when I told her I was pregnant again, she made nasty comments accusing me of ruining her life. Or the time I had to punish her for kicking her sister, and she informed us that she could run away and be adopted by her friend's parents.

I'm sure you find yourself wanting to ask how I get a minute to myself. Or how do I deal with no time alone? Or what if I get an idea during the day?

Remember that stash of chocolate in the closet? I simply get some, slip into the bathroom, and take a few minutes. Sometimes I just think. Sometimes I jot down a few ideas on that hidden notepad.

As crazy and chaotic my life is, I wouldn't change a thing. And it sure gives me plenty of things to write about.

So, when life hands you lemons…toss them out, grab your stash of chocolate, your writing materials, and head for the bathroom. You may just end up writing a book.

This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today.

Also included are sneak peeks into 25 novels!

My young adult drama, Damaged: Natalie's Story,

is one of the novels featured.

 Amazon

Apple iBooks

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

 Find out more about Talia and her books:

http://taliajager.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/taliajager

http://www.twitter.com/taliajager

http://amazon.com/author/taliajager

 

Julia Crane, writing from halfway across the world

Julia Crane
Moving to the Middle East

Separation was normal in my marriage. My husband was in the military, and usually gone six months a year. We had adapted quite well to the schedule. Of course, we had the normal period of adjustment when he would return, but that was part of the lifestyle. We were looking forward to his retirement, and being able to spend more time together as a family. That didn't work out quite as we expected. My husband was offered a job in Afghanistan that would set us up to really retire. The kicker? It would last a year. We thought the sacrifice would be worth it, so off he went. One year became a year and a half.

While he was gone I took care of our small business, running a gym. I loved it. It was very time-consuming, but it was also very rewarding. It started to wear on me only when my pre-teen children complained that I was always at the gym, and never had time for them. Finally, I told my husband that it was time for him to come home.

He put in his notice and started a stateside job. Though the new job still required him to be gone for six months of the year, the absences were in manageable blocks of two weeks. When he was home, he would take care of the gym and I would have time off. It was perfect.

Then he got a call from a friend, with a job offer that was just too good to turn down…in Dubai. We discussed it, and decided he should take the job, even though we had a new one-year-old.

Not long after my husband left for Dubai, I was at the breaking point. I felt trapped with the business, our teens, and a one-year-old always needing my attention. I had no personal space, and I'm a person that requires time alone, or else I get cranky.

As luck would have it, the new job offered to bring family members over to live in Dubai. My first thought about moving to the Middle East? "Yeah, right." However, I researched Dubai and was surprised at what I found. The country seemed very modern, and the schools sounded good.

So I told my husband, "Ok, we're coming." While I was both nervous and excited, I was ready for a change, and moving to the Middle East sounded like just the adventure I needed.

When we got off the plane in October, the hot air hit my face and it felt like I had walked into a sauna. I thought, "Uh oh, what have I agreed to?" Yes, the heat is hard to handle, but you learn to live your life around it. We do most things early in the morning or after the sun sets. It is very much a nighttime culture. The city is beautiful and the Arabian Sea is breathtaking. I have grown comfortable living here, and easily call it my home. Though I can now see myself here for a few years, there are of course many things that I miss about America, and most of them involve food. Some things are just impossible to find: I've searched high and low for a Butterfinger, with no luck.

After a couple of months of enjoying my newfound free time, I eventually started to twiddle my thumbs. I was used to being busy, and with all the free time I needed to find something to fill the void. I saw an article that went into detail about how e-books had flung open many doors for writers. I thought that was interesting, and I mentioned it to my husband and he said he had also seen many articles saying much the same thing. I jokingly said that I was going to write a novel. My husband, who believes I can do anything, thought it was a great idea. I have always enjoyed writing even though I had not written much since having children. As a teen, I used to mail short stories to magazines and such, and like most avid readers, I always dreamed of someday writing a novel. Now I had my chance.

That same night I sat down to write, and the story quickly formed in my mind. I knew I wanted to write a young adult novel that would involve my Irish roots. The story just seemed to form itself: I would get ideas at random times and rush to write them down. It was frustrating at times, because I need relative quiet to focus. As you can imagine, with two teens and a two-year-old, finding quiet time is not easy. I wrote most of "Coexist" late at night when everyone was asleep. It took approximately three months to write the first draft, while the revision and editing process lasted longer than the initial writing.

A great part of the writing process for me has been interacting with other writers. I have met some amazing people from online writing groups and chat rooms. I learned a great deal in a short amount of time. I don't think this undertaking would have been nearly as fun without the community I have found. Moving halfway across the world has allowed me to have both more time with family, and the ability to pursue a dream I've had since a child.

***

This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today.

Also included are sneak peeks into 25 novels!

My paranormal romance novel, Coexist: Keegan's Chronicles #1,

is one of the novels featured.

All proceeds go to breast cancer research.

 

 

Coexist: Keegan's Chronicles #1

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

 

Demon on a Distant Shore

A WHISPERINGS MYSTERY

Recovering Gertrude Hackenbacher's catnapped kitty pays off when she recommends us to wealthy Scott and Patty Norton of Boston. Scott wants us to deliver a message to his nephew, once we find him. So off we go to England, all expenses paid. Royal is sure we can squeeze in a little sightseeing.

 Royal is ever the optimist.

 England is very confusing. To begin with, not all Brits seem to speak English, and what they eat . . . oh my goodness. Then there is the investigation – finding the client's long-lost nephew is not as easy as we supposed, and as usual, I am distracted by dead people who could use my help. And in ancient Little Barrow, when a creature of myth and magic cries out its pain, only Royal and I can hear.

 Young Paul Norton is missing, and he's not the only one. Is our helpful innkeeper really a witch? Why did an upstanding member of the community murder a seventeen-year-old boy? With the assistance of some uncooperative British ghosts, we'll figure out what's really going on, and bring peace to a demon on a distant shore.

E-book:

 Amazon US  Amazon UK

 

 

 

 

Welcome Carol Davis Luce, a self-taught late bloomer.

SELF-TAUGHT LATE BLOOMER

Carol Davis Luce

            My motto is, "If I can do it, anyone can do it." I wasn't born to write. I didn't aspire to be a writer from the time I could hold a Crayon. I could, however, draw, and make things take shape through form and color on paper and canvas, and that's the path I traveled well into midlife. The artist's life opened up my eyes and mind to expression and sometimes stories through composition on that blank eighteen by twenty-four inch stretched canvas. Then one day it changed.

            As a voracious reader, I was content to read what others wrote. I admired those writers who had mastered the craft. I was happy to dwell in their world for 300 pages, to laugh, cry, and be enlightened and surprised. Until one day when I closed a book by my favorite author and felt something was missing. The novel was a mystery/suspense with elements of romance. The suspense was killer. The romance, however, was lacking, missing those subtleties that resonated with me. I wanted more. The promise of romance was there, but fizzled somewhere along the way. For me, it wasn't about graphic sex. It was about sexual tension, passion, love. After searching unsuccessfully for novels to satisfy my romantic suspense fixation, looking for just the right balance, I realized I had to write the book myself.

            Only I knew nothing about writing a novel, let alone a genre book with a sub-genre. So I went to the library and checked out a reference book titled, HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL. Easy enough, right? If dedication is easy, then it was easy because I was driven. My artist's passion shifted to focus on the writer's canvas. That canvas was structure, words, emotion, and truth. And the rest is history.

Well, almost.

I burned up two electric typewriters before investing in a computer. I checked out every book on the "book writing" reference shelf, and many grammar and stylebooks, and two years later, my 800-page opus, NIGHT STALKER, was finished—

Almost.

I learned about the important shaping process, without which most stories would be unreadable. Editing. The passion and pain of cutting and revising. Finding the jewels that lie buried in too many, or misguided, words. Three years and a dozen revisions later, 400 pages lighter, it found a home with a traditional publisher. Within the first few months of release, it went into three printings and became the flagship for the sub-genre "Woman in Jeopardy/Romantic Suspense" at Kensington Publishing.

            Where it started. . .

I left school at sixteen to marry my high school sweetheart. Six years later, as a housewife and mother, I channeled my artistic talent into sketching and painting, selling my work at a local art gallery. A quarter century later, I traded in my paints and brushes to hit the keyboard. Our three sons, not much for novel reading, are waiting for my books to be made into movies. That childhood sweetheart I married a lifetime ago is now my soul mate of 50 plus years. His encouragement fueled me, and his support allowed me to pursue my goals.  

            Going back to my motto of, "if I can do it, anyone can." There has never been a more opportunistic time to try your hand at writing a book. Or taking the plunge and self-publishing. My decision to self-publish my upcoming suspense novels came about when I hit the proverbial brick wall after five published books. With a stalled career, I had a choice. Teach, or see my stories in print again. I chose the latter. My first self-published book is the short story trilogy, BROKEN JUSTICE, followed by my suspense novel, NIGHT WIDOW.

Agents and editors think they know what readers want. They don't always know. Readers know what readers want, and they're expressing their wants by buying books written by indie authors. Give yourself a hardy pat on the back if you've completed a manuscript, but the big applause goes to our devoted fans and readers. Without them, we would be nothing.

  

Carol Davis Luce is one of the authors featured in the Indie Chicks Anthology.  Get your copy today! All proceeds go to help breast cancer research.

 

 

 

 

When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.

I remember . . . .

The first Christmas I was old enough to actually know what Christmas was all about. Mum's voice saying, "She's waking up!" as she and my siblings stood beside my little bed.

A white, fluffy angora bolero and matching muff, a pink dress spotted with tiny white flowers and edged with white lace, all made by Mum. Shiny white patent leather shoes and white ankle socks. I felt SO pretty.

The clothes Mum made for my dolls.

Going through the French doors, into the garden, standing with Mum as we picked raspberries for breakfast, or walked the hedgerows, looking for blackberries or mushrooms.

Mum taking me to town on the bus, even though she knew I was always travel sick and would throw up.

Mum holding me while I sobbed, my heart broken when a car ran over and killed my cat.

The time she confronted a teacher who bullied the children in her class, and made the mistake of smacking me on the head.

Another day when she got on her Moped and chugged off to the next village, to "have a word" with a woman who had been saying less than nice things about me.

I don't think they are especially significant memories because they popped into my head when I woke this morning and remembered today is Mother's Day in the UK. Or is it still called Mothering Sunday? We were just an ordinary family, nothing extraordinary happened to us.

But Mum . . . nothing ordinary about her. She's something special, at least to my mind. I think you would agree with me if you knew her.

March is also Mum's birthday month. She will be 89 this year. Moving around grows more difficult with every passing year, due to her age and injuries suffered during an automobile accident. We tease her because she has so much metal in her body, but it's not really funny. She is blind in one eye and vision in the other is hazy. She once sprayed weed killer instead of fertilizer on her tomatoes. Sometimes she misses the edge of the table so her dinner plate ends up on the floor. Happily, she has a marvelous sense of humor and can laugh at her little accidents.

Not much stops Mum from carrying on as always. She lives in a tiny cottage with a huge garden and manages to take care of the garden despite her infirmities, much as she always has. She has always had a green thumb and still wins top prizes at the local village fete for her flowers and produce. Almost every day, she takes the bus to the nearest small town to shop for groceries, and goes to a large town such as Devizes once a week. Visitors to her cottage are not surprised to find her standing on a table as she paints the ceiling, or up on a ladder papering the walls.

Very often she cannot tell if she is approaching a step, a hole in the road, or a shadow. She often falls. But she picks herself up and continues on.

That sums up Mum's entire life. She always picked herself up and carried on no matter what life threw at her. She truly is a woman of her era. Stiff upper lip. True grit.  That's Mum. I have seen her cry only once, outside the church after my Dad's funeral, and she stifled it very quickly. Because women of her era do not weep in public.  Deeply emotional outbursts are something done in private.

I didn't know she is terrified of heights and scared of thunderstorms until the 1990s. She refused to let us see evidence of her fears when we were children because she believed if she did, we would fear the same things. Now that we were all grown up, she no longer had to hide her fears.

Now that we were all grown up, she began to tell us of her early life, just a little at a time. If her life story were a book, it would read like a Dickensian novel. What she endured makes my heart hurt.

Mum is an incredible woman whose life has been one of hardship and heartache, but we didn't know the half of it until recent years when she finally started opening up. She kept her fears to herself because she didn't want us to grow up sharing those fears. She kept bad memories to herself because she wanted our memories to be good ones. And they are.

From Mum, I got my love for birds and animals, the countryside, silence; respect for all living things, appreciation for fine food, friends, and kindness. A love of reading, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, anything that engages the mind.

We (her children) think her mind is still so sharp because she has always challenged it.

She's a financial wizard – we've always said that if Mum ran the country, it wouldn't be in debt. Not that she has much in the way of financial support; she's just very good at managing it.

Do you know When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple? In her younger days soft-spoken and polite (if people mistakenly thought she was meek, boy, were they wrong), Mum has grown cantankerous. She doesn't wear purple and a red hat, but she does what she wants and says what she thinks, and does not hesitate to give anyone a piece of her mind. She would wear purple with a red hat, press alarm bells, and run a stick along public railings, if she wanted to.

Eighty-nine years old. We'll hold a big birthday bash for her next year, over which she will preside like the queen of all she surveys.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum. I love you.

Author Christine Kersey Never Gave up on Her Dreams

Never Give Up On Your Dreams

by Christine Kersey

 

I love to read and lose myself in a good story – forget all that is going on around me and be in the story with the characters. One day in 1997 I finished reading a novel by Joy Fielding and realized she hadn't needed to be an expert in a particular field, like medicine or law, to write a good suspense story. This fact inspired me to try my hand at writing. It also didn't hurt that we'd just gotten our first computer and I can type much faster than I can write longhand.

At this time in my life I was thirty-two and my youngest child was three. I also had three other children who were in elementary school. A stay-at-home mom, I was able to carve out some time to work on this project. At first I didn't tell anyone what I was doing. What if I couldn't complete it? What if I failed? After a short time I told my husband, mother, and sister and they were supportive.

I kept working at it, day by day, until after about four weeks I'd finished a complete novel. At that point it was nowhere near ready to be published, but I'd proven to myself that I could write a novel with a beginning, middle, and end. I continued working on the story, then put it aside and began working on another.

I gathered the courage to have a few friends read it and they all said they loved it. Encouraged, I decided to attend a conference called Bouchercon , which is for fans of mysteries. At the conference I mingled with published writers and talked to an agent or two. Afterwards I sent queries to several agents, but none of them were interested in my completed novel.

Shortly afterwards I started working part-time and didn't spend as much time writing as I had before. When my youngest child started first grade I decided to go back to college full-time and earn my degree. Over the next four years I did very little fiction writing and focused on getting my education.

As I approached my final semester my schedule wasn't quite as heavy and I decided to do some revisions on one of my two completed novels. When I felt the story was ready, I submitted it to a small, regional publisher. In April, 2004 I graduated with a B.S. in Information Technology. That same week the publisher got back to me and said they were interested in publishing my book, but first they wanted me to do revisions. Though they hadn't offered a contract yet, I did the revisions and resubmitted the manuscript. They were pleased, but wanted yet more revisions. In 2004 the job market was down and I was spending a lot of time job-hunting, but I did the revisions as requested.

In October of that year I finally found a full-time position and within two weeks of starting my new job, the publisher got back to me and offered a contract. Needless to say, I was thrilled. Seven and a half years after I'd written my first book and I was finally getting published!

I was assigned an editor and worked closely with her. The book hit bookstores in July, 2005. I thought I was on my way. I had one book published with a real publisher, so now I was set, right?

The book sold reasonably well, but when I submitted another manuscript, my publisher decided not to publish it. Discouraged, I focused on my family and my job and didn't spend very much time writing. However, I still read as much as ever. In fact, when the nook eReader became available I bought one and started loading dozens of books onto it. I was in reader heaven.

I'd had my nook for nearly a year before I caught on to the possibilities indie publishing presented. The book I'd published with a traditional publisher had gone out of print and I was able to get the rights back. That book, No Way Out, was the first book I made available as an indie publisher. The first month it was available I sold exactly one copy. But that one sale was very exciting. Since then I've published three more novels and have sold thousands of copies. I love that I have complete control over what I publish. I also love to read the work of other indie authors. There are so many talented people that are now able to publish their work.

I'm glad I didn't give up on my dream to be published and am so excited at the endless opportunities that are now available. One thing I've learned is that if you persist in following your dreams, eventually you will be able to accomplish what you've set out to do, whatever it may be.

That three-year-old child that sat near me as I began my writing career is now a senior in high school. Whether or not I had chosen to continue writing, time inexorably moved forward. It's never too late to follow your dreams, but why wait?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit my blog

No Way Out, about a woman whose husband disappears, is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

He Loves Me Not is currently only available at Amazon, although if you have a nook, email me and I'll send you a free epub copy.

Don't Look Back is the sequel to He Loves Me Not and is available at Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Mel Comley's French Fancies

In the Summer 2011, I was approached by another writer, Cheryl Shireman, who wanted to pull a group of women writers together to create a unique book. The object of the book would be to inform readers about our personal struggles to become established authors. Every story is an inspiration, some sad, some happy and some tell of great obstacles these 25 women have had to overcome to get where they are today. The proceeds of the book are being donated to a Breast Cancer Charity. We called it The Indie Chicks.

French fancies!

In 1993 I walked out on my sad and abusive marriage, one that I had stuck with for seven years. At the time I jointly owned a shop with my ex-husband and my Mother, so we had to sell the business when the marriage broke down.

If I thought that was hard it was nothing to what I had to endure the following six years. To make ends meet, I had to work two jobs for 70-80 hours a week over 6½ days. Take my word when I say it wasn't fun.

But onwards and upwards, when Mum retired we made a spur of the moment decision to leave England and move to France. We'd never set foot in the country before we came out here to house hunt, I know, we're either brave or stupid. I like to think we're the former, but I sometimes wonder if that's the case!

We bought a farmhouse and barns that needed total renovation. In 6 months I decorated 22 rooms while a local builder created a gîte (a holiday home) out of a couple of the barns. After the renovations were completed I grew bored with my 'early retirement' and enrolled in a creative writing course. I threw myself into it and over the next 4-5 years I sat down and wrote three romances and two thrillers.

In October 2009, I discovered the writing site run by Harper Collins called Authonomy where I uploaded the first 10,000 words of my thriller Impeding Justice. It took me 8 months to reach the editor's desk where I received a favourable review from a Harper Collins editor. The trouble was they weren't taking on any thriller writers at that time, they were only interested in printing Celebrity Autobiographies!

Therefore, in October 2010 I decided to upload Impeding Justice as an ebook. It took a while to take off but in January 2011 sales really started gathering momentum, but it wasn't until I released the second book in the series, Final Justice that sales really took off.

After selling over 30,000 books in April, I was in the fortunate position of having several agents knocking on my virtual door. I finally agreed terms and signed a contract with top New York agent, Richard Curtis. I sent him Cruel Justice the third book in the thriller series and he tried for 4 months to get me a traditional publishing contract, but at the moment he admits he's finding it difficult to place any books with publishers because of the Indie revolution, which I'm extremely proud to be part of.

During last summer, I edited the romances I wrote at the beginning of my journey. I uploaded A Time to Heal towards the end of August and immediately received a couple of 5 star reviews (no they weren't from my family, they don't know I write!) some of them were from my thriller fans who were equally impressed by my romance endeavours.

At the beginning of September I uploaded A Time For Change, another romance which is actually a TRUE story of how my dear friends met and fell in love. Obviously their names have been changed and the story has a mystery element to it too.

In October 2011, I uploaded the third book in my thriller series, Cruel Justice, which is actually the prequel to my best-seller Impeding Justice. It's been very well received and has even reached #2 in the Police Procedural chart on Amazon.

I'm very fortunate to be able to write full-time (it's addictive, don't you know!) and have several more projects outlined that I intend tackling over the coming winter months.

This is how my day pans out, first thing, providing it isn't raining, I take my two dogs for a walk, actually they tend to drag me round our small village. Then I sit down to answer any emails and Facebook messages I've received overnight from fans (yes I do have them.) I then set out to write a minimum of 2-3000 words per day, before I dip into hours of necessary promoting. That's the hardest part of being an Indie writer, the fact that we have to promote ourselves long and hard. I used to be quite a shy person, but I've had to overcome that quickly. I think deep down, every writer would love to be a recluse and be able to focus full-time on their creations, unfortunately that's unrealistic in an Indie world.

Do I ever think about my life back in England? No, never, but my ex features heavily in my books. When I need to think up a baddie character it's his image I picture in my mind. As for my murder scenes, I find them VERY easy to write. LOL

 You can find out about me and my books at the following blogs.

http://melcomley.blogspot.com/

http://melcomleyromances.blogspot.com/

You can purchase my books in ebook format or paperback from my website. http://www.melcomleybooks.com/

Or follow me on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mel-Comley/264745836884860

My twitter id is @melcom1

It's coming! The IWU Cook Book!

Some time ago – I can't even remember when – I was invited to join a Facebook group called Indie Writers Unite, a place where independently publishing authors could get together and give sage advice to their fellows. I was one of the first to join, number 15, I think. Now IWU has 975 members and continues to grow. The founder, Cheryl Bradshaw, came up with the idea of using our combined talents to create a book, and not just any book.

A cook book.

Who doesn't enjoy browsing a cookbook filled with yummy recipes and colorful pictures of yummy food? I like to browse, though I admit I look for quick and easy recipes nowadays. Having seen some of the recipes that will appear in the book, I think I'll be trying out quite a few of them. I practically flooded my keyboard with drool when I saw the pictures.

Proceeds from the book –  Dine With Us: A collection of recipes from the authors of Indie Writers Unite – will go to UNICEF.

As a sample of the delights in store, here is my contribution. If you've read Whisperings, you know Tiff Banks does occasionally cook, if it's not too complicated, and she loves Italian food, so I think she would like this one. And I bet Royal would contribute fresh, crusty , homemade bread warm from the oven to go with it.

 Easy Pasta e Fagioli.

My version of this hearty Italian soup uses store cupboard ingredients. You'll need a big saucepan or Dutch oven for this. My family prefers the small red and small white beans, but you can use cannellini and red kidney beans. This is heart-healthy dish; if you want healthier, substitute ½ ground beef and ½ ground turkey for the 100% ground beef and cook meat in microwave instead of pan.

 ½ lb ground beef

15 oz can Small Red Beans, drained

15 oz can Small White Beans, drained

1 cup shredded carrot

½ cup shredded zucchini

½ tsp minced garlic

½ red pepper, sliced in thin strips (julienned)

6 oz can Tomato Paste

14 oz cans Beef Broth (2)

1 ½ cups water

14 oz can Italian style diced tomatoes

1 tsp beef base (best) or beef granules

1 Tbsp dried minced or chopped onion

½ tsp dried Italian Seasoning

2 dried Bay Leaves

2 celery stalks, sliced lengthwise then crosswise into small pieces

Two or three handfuls of small pasta (macaroni, ditalina, etc)

Spray bottom of pan with nonstick spray. Brown ground beef in saucepan, drain. Add all ingredients except pasta and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for half an hour. Add pasta and continue to simmer a further half an hour (as pasta can take that long to reach al dente on a simmer.) Or cook pasta in boiling water in a separate pot and add during the last 5 minutes. Remove the bay leaves before serving.

Serve with crusty bread and parmesan cheese.