Renée Harrell's Blog, page 9

This post is WRITTEN BY RENEE HARRELL...

… with thanks to Cassysailermoon for her assistance.

Look, if we were a pair of big dollar authors, you’d almost expect us to find a co-writer to “flesh out” our expanding series of novels. Clive Cussler, Janet Evanovich, Tom Clancy – everybody who's anybody is doing it. (Almost everybody. J.K. Rowling has really missed a bet so far; if she’d signed Thomas Perry to knock out the first draft of her next novel, we could all be reading Harry Potter and the Big Bag of Gold by now.)

Sadness and gloom, we’re not big dollar authors so we can’t afford to hire a talented but poor-ish writer to pen our words. Hell, we’re talented but poor-ish writers and currently available for hire.  (If James Patterson calls, we’ve even got a title available: Alex Cross and the Big Bag of Gold.) But, even with an anemic bank account, we wanted to know what it felt like to have someone else do most of the work while we watched Age of Dinosaurs on Netflix.

So we went looking for someone to write our blog.

Why I’m Writing Someone Else’s Blog for a Measly Five Bucks

By Cassysailermoon

Hi, my name is Cassy. You’re probably wondering why Renée and Harrell are having me write their blog, and why I agreed to do it…for only $5. Let me explain. Renée and Harrell found me on a website called Fiverr.com.  In their own words, they were “wandering through Fiverr and looking for someone who sounded up for a silly challenge.” They found me, and asked if I would be interested in taking on this challenge. Of course, I agreed; I’m up for almost any challenge that someone makes me on Fiverr! Before I start rattling on, let me first explain to you what Fiverr is and how it works.

Fiverr is a website where sellers can sell their services, called “gigs,” for $5, and, in turn, buyers can buy these services for only $5. People buy and sell all sorts of different things on Fiverr. Some people translate from one language to another, some people will take pictures of themselves holding a sign with your business name or URL written on it, some people will sing you a personalized song, and some people, like me, will write anything you want. I offer to write your essay, book report, speech, blog, or any other writing assignment up to 500 words for $5. Right now, I know you’re thinking, “Wait?! This girl does all that work for just $5??” The answer to that question is yes. But wait! There’s more!  I actually don’t make $5 per gig because Fiverr takes out $1 of every sale as their commission. So, essentially, I work for $4 a gig. You probably think I’m crazy that I work for so little money…and sometimes I think that too. But, to be honest, it’s not all that bad. I’m good at writing, and I usually enjoy writing people’s papers. It usually doesn’t take me that long to write the papers either, so the dollars I make per hour is about what I would make at any gas station or grocery store job. Besides writing your paper, I also have other types of gigs. I will proofread and edit your writing, improve your Fiverr gig description, take pictures with your message, make video testimonials, write reviews, give piano lessons, and much more!

I found out about Fiverr from an article I read about how to make money online. I decided to give it a try. I didn’t expect much success, but on my first day signed up, I got three orders, and after only one week, I made over $150! I am saving 100% of the money I make on Fiverr for college, which I will be starting in January. I’m very excited to start, but, as everyone knows, it’s very expensive. However, the way things have been going with my Fiverr sales, it looks like I will make enough money to not need financial aid! This is extremely exciting for me! Fiverr has proven to be a great money maker for me, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make some extra cash!

* * *

So that was Cassysailermoon, wordsmith, making four dollars by writing our blog this Tuesday and – as you’ve noticed – moonlighting as a recruiting agent for Fiverr.com.  Next time, we should slip her a few bucks to promote one of our novels. While we were pleased to have someone else do the heavy lifting this week, finances dictate that we write our own blog next week.

Unless, of course, James Patterson calls, excited about our Alex Cross suggestion. Then, who knows? Cassy might just become a regular.

We were in Niceville yesterday...

...meaning, of course, Niceville, Florida, when two things suddenly occurred to us:
 
(1) There's a city called Niceville. It sounds like a location from The Powerpuff Girls cartoon (we love us some Mojo Jojo). While the area appeared to be a perfectly...well, nice little spot on the map, it didn't seem especially nicer than the communities surrounding it. If someone is going to name their city after Nice-ness, then that same someone needs to bake free cookies for all of the visitors. Or brownies, with and without walnuts. We're just sayin'.
 
We also happened to recall (2) Holy crap! August 21st is the start of our free book promotion day and we'd completely forgotten about it.
 
Which we had. Completely.
 
Again.
 
So the first thing we did on arriving home was unpack our luggage. After all, free book day or not, dirty laundry doesn't belong in a suitcase. Then we thought we'd do a shout-out for anyone wanting a free copy of Something Wicked.
At this very second, the Amazon ranking looks like this:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,141 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store) #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Mysteries & Thrillers
-- which has everything to do with places like Free Kindle Books and PinYourBook.com and My Free Indie and eReaderPerks mentioning our novel while we returned from the wet and humid streets of Niceville. If you'd care to mention the giveaway yourself, please do. It runs from 08/21-08/23. In early September, we pull the title away from Amazon-exclusivity and we'll see if we can find enough reader interest to write a sequel to the story.
 
Next week, as promised, we're going to post our $5 blog as written by Cassysailermoon. (Probably not her real name.)
 
Quote o' the day: "I run six to eight miles a day, plus weights and aerobics in the lunch hour. I also lie a lot, which keeps me thin." -- Hugh Laurie

It turns out that this "writing" thing...

...is just taking up too much of our time. Our latest work-in-progress is taking forever and a day (if you understand that forever means several months, while and a day means another few weeks after that). Yet the big name guys -- James Patterson and Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler -- manage to produce novel after novel in-between attending dozens of high society soirees. Or traveling to bake sales, or getting free balloons at auto shop openings, or doing whatever it is that successful writers do when they're not writing. Once we're successful, we'll let you know what a hit writer does in his or her free time. Mostly, we plan to hang out at the bagel shop. Yummmm, bagels.
 
According to the Wall Street Journal , Patterson put out 13 novels in 2012 alone. Thirteen! We doubt we'll write 13 completed novels in our entire career.
 
Doing a little research, we once again discovered the secret behind these prodigious outputs. All of these Big Name Writers use other scribes to help with their manuscripts, at least on occasion. Even Janet Evanovich has jumped on the co-author bandwagon, enlisting Lee Goldberg to help with her newest novel.  (Why did we happen to notice the Evanovich/Goldberg team-up? In this case, the best-selling author wasn't the name that caught our attention. Neither of us reads the hit Stephanie Plum series but one of us really likes the guy who wrote the Monk t.v. show novelizations.)
 
Since "Renée Harrell" is a team consisting of two co-writers, you'd think we'd be matching these guys word for published word but no, we're not even close. We went in search of their secret writing tips, wanting to know how the magic happens. Because we know you're a curious sort, we're going to share some very public knowledge that you may not have stumbled across on your own:
 
From Entertainment Weekly in regards to James Patterson: He's an actual book factory, typically using credited co-authors to compose "first drafts" from elaborate outlines that he sends. (The Standard-Examiner provided the rules all co-writers must follow when working with Mr. Patterson. Hit the link and enjoy.)
 
From USA Today in regards to Clive Cussler: He says he still does some of the writing, "but not as much as I used to." He and his co-authors work out the plots -- "the hardest part after all those books, not to repeat myself" -- then "they go off and write the first 50 or so pages. They send it to me, and I see how it's going, make changes and send it back. It seems to work well."
 
From the Dallas Morning News , when interviewing Janet Evanovich: "The first thing we did was sit down together to work out the basics. Who exactly was the heroine? Who was this con artist? Then Lee, who's brilliant at plotting, wrote the first draft. He would write about 50 pages, I'd make a few course corrections, and he'd go back and write more. Then I wrote the last draft, bringing it a little more into my voice."
 
The Los Angeles Times has no problem with the co-authoring thing: Clancy's hardly the only one: You see the same thing with other biggies in the mystery and thriller genres -- for instance, Clive Cussler and Mary Higgins Clark have made co-writers a family affair, sharing the bylines of some of their books with their children. Come to think of it, didn't the great master of 19th century doorstoppers, Alexander Dumas, have a co-writer of some kind? If that's the case, then Clancy and everyone else are in very good company.
 
Co-writing doesn't bother us, either, as long as credit is shared and people are upfront about the process. Patterson & Company have been pretty open about the whole thing. Even though our research failed to provide dollar numbers, we assume the Big Name Writer gets 80% of the cash while the Little Name Writer does 80% of the work...and that actually seems fair since the royalty payout is likely to be the biggest paycheck the LNW will ever see. But the thing of it is, we now want someone to do most of our work while taking very little credit  (The Preacher's Son by RENEE HARRELL and Tim Smith) and even less money. Say, five bucks, tops.
 
Which will never happen but it does give us a new idea. As soon as this is posted, we're going over to Fiverr.com to see if we can find someone willing to write our next blog post for $5 and a tiny bit of credit. It would give us a bit more time to work on our slow-moving novel and it will be fun to see if anyone is interested.
 
See you next week.
 
Quote o' the day: "Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up." -- Stephen King

You've always been a little twisted...

...and don't think we haven't noticed. Now, it's our turn. On August 1st, we were formally released from our contract with Cobblestone Press and our romance novella, Wicked Games, became our property once again. Since Harrell was working on a new edit for the story and Renee was working on a new cover (more about that soon), we thought we might use a new title for the piece, too.
 
Author Rob Lopez was the first person to suggest we re-title the story, telling us there were too many other e-books sharing the title's name. Turns out, he was right. For Amazon Kindle alone, there are almost fifty stories using Wicked Games or Wicked Game or some similar variant to grab some attention. We considered going with Dangerous Games but, wouldn't you know, that's a name that's currently even more popular with the writing crowd. Search the Kindle listings and you'll find over 100 variations on that particular title.
 
Finally, we picked Twisted Games, a relatively untouched title as far as e-book writers are concerned. (There's a line in the story where a character protests, "This isn't some kind of twisted game I'm playing" but we thought Not Some Kind of Twisted Game might be a little wordy for our cover. We considered having the character say, "This is some kind of twisted game I'm playing", but no one in the history of the world has ever admitted to such a thing. Although, honestly, we'd buy that book.)
 
Speaking of the cover: Renée managed to sneak a moon into the background! We've wanted a moon in our werewolf-based fantasy since it was first published. Yes, it is a cliche. When it comes to unknown romance writers (us) and the covers on their novels (see above), we embrace the cliche. When we researched the top-selling paranormal romances, the cover art displayed almost always embraced the cliche. It encourages book buyers who like shifter stories to slow down and take a look.
 
In the original photo, the woman wore a wedding ring and the couple were standing waaaay off to the left and in front of a yellow background. Through the magic of graphic design, and Renée's growing knowledge of Adobe PhotoShop, we now have the cover image we want.
 
We're excited to see if a new cover, a new edit, a new title, and a lower price point will help us find an audience. Not a 99-cent price point, as Rob suggested, but we're still charging substantially less than CP. We hope some sweet day to have a single review. (We actually had a couple of reviews of the tale but they weren't people-reviews. They were reviewer-reviews. Sweet but not quite the same thing.) Our last CP royalty check was under a buck and, under the Wicked Games title, the story's sales rank was disappointing. How will Twisted Games do?
 
We're about to find out.
 
Quote o' the day: "I intend to live forever. So far, so good." -- Steven Wright

Remember that free read we were promising...

...once upon a time? Well, imagine how surprised we were to discover that the giveaway dates had already come and gone before we'd expected.
 
Yeah. When it comes to marketing our novels, we suck on a level that's levels beyond the usual suckage.
 
We're not bad people. See? We like puppies. We especially like pug puppies.
 
What happened was this: When a writer signs up with KDP Select, they're allowed five days to "promote" their product (= give it away for free) to Amazon's audience. The free approach may or may not be a swell idea -- since a fellow writer told us he'd never had a negative review until he put his novel up for grabs...and, then, oh, Lordy, did things change -- but, since the audience for Something Wicked had dwindled, we thought we'd give it a try, anyway.
 
We selected two days in July to promote the story and three days in August. We thought we'd do a minimum of promotion for the first round (this blog and we hit a couple of sites that list free novels) and use Ebook Booster for the August run. We don't know if Ebook Booster is any good, and the $40 out-of-pocket charge is roughly all of the royalties we've collected from Wicked in the last twelve months, but it was worth a try.
 
Because, if we somehow forgot to tell anyone that SW was a freebie, the Ebook Booster people would have our back. Which, of course, is exactly what happened when we failed to remember the two days we'd selected in July. Rather, we remembered the days incorrectly. We thought the promo was going to run 07/27-07/28...and we were wrong. It ran, unnoticed, on 07/23-07/24.
 
We discovered this when a new Something Wicked review popped up on Amazon. The reader was kind enough to write that the book was more entertaining than he'd expected. This comment led one of us to ask, "Well, why would you buy a novel if you didn't think it would be any good?" and the other one of us to say, "Uh-oh."
 
Yep. The freebie had hit the market and we'd failed to share it with our own tiny world, the good people who visit MarsNeedsWriters.
 
Trying to find a positive spin on things, we came up with this: We garnered a new review! Yay! Also, we can now gauge the effectiveness of paying for the efforts of Ebook Booster.
 
If you'd like, you can play along. Without any kind of decent marketing, SW garnered 656 downloads. Sadly, not an impressive number. The next series of free dates will be 08/21-08/23 and Ebook Booster has shared this info with its network of sites. So far, twelve of those sites have emailed us, telling us that they've received the request and they may (or may not) be promoting our work at that time. We've got our fingers crossed.
 
After the next promotion runs, we'll share the download number with you.
 
Quote o' the day:  "If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that." -- Ursula K. Le Guin

The future is rushing upon us...

...but, as you can see, we're already preparing for it. Well, kind of. Mostly.
 
On occasion.
 
Maybe not today, not as much as we should have, but we've been putting in the hours. Today, we spent our morning, strolling about as we plotted Chapter Three of Ashes & Ink. We're fairly pleased with how things came out. Plot points are lining up, some new characters are arriving, and we don't really know where things are going but we're happy with the story at this very moment. The finished product remains a mystery, of course, and we'll inevitably forget some of the minor details that we discussed during our long hike -- and we're about to tell you why.
 
Because...because...
 
Well, because, when we got home and one of us sat down to write the chapter notes, she remembered that the computer we use happens to hold her favorite kind of electronic crack. Spider Solitaire. Intending to spend a few minutes playing cards, she lost over an hour to the exercise (won a few games, dropped a few games. It all shakes out in the wash). She couldn't help herself. There are just some days when she wants to play hookey.
 
So the other one of us took over. But, of course, it was his turn to write today's blog as well, so he turned his attention to that, instead. Before he could write the piece, he (naturally) needed a photo for the blog spot's upper left-hand corner so he went in search of this week's picture. In the course of that adventure, he found the free Futurama HEAD-IN-A-JAR Creator app on Google Play. Which somehow consumed over an hour of his life as he gleefully tinkered with the toy to create the image you see above.
 
But then he came to a little stumbling block. He wanted both of the images to show as one on the blog but the app doesn't provide such an option and he lacks the skills to do it himself. Since he hadn't actually written anything today, you might think he'd be hesitant to approach the Spider Solitaire addict but, no, not really. Using her graphics skills, she melded everything into one image and, zing!, both of us decided to play hooky for the rest of the day.
 
Instead, we're going to watch Blast Vegas on the DVR. Because, if the future holds a giant sand snake fulfilling an ancient Egyptian curse, we want to be prepared.
 
No quote o' the day. While looking for a blog photo, Harrell found several websites devoted to viola jokes. (Yes, really.) He doesn't play the viola, he doesn't know anyone who plays the viola, he's not all that clear on what a viola exactly is, but he lost a good half hour reading the jokes, anyway. Here's one of them:

One day Timmy came home from school very excited. "Mommy, Mommy, Guess what? Today in English I got all the way to the end of the alphabet, and everyone else got messed up around 'P'!"
His mother said, "Very good, dear. That's because you're a violist."
The next day, Timmy was even more excited. "Mommy, Mommy, guess what! Today in math I counted all the way to ten, but everyone else got messed up around seven!"
"Very good, dear," his mother replied. "That's because you're a violist." On the third day, Timmy was beside himself. "Mommy, Mommy, today we measured ourselves and I'm the tallest one in my class! Is that because I'm a violist?"
"No dear," she said. "That's because you're 26 years old."

People like the nasty stuff...

...which is, more or less, what we took away from a recent email.
 
One of the lovelies who wander through this Blog-O-Rama took the time to contact us. After reading last week's blog, she was concerned that we might be hurting sales of our soon-to-be-re-released paranormal romance by removing its erotic elements. In the blog, we'd warned, The new take is still steamy but the graphic stuff has disappeared behind closed doors, and this correspondent was kind enough to say we were making a mistake. We won't quote her directly -- especially since she has yet to respond to our request, asking if we COULD quote her directly -- but our takeaway was, readers of werewolf lovin' like their action hot, heavy, and clearly descriptive. 
 
We don't have a problem with that. Obviously not, since we wrote the original steamy sections. Our gut feeling was, maybe we'd be expanding the audience for the story. After all, most romance readers are women and most women like a little mystery in their stories. Also, our hero is all man but he's also all wolf (so to speak) and the larger readership might well prefer we kept the randy stuff behind a veil. Yes, we'd have to lose the novella's positive review from Emily at SensualReads.com but it was a small price to pay for a bit of decorum.
 
Shows what we know.
 
Today, as we're puzzling over what to do next with the story, we come across ShortList magazine -- free on Google play, if you're interested -- and the folks there are running a short interview with Ron Perlman. Perlman played the lead in the movie Hellboy, one of our favorite superhero flicks ever, and he's far from the typical romantic leading man. Instead of a blue-eyed handsome man, Hellboy is, per creator Mike Mignola, a demon from actual Hell. He (Hellboy, not Mike Mignola) has horns and a massive stone fist. He's not exactly a babe magnet...or so we thought.
 
Perlman discovered differently. Here's what the actor told ShortList about his fan base: "I've not read any fan mail since the first Hellboy on account of how graphic it was. Certain people, mostly women, wanted to do some strange things to the beast, so I decided that weird sh*t was none of my business."
 
So there you are. The world is weird (except for thee and me, and we're not so sure about thee) and there's a little bit of kinky in all of us. Our only question now is, should there be a lot of bit of kinky in our paranormal romance?
 
Quote o the day: "That is exactly why our lives suck. I mean, come on, we hunt monsters. What the hell? I mean, normal people, they see a monster and they run." Dean Winchester, Supernatural

We decided to quit our publisher...

...even though we like this particular organization. 
 
Three years ago, we signed a contract with Cobblestone Press for our werewolfish romance novella, Wicked Games. It was a fairly smooth ride, all around. Acceptance came fairly quickly and a contract soon followed. To our pleasure, the contract was written in English instead of legalese and the terms were fair.  We were pleased to sign it.
 
The contract offer came in April, 2010, and Leanne Salter, Managing Editor, first reviewed our manuscript in May. We did three complete edits in quick order and Leanne was terrific every step of the way.  When the story was complete, the Cobblestone team asked our thoughts about the cover (we wanted a full moon in there somewhere) before offering us a choice of cover artists. We selected Sable Grey. By the end of May, Sable had given us a sexy cover that practically shouted hot romance. We were impressed.
 
The image above is by Miriam Uribe, visual artist. She designed it on a lark and it makes us smile.
 
Rocketing along, the C.P. machine had the story on-line and available for purchase by July, 2010. Every month since then, they've mailed us each our own royalty check. We don't remember a check ever arriving late and we never had reason to doubt the numbers Cobblestone shared with us. All in all, we've had a fine relationship with the gang out in Mississippi.
 
So why did we ask to have our rights returned just as soon as the contract allowed? It wasn't Cobblestone, it was us.
 
Also, there was this: Our first royalty check clocked in at over $60 each. Our latest royalty check? 61 cents per author.  The story's Amazon Best Sellers Rank is nudging the 800,000 mark in the Kindle Store. In short, Wicked Games isn't selling. (Would our Amazon ratings be different if we'd maintained a steady output of paranormal romances, all published under the C.P. banner? We think so. But, since we wandered off to write whatever struck our fancy, romance readers saw us as one-and-done.)
 
Now, even though the original contract promised to return our rights after three years upon request, we knew it wouldn't be that simple. When we contacted Deanna Lee, Cobblestone's publisher, asking for our release, we expected a little trouble. A little delay here, a tiny problem there, and -- the next thing you know -- our three year contract has lasted four years. But we asked, anyway.
 
You know what? We were too cynical. Shortly after we emailed, we received our release. (It probably helps when your royalty checks nearly equal the cost of the postage to send them.) The "Notification of Agreement Termination" was a simple one-pager, giving us an exit date and reminding us of the contract's original provisions. We could no longer use Sable Grey's cover art -- but wouldn't that have been nice? -- and we couldn't use the edited manuscript. The unedited version, on the other hand, was ours after August 1st. We could use the rough take in whatever way we'd like.
 
So here's the plan: New cover. (No, not the one up in the left hand corner. That was a Fiverr cover and created for fun.) Renée is working on it right this second and you can bet there will be a full moon on the thing somewhere. The new edit will go out to beta readers soon -- and, if you're a fan of erotic romance, you need to buy the old version, STAT, while it's still available. The new take is still steamy but the graphic stuff has disappeared behind closed doors. Despite this change, and all of the paragraphs that we lost because of it, the latest manuscript is longer than the original.

Then there's the subject of price. Cobblestone retails the novella for $4.99 but, per our sales ranking, we're guessing the rest of the world thinks this is a little rich for a 67-page novella. We worry that they may be right. We're currently debating the $2.99 price tag versus the 99-cent special.
 
If you have a suggestion, let us know.
 
Quote o' the day: "Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities." -- Theodor Seuss Geisel

Here in the States...

...we're about to go on holiday. There will be no fireworks in our neighborhood -- the entire area was in danger of smoke inhalation just a few days ago and, even now, a wildfire blazes out of control -- but that doesn't mean we can't have fun. In fact, in the spirit of fun, we're going to strip down to our skivvies and go jump through the back-and-forth spray of the front lawn sprinkler...which will frighten and/or repulse the neighbors but that's the price they pay for allowing a couple of writers in the neighborhood.
 
Before we go splashing about, there's a few things we'd like to share with you. To start with, we'd like to give away -- as in FREE -- several audio editions of Aly's Luck. The team at ACX contacted us and told us we could have five unabridged copies to give out to anyone who will post a review, mention the audio book on a blog, or somehow "spread the word" (their phraseology). 
 
If you prefer short stories, this is not the tale for you. The A. L. listening experience runs for over nine hours but it goes quickly; our narrator, Alexander McConnell, did a terrific job. Give him a try, you'll see. The bottom line is, if you like free, take a moment to email us at marsneedswriters(at)gmail.com, provide us an email address so we know how to contact you back , and we'll get you a copy. First come, first served.
 
Secondly, also free, we were recently interviewed by the mysterious An Alleged Author -- and you'll find our conversation right here. If you wander through the blog spot, you'll see that A.A.A. is an interesting woman and she has a fun site. Plus, she likes wine and we like people who like wine. A bucket of questions were asked, we talked mostly about our writing and a little too much about ourselves, so we'll completely understand if you don't read the whole thing.
 
However, you should know, there will be a quiz later.
 
Finally, no, we will not be posting photos of ourselves, dressed in skivvies and covered with sprinkler spray. As our neighbors will soon be able to verify, some things aren't meant to be seen in the light of day.
 
Drinking: 2012 Zinfandel Les Enfants Terribles. A.A. happened to mention wine and here we are. This particular goodness goes pretty darned well with a 4th of July barbeque.
 
Quote o' the day: "I really don't know how to advise you. Things involved with a computer fill me with a childlike terror. Now, if it were a nice ogre or some such I'd be more in my element." -- Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

They called it a Supermoon...

....we called it, We got up at 4 in the morning to see THIS? Because the moon, as all shiny as it was, just didn't quite measure up to "super" in our minds. We stumbled back to bed, unimpressed.
 
Speaking of over-hyped events brings us to this week's blog. Or, as we're calling it, the Superblog. Truth is, unless you're interested in online photo services, we don't have much to share with you this week except for this:  the train diorama in the Clemenceau Heritage Museum in Cottonwood, Arizona. If we'd taken a better photo, you've have seen the complete layout, with all of the tiny mountains, the wee train tracks, the itsy saloon (complete with bordello), and the T. Rex with a cow in its mouth. In case you're wondering, the T. Rex is not to scale. 
 
A dinosaur dining on a cow isn't, strictly speaking, historically accurate but the good people at the museum know the best train dioramas all feature a T. Rex munching on something. The Heritage Museum is small but sincere, the staff is dedicated, and the admission price is whatever its visitors care to donate. The train diorama was created by volunteers. It took five people a full five and a half years to build the thing. Sometimes it takes awhile to do something right. The diorama is pretty much the highlight of the C.H.M.
 
You might be thinking to yourself, Well, glad you enjoyed the visit, but why did you put such a lousy cellphone shot on the blog? and we'll tell you why: The museum people told us we could take the picture. The picture was free. We didn't have to pay anyone to use it.
 
Plus, we kind of like the photo. Because it's gently out of focus, it almost seems like we're looking down on a real little town there.

Y'see, we're used to paying for our photos at various royalty-free photo sites. "Royalty-free" doesn't mean the picture is free. It means, customers pay a flat sum to use shot and then they don't have to worry about paying additional fees for an individual license on the image. (Unless the customers sells 250,000+ copies of their item or ebook, at which point the photo sites want them to pull out the credit card again. So far, that particular nagging worry hasn't kept a lot of self-publishers up at night.)
 
For the most part, three sites have been ringing up our sales. Those sites are fotolia, Shutterstock, and Bigstock. There's dozens of other such outfits but those are the ones we stumbled across first and we've been too lazy to investigate the others. As it happened, when Renee pulled two photos for the Something Wicked cover, she was on Bigstock.
She required two images to create the one cover. To get the largest possible number of pixels on each piece -- a good graphic designer usually wants the largest possible number of pixels -- meant that Bigstock could charge more since bigger = pricier. Since credit "bundles" come ten credits for $35...and you can't buy a partial bundle...she was prepared to drop $70 just to buy enough credits to change our cover.
 
Then she noticed that Bigstock had a subscription plan. We hate subscription plans but this seemed like a decent deal. For $69, customers can download five largest-possible images a day for a full month. In case you're wondering, fotolia charges the same; Shutterstock will give you 25 images a day but you'll be out $249 for a single month's charge ($199 a month if you sign up for a year).
 
Bigstock doesn't roll over images so if you don't download your five, that day is gone. Also, customers have to  contact the company to cancel the subscription plan or they're automatically re-enrolled each month. Neither of these stipulations were deal-breakers so she whipped out the credit card and took the plunge.
 
Today, there are 125 royalty-free images in Renee's work file. Flip through the folder, and you'll see zombies and fairies; couples in love and couples in lust; cowboys and horses; and on and on. And on. The subscription plan ends on 06/30 -- she cancelled the roll-over on Day Two so this is pretty much a one-shot -- and, when the whole thing is complete, each image will have cost us 46 cents.
 
Plus, this has given her a chance to start working on the new cover for our next novel. Which is being plotted but still hasn't been written.
 
Hey, we've been busy looking at train dioramas. What's your excuse?
 
Quote o' the day: "When fear shows up and threatens your curiosity and enlightenment, look it square in the eye, acknowledge it, own it and move on. Don't let it hold you back from greatness. The greatest thing to fear about fear is the inaction that often accompanies it" -- Amy C. Cosper