Karen L. Syed's Blog, page 15

You've Gotta Meet this Guy!

So you want to get to know Dennis Collins and his books. Wow! It must be your lucky day. I just happen to have a little interview here with Dennis, and a snippet about his most recent book. And no need to thank me for this, it is my absolute pleasure. Enjoy!

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K.S. Both of your first two novels The Unreal McCoy, and Turn Left at September were published in traditional print form and later released as e-books but your latest book The First Domino has made its debut as an e-book. Why is that?

D.C. That wasn't my original plan. I was going to begin with a regular publisher and eventually move on to an electronic format but I wasn't able to find a suitable publisher.

K.S. Do you have representation?

D.C. No and that's probably my biggest problem. I had a very high profile publicist read my manuscript and she absolutely raved about it, even recommended it to a good size publisher but they still rejected it.

K.S. Did they give you a reason for not pursuing it?

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D.C. No they didn't. Agents and editors are always telling authors to "think outside the box" but it seems like the people who control the industry think very much "inside the box." They won't listen to you unless you break the rules but then they reject you because you broke the rules. It's like the business is being guided by destructive paradigms.

K.S. So you decided to take matters into your own hands.

D.C. I guess you could say that.

K.S. Are you sure that's the right way to go?

D.C. I've been writing book reviews for more than five years and read about fifty books annually so I see a lot of different styles and a lot of different levels of writing talent. I feel pretty confident about my work; I think it matches up pretty well with what's out there. It may not fit what a particular publisher is looking for at the moment but I believe that my stuff is better than many of the books that I read.

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K.S. And your latest book is…

D.C. It's titled The First Domino, and it's the story of a young man whose father had been a powerful lawyer who worked for the Detroit Mafia. When the old man dies, his son hopes to be welcomed into the mob but they only offer him a menial job and he feels shunned. He tries to show his value by murdering three Detroit cops. The mob isn't happy and they order a hit on the young man. He flees the country with Lieutenant Otis Springfield, homicide detective hot on his trail and the mob is not far behind.

The book has a little of everything in it. I even get very deep into the heads of two killers. There's action, romance, personal tragedy, discovery, revenge, redemption, and terror. It's more of a story about the cop than the murderer.

K.S. And it's only available as an e-book?

D.C. Currently, yes. I'm hoping that some publisher might be interested enough to pick up the print rights but if that doesn't happen; I'll probably self-publish the print version as well.

The First Domino

Joe Pellerito thought he could murder his way into the mob. The son of a high powered Mafia lawyer and negotiator, he assumed that he'd be welcomed into the Family. When Joe's father died of cancer he waited anxiously for the invitation to join the ranks. But the call never came. Feeling shunned, Joe devised a plan to show his dedication and fearlessness. From a list of Detroit cops who have been problems for the syndicate Joe chose three candidates and pulled off a string of three brutal murders in less than two hours on a bright spring morning.

The philosophy of the mob has moved into the new millennium and has all but abandoned confrontations with law enforcement. Joe's actions threaten to undo the progress that took two decades to build. The problem of Joe Pellerito must be addressed.

With a price on his head, Joe is forced to flee and tries to hide in Italy where he attempts to gain a whole new identity.

The diligence of Detroit Police detectives Otis Springfield and Albert McCoy helps them sniff out Joe's trail but the mob has its resources as well and soon the race is on to see who can get their hands on Joe first.

Meet Dennis:

My professional life was spent in automotive engineering where I enjoyed a rewarding forty year career. I've always had a taste for adventure and risk taking spending my idle hours flying airplanes, skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycle racing, and over thirty years of professional automotive powered hydroplane racing.

My first publishing credit came as a complete surprise when an article that I wrote for a powerboat racing club newsletter found its way onto the desk of the president of The American Power Boat Association and he submitted it to Propeller Magazine. My first novel The Unreal McCoy was self published and surprisingly successful. I was able to follow up with Turn Left at September published by Behler Publications, a small mainstream publisher in California. Both titles have been converted to electronic format and are now available through Amazon's Kindle. The next book The First Domino is now also available on Kindle as well as Nook. My Short story, Calvin was a finalist in a contest sponsored by Futures Magazine. I am a co-founder of the Huron Area Writer's Group in Huron County Michigan and I write a bi-monthly column and review mysteries for www.myshelf.com

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Following the Dream (Bookstore Spotlight by Ellis Vidler)

"In the days of the eReader, author events are the saving grace of the bricks and mortar bookstore. They provide opportunities for authors and readers to meet, and readers can ask questions and gain insights into the author's thinking or reasons for a particular scene or character." So says Jill Hendrix, owner of Fiction Addiction, an independent bookstore in Greenville, South Carolina. Ten years ago Jill, an avid reader and book lover, followed her dream and opened her own bookstore. She must be doing something right, because Fiction Addiction is still going strong. She features authors in the store, cooperates with a local restaurant in offering luncheons and talk or readings with visiting authors, and maintains a charming bookstore.

 Fiction Addictioncarries more fiction than non-fiction and has all genres, from mainstream to erotica to children's books. Jill says they do the most business in mystery, then regional fiction. After that it's science fiction, with children's books their fourth largest-selling product. Series are quite popular—readers get to know the characters and want to see more.

While open to small presses that offer standard discounts and returns, Fiction Addiction works primarily with the three major distributors. It's much easier for a bookstore to work through a big distributor and not have to go through setting up an individual account with an individual publisher for one book signing, when that may be the only involvement with that publisher.

Independent bookstores offer a number of services not always found in larger or big-box stores or online. They bring many authors to the store who wouldn't normally be in the area, have a selection of used books, are happy to make recommendations, and will gladly order specially for a customer. One of the disappointments, however, is to have a customer take advantage of the extra services Fiction Addiction works hard to provide and then have that customer order online to save a little money.

She's finding hardback sales are slowing in favor of eBooks, but mass market and trade paperback are still fairly strong. EBooks are certainly having an impact, and Jill would like to sell them but can't at present. She says it requires an ABA website, which Fiction Addiction doesn't have. Maybe there's an opportunity for an individual publisher to set up something.

Jill definitely sees a new generation of readers coming along. One of the benefits of the Harry Potter series, aside from interesting children in reading, was convincing them they could read longer books and making them proud of holding up a 700-page book and saying, "I read this!"

Children are becoming more sophisticated in their reading now, looking for more involved plots. The Olympian series by Rick Riorden sparked much interest, and now young readers are clamoring for his new series. Another thing is that since the Twilight books came out, more adults are reading Young Adult (YA) novels.

 Fiction Addictionis located on Woodruff Road across from Costco in Greenville. The website is http://www.fiction-addiction.com Stop by and look around. Jill and her staff will be glad to recommend something to your taste or place an order for that special book.

Find Fiction Addiction:

Twitter: @FictnAddictn

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FictionAddictionBookstore

A Handshake:

1020 Woodruff Road

Greenville, SC 29607

(864) 675-0540

 

Ellis Vidler is a writer and editor. She won the South Carolina Writers Conference prize for short fiction and was a finalist in or won a few contests. Her first novel, Haunting Refrain, was published by Silver Dagger Mysteries. She is currently a member of Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America and lives with her husband and dogs in the South Carolina piedmont.

Her new book, The Peeper, is co-authored with Jim Christopher.

This is the short version. If you really want to know more about her writing history, click here.

Tagged: authors, books, bookstores, ebooks, fiction, Independent Bookstores, publishing, readers, reading, sales, South Carolina, trends, writers

To eBook or Not to eBook

Had some questions come in after yesterdays Blog post and thought I would cough up my personal response.

Do you read eBooks and on what?

Of course I read eBooks. I have been reading eBooks for a little over 10 years now. Echelon was one of the early companies that sold our books as eBooks. Back then we did email transfers and CD-roms in DVD cases. It was expensive and time-consuming because we did them ourselves. Oy! We've come a long way since then. While some of our authors choose to put their eBooks on disc for the convenience of their readers, we no longer do it as a company.

However, with the progress in the industry, it is easier than ever for readers to enjoy the pleasures of reading an eBook. As to what I read on, I do most of my book reading on my beloved Kindle. Back in the day, I bought a Nook so I could check the quality of our eBooks before they went up for sale on BN.com and various other sites. I soon discovered that I wasn't as comfortable reading on the Nook as I thought I would be. So I got myself a Kindle. Just to check it out, you see. It was love at first read.

Why I love my Kindle:

Lightweight. My kindle weighs a little over 8 ounces and is quite thin. In my opinion, this makes it easier to hold.

Keyboard. I don't use it often, but I do like that my Kindle has an actual keyboard for typing in my notes and such. The separate and raised button allow for much better accuracy.

Page turners. On either side of my Kindle are actual buttons that you push to turn the pages. One for forward and one for backward.

Storage space. My Kindle has 4 gb of space. They say this is 3500 books. I have not been able to test this, but I sure am trying hard.

Battery. This baby can hold a charge. I have had it for months and have only charged it 4 or 5 times. I use it quite frequently and to be honest, I am surprised I have not had to charge it more often.

File accessibility. This is a big one for me. My Kindle not only reads the designated file type (which is Mobi), but also pdf, html, txt, it allows several different graphic formats like jpg, bmp, and png. But the thing I love most about my Kindle is that is plays mp3 files and I can download my Audible.com books onto it to listen. I can tell you that right now, aside from actual books to read, I have about 50 unabridged audiobooks and the Pimsluer Course to learn to speak Urdu. Whhhoooo baby! There are several other formats it recognizes, but I got tired of listing them.

Why the Nook is just okay:

My Nook weighs in a little under 12 ounces. That's a good size steak, people. And the newer models are even heavier. This makes it awkward for people with hand issues like arthritis, or whatever.

My Nook has a touch screen and quite honestly, I find them difficult to use. The very small screen on the bottom makes it annoyingly difficult to type, especially if you have healthy fingers. Getting the damn touch screen to come up is a whole nother issue.

My Nook has two arrows painted on either side of the device that indicate you should push there to turn the page. Again, no actual button and if you don't hit it right on, you have to try again, and sometimes again.

My Nook has 2 gb of space, which is supposed to be 1500 books. Haven't hot that either. Newer models have more space.

My Nook will actually hold a charge for about 8 days before I have to hook the baby up. It is even less if I actually use it.

My Nook, being an older models recognizes ePub, pdb, pdf, jpg, gif, bmp, and mp3 files, but I honestly have never been able to figure out how to get one of the damn mp3 files to play on it. Could be user error, but that says something about the device, too. At least in my opinion.

Now, neither of my devices are backlit, and this is okay for me. I'm not allowed to read in the dark anyways. I do have a Kandle, a light for my Kindle. I tried to find a book light for the Nook, but the thickness made it hard and the one I got would not stay clipped on securely.

Neither of my devices have AT&T access. They are straight wi-fi, and this has worked fine for me. I do most of my eBook buying from home anyways.

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Keep in mind that these are just my opinions on the two devices and there are several other eBook readers out there that you may like better. For those of you who don't want to buy an eReader, but find yourself wanting to read a book that only comes in eBook, then you have a couple of options. I am not familiar with all of them, but I know that Kindle has a desktop application that syncs up with the device and your Kindle account. So you can read that book on your computer. And while a lot of people say, "I don't want to read on my computer." You read on your computer all the time, otherwise you wouldn't be on it as much as you are. You are reading on your computer right now, so find another excuse for not giving eBooks a try. You choose when and how long you read, so it's not really that big of an inconvenience. Right?

I hope this has helped some of you who have been waffling about buying an eReader. And FYI, Wal-Mart has the older model wi-fi only for under $120.00. I believe the least expensive Nook is around $140.00.

I would love to know what the rest of you are reading on or why you simply won't give eBooks a chance. And there is no right or wrong answer, I am just curious. And before you go defending print books and how wonderful they smell. Yeah yeah yeah. I love print books, too. Still publish them, and still read them. The smell? Not as much of a hook for me with my allergies. But I get it.

Borders: You Break My Heart (Publisher Rant)

By now the entire world knows of the struggles and woes of Borders Corp. The bankruptcy, the closed stores, the dishonor. Yes, there is a crapload of dishonor.

Let's talk about the bankruptcy first. The result of the latter mentioned issues have put the superstore company in grave danger of total destruction. Please keep in mind that this is only my take on the situation, but observations I have been establishing for many years. Borders claims to have run out of money, unable to pay their rent, or their vendors. They continue to order books from authors and publishers when they have no money to pay for them. Of course it has been my experience that they stopped paying their bills long before the bankruptcy. There have been plenty of complaints and actions against them for just this. This lack of money has fueled the fire under their big skillet.

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Quite some time ago, readers were fortunate to have the option of going to Waldenbooks within their local malls to browse and buy books. Then everything at Borders changed and they began to kill off the Waldenbooks, first slowly, then whoosh, they were gone. These little gems of comfort and the only good service you could get from a Borders corp store were eliminated. Employees who had been in these stores for years and built relationships were uprooted and given the heave-ho. Readers lost their havens and publishers and authors lost many valuable places to actually sell books. These Waldenbooks either disappeared or were replaced by the little fart stores called Borders Express. We all know Borders stores as big superstores with lots of employees who have no idea what they sell or where to find most of it. Borders followed their misguided instincts and filled many of these locations with employees who neither understood or cared about the book business. How sad. Now, they have closed hundreds of their express and superstores.

Finally, there is the dishonor. Having built a reputation for bad customer service in their stores, they have gone on to excel at even worse service and tactics on their website, including Kobo. With the rise of eBook sales, it is only natural that Kobo use this venue to help finance its floundering company. Everyone knows that the distributor/reseller makes the bulk of the money with regard to eBook  sales. Yet, Kobo has felt it necessary to stick a red-hot poker into the eye of the very people who feed its coffers. The publishers and authors. Many other online sellers of eBooks have very strict rules about competitive pricing. If you price an item with them it cannot be priced any lower elsewhere. If it is, they will reduce their price to meet the competitor. Not that big of a deal, unless said discount affects the income potential from the other venues. Say you have a base retail price you must pay: $2.99 to receive a 70% royalty (this is part of a pricing agreement with the vendor that is not Kobo), which a publisher then shares with the author in the form of royalties. Kobo comes along (knowing full well what will happen when they price the $2.99 book at $2.69) and discounts the book, hoping to gain the support of the reader by charging less. What they have actually done, is they have forced the other venue to discount the retail price to meet the lower and knocked the item down from a 70% royalty to a 35% royalty for the publisher. It is not easy to split 35% of $2.69 with an author and keep them happy.

What Kobo doesn't understand that when they back a publisher into a corner like this is that they force certain actions. One thing that could happen is that a publisher could remove ALL of its titles from the Kobo venue, thereby giving Kobo and Borders what they deserve: ZERO!

Another thing that could happen is that a publisher could write a scathing Blog post asking readers and eBook buyers NOT to make purchases from Kobo because it would kinda make them an accessory to premeditated robbery. That publisher could also ask readers to tell their reader friends who may not read said Blog about the unethical tactics of Kobo.

One would have to ask though, why Borders execs are not smart enough to know that if they want to save their sinking company they should be making friends and not bending publishers, authors, and readers over the proverbial cash counter without giving them flowers first.

 

A Brand New Day

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No, I'm not talking about the best album/disc Sting ever did. I'm talking about getting up one morning and realizing that everything you did the day before is in the past. I have been trying to figure out where togo with my life for quite some time.

I have a good life. I have a wonderful husband, I am building new bonds with my family, and I have a company that is moving toward success. What else could I want? That's just it. I feel like something is missing and I am not at all sure where to look for it.

I spend a lot of time watching people and listening to how others have acheived success. I have found a tremendous amount of inspiration from the top people in their fields: John C. Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, the late Mary Kay, and even Donald Trump. We study the stories and instructions of Robert Kiyosaki.

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Twenty years ago I would never have imagined that I would be living a good life as the owner of a publishing company. What I discovered today was that I want more. I want people to hate me because I am so wildly successful and have cornered the market on books. I want Echelon and our authors to be the most well-known, sought-after people in the universe. Stop laughing, I'm not kidding.

I long to see my author's names at the top of every best seller list known to man. There books lining the shelves in bookstores, grocery stores, convenience stores, truck stops, airports…did I miss any? Why am I posting all of this on my Blog? Simple. The most important people claim that when you want something bad enough, it isn't enough to work hard. You have to work smart, and you have to write it down. That's right. WRITE IT DOWN.

I will find new and exciting ways to draw readers to our books, because our books are damn good and they deserve to be read. I am tired of letting bad reviews get me down. I am tired of feeling pitiful because someone said there are 6 errors in our last book. Shit happens. Get over it, people. We are not perfect and if you ever find a perfect book out there, then good for you!

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Echelon Press has published some of the best books in the industry in the last decade. We have put authors into the mainstream who probably would not have made it without us. How? Determination. Pure and simple. We wanted it, so we did it.

I am not going to sit back and watch the rest of the world have all the fun and make all the money. I've got books lined up that are really freaking good and you should not take my word for it, you should buy them, read them, and then tell all your friends about  them. Why? because that's what you do. You find a good shampoo that smells good and makes your hair soft and shiny and you tell your friends. Hello, read a good book, tell everyone you know.

We don't claim to have published the great American novel, but we do have damn good books. Want to laugh? Cry? Be shocked? Be scared? Then we have an entire catalog of books for you to try.

So, what the hell does all this have to do with a brand new day? I don't really know, but the song was in my head and I couldn't come up with a better title for this Blog. Obviously my ambition is running a little deeper than my creativity today.

 

My Jet Setting Journal: Printers Row

 


Award winning author Sam Morton hard at work.

Okay, I don't exactly jet set, but sometimes I do get a little heavy in the foot and speed…shh that is a secret…so it feels like I am jetting. Last weekend my absolutely incredible husband and I drove to Chicago for the Printers Row Lit Fest.

First order of business. We had a giveway for a Slick eBook Reader and the lucky winner was Laura Pond. Congratulations and thanks for your support of Echelon Press.

Some of you might rememeber that last year (2010) I had some unhappy words to say about the Chicago Tribune and their treatment of Echelon Press and my authors. If you search back you can find my blog post, but don't bother. After I posted that Blog I was contacted by a Trib employee and she told me she would do everything she could to help me out this year.

The men of Echelon hard at play!

Now, don't get me wrong, I was in no way asking for special treatment, only for what we had already earned in the way of seniority and placement. At any rate, this little gal obviously moved heaven and earth (and after meeting her this weekend, I can see that she would be quite capable of doing so) and the organizers of the Lit Fest took pity on us and we ended up back where we had been several years prior. It was a grand location and it afforded us the opportunity to be in the direct path of tens of thousands of eager readers of all ages.

 

Award winning authors J.R. Turner and Luisa Buehler

2011 proved to be the 2nd most successful event in Echelon's ten year history. Now, I've been hearing authors talk who are not all that keen on book fairs/festivals, well, I am here to tell you that Chicago has one of the BEST book fairs I have ever been to. This was our ninth year attending and I fully intend to keep going back. I would like to thank Amy Guth for all her help and for being so damn beautiful (and I don't mean that to sound creepy), if you ever see her pictures, they do not do her justice. Best of all, she is an absolute delight!

I also want to thank the authors who attended this year with Echelon. Gale Borger, Luisa Buehler, Norm Cowie, Marlis Day, Robert Goldsborough, Sean Hayden, Sam Morton, J.R. Turner, Marc Vun Kannon, Claudia Whitsitt,  and Jen Wylie. Also, big thanks to our special guests, Martin Bartloff and Tami Su.

The smallest dill pickle chip I ever sawed!

Special and sincere thanks to our two helpers Shannon (Gale Borger's daughter) and Julia (Marc Vun Kannon's daughter). Without the two of you we would have been in a fine pickle. You are incredible young women with hearts of gold.

In closing, I just want to say again, that the people who came by our booth over the weekend were incredibly enthusiastic and eager to meet our authors. You are a tremendous group of people and we hope to see all of you next year. 

Special thanks to my absolutely, incredibly, splendiferously, wonderful husband. Goodness, how I do love you!

 

Marc Vun Kannon and the delightful daughter Julia.

 
 

Authors Claudia Whitsitt and Mary Welk

 

Gale Borger and her lovely daughter Shannon.

 

 

How Good Are you?

Howdy, been a while since I blogged so I thought I would pop in and open a discussion with a few questions. I'm posing these questions to authors who have books they are promoting (or supposed to be).

1. Has your website/Blog been updated within the last two weeks?

Seriously. People tend to visit their favorite websites every couple of days, or at least once a week. If you have not updated your site in more than two weeks, chances are those people will no t make a third trip back and you will be replaced with the "California Cows" website.

2. Have you finally added a SUBSCRIBE button to your website/Blog?

I don't know about you, but my list of favorites on Internet Explorer is long and chaotic. I try to keep it organized, but that is not my strong suit. By adding a SUBSCRIBE or Follow button, you offer your readers a chance to find you with a lot more ease than having to sift through all the clever little sites (like: Army Wives) to try to find yours again.

3. Don't you want readers to tell others about your website/Blog? Okay, so do you have a SHARE button on the upper screen of your site?

There are so many social networking sites out there now that it is just crazy for you not to encourage your readers to share the link to your website/Blog. Make it easy for them. This is all ab out exposure and I would be remiss if I did not tell you all to get out there and EXPOSE YOURSELF. I mean, not full frontal or anything, but in a big way.

The book industry is in a constant state of change and as authors and readers, we need to make every effort to keep up. Authors need to find new and creative ways to introduce their works to readers. With every book or story an author puts out, they need to be writing with one question in their mind: What makes this book stand out above the rest and how do I convey that to readers?

Readers, I beg of you, please be open-minded when you are browsing the bookshelves and online catalogs. Just because you have never heard of an author doesn't mean they are not great at what they do. Variety is the spice of life and by opening your mind to new an exciting things, you may just come across a new favorite author, or two.

Tell you what. The first five people to post their thoughts on this Blog will get their choice of one of Echelon Press' eBooks. You can check out our catalog by clicking on this link.

 

All Depends on How You Look At It (Marc Vun Kannon)

This is my last blog tour stop before my latest novel, St. Martin's Moon, becomes officially available, and I will be in South Carolina at their Book Festival in Columbia (May 14 – 15, 2011) on that happy day (Sunday, if you must know). And I hope you must, since I'd really like for you guys to be there to help me celebrate the official release of the world's first Gothic SF novel. I invented the category, so I oughtta know. There are other SF novels written in the Gothic style, but they go the usual route of assimilating all the Gothic stuff into the SF trope of the day (it's amazing what you can blame on biotech and some nanobots in a low-gravity environment). St. Martin's Moon isn't one of them.

I've spent literally years trying to figure out how to describe this book. I could do one-liners, what they call taglines. I could do two-liners, the sort of short description you'd find in a TV guide, what they call a logline, but don't ask me why 'cause I don't know. I even came up with a good back-cover description. But anytime I get closer to the plot than that I get tangled in all the strings.

The reason for the confusion, I decided, was in the genre I was using to categorize the damn thing. Why would a mere genre category do that, you ask? How could it? Well, genres are a sort of shorthand, a kind of box we put stories into so that someone looking for a story of a particular type can find one easily. The problem comes when a story doesn't really fit into any particular type. Then the shorthand becomes something of a straitjacket. One would think a novel with werewolves and ghosts in it would fit neatly into the heading of a paranormal. Since it took place on a lunar colony it clearly was futuristic, right?

Yeah, me too.

While the story does have werewolves in it the story really isn't about them, it's about the people who become them. How do they live with the curse? Where does the curse even come from? Why does the Moon matter, and a full Moon, at that? These are all questions that the main character, Joseph Marquand, Earth's greatest werewolf hunter, would like to know the answers to, because he hates his job. Killing the wolf means killing the man, usually an innocent man. When his latest case involves a werewolf attack on the Moon itself, it drives these questions from his mind in favor of something more immediate, but not far, not far at all.

In short, the story is more futuristic than paranormal, and more SF than merely futuristic. SF looks for answers, takes for granted that there are answers, which gives it something in common with the mystery novel St. Martin's Moon was originally conceived as. Except that SF doesn't allow for ghosts. It could handle werewolves, I think, since they have a trigger and are stoppable. Ghosts somehow don't seem to fit into the same bucket. There's a reason for this, I think, and I don't think science will ultimately be able to account for ghosts any more than they'll make a truly AI computer. So SF is fair game, in my opinion, to have a few genuine ghosts appear in its otherwise unhaunted halls. If I could have worked in a dark and stormy night I would have, but hey, it's a lunar colony we're talking about here. A haunted one.

Like many writers, I started when a story came along and decided that I should write it. Don't ask me why. Others followed, until now I'm afraid to go out of the house with a recorder or notebook in my hand. But I show them, I refuse to write the same story twice!

You can also check out his really cool Blog

Other things to read by Marc Vun Kannon:

Unbinding the Stone

A Warrior Made

Ex Libris

Steampunk Santa

Bite Deep

Chasing his own Tale

Tagged: authors, book festivals, books, Echelon Press, fiction, Marc Vun Kannon, paranormal, readers, reading, St. Martins Moon, steampunk, werewolf

What I Didn't Know Before Selling a Book (Kaye George)

1) How much time–and energy–the initial promotion would take. And how much brain drain. Honestly, some days I feel like I did when I was pregnant: searching for words, dropping things, driving badly. It's becoming clear that I'll have to devote more than one day a week to promotion.

2) That you have to give away books in order to sell them. And this is without any promotional give-aways (except for a couple so far). This is for reviewers who don't want to read the digital copy I have that's meant for reviewers. I can't say I blame them. I can't read a book on a computer either. If I didn't have an e-reader I would have to request a hard copy, too. I'm thinking there might be a better way to get a hard copy out, though, than to give away my precious books. This requires more thought, and with that drained brain, too.

3) That perfect strangers will somehow find my book and want it autographed. This has actually happened at the two conferences I've been to recently! And it's VERY fun!

4) How much I'd be itching to work on my current work-in-progress, almost to the point of resenting the marketing efforts and the conventions I've attended for promotion of the published book. Writers are strange people.

5) How much fun it is to attend a convention as a published author, even while longing to be working. CHOKE: An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery was released May 1st by Mainly Murder Press and is available at the publisher, from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as through Ingram Book Company.

By Choke at: Amazon.com or BN.com

Kaye George, an Agatha nominated short story writer, is the author of CHOKE, published by Mainly Murder Press, as well as A PATCHWORK OF STORIES, a collection of her previously published stories. FISH TALES: THE GUPPY ANTHOLOGY (eBook) contains her story, "The Truck Contest." She reviews for "Suspense Magazine," and writes for several newsletters and blogs. She, her husband, and a cat named Agamemnon live together in Texas, near Austin.

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The Wrong Guy (Guest Blog: Claudia Whitsitt)

On a sunny afternoon about four years ago, I plopped myself on a sandy beach in La Jolla, California and played what if. What if I wrote a book about a turning point? What if I added mystery and suspense? What if I connected it to an event in my own life that I could access in the blink of an eye?

Many years ago, I attended Eastern Michigan University on the heels of the arrest of John Norman Collins, the chief suspect of The Michigan Murders. He was accused of murdering seven college co-eds at my university. Life was scary enough for a college freshman then—the Detroit Riots had shocked my neighborhood two years previous, the Vietnam War loomed in the background, and I was a frightened, naïve Catholic girl. Though the memories of these events, and the creative joy of fiction, The Wrong Guy was born.

The main character, Katie Hayes, is a lot like me, except prettier, and taller. She heads off to school armed with her rosary and her Nancy Drew mysteries. Her best friend, Janie, is the carbon copy of my college roommate—wild and crazy. Enter crisis and mystery. One girl is assaulted, another kidnapped. Even though the cops have the likely suspect behind bars, no one can help but wonder if they haven't apprehended The Wrong Guy.

I had a ton of fun writing this coming of age mystery. I hope you have a ton of fun reading it.

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Claudia Whitsitt, a seasoned special education teacher and the mother of five grown children, is a Michigan native and lover of both reading and writing. As a young girl, she was inspired by Nancy Drew mysteries. Her passion for mystery spurred the penning of her own mystery, The Wrong Guy, loosely based on her college years and the Michigan Murders. Claudia began her writing career five years ago. During that time, she has written two additional novels, Identity Issues, and Two of Me. Claudia was honored to have won the 2010 Hummingbird Review/Southern California Writer's Conference contest with her essay, One Last Pearl. The essay appeared in the Summer/Fall edition of the Hummingbird Review. Claudia can be reached through her website, www.claudiawhitsitt.com.

Tagged: author, authors, books, claudia whitsitt, detroit riots, ebooks, Echelon Press, fiction, john norman collins, readers, reading, the co-ed murders, the michigan murders, The Wrong Guy