Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 16
February 5, 2019
5 Things That Are Irritating About Victoria/Alyce
I had to rewrite these stories about 3 times last year in order to complete a merge of them. I wanted to discard “Alyce” altogether, but I just felt a lingering presence in it that wouldn’t go away. However, I didn’t add much new material, like new characters. This means there are now at least 5 things that could be improved and you only notice these when the two stories are combined.Not that this makes the book low-quality—I mean, no book is PERFECT. (Except I know many people will vouch for their currently favorite historical romance or YA fantasy author. But aside from that, no book is ever perfect.)
1 Prince Roderick needs more friends. I didn’t give him any in "Alyce" because it was a really short story, but now it looks like he’s kind of unpopular. He only knows one silent man who helps him in his work, and he breezes in and rescues Victoria all on his own like a sort of anomaly.2 Mrs. Corkum and the English travelers are a blip. This was an area where Victoria saw a parallel family to hers and learned how they looked. Now that Victoria isn’t such a brat, she just travels with these people for a couple of really odd chapters.3 Ignacio was meant to be a hero, but he got more and more sinister and we aren’t told why. One of the few things I added was a small scene where Ignacio runs into Victoria later. Bella has run away from him, but they end up back together and Victoria doesn’t ask about it. WHY NOT?4 The Hirado. Now that he’s helping her instead of out to get her, it’s not clear what his character is about. I tied him into the “Alyce” part of the story by saying he’s warning her about what’s to come with the king. That’s interesting, but it’s still hazy what he represents in the story.5 King Felipe is now absolutely boring. The whole story builds towards him inviting Victoria to set her up, but his personality disappeared somewhere between the time "Alyce" was published and the current story. I didn’t iron him out on purpose, it just happened. This area is still pretty funny (when she’s chased around the castle by the thugs) but Felipe contributes nothing at all.
And there will be more updates.
January 29, 2019
And The Fashion Begins
I popped back into Pinterest early this week and started making boards again. I got the idea from a book promotion website I follow, called Bookzio, which has an active Pinterest board to help promote discount books. "Pinterest--haven't been on there in a while. Does it still exist?" I thought lethargically. But I poked back in, reactivated my account, and started pinning lots of funny pics and inspirational quotes. Then I searched vintage fashion for a Bellevere House board and found lots of great ideas.
I knew vintage was a popular search, but my sister (who OWNED Pinterest at that time) specialized in girls with bombshell hair and bright lipstick. So I thought that was all there was to the vintage thing. This week I discovered lots of great dresses from the circa 1930s era--some on models, some on dressmaker's dummies. I saved lots and lots of them in many great colors. I visualize Bellevere as having lots of variety in the colors the women wear for each scene (men are harder to get creative about, but maybe something specific in the argyle pattern of a vest, etc.)
Now I actually have dresses to look at, concepts were just popping out at me. Faye wears a lot of gray, black, and blouse-with-skirt combinations. In one scene she wears a pale blue with pink flowers on it, for no reason. Helene often wears an outfit in just one scene, sometimes very striking colors--like dark maroon with a white collar when she plays piano, or a gold shirt and dark brown skirt at the beach. BeBe wears a lot of pale pink, little sweaters, and coral. I found a long dark blue flamoboyant evening dress for Myrtle when she's discovered to have been cheating with Horace, and a medium green with embroidery for Aunt Betty when she talks about whether green is more a color for men or women. (Her son wears lots of green ties, which is odd, and which might throw her off!)
So much fun. I'll narrow down pics soon and put some on the blog.
And there will be more updates.
I knew vintage was a popular search, but my sister (who OWNED Pinterest at that time) specialized in girls with bombshell hair and bright lipstick. So I thought that was all there was to the vintage thing. This week I discovered lots of great dresses from the circa 1930s era--some on models, some on dressmaker's dummies. I saved lots and lots of them in many great colors. I visualize Bellevere as having lots of variety in the colors the women wear for each scene (men are harder to get creative about, but maybe something specific in the argyle pattern of a vest, etc.)
Now I actually have dresses to look at, concepts were just popping out at me. Faye wears a lot of gray, black, and blouse-with-skirt combinations. In one scene she wears a pale blue with pink flowers on it, for no reason. Helene often wears an outfit in just one scene, sometimes very striking colors--like dark maroon with a white collar when she plays piano, or a gold shirt and dark brown skirt at the beach. BeBe wears a lot of pale pink, little sweaters, and coral. I found a long dark blue flamoboyant evening dress for Myrtle when she's discovered to have been cheating with Horace, and a medium green with embroidery for Aunt Betty when she talks about whether green is more a color for men or women. (Her son wears lots of green ties, which is odd, and which might throw her off!)
So much fun. I'll narrow down pics soon and put some on the blog.
And there will be more updates.
The Dividing Line
This month saw a lot of activity on the website, with participation in a promotion at the first of the year drawing a lot of visitors. They continued throughout the month, however, which I was pleased about. I sent out A Year with the Harrisons to get some reviews as well--it's been almost a year since it was published, but with so many other things to do I'm just now getting the ball rolling on this book. I reopened Goodreads, continued to develop my FB presence (those fan pages can be a hassle, but they are worth it), and got on BookBub. I also have a little Goodreads button on my blog sidebar now, which will link to all the books I've read over the past 2 years. I started putting up book reviews before I got back to the author account.
The books on the website have A Year with the Harrisons in a runaway lead. Ryan and Essie, Bellevere House, and Victoria: A Tale of Spain are all tied a little bit back of Harrisons. Facets of Fantasy is trailing a bit and Consuela is lagging far behind. Stats fluctuate quite a bit, though, and Ryan and Essie, which was once one of the lowest on page views, has climbed steadily over the last few months. It's clear though that A Year with the Harrisons is getting a lot of attention right now, which is perfect since it was the most recently published book. It was released during a very quiet time when I didn't have a lot of social activity, so it's taken a while to start up.
And there will be more updates.
The books on the website have A Year with the Harrisons in a runaway lead. Ryan and Essie, Bellevere House, and Victoria: A Tale of Spain are all tied a little bit back of Harrisons. Facets of Fantasy is trailing a bit and Consuela is lagging far behind. Stats fluctuate quite a bit, though, and Ryan and Essie, which was once one of the lowest on page views, has climbed steadily over the last few months. It's clear though that A Year with the Harrisons is getting a lot of attention right now, which is perfect since it was the most recently published book. It was released during a very quiet time when I didn't have a lot of social activity, so it's taken a while to start up.
And there will be more updates.
January 25, 2019
When Real is Stranger Than Fake
Consuela was once based—very, very loosely, I might add—on a novel of Dickens called The Pickwick Papers. Surprisingly few incidents from this book actually made it into Consuela, and after turning a lot of the characters into girls and getting it out of a historical setting altogether and into dystopian, any resemblance to Pickwick became threadbare.
Except for two things.
There doesn’t seem any reason for the book to still be here, yet it is (not unlike Pickwick, which expired about a century ago); and there remains a theatrical flair to the characters. Consuela got some reviews and attention when it was published, but then it quickly lost relevance. However, it sprang back for reasons that still have me scratching my head. Probably trying to tickle my brain into letting me in on the reasons! And the characters do have some of that larger-than-life, honestly bizarre quality that is part of Dicken’s work. People say “Dickensian” for a reason. He could be just blisteringly fake. Really blistering, at times.
Within that fakeness, that tall unrealism that permeates the funny, but almost unrecognizable eccentrics of his world, there is a grain of truth. That can be how we see the people around us. In a very detailed, but honestly unrealistic way. It’s too acid. Our friends and coworkers aren’t really like that because no one is like that. But people do that if there’s something they just don’t want to see about others and so in a way, these fake characters are true to human perceptions. That influence lingers on Consuela’s cast and in working on this story I learned a lot, from the inside out, of what makes characters like that so interesting.
And there will be more updates.
Except for two things.
There doesn’t seem any reason for the book to still be here, yet it is (not unlike Pickwick, which expired about a century ago); and there remains a theatrical flair to the characters. Consuela got some reviews and attention when it was published, but then it quickly lost relevance. However, it sprang back for reasons that still have me scratching my head. Probably trying to tickle my brain into letting me in on the reasons! And the characters do have some of that larger-than-life, honestly bizarre quality that is part of Dicken’s work. People say “Dickensian” for a reason. He could be just blisteringly fake. Really blistering, at times.
Within that fakeness, that tall unrealism that permeates the funny, but almost unrecognizable eccentrics of his world, there is a grain of truth. That can be how we see the people around us. In a very detailed, but honestly unrealistic way. It’s too acid. Our friends and coworkers aren’t really like that because no one is like that. But people do that if there’s something they just don’t want to see about others and so in a way, these fake characters are true to human perceptions. That influence lingers on Consuela’s cast and in working on this story I learned a lot, from the inside out, of what makes characters like that so interesting.
And there will be more updates.
January 22, 2019
My New Profiles
In the last couple of weeks I got on BookBub and reopened my Goodreads author account. Since the Goodreads profile hasn’t been active in 3 years and the BookBub one just got started, I don’t have a lot of views there yet, but you can drop by and follow me if either of these are sites where you are active.
I still have a number of followers on Goodreads from before, but after such a long hiatus, they stopped listening to my posts although my blog still syndicates into the profile. Nonetheless, I decided to return so I could keep my books in order because new books are automatically added to Goodreads and I want to keep track of them. Not sure yet whether BookBub offers anything for me, but I also wanted to keep my books in order there.
You can follow me on Book Bub here and on Goodreads here. Everything on BB looks fine. My books on Goodreads are a mess because I can’t change the book covers, many of which are outdated, or some of the book’s information. However, I did make a shelf for “authorsbooks” and here’s the link to it so you can quickly add them to your Want to Read list. Ryan and Essie isn’t on the list yet, but all the others on my website are.
And there will be more updates.
I still have a number of followers on Goodreads from before, but after such a long hiatus, they stopped listening to my posts although my blog still syndicates into the profile. Nonetheless, I decided to return so I could keep my books in order because new books are automatically added to Goodreads and I want to keep track of them. Not sure yet whether BookBub offers anything for me, but I also wanted to keep my books in order there.
You can follow me on Book Bub here and on Goodreads here. Everything on BB looks fine. My books on Goodreads are a mess because I can’t change the book covers, many of which are outdated, or some of the book’s information. However, I did make a shelf for “authorsbooks” and here’s the link to it so you can quickly add them to your Want to Read list. Ryan and Essie isn’t on the list yet, but all the others on my website are.
And there will be more updates.
January 18, 2019
The Alcazar at Midnight
Victoria: A Tale of Spain (which I now call informally “Victoria/Alyce” because it is a merge of both stories) is an updated version of two stories that used to be in a series and are still listed that way on Goodreads. But you can ignore that because now it is one middle-grade novel set in Spain in the 1600s. In fact, I made a new listing for Victoria/Alyce—Victoria: A Tale of Spain (New Edition.) One issue with “Alyce” was that it really plunked down in the middle of the story and didn’t give a lot of background on the characters. Putting Victoria on the front end of it helps to explain how “Alyce” happened and what motivates the characters.And the first part of this new story—which I must stress IS new—is set in The Alcazar, a real castle in central Spain. I visited it about three times, years ago. I’m grateful for being able to stand in a real building of this sort and not have to rely on my imagination. Being there multiple times, especially, helped me emulate the feeling of living in this castle. It’s actually someone’s home—home of the family of Duke Carlos with his many daughters—and it might be difficult for us to imagine, with our very different houses and conveniences, that it was a place to live. Not a historical set, with historical costumes—I wanted an unselfconsciousness about it that is a major part of being authentic if you describe any type of family life. Those little details like experiencing the climate of central Spain (it gets really chilly at night!) flesh out the world in a concrete way that I’m glad about.
Victoria has to run away at midnight after learning her older sister has disappeared. Although I always saw this castle during the day, it wasn’t hard to think it could be very spooky at night. And when you’ve got an intruder stalking her—who she doesn’t know yet is a friend in disguise—Victoria is going to be pretty upset and it makes for the kind of unsettling atmosphere that is a big part of the journey. She learns there are things she needs to know as she gets ready for the King’s ball.
And there will be more updates.
January 15, 2019
The Devil is In the Readers
When I listened to a lot of advice from other writers, I rapidly learned that most were myopic and vague. They only saw what worked for them specifically, and immediately recommended it to others.
"FB ads have brought me loads of readers,” “Twitter works so much better than Goodreads,” “these promotion sites give back the most downloads,” “you need to offer free things on your site,” “Book Bub is an amazing alternative dimension of great sales.” “WRITE BOOKS IN MY GENRE.” “Book Bub always rejects me, I think I’ll look elsewhere,” “I’m all about LibraryThing’s giveaways,” “newsletters, newsletters, newsletters. Great authors have strategies to utilize this POWERFUL tool, the newsletter, and you should too,” “I hate Amazon.” “I love Amazon.” “I published with a site other than Amazon.” “I’ve had great success with podcasts.” “AUDIOBOOKS.” “Keep up a courtesy blog every couple of months so people know you’re alive.” “Blog daily.” “INSTAGRAM.”
And in the midst of all buzz, I’ve found only one thing that worked for me—follow your heart.
In this deeply commercialized writing world, I found a lack of clarity about who the readers actually are. The goal is to be the same as some other author you view as successful. When the truth is that authors are individuals. They are thinking about what their readers are thinking about.
Finding your path is about finding your readers, who may or may not be on Instagram. Or Twitter. Or be interested in podcasts. Or audiobooks. Or book conventions. Maybe they never read blogs. Or maybe they love using a site in an unexpected way, like getting a feel for an author’s personality on Goodreads instead of using it for books. Whatever your readers are thinking about, that is what you should think about. There’s no use going to lots of FB groups if your readers hate them and would never hang out there. It’s pointless going wide on ebook sales if your readers only download from Kindle. Do your readers want paperbacks and hardbacks? If they don’t, don’t bother buying author copies that will lie around in your house. EVEN IF OTHER PEOPLE DO IT.
Follow your heart. What would you do? It’s what your readers do.
And there will be more updates.
"FB ads have brought me loads of readers,” “Twitter works so much better than Goodreads,” “these promotion sites give back the most downloads,” “you need to offer free things on your site,” “Book Bub is an amazing alternative dimension of great sales.” “WRITE BOOKS IN MY GENRE.” “Book Bub always rejects me, I think I’ll look elsewhere,” “I’m all about LibraryThing’s giveaways,” “newsletters, newsletters, newsletters. Great authors have strategies to utilize this POWERFUL tool, the newsletter, and you should too,” “I hate Amazon.” “I love Amazon.” “I published with a site other than Amazon.” “I’ve had great success with podcasts.” “AUDIOBOOKS.” “Keep up a courtesy blog every couple of months so people know you’re alive.” “Blog daily.” “INSTAGRAM.”
And in the midst of all buzz, I’ve found only one thing that worked for me—follow your heart.
In this deeply commercialized writing world, I found a lack of clarity about who the readers actually are. The goal is to be the same as some other author you view as successful. When the truth is that authors are individuals. They are thinking about what their readers are thinking about.
Finding your path is about finding your readers, who may or may not be on Instagram. Or Twitter. Or be interested in podcasts. Or audiobooks. Or book conventions. Maybe they never read blogs. Or maybe they love using a site in an unexpected way, like getting a feel for an author’s personality on Goodreads instead of using it for books. Whatever your readers are thinking about, that is what you should think about. There’s no use going to lots of FB groups if your readers hate them and would never hang out there. It’s pointless going wide on ebook sales if your readers only download from Kindle. Do your readers want paperbacks and hardbacks? If they don’t, don’t bother buying author copies that will lie around in your house. EVEN IF OTHER PEOPLE DO IT.
Follow your heart. What would you do? It’s what your readers do.
And there will be more updates.
January 11, 2019
Harrisons and Everwood Sale
A Year with the Harrisons and the combo pack of Everwood with The Amulet of Renari are on sale for $.99 this week. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can also borrow these or any of my books and read for free. Some of the other titles are reduced to $1.99. You can browse around my Amazon author profile to find them.
In the future I’m hoping to make it easier for people to pop in a quick review of my books by just sending to a review page or feedback box so they don’t have to download specific copies and get back specific reviews by a certain time, etc. Reviews are important, but pressure to review takes all the fun out of it and a lot of the authenticity as well. People just ARE more likely to review a book they think is interesting than one they don’t, so I’m not going to pressure people to review any of my books (as so many authors do.)
I’d like to make it just a lot easier for them to do so if they want. Offers to review a book aren’t pressure—they’re an opportunity to show the book interested you. It’s also not an effort to cover up if the book isn’t being read. If the review process takes fewer steps, the reviewer honestly has time to do it and that removes an impediment that keeps me from reviewing lots of books and probably keeps other people from doing it too.
And there will be more updates.
In the future I’m hoping to make it easier for people to pop in a quick review of my books by just sending to a review page or feedback box so they don’t have to download specific copies and get back specific reviews by a certain time, etc. Reviews are important, but pressure to review takes all the fun out of it and a lot of the authenticity as well. People just ARE more likely to review a book they think is interesting than one they don’t, so I’m not going to pressure people to review any of my books (as so many authors do.)
I’d like to make it just a lot easier for them to do so if they want. Offers to review a book aren’t pressure—they’re an opportunity to show the book interested you. It’s also not an effort to cover up if the book isn’t being read. If the review process takes fewer steps, the reviewer honestly has time to do it and that removes an impediment that keeps me from reviewing lots of books and probably keeps other people from doing it too.
And there will be more updates.
January 8, 2019
After doing numerous posts on characters, I’ve never done one on Karl Kallai from Halogen Crossing. I guess Karl can get overlooked. It’s hard to understand at first quite what drives him and why he’s so focused on something everyone else finds boring (namely, finding the ancestral roots of his people.) And his relationship with his cousin Cassie is central to what makes him tick.January 4, 2019
Come One, Come All
Welcome to Sarah Scheele.com newsletter subscribers! Some of you signed up so long ago you probably don’t remember—some just a few days ago—and some months back but haven’t heard from me. It’s nice to talk to all of you again. Be aware I struggled managing my lists earlier this year and I have subscribers overlapped from different lists. If you usubscribed from one list I might have accidentally had you on another list and that's why you're getting this. This was an honest error and I apologize. Feel free to unsubscribe again.
There’s a lot to catch up on! This week I linked the blog into the newsletter, which means you’ll be getting inbox posts from me weekly instead of monthly (or even less often.) I follow a lot of mailing lists and I do feel a lot more engaged when I get frequent emails, even if I never open half of them. Emails will go out on Saturday, so if you're also looking at this post through the website, you'll get an email tomorrow.
I’ve continued working on revision of my books and enhancement of my website. Both of those are in a much (MUCH) improved condition as of now and I’d like to invite you to browse around the new SARAH SCHEELE.COM. If you’d like a snapshot of what people have been looking at, see my Most Viewed Posts.
I have FB chat on my website now! I discovered this cool new feature when ramping up my FB fan page earlier this year. The widget is installed on the “News” page as a Messenger pop-up. Type in a conversation with me there and start chatting with me from my website!
Facets of Fantasy Blue is free on Kindle on Friday Jan 4 and Saturday Jan 5. Be sure to check it out on those days to get the sales rankings up (and enjoy the book too, of course.)
There’s a lot to catch up on! This week I linked the blog into the newsletter, which means you’ll be getting inbox posts from me weekly instead of monthly (or even less often.) I follow a lot of mailing lists and I do feel a lot more engaged when I get frequent emails, even if I never open half of them. Emails will go out on Saturday, so if you're also looking at this post through the website, you'll get an email tomorrow.
I’ve continued working on revision of my books and enhancement of my website. Both of those are in a much (MUCH) improved condition as of now and I’d like to invite you to browse around the new SARAH SCHEELE.COM. If you’d like a snapshot of what people have been looking at, see my Most Viewed Posts.
I have FB chat on my website now! I discovered this cool new feature when ramping up my FB fan page earlier this year. The widget is installed on the “News” page as a Messenger pop-up. Type in a conversation with me there and start chatting with me from my website!
Facets of Fantasy Blue is free on Kindle on Friday Jan 4 and Saturday Jan 5. Be sure to check it out on those days to get the sales rankings up (and enjoy the book too, of course.)
