Simon Royle's Blog, page 12

Rose Anderson ~ A New Author on an Exciting Journey

[image error] My publisher has this About the Author area attached to the titles of the books authors have listed. One of the things I was supposed to do as a new author was talk about myself on the site — think of the author info on back of a hard copy book. I read several from other authors trying to get an idea of what I should say about myself. That's a tricky thing for me because I'm happy to say I emerged from the gene pool blessed with a measure of creativity. The muse whispering to my mind is constantly thinking up images for my hands give form to. That form could be tangible like a molded clay figure or a sketch, or as in the case of words I type out on my laptop, ephemeral. When the muse finally releases me from her grasp, my mind can move on to the next thought, the next blob of clay, the next story waiting in the wings. What do such thought-creators say about themselves? People who have this little gnawing drive to manifest some thought into reality know it just is what it is. Describing it is tricky.

Here's my About Me…

I started kindergarten already knowing how to read, and this was curious as no one in my family recalled teaching me how. I loved words from the very beginning because words described everything down to the smallest detail and added color to the world. Aside from loving the evocative potential of words, I also love that they describe how things work. I literally devour any and all informational reading materials from cookbooks to books on quantum physics and seeking to feed that hunger, eventually tackled an entire World Book Encyclopedia. (Yes I know I'm weird. I read encyclopedias like other people read magazines.) Before long a husband joined his life to mine, and two children followed. I didn't even contemplate expressing my imagination through words until the Internet came into my life.

When room-sized computers became personal and the Internet was no longer the purview of the geek, it was then that, quite by accident, I discovered the theatrical world of online role play. And what a stage it was! Often misspelled words hastily typed out in the chat rooms described scenes and appearances equivalent to anything played at Shakespeare's Globe Theater. At any given hour of any given day one might converse with a shape-shifting shaman, a knight of the realm, or a barbarian slave girl with jingling bells on her ankles. It was a world where cyber lovers gave sensual caresses through intimate verbs, where warriors carried sharpened blades, wizards held fireballs in their hands, and shape shifters went from man to beast with a few well-chosen words. Word lover that I am, I reveled in it and found I had a knack for crafting detailed fantasy worlds.

Being the informational reader, it wasn't until I borrowed a historical romance novel to read on a long train ride that I seriously considered fiction. Up to that point I read very few novels. Part of a series, the book had me hooked by the time the train pulled into the station. More than once I mentally rewrote a scene by adding suspense, additional dialog, or expanding a love scene that should have been longer.

Today my active imagination has me writing and occasionally illustrating everything — magazine articles on nature topics, Children's early readers and Youth stories, Romance in several sub-genres, Contemporary and Historical fiction. My current work in progress, the unnamed 5-book magnum opus, is a modern day fantasy tale of the ultimate battle between the dark and the light.

Questions & Answers to fill in the gaps ~

Q: When did you actively start writing, and what was the impetus?

A: Though I dabbled in it for years, I would say I came to this point approximately four years ago. I'd taken a cross country road trip with a dear friend who'd lost her son. Listening to music was like playing Russian roulette for her because any random song might be associated with a sad memory. After two hours of non-stop conversation, we fell silent. It was during that long silence where I first met the characters who now populate my novel-in-progress.

Q: Met them? You say that as if they're real.

A: That's the funny thing about my characters – they are!

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, they must be real on some level or they wouldn't experience life in the story. Their world is like cellophane over mine. The things I know about each and every one of them, their loves and hates, their quirks, habits, and idiosyncrasies, make them tangible beings with substantial personalities. I hear their voices when they speak to one another and I feel their internal dialog as they move through their world. I even know whether or not they put both socks on before their shoes or one sock one shoe at a time. I suppose every writer is just a tad schizophrenic.

Q: Do you have any unfinished projects sitting around?

A: Oh good god, yes. I understand myself well enough to know that I only go where my mind is truly engaged. If I have that, I'll work on a thought until it's completed. Many of the unfinished things are not projects per se; rather they're ideas for future stories. I jot them down as they pop up, generally no more than a sentence or paragraph at the most to keep a mental placeholder. I've nearly filled the two small "idea books" I keep in my purse and of course my laptop's document folder is packed with details. Essentially, they're dandelion seeds that may or may not take flight.

Q: You call yourself a daydreamer. How does your mind work?

A: The best description of my mind is to compare it to a crowded restaurant where every table has a story. Somewhere, a pocket holds an engagement ring. The guy stabbing his olive like a voodoo doll got turned down for a promotion. A little girl, her tongue poking in concentration, traces her crayon along the placemat maze. Across the room a potential suicide comes to terms with his weighty decision and nearby sits a young woman who doesn't yet know she'll save his life. As busy as this all is, there is an overlay of added detail – a server mopping up blood red wine, steaming plates of fettuccine Alfredo, the caramelized scent of crème brûlée here, and the oily sizzling flames of saganaki there. Look closely, the server winked at the bartender—a clear message that says, "I'm off at 10:00." Wow, I think another dandelion seed just caught a breeze!

Q: Do you have favorite authors?

A: While some prefer Cormac McCarthy's amazing and powerful economy of words, my imagination craves glorious color of every tint and shade conceivable. I love when authors create their worlds so precisely you're able to smell and taste it when you're reading.  Now that's wordsmithing. To that end first and foremost my favorite is Diana Gabaldon. The colorful imagery she chooses for Jamie and Claire's universe goes way beyond the average box of crayons – she uses the paint set. Her creative blending and shading created a positively transcendent love and she has an impressive knack for creating scenes that are at once both repellant and intriguing. In the romance genre I have to say my all time favorite author is Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (rest in peace Erin Hogg). I've never read a single book of hers that didn't have me right there in the thick of things. J.K. Rowling took me through all my years at Hogwarts, and I think I might have even carved a gargoyle or two in Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain messed with my perception. A complete suspension of disbelief.

Q: Is it true you never follow an outline?

A: Absolutely. I literally walk forward into the story and keep on walking until it tells me it's done. In the scenes, I find doors and windows open and people appear from time to time to give me options. Being without an outline does occasionally have its sticky points. I've had to eliminate more than one character that just stopped by to borrow a cup of sugar. I really don't know where those people come from! It's weird how that works. I compare it to the TV series Happy Days, where Ritchie's older brother Chuck just stops coming to the dinner table one day and is never mentioned again for the duration of show.

Q: What is the most rewarding thing about writing?

A: Seeing appreciation for my work lighting other people's eyes. Should my characters or story compel readers to email me with questions, comments, and opinions, favorable or otherwise, I'd love to hear from them. I have an artist friend who periodically reads my scenes. I know we're on the same page when he comments on my characters and scenes as if he sees them as real because they're real to me. That does something to me; it fills me up in some inexplicable way and makes me want to write more complicated scenes to see if he can follow me there. I've always been sort of an oddball that never fit anywhere; I suppose it validates how my mind ticks.

Q: Are you in your stories?

A: My life makes cameo appearances in one form or another in all my books. It's easy to draw from the familiar. If readers knew me, they'd recognize my furnishings or my car, my pets, and even things about themselves. As for my characters, they're all composites of me. They have my values, my fears, my wit etc. Yes, even my bad guys are me. If you think about it they'd have to be. How else could I write them into being? Sometimes I even surprise myself. More than once I've given myself goosebumps.

***

I'd like to leave you with a bit from Dreamscape. Written in homage to Agatha Christie, Dreamscape is a reader's Easter egg hunt in the truest sense. Peppered throughout are hints suggesting a story behind the scenes. This most recent novel falls under the Contemporary Romance genre under the sub-heading of Erotic Romance. The book itself is rated R and is intended for adult readers. This excerpt PG.

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Dreamscape Blurb: Unable to deny his own translucence, Dr. Jason Bowen determines his lack of physical substance could only mean one thing—he's a ghost. Murdered more than a century before, Jason haunts his house and ponders the treachery that took his life. When Lanie O'Keefe arrives with plans to renovate her newly purchased Victorian mansion, Jason discovers, ghost or not, he's still very much a man. Despite its derelict condition and haunted reputation, Lanie couldn't be happier with her new home, but then she has no idea a spirit follows her every move throughout the day and shares her captivating warmth at night. Jason soon discovers he can travel through Lanie's dreams and finds himself reliving the days before his murder with Lanie by his side. It took one hundred and twenty years for love to find them, but there's that insurmountable little matter of Jason being dead.

Dreamscape Excerpt:

He'd watched the pair as they walked around the grounds with pens and paper in hand presumably making notes for repairs. While assessing the pavers that lined his walkway, she looked up at his window curiously as if seeking something. Jason frowned. Did she see him standing there? How odd. He could only be seen when he wanted to. And he did not yet wish to be seen.

After the man had driven away in his automobile, the woman retrieved her bags from another smaller vehicle. He watched her coming up the walkway only to take another glance his way. She was smiling.

Hmm.

Below, the front door opened and closed, so he headed there, curious about the woman who at this very moment was moving into his house. He was grateful for two things, the first being he'd no longer be alone with only an occasional mouse for company. The second, this young woman bore no resemblance to his beautiful, black-hearted wife.

He thought about her from time to time, his duplicitous wife Cathy, her lover Richard Mason, and his sister Bertha, his murderers. He spent many a night listening to their congratulatory recounting of how they'd set him up, duping him into marrying a woman who from the onset had a lover in the wings. Like the Masons, Cathy too was born and raised in the south at the time of reconstruction and was reared on tales of the glory days. Their sole purpose from the onset in taking his life was so she would inherit all.

When they met she had been such a sweet and shy little beauty, the shyness he later learned to be false. When she comforted him over the untimely death of his father, he'd been surprised by how quickly he fell head over heels for her. Though she'd never voiced it while he was alive, he was well aware of her desire to live in the affluent manner in which her parents and grandparents had lived before the war took it all away. To that end, seeking to win her timid heart and encourage the comfort that would eventually lead his wife into his bed, he gave into Cathy's every whim. No more than two months had passed before he was compelled to offer her marriage. No more than four before he found himself dead with his spirit walking the halls.

He played the details of their courtship over and over in his mind, for what else did he have to occupy his thoughts? Cathy Ames had accepted his proposal eagerly, despite her less-than-enthusiastic response to his advances. These always met with a cool reserve he erroneously mistook for maidenly shyness. But Cathy didn't possess a shy bone in her body. No, far from it. He'd seen them together in bed, his wife and his murderer. Seen for himself the eager way she clutched his body to hers and treated him to a carnal knowledge that obviously developed from years of knowing. Not only did it shock his senses to see his shy wife play whore and play it well, it sickened him. What a fool he'd been. Because of that he kept to the only room they never visited — the cupola at the top of the house — and decades passed there with little concern, because time ceased to have meaning for the dead. Yes, they continued on with their merry lives, raised their foul brood, and got away with murder.

But all that changed with the last of them. Margaret, the great-granddaughter of his wife, and her accomplice had never married, and like the living, aged over time. He never minded Margaret Mason. How could he when she was as lonely as he? He appeared to her from time to time when the loneliness got the best of both of them. When she grew old, and became the last of Richard Mason's miserable line, he eventually told her the truth of her great-grandparents' treachery. The night she died in her sleep she called him to her side and told him she arranged her estate to his benefit as best she could. It was the least she could do after the wrong her family had done him.

Standing invisible on the stairway, he looked over his new house guest. What a pretty creature with her tight curves, porcelain skin, and lustrous raven hair. More than one hundred years had passed since a beautiful woman walked these halls, for Richard Mason sired unfortunate-looking souls who passed on their regrettable looks to each generation, including poor Margaret. Blood will out. Evil definitely had a way of marking the man's legacy as surely as Cane himself had been marked.

Following her into the kitchen, he watched her rummage for pots. She filled them at the tap then heated the water on the stove. He leaned against the wall appraising her. In all the years of his life, and certainly all the years after, this had to be the most beautiful woman he'd laid eyes on. She wore tight clothing, far tighter than he recalled women's clothing to be when he saw them on Margaret's television device. In fact her blue trousers fit her like a glove. These declared her legs to be slender and shapely and her bottom delectably rounded. Her breasts sat high and firm, and he found himself imagining what she looked like unclothed. The thought surprised him. He certainly harbored no such notion when the Mason horde lived here.

Hmm. In this fair company, he found himself still very much a man, despite being a dead one.

What a comely thing. With her long dark lashes framing eyes the shade of blue that fell somewhere between cornflower petals and a robin's egg. Lightly arched brows, an adorable nose, and full lips a lovely shade of rose pink. When she opened a paper sack to retrieve a sandwich and apple, the sight made him hungry. No, not hungry exactly. Rather wistful. Food was such an enjoyable thing and one he sorely missed. Occasionally, in the process of eating, she licked her lips, and that simple act made his body stir. Hmm, he mused, how about that?
What Reviewers are saying about Dreamscape:

Dr. Judith's review at Book Binge ~ 5 out of 5!

Unable to deny his own translucence, Dr. Jason Bowen determines his lack of physical substance could only mean one thing-he's a ghost. Murdered more than a century before, Jason haunts his house and ponders the treachery that took his life. When Lanie O'Keefe arrives with plans to renovate her newly purchased Victorian mansion, Jason discovers, ghost or not, he's still very much a man. Despite its derelict condition and haunted reputation, Lanie couldn't be happier with her new home, but then she has no idea a spirit follows her every move throughout the day and shares her captivating warmth at night. Jason soon discovers he can travel through Lanie's dreams and finds himself reliving the days before his murder with Lanie by his side. It took one hundred and twenty years for love to find them, but there's that insurmountable little matter of Jason being dead.

This is the second novel by Rose Anderson I have read and reviewed and once again I think Ms Anderson has written a novel that is intriguing by its aura of mystery, a combination Victorian/contemporary ghost story, and at the core, a very erotic love story. There is not doubt in my mind that this is one heck of a novel, one that had me introspective and thoughtful when I finished, a kind of wonder that someone could have crafted such a wonderful book. That same sense of wonder is with me whenever I come out of the theater after watching one of those movies that seems to grab me by the shirt front and hold me captive throughout. That is the same feeling I had when I finished this tale.

All that being said, this is a story that tells of a heroine whose own early years were filled with hurt, emotional wounds caused by the neglect of a drunken mother and the derision of an uncaring community. The stately Victorian mansion seemed to inspire her to dream of a world of tradition, family, affluence, and romance. The stories of the ghost who lived in the shuttered environs of the Bowen mansion also piqued her interest, especially after she began to dream about the young boy who lived there, whose mother had died when he was young and whose father had been killed in a freak accident. The dreams continued off and on throughout her growing up years but were especially intense after Lanie purchased the Bowen mansion, spending her small inheritance to refurbish the old house and its yard, gardens, and fountains. She then began the construction of a new free clinic. She was a doctor and the free clinic was one of her most insistent goals. In fact, in the dream life she enjoyed with Jason Bowen, her ghostly dream lover who was also a physician, Lanie was a woman ahead of her time in that she was a doctor also. But Jason was a ghost who had been murdered by his wife of four months in order to gain his extensive wealth. Now as a ghost, mourning the fact that he had not real future with Lanie, he needed to find out how he died. In their dream life together they were seeking not only the facts of Jason's death, but ways to possibly change the future by preventing his death.

Throughout this story there is the tension Jason feels as he falls in love with this real woman, dealing with his feelings and the awareness that there was no future for them. He also had to face the need to remove himself from her awareness and through her friend he tried to do that. Lanie, nevertheless, always seemed to have the sense that she and Jason not only had a limit to their time in the present world but that when he died in her dream life, he would be gone there as well. So the reader is kept on the edge as these two parallel lives unfold for Lanie and Jason as well as for her friend Lexie and those who are alive in her dreams but who have been dead for over a century.

There are twists and turns and surprises galore in this novel, not the least of which is the ending which absolutely flipped me on my head and left me with my mouth hanging open. Certainly not what I expected. It was a more than satisfactory resolution, but to say I was shocked is to put it mildly. Suffice it to say that throughout the novel the reader has the sense that this century-old horror is going to repeat itself, that there seems no possible way that Lanie and Jason can realize a happy ending together short of Lanie's death, or that the evil perpetrated by Jason's wife and relatives is inevitable. I had the feeling that I was reading a Greek tragedy where things begin as they go on . . . worse and worse. Yet the author has come up with a resolution that is not only surprising in the extreme but absolutely perfect for the story.

This story will perplex and stretch the reader's belief in the power of love, and while we all know that death is final there remains that remnant of belief that somehow we'll find a way to reach across the Great Divide of death with the power of love. Perhaps that is the winsome hope upon which this novel is predicated as well as the fact that there are those who believe in re-incarnation, the reality of dreams or the possibility that dreams can reveal deep truths about ourselves we would otherwise miss. Whatever the truth may be or wherever it lies in regards to life and death, this story will feed that hope that somehow death is not quite so final. There is beauty here, with the joy of mutual discovery between Jason and Lanie, the frustration of the heart that can often twist a person's spirit, the evil that grows out of the love of wealth, the kindness and gentleness which can come from friendship and deep respect, and hope that deep and authentic loving can keep alive under any set of circumstances. It is all here and Ms Anderson has woven it all into a novel that is beautifully written, well-edited, and put together so that the parts of the story flow together seamlessly. It is a novel I have no difficulty calling a work of art.

So readers who love erotic romance wrapped in the mists of dream and fantasy and time-travel will find this to be a delightful reading experience, an entertaining way to spend some time, and an exercise of the mind and imagination. This novel is already on my favorites list as well as my "to read again" list. http://thebookbinge.com/search/label/Judith's Reviews

 Love Romance Passion's Review ~ 4 ½ Stars! 
By Carla F.

"He was part of my dream, of course – but then I was part of his dream too."

– Through the Looking Glass – by Lewis Carroll

Summary: Jason Bowen was murdered over a hundred years ago by his wife and her lover. Ever since then he has haunted the house he lived and died in. Lanie O'Keefe buys the deserted house and moves in with plans to renovate it to its former Victorian beauty. Jason is drawn immediately to Lanie's looks and her mind. Unknown to her, he follows her through the day and lays with her in the bed at night. He starts having feelings and physical sensations that he hasn't experienced since he died. Then he realizes that he can travel through Lanie's dreams and surprisingly those dreams are about the day's prior to his own murder. Review: The whole book is like a dream itself. The reader flows almost seamlessly from dreams to happenings in the present day. You become part of the dream. Only occasionally did the shifting from the present to dream/past become confusing. Jason is the kind of ghost that you would want to be haunting your bed. He is handsome, kind, considerate and focused on Lanie. She is beautiful, smart, and totally unfazed by the realization that her house is haunted. In one scene Jason decides to test Lanie's reaction to a possible ghost by slowly opening a squeaky kitchen cabinet. She watches without a sound or any hint of fear. Then she calmly makes her tea, sits down to make her to-do list for the house renovation, and only occasionally look up to see if the cabinet moves again. The main mystery of the book for me was not how Jason died, but how Lanie and he are going to get their HEA. The ending was a pleasant surprise for me.

Overall: This is a very clever story with a dream hero who will make you believe in ghosts and in the power of the mind. http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-dreamscape-by-rose-anderson

***
So this is me and what I write. I have mini blogs all over the internet. Come visit me. I love to hear from readers. 


My official blog — CalliopesWritingTablet  (It's filled with everything I've learned along the way since this amazing journey began in March 2011. Subscribe for updates. Everything is in there — from laurels to skinned knees. Aspiring authors — you'll find many useful things about this authoring business. You'll also find me on Blogger.com, but don't subscribe on blogger. I'm not active there)
My page at the Author's Den — AuthorsDen_RoseAnderson
My page at my publisher's site — Siren-Bookstrand_RoseAnderson
My book trailers –  MusesWritingTablet
Find me on Goodreads! — Goodreads
Yes I tweet, don't you? — @roseanderson_  (notice the _  at the end)
Find me — Amazon_Rose-Anderson
Another mini blog — SheWrites_RoseAnderson
And another — ManicReaders_RoseAnderson
And here too! — GoogleProfile_RoseAnderson  (I'm new to this one and would love some friends in my Circle. This site will soon blow Facebook out of the water. And it doesn't have FB's dubious "fine print")
You'll also see me at Barnes&Noble and Books-a-Million.
Any search will dig up something. My books have even been on ebay! LOL  Who knew! 

Huffington Post Recommended Reads for Fall Features Bill See's 33 Days

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Book Cover for 33 Days

Huffington Post Recommended Reads for Fall Features Bill See\'s \"33 Days\"

 

33 Days is the true story of an indie rock bank from L.A., Divine Weeks, on their first ever tour through North America in the 80′s as seen by author Bill See, who was the lead singer. It's the day by day journey of four guys in a smelly van with no windows in the back, staying at dive motels or crashing on someone's floor every night, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to stay alive every day, and once in a great while getting to achieve the transcendence of really connecting with an audience at a gig where they are usually opening the show for the headlining band. This is the tender, often heartbreaking, and beautifully realistic story of a band taking its first steps into the real world. 33 Days captures perfectly the disconnect felt by the band members from everyday reality during their travels: "As we make our way out of Portland, we experience the completely alien concept of doing exactly what we want to do while the rest of the world carries on with their dull and dismal Saturday morning errands… For us, it's back on the highway to follow the breadcrumbs left by our heroes in this sort of parallel universe."

 

IndieView with Indie Book Reviewer, Frida Fantastic

[image error]"I ask myself, "Do I want to live in this universe for the next 8 hours of my leisure time?" Books with uninformative blurbs and samples boggle me. I've seen samples with nothing but maps of some fantasy world I don't care about (yet). I don't find the lack of information intriguing—I find it frustrating."

Frida Fantastic – 9 September 2011

About Reviewing

How did you get started?

I bought an e-reader back in late 2010 and started posting on the Mobileread message boards. There are a lot of indie book reviewers on the Mobileread forums, so that was how I became exposed to the vibrant community of indie book reviewing.

Being a science fiction and fantasy genre reader, I was looking for speculative fiction blogs that reviewed indie books. I found either speculative fiction blogs or indie book blogs, there wasn't much overlap between the two blogging communities outside of a handful of sites. There are great blogs that review paranormal romance, which is speculative fiction, but I was looking for blogs with a different focus.

I came up with a list of features I wanted to see in my ideal indie-focused speculative fiction blog: honest in-depth reviews, easily browsed by sub-genre, occasionally covers other topics of interest to an ebook-reading SF/F audience, and so on. I started a wordpress blog and started reviewing and accepting submissions, and posted the link up to a few message boards and sites. The site traffic and submissions just grew from there.

How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?

I'm a science fiction/fantasy fan first and foremost, so I read with the intention of having fun. I make notes on my Kindle when I see typos, and sometimes I type out little comments when I'm really impressed by a scene. But usually when I'm enjoying a book, I'm flipping pages too fast to take notes—I need to see what happens next!

What are you looking for?

My blog reviews speculative fiction for adults in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I read almost everything under the umbrella of spec-fic. I enjoy anything from light-hearted fantasy, to dystopian science fiction, to gruesome splatter horror (as long as the splatter is caused by something supernatural, eldritch abominations are always a plus). The only thing I'm not as keen on is romance. A romantic encounter or subplot is okay, but if it's basically a Harlequin book with a space opera setting—then that's not up my alley.

In terms of what I am looking for in a good book, I look for an immersive experience, an engaging story, and refreshing ideas. As Dorothy Gambrell puts it in her Cat and Girl webcomic: "The world has enough art and literature for a thousand lifetimes." Indie books aren't competing with other indie books—they're competing with traditionally published books and other forms of fiction out there.

I'm passionate about books, but I'd rather watch a good movie than read a bad book. Whenever I write a review, I think about the other SF/F works that have dealt with similar themes, regardless of medium. I don't shy away from referencing other books, movies, comics, and so on if it's informative for an audience that's enthusiastic about SF/F fiction. In short: I want to read stories that cover new territory or do it better.

 If a book has a great plot, great characters, but the grammar is less than perfect, how do you deal with that?

The same way I would deal with a movie with bad editing, sound problems, and a visible film crew: it depends on how much it bothers me. If there are a few mistakes that don't detract from the experience, I'll forget about it. If it really bothers me, it could really sink the book's rating and my review would warn readers about it.

How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?

Probably around five hours. I read one indie book a week.

How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?

I use a five star rating system without half stars. I cross-post my reviews to Amazon, Smashwords, and Goodreads and they all use that system. I looked at other reviewer websites and their thoughts about on what an informative rating system looks like. I liked Thomas M. Wagner's rating system on sfreviews.net so I adopted it for my own blog.  3 stars are good books that are enjoyable but not as engaging as others, 4 stars are excellent and engaging books, and 5 stars are masterpieces and among the best SF/F I've ever read. I rarely give five stars, but all books rated 3 stars and higher are worthwhile to read. It just depends on what the reader is looking for.

What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?

(1) Find book blogs that are a good fit with your book (2) Read and follow a book blog's submission guide (3) Send your book for review to as many book bloggers possible as long as you continue to follow #1 and #2. It's pretty straightforward.

I know that searching for book blogs and reading their submission guide is time consuming, but it's worth the time. Not abiding by #1 or #2 just makes the author look bad. I've received emails from authors who submitted books that had nothing to do with speculative fiction, even though my blog's tagline is "a speculative fiction blog for the ebook revolution". I make it very clear in all my online profiles that I'm a spec-fic blogger, and yet I have receive the strangest things nothing to do with spec-fic: non-fiction books on how to combat alcoholism, video game strategy guides, political thrillers, autobiographies. Yes, autobiographies. Unless someone has ridden a dragon from Westeros, it's a waste of my time and their time—it's probably the biggest pet peeve of all book reviewers. I'm referring to people who don't read submission guides, not ones that ride dragons. I think there's a consensus that dragon-riding is an awesome activity. (George R. R. Martin, they will play a bigger role in future books, yes? Stop teasing us already)

Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?

Yes. I receive really kind comments from readers and some even link to my reviews. Linking and sharing are among the biggest compliments that can be given to a blogger. Many authors also send me an email thanking me for the review.

My advice to authors on getting a "bad" review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author's point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to "argue" with the reviewer – would you agree with that?

Yes. The internet has something called "the Streisand effect". As wikipedia defines it, it is "[the] attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely." I think it also includes the attempt to dispute with information in a way that attracts attention. This is why everyone has read BigAl's review of The Greek Seaman. The responses triggered "the Streisand effect" big time. It was on message boards, facebook feeds, blogs, and when Neil Gaiman tweeted the link, it reached the point of no return.

The best way for authors to deal with a negative review is to ignore it. Don't make any snide comments on any publicly accessible places on the internet. That includes Goodreads, messageboards, twitter, personal blogs, etc.  The more the author talks about the review, the more attention it gets, and that's the last thing the author wants. I'm happy to expand on my points with the author privately over email, but "arguing" with the reviewer won't get the conversation anywhere.

As a reviewer, I can't claim that all readers would experience the book the same way I did. Reading can be a very subjective and personal experience. What I do hope is that all my reviews are informative enough to reach the book's target audience. Maybe if it didn't work for me, it would work for others. All books get negative reviews at some point. On Goodreads, there's over 13,000 one-star ratings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. This is normal. What counts is that there are over 122,000 4 and 5 star ratings. It's the big picture that matters.

About Reading

We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly not enough about reading, which is after all why we're all here. Why do you think people love reading. We're seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a past-time is dying – do you think that's the case?

I disagree. I think ebooks and e-publishing has an enormous potential for global distribution: making books more accessible to readers all over the world and creating a vibrant global reading culture. I live in Canada, but having grown up in the Philippines, I understand how reading paper books for leisure is such a luxury.

In the Philippines, there aren't a lot of libraries, and so a reader in the Philippines has to buy most of the books they want to read. Space is another constraint because of small living spaces. Price is another limitation because of average incomes—while salaries there are much lower, books are either have the same prices or are more expensive than the books in North America. Distribution is another thing, as not all books are distributed in every country. So what you get is a small and expensive selection. This is the situation in most countries in the world.

With e-publishing, the internet is a global distributor. There are still geographical constraints on e-publishing (for both readers and authors), but the barriers will lower over time. Once there's an inexpensive e-reader or mobile phone that does the job well, the world could be reading more books than ever.

I think readers want to read good stories no matter where they're published, and writers want readers no matter where they're located. I look forward to an era of a truly global reading and publishing culture.

About Writing

What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?

I agree with BigAl here: publishing indie books before they're ready for public consumption. It doesn't matter if the book is free, $0.99, or $9.99. It must be polished, edited, and worth the reader's time. As BigAl said in his Indieview, "The biggest investment a reader makes is not the price of the book. It's the time to read."

I think it's better for authors to release no books than to release a book that's not ready, even if the book is free. No business is better than bad business. Even if the author doesn't lose money, they may hurt their brand and lose potential readers. Bad books get stuck in the slush pile, dilute the author's offerings on her Amazon/Goodreads/Smashwords/etc. page, or even worse—create negative word of mouth. It's nearly impossible to remove anything from the internet once it's publicly available (especially people's opinions), so it's bad for authors to sacrifice long-term branding and potential sales when it's not necessary.

We're told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel, what do you think about that; if a book hasn't grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?

Yes. I consider books to read on three aspects: (1) the premise/book description (2) the first five pages (3) the sample on Amazon. I receive over 20 book submissions per week. I normally only have enough time to read the blurb and first five pages, and then skim through the sample. If the book doesn't interest me compared to the other books I'm also considering, I put it down.

Key elements I consider are the POV character, the tone, and the setting. I ask myself, "Do I want to live in this universe for the next 8 hours of my leisure time?" Books with uninformative blurbs and samples boggle me. I've seen samples with nothing but maps of some fantasy world I don't care about (yet). I don't find the lack of information intriguing—I find it frustrating. It's better to have the blurb and sample deliver more information than not enough information, as readers are choosing between many books. It's best to give a book an edge whenever possible.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the Page 99 concept, what are your thoughts on that idea?

Reading one page isn't informative enough to draw conclusions from. It's an interesting concept, but I don't see how it's useful.

Is there anything you will not review?

Because of my blog's focus, I only review speculative fiction, and I don't review paranormal romance and children's books. I also don't review YA books and books heavy on the romance, but I make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

About Publishing

What do you think of the oft quoted comment that the "slush-pile has moved online"?

It's true, but it doesn't demean good indie books. Great books sit on the same virtual shelf as terrible books that should have never left the vicinity of the amateur writing forum. That's why social media, the blogosphere, and book reviewers are so valuable to readers and authors.

Do you think attitudes are changing with respect to Indie or self-published titles?

Yes, especially with readers who read ebooks. On the whole, e-publishing gives indie authors an edge on pricing and e-distribution, and it's easier to read indie than ever before. Readers are finding out that there are great stories everywhere, regardless of the business model chosen by the author.

Do you have any ideas or comments on how the industry can "filter" good from bad, asides from reviews?

I think it's a great thing to be able to publish and access anything. I'll quote Isabela Morales of The Scattering: while e-publishing "does mean that there's junk to wade through, it's made the good, the interesting, and the creative more accessible as well."

The word "filters" is too close to the term "gatekeepers". Like what Grace Krispy has said, the term "guides" are a better way of describing the tools and channels that connect readers to books. A reader can technically find any book, but readers value guides that connect them to the most relevant content—in this case, books they'll like.

A guide can take the form of a message board, a Amazon recommendation algorithm, a book club, a person's twitter feed, or a book blog, and so on. There are many guides available, but it's not easy for readers to find the guides that work for them in a short amount of time. The reader's time is precious: the time they spend being lost in the internet's flood of content takes away from time they could've been buying books.

I can't say anything about the other guides, but as an indie book blogger, I think there is value to aggregating book reviews in an informative way for readers. I really like the Simon-Royle.com site for that reason, because it has a comprehensive list of book bloggers and has lists of the latest indie book reviews from all over the web. It's the best aggregator that I know of.

I would like to see a website that features the latest indie book reviews in a magazine-style format. It could have a preview of the blog posts and be tabbed by genre, and special events like giveaways, and so on. I could see it working for Simon-Royle.com

End of Interview

Visit Frida's site for a great collection of reviews and follow her on Twitter @FridaSF.

IndieView with Tom North, author of, Puttypaw

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 "I shelved it for about a year. I eventually realised that the reason the short story didn't work was because it was the last act of a novel, and needed the rest of the story for it to make any emotional sense. And so I wrote the novel and reunited the short story with its history."

- Tom North 30 August 2011

The Back Flap

Toby has shut himself off from the world. Since the accident which killed his mother he has spent every waking moment simply waiting until he can return to bed, and sleep. But one night he is woken by an immense, yowling tabby cat which tears his room apart, searching for its missing 'mousey'. And Toby knows from that moment that life is only going to get stranger.

'Puttypaw' is a book about cats; man-sized, talking cats. (One of which specialises in casual malevolence and unspeakable sarcasm.) It is also about gods and their slippers. It is about growing up and friendship and loss and adventure. It is about rats and blood. It is about mirrors and deserts and fighting. It is about death – but then all stories are, in the end. Most of all, though, it is a book about Toby and his dreams.

About the Book

What is the book about?

The book is about an early teenage boy called Toby who is having a pretty bad time of things. His mother had recently died and he's living with his step-family. He's also having a bad time at school. As a result Toby has shut himself away, retreating to a place where people can't reach him and where life simply slides off his shoulders. Nobody, however, can live that way for long without life eventually coming to get them. In Toby's case life comes in the form of a gigantic talking cat, called 'Puttypaw', who rips his bedroom apart looking for a mouse. Puttypaw takes him off for a series of adventures which involve reanimated rat corpses, self-indulgent peacocks, unnecessary sarcasm and a never-ending desert. Over the course of the book Toby learns to accept mortality and to start to live.

I know, I know: it sounds a bit grim and weird, right? Rest assured that it isn't as grim as it sounds. It is as weird as it sounds, though.

When did you start writing the book?

I began in March 2009. I had recently taken the decision that I wanted to write a novel but hadn't actually managed to start. I was sitting in my girlfriend's bedroom with my laptop propped up on the bed, playing chess or something, and on a whim opened a word document and rattled off what is now the second passage in the book. After that I couldn't seem to stop.

How long did it take you to write it?

I had a full, and readable, first draft in eight months flat, working in the evenings and weekends around my day job. I used to come home, switch on the laptop and try to do a couple of hours at least four or five times a week. Once it was largely there I spent an interesting (or obsessive, depending on your viewpoint) four months editing and tweaking.

Where did you get the idea from?

The original idea for a talking cat called Puttypaw came (and this is entirely true, by the way) in a  dream I had about a schoolboy and a cat. The cat was in a blanket and for some reason they were in a cellar and the cat was eating something horrible. In my dream the boy very clearly said, "That's filth, Puttypaw." And that was it. Although these words didn't make it into the book, they set the scene. I woke up feeling odd about the dream and wrote a short story exploring it. I showed the story to my mother who told me that it didn't work. So I shelved it for about a year. I eventually realised that the reason the short story didn't work was because it was the last act of a novel, and needed the rest of the story for it to make any emotional sense. And so I wrote the novel and reunited the short story with its history.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Sure! Not whole sections but certainly odd passages here and there. I haven't had writers' block or anything like that, but some, relatively short, sections were a real swine. It's very strange to me that some passages come out fully fledged the first time they're written and subsequently require only very cosmetic alteration, whereas others just won't work no matter how big the mallet you beat them with. The passage where Toby wakes up after his first visit from Puttypaw was rewritten about five million times. At least. I simply couldn't get it to fit in with the rest of the book. I knew that I'd finally arrived when I re-read the section and it seemed to flow naturally, as if it had just sauntered onto the page with the rest. The difference is that I, and now you, know that it took a hell of a lot of work to get it to look that way, whereas some other passages simply sprang out fully formed.

What came easily?

Theroros came easily. He's easily my favourite character because he's purpose built to be unpleasant, sarcastic and funny. I loved writing him simply because he gets to say all the things that I'd want to say to people but can never allow myself – largely because it's quite nice to have friends. I don't think many people realise quite how much of my innate sarcasm I have to swallow in order to prevent utter social exclusion. Even so one of my friends, having read the book, said that every time Theroros spoke she heard my voice. Worrying, worrying….

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

Nearly all of the characters in the book are an extension of my own personality traits, the above being a case in point. The only exception is Mitchell, who is based on nobody specifically but most resembles a kid who I didn't like very much at my secondary school. I never had a lot of problems with the kid in question but knew people who did. I think it's fair to say that a few of Mitchell's more beautiful tendencies come from that source.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

I'm a sucker for any book with a fantastical element which uses that element to make an intelligent comment on society or human relationships. Writers as diverse as Terry Pratchett, Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman and Mikhail Bulgakov all do this. The result for me is a comical situation with deeper undertones in which you learn about humanity without being preached at. I acknowledge that this might land me in pseuds' corner, but once you get past the weirdness of, for example, a talking frog which battles a giant earthworm to prevent Tokyo's earthquakes (Murakami) or a man demanding a receipt for having been turned into a pig and ridden to the witches ball (Bulgakov), or have simply had a chuckle at a character's expense, then with a clever writer it begins to dawn on you that there's a small catch there. It's that feeling you get when you think, "Hang on; there's more here than meets the eye." It makes you think. This is what I tried to do in Puttypaw. Whether I succeeded or not is another matter, but that was certainly the intention.

Do you have a target reader?

Yes: me. This has caused a lot of problems and taught me a lesson or two. I wrote Puttypaw for me, and so wrote about the things that make me laugh and the things that make me sad and wrote in the style I'd like to read. The problem is, as my girlfriend will attest, that I'm essentially a thirty-five year old, precocious and gobby small child. The resulting book is slightly juvenile – I hope in a fun way -  but with underlying adult themes and language. It's not that this odd combination has put people off at all – people genuinely seem to enjoy it – but it has still caused me problems. (See the "agents" question below.)

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

It depends. If I'm "blue sky" writing to fill a page with words where none previously existed, then I need to be tired enough for my conscious brain to have given up but not so tired that I want to sleep. In this mood I can easily write two thousand words in a few hours. But then the two thousand words will need trimming and reconsidering and sorting and generally making it "not atrocious". For this I need to be pretty awake and in a finicky mood. My stories tend to progress, therefore, by alternating splurges of words onto page followed by trimming these up into usable prose. But each section appears and is processed at its own rate; at any one time there might be finished sections and terrible sections and completely non-existent sections from all different bits of the book.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just Chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

No. I have tried many times and it doesn't work for me. I don't outline except by holding a vague feeling about where things are going in my head. What I do instead is to start by writing the last major scene of the book and ask myself, "How did these characters end up here." Then everything grows from one scene to the next, with ideas coming as I write. But because I know where everything is heading, everything grows in the right direction. Kind of.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you've finished?

Both. I edit as I go as a natural part of how I write. But once the whole book is assembled I then edit it en masse. It's like making a table out of lots of component parts. Each component is nearly finished but when the whole thing is assembled it'll still need sanding down and bits chipping off and varnishing so that it looks like a single unit.

Did you hire a professional editor?

Yes, I did and am EXTREMELY glad. She did a great job and highlighted some particularly bad writing habits which I would never have spotted on my own. One habit, for example, was a tendency to begin sentences with "There is…" or "There was…" when trying for a particular effect. I'd end up with some paragraphs where two of three of these would crop up. In general, I think, any pattern like that in your writing detracts from the story because it catches the readers' eye. It's like spotting an actor actually doing acting rather than inhabiting the role. All of those There was's were me doing writing rather than telling the story. As I say, I'd never have noticed on my own because that was just how I wrote. Now I'm more aware of these things and stamp on their little heads if I see them.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

Oddly I can never, ever work and listen to music but it's almost mandatory when I'm writing. I think it keeps my conscious mind occupied so the rest of the dark things which lurk beneath can get on with their job. I listen to a lot of Stornoway and Elbow, and much less frequently bands like Pink Floyd. For me the music has to have emotional content when I'm writing and only certain types will do it. This can mean that I listen to one album on repeat for days if I'm writing a passage in a certain mood. I'm assured by my girlfriend that this isn't at all irritating that doesn't make her want to kill me.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

I did indeed. And the minority who bothered to read beyond the covering letter or synopsis (I mean honestly; what a terrible process it is: horrific levels of stone-walling and general disinterest) said some very nice things about my writing. But none took the book up. One agent very kindly wrote to me saying that she kept coming back to it because thought that my writing was so strong but the subject of Puttypaw was too weird for her in the end. She also added that if I wrote anything else I should send it to her. That was great but I imagine that my next book will also be too weird for her because 'weird' is kind of what happens when I write. The others have tended to agree that I've (and I paraphrase) managed to create a well written [excellent!], interesting [great!] book which, however, [uh-oh] is extremely difficult to place [ah...bum], and so we won't be taking it up [poo]. But do keep at it [right]. So I've had some encouragement along the way. Here's where having written a too-adult-for-mainstream-fantastical-juvenile book hasn't helped, I think.

What made you decide to go Indie? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

It was a realisation that my book would probably never see the light of day if I kept sending it to agents without getting it out there. It had already been a year, and at the same time there was an emerging acceptance that Indie publishing was different to vanity publishing. (As an aside I abhor vanity publishing. I'd rather not publish.) The other contributing factor was that I broke my arm through being not very good at snowboarding. As a result I abruptly had lots of time on my hands. So I took the opportunity to get into self-publishing and am glad that I did. It made me take myself more seriously as a writer, and the feedback I've been getting has largely (the provider of my only one star review / character assassination notwithstanding) been very supportive and encouraging.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did it you do it yourself?

I got it professionally done by a lovely lady called Tania at Designarchy. It was a very fun process. All of my other covers – for short stories etc. – have been home-made and aren't nearly as good.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

Winging it entirely. I'm probably not organised enough for a marketing plan. This may well be my Achilles heel in the Indie world, but I'm absolutely terrible at self-promotion. That said I have learned a large amount along the way. Since April, when I first went 'live', I've had well over 2500 downloads of my various stories, which is, ooh, about 2497 more readers than I'd have ever had if I hadn't been dabbling with Smashwords and self promotion. At this stage of my writing career this, and the accompanying positive reviews, are making me very happy.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

The initial downloads you get when you upload a free book on Smashwords convince you that your books are going to be huge. The supervening (word for the day) slump in downloads – to zero in most cases – is massively dispiriting. Neither represents reality. The reality, I think, is that it's a long game and you probably will have to stick at it for years to build up a group of people who want to read your stuff. And this means getting your name out there. (I'm just speculating about this last bit, of course, having only been doing it for four months, but it's easier than telling myself I've blown it this early on.) My tactic, and I stand by it, is that if you want downloads, you have to give away freebies. Each of my free short stories ends with an excerpt from Puttypaw, links back to where to find it, and some of the reviews I've had. Each download of a free story is, therefore, a seed waiting to grow into a bought book. Hopefully they'll soon be a nice forest. Or at least a lawn.

About You

I'm really, really bad at snowboarding. I'm adequate at rock climbing. I used to be good at fencing, but I'm not any more.

Where did you grow up?

I'm from a small market town in the north east of England and sound way too posh to have come from there. This was a source of much hilarity when I was at primary school…for the other kids, anyway.

Where do you live now?

Oxford. This is why I still sound way too posh.

What would you like readers to know about you?

I spend most of my time cracking terrible jokes and trying to make people laugh. It tends, instead, merely to make them glad when I stop talking. I absolutely adore writing. It's similar trying to make people laugh, but under circumstances where you have all the time in the world to get the phrasing just right before you open your mouth. Most of my friends probably still wish I'd take that time in conversation.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on novel number two. As usual with me it involves some very odd things happening which are a counterpoint to the emotional state of the main character. I probably can't go into it too much right now but it involves a terribly feeble pun, being hunted by a strange, dark beast, a wound that won't close, a man traveling the world escaping from precisely nothing, and ultimately a realisation that it's never too late to let go and accept things as they are. I think that this has probably been sufficiently vague a description that you'll never want to read it.

End of Interview

Tom's website is here and you can buy Puttypaw here at Amazon US, or at Smashwords, here.

IndieView with Craig Hansen, author of, Most Likely

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"Don't kid yourself about this being easy; if anything, you'll need to hold yourself to higher standards than others have held you to previously in your writing life. There's a very real and time-consuming business aspect to being indie and it's not a money-machine."

- Craig Hansen 20 August 2011

The Back Flap

Becky Howard is a teen under pressure. Pressure from her best friend not to breathe a word about the abuse she's suffering by her mother. Pressure from her sister to understand her marital difficulties. Pressure from her boyfriend to get more physical than she's ready for. And pressure from the rumors about her boyfriend that are eroding her trust in him. As she prepares for the biggest track meet of her life, Becky's about to learn that sometimes growing up is about more than having sex, and that clinging to ideals might not be as helpful as learning to expect whatever is MOST LIKELY.

MOST LIKELY is approximately 63,000 words long and contains light Christian themes.

About the Book

 What is the book about?

MOST LIKELY is a novel about handling an extraordinary amount of pressure at a time when one is least prepared for it. The novel focuses on high school junior Becky Howard, who's about to run in the most important race of her high school track career. If she wins, she'll reach the state tournament for the first time. But just as she needs to focus in more than ever before, her life and the lives of those closest to her start falling apart, testing her faith and everything she's ever believed about how life is supposed to be and turn out.

 When did you start writing the book?

MOST LIKELY is a project over twenty years in the making. I created an early version of the novel while in graduate school; it was my creative thesis for my master's degree program in English. I tried marketing it then, to both publishers and agents, but it stalled. Then, back in March, I was downsized from my day job. I'd been working on a different novel but felt like it would take quite a bit of time to get that one finished and to market. So a friend of mine on Kindleboards.com asked me if there was any reason I couldn't take my old novel from my college days, brush it up, update it, and bring that out a lot quicker. So that's what I did, and that update and revision took just under three months.

 How long did it take you to write it?

I worked on it for about eighteen months in college, and just under three months when I updated it this past spring. So about twenty-one months of effort, all put together.

Where did you get the idea from?

In college, I went through a phase were I was reading a lot of "coming of age" novels. However, most of those novels defined coming of age as having one's first sexual experience. I felt that was a rather narrow view of what it means to enter adulthood. There's quite a bit more to growing up than jumping in the sack with someone; any lusty teenager can do that and still be stuck in immaturity. So MOST LIKELY was written as a more holistic approach to the theme of growing up."

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

In a way, the whole book was a challenge. Back in college, it was a challenge for me to put myself, narratively speaking, into the perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl. That was a stretch for me, and one I chose because I read that Stephen King took on the same challenge writing CARRIE early in his writing career. So I put myself through a similar curriculum writing MOST LIKELY.

Then when I updated it, I had to re-enter the entire novel from scratch and resist revising it where I felt it needed, until the whole novel was re-entered in a modern word processor. There's so much that's changed culturally over the past twenty years that it took quite a bit of effort to get the novel to ring as modern.

Just as a casual example, back when I wrote this novel, cell phones were virtually nonexistent. So if one teen wanted to reach another, they'd call the home phone, wrestle with the parent who answered to talk to their friend or the person they were dating, and then maybe reach the person they were trying to connect with from the start.

Today, it's much easier. You can send IMs from a cell phone or through Facebook, there's email, and most kids have their own cell phone. So even though the importance of connecting with whoever hasn't changed in the story, how they connect with each other had to be updated and revised to sound modern.

What came easily?

The bones of the story were still solid, even after twenty-some years. So I didn't really need to change the plot structure when I updated the book. That was a relief.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

I don't base entire characters off one person. There are certain ticks, or bits of dialog, or habits, that I've observed people do in real life, and given to characters. Sometimes I'll honor an old friendship by giving a character the same last name or first name (never both!) as someone I used to know. But no, there is no one character I'm aware of that anyone could point to and say, "Oh, that character's totally me in every respect." Most of my characters are amalgamations of several different people.

 We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

Stephen King is the most influential writer on me, overall. I've read more of his books than anyone else, and learned more about how to write effectively from his books than anyone else. Almost to the point where I sometimes have the same weaknesses he does, as well as similar strengths.

That might sound odd given that MOST LIKELY isn't in the same genre as King usually dwells, but the other major influence on my, my college writing mentor, young adult novelist Terry Davis, taught me that one can be influenced by a writer without having to write the same sort of stories they write.

So while I'm writing this coming-of-age story with MOST LIKELY, which is young adult and has some mild Christian themes, Stephen King still plays a bit influence on how I write, how I build characters and construct a story.

Do you have a target reader?

I knew a lot less about target readers and writing to a very specific audience when I first wrote MOST LIKELY than I do now. In fact, I learned a lot more about it from John Locke's recent eBook marketing title, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS IN 5 MONTHS. So with MOST LIKELY, I've kind of approached this topic a little bit backwards.

What I'm finding is that the target reader for MOST LIKELY is predominantly female, and that it attracts as many moms and teachers and librarians as it does teenagers. The audience for this book doesn't mind some religious content that fits in with Becky's struggles, but doesn't want to be preached at or taken through a salvation plan.

Those who reach MOST LIKELY generally like the first-romance feel of Tom and Becky's relationship, but appreciate the growing maturity with which she handles that romance over the course of the book. Finally, the target audience for MOST LIKELY appreciates the steady, natural pace to the storytelling that focuses more on emotional conflict and growth than it does on action and physical conflict.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

When I start out on a new project, I usually begin with a college-ruled notebook and a pen. I scribble down whatever inspired me and I start building out around that. Usually I'll focus on characters first. So it's kind of like casting the novel. If I'm writing something with an element of mystery, I'll usually have a page called, "What really happened," and then my casting follows the pattern of building out some potential suspects, from the red herring ones all the way to the real suspect.

Anyway, once I have the equivalent of a handbook to the novel, a reference work, then I have to give the whole thing time to simmer. Once it's ready, I start writing. I do first drafts in Focus Writer 1.3.3, because it's bare bones and keeps me focused on writing, rather than formatting, editing or anything else. Just forward progress.

Once I have the first draft done, I move it all over to MS Word for formatting and revisions. I involve beta reader feedback at some point; then I add in an editor round of feedback toward the end, and that person usually shows me that the emperor has no clothes just yet. In other words, that there's still more to fix than I thought. And then at some point, I let it go and move on to the next project. I have perfectionist tendencies, so that's hard for me, but it's good to do at some point.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just Chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I do not outline extensively, and any time I've tried, I usually don't get very far before the outline becomes useless to me. Because the better ideas always occur to me as I'm writing.

That's not to say I don't have goalposts, or certain scenes I want to build toward. But anything more extensive than that, no. I keep things on a certain level of "vague idea" because any time I've attempted to be more detailed, more explicitly plotted ahead of time, as I said, in the process of writing something better always comes to me and I toss the original plot-point over in favor of the something better most of the time.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you've finished?

I have edited as I go in the past, but I've found that's a great way never to finish anything. So I've intentionally instilled the habit in myself that I don't change much until the first draft is complete.

Of course, at this level, I'm talking about craft-level-editing. If a story has gone off the rails or a motivation just seems off or maybe I lose faith in a big chunk of the plot making sense, then I will put the breaks on. That happened with one novel recently; I reached about thirty-thousand words and realized that I only liked the first ten thousand. So I dumped two thirds of my progress and started over. Sometimes you just have to.

But for the most part, I've found that if you get too involved in crafting each and every sentence perfectly, you can spend an endless amount of time just doing that. In my post-college years, I started maybe a dozen novels, got about five to ten thousand words in, and never got any further because I got into that kind of revise-revise-revise cycle. So I avoid that, these days, until the first draft is done.

Did you hire a professional editor?

Yes. No matter how good an editor you are, there's no replacing that "second set of eyes."

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

Sometimes. Not always. It depends on what I'm writing. And I'm afraid my playlist is a bit boring. I know some novelists love posting playlists for their novels, but really, most music I would find distracting to the creative process. So when I want some music, I own about five hundred tracks of Johnny Cash music, stuff from every phase of his career. I just start that playlist and keep it on low in the background and go from there. I don't put on music that's too rowdy, or that I'm going to want to stop and sing along with. Cash's music is so timeless; I love it, it's very sing-able, but I can also just listen to it and be happy with it on in the background.

 About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Not anymore. Too many years of trying and getting form letter responses. Right now, I'm enjoying being indie. If I add an agent in the future, it will be for managing foreign rights, movie rights, stuff like that. As far as books are concerned, I'm quite happy being on eBook and in print through CreateSpace.

What made you decide to go Indie? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

Mostly it was the advent of the eBook market and eReaders. And specifically, the Kindle. I had heard a bit about the indie book scene but it had a bad rep. But a year ago I downloaded the Kindle for PC app and tried out a mystery by L.J. Selllers, The Sex Club, and found it to be as good or better than anything I'd read that was traditionally published. That changed my perspective. And when I realized there were plenty of well-written books in the indie market, and that eBooks and POD took away the big out-of-pocket investment from being self-published, I knew it was the direction I wanted to go.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did it you do it yourself?

The cover for MOST LIKELY was very professionally done by Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics. I'm thrilled with it.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

With MOST LIKELY, I'm in a genre that's more of a challenge to market, so I've been trying everything just to see what works. I'll be able to be far more effective, as a result, with my next few releases. It's a learning process and I've been learning a lot.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Don't kid yourself about this being easy; if anything, you'll need to hold yourself to higher standards than others have held you to previously in your writing life. There's a very real and time-consuming business aspect to being indie and it's not a money-machine. Not every great writer is also a great marketer. Not every great marketer is a great writer. But if you can score relatively well in both categories, you can do well as an indie.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in southern Minnesota, near Austin, Minnesota, in a town of about three hundred and fifty people, known as Rose Creek. It was all flat plains, farmland, that kind of thing. It wasn't the vacationland sort of setting that MOST LIKELY takes place in. My fictional setting, Hope, Wisconsin, has a small-town feel to it, but for various reasons I modeled it more after a small college town type of setting. That way I can still have the setting be big enough for interesting things to happen, but small enough that I can draw on my experiences growing up to lend the atmosphere and feel of a small town to the setting.

Where do you live now?

As if mid-to-late August, we're moving to suburban Portland, in Oregon. My wife is from the Pacific Northwest originally and during the first five years of marriage, we stayed here in the Midwest, but she was eager to get back to where there are mountains and the ocean is a reasonable drive away. And my understanding is that Oregon has milder weather, both in the summer and the winter, and so I think it'll be better health-wise, as well.

What would you like readers to know about you?

Mainly, that I appreciate each and every one of them for giving one of my books a chance. I'm in a stage in my career where I'm just starting to build an audience for my work, so right now that's a modest number of folks, but I appreciate each and every one of them, and if I'm ever fortunate enough to become widely read, I hope to carry forward the same attitude. I can write a book and think it's a very good read, but without any readers, all I have is that book. The readers are what turn a writer into an author. So, thank you.

What are you working on now?

MOST LIKELY is a whole lot of fun as an antidote to what's popular in young adult fiction today; it's a novel that addresses real-life problems that kids face day-in and day-out, like the courage to resist peer pressure and follow your own conscience.

That being said, I quite enjoy the paranormal suspense genre that is so popular right now, and I have my own take and sensibilities to bring to the table in that arena, as well. In so many examples of that genre, it seems like around every corner lurks a vampire boyfriend or a lycan-wiccan war. My next novel is the beginning of what will become a series focusing on a new main character, Ember Cole.

The first novel in that series is due in September, and will be called SHADA. It's the tale of four friends who go camping in the last summer where they are all together and friends. I like to describe it as being my version of "The Body" by Stephen King (which became the movie STAND BY ME), only with an all-female cast, rather than an all-male cast.

That will be followed by a longer novel called EMBER, which I hope to release before the year is out. Both SHADA and EMBER are part of the EMBER COLE series of young adult paranormal suspense novels, and fit into a category that I call "light-touch paranormal" because although there are some paranormal elements, the novel is not overwhelmed by them and the characters are still by and large recognizably ordinary people. I add in just enough paranormal elements to keep things fun and suspenseful, but I don't want the series to become Take 3,542 of a vampire-lycan war or anything remotely that broad. These are tight, tense, isolated little tales that occur in the beautiful but vast and spooky north woods of Hope, Wisconsin.

So look for SHADA in September, and EMBER before the year is out. Those interested can visit my Web site and sign up through the Contact Me tab to receive a very brief, infrequent newsletter whenever I'm about to release something new.

End of Interview

You can find Craig Hansen here.

You can buy his book here.

A New Book Release by author Vicki Tyley: Fatal Liaison

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The Back Flap

The lives of two strangers, Greg Jenkins and Megan Brighton, become inextricably entangled when they each sign up for a dinner dating agency. Greg's reason for joining has nothing to do with looking for love. His recently divorced sister Sam has disappeared and Greg is convinced that Dinner for Twelve, or at least one of its clients, may be responsible. Neither is Megan looking for love. Although single, she only joined at her best friend Brenda De Luca's insistence. When a client of the dating agency is murdered, suspicion falls on several of the members. Then Megan's friend Brenda disappears without trace, and Megan and Greg join forces. Will they find Sam and Brenda, or are they about to step into the same inescapable snare?

Reviewed by

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Where to Buy

Amazon US

Amazon UK

B&N

Smashwords ($0.99 coupon code BZ39D)

IndieView with Mike Lewis, author of, Changers' Summer

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"I tried outlining an SF Thriller once and found that once it was extensively outlined I was no longer interested in writing it. Half the fun of writing to me is finding out exactly how the characters are going to get out of the situations they find themselves in."

- Mike Lewis 30 July 2011

The Back Flap

Tom is twelve and all he's ever known is a world with acid rain and constant cloud. His world is a place where people try to scratch out a living; surrounded by the wreckage of the past.

One hundred years ago a group of mysterious scientists took charge of the Earth's weather in order to control climate change. They burned the planet and in the ensuing chaos they disappeared.

When one of the "Changers" appears on Tom's farm, his life changes and he is forced into an adventure where he must choose between his family and helping the Changers repair the damage they have done.

But can the Changers be trusted this time?

About the Book

What is the book about?

On one level it is about Climate Change, overuse of genetic engineering and the  dangers of meddling with nature.  On another, it is a fast-paced SF adventure about a boy and his talking dog who try to help visitors from the past put the world to rights.

 When did you start writing the book?

The first draft was started in 2001.

 How long did it take you to write it?

I wrote the first 10K over about 4 months and it went through a couple of writers groups as I revised it and reworked it to get the tone I wanted for the book. The next 50K were written in 6 weeks.

 Where did you get the idea from?

The book actually started as a writing exercise from a writers group and I began with the idea of a man appearing from thin air. Not in a flash, but slowly as though he was emerging from a doorway. The characters very quickly took on a life of their own, as did the issue in the book of genetics and climate manipulation.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

I struggled slightly with where to end this particular book and where to split the trilogy.  I had initially thought about writing it as one long book, but decided that would be too long for Young Adult.  It was only after I was a few chapters in that I realized it would be a Young Adult novel.

What came easily?

After I had written the first 10K and had the tone of the book, the rest of the book came very quickly and easily.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

The main character of Tom is based slightly on my nephew Tom. Some of the locations in the book draw on places I have been but most of the characters are fictitious.

Do you have a target reader?

No, not really.  I suppose I write for people who like Science Fiction and Fantasy as that is what I write.  Though a lot of my work in short stories has been fairly borderline Science Fiction rather than hard science about machines or physics.  It tends to be softer, more sociological SF.

 About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

I try to write regularly but at the moment am not succeeding in that due to work and other commitments. I write quickly when I am writing, about 1-2k an hour and tend to just go with the flow and revise later.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just Chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I outline very roughly.  I tried outlining an SF Thriller once and found that once it was extensively outlined I was no longer interested in writing it. Half the fun of writing to me is finding out exactly how the characters are going to get out of the situations they find themselves in.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you've finished?

My first drafts tend to be written very quickly and are therefore a bit of a mess.  I rush through the story and then revise it over a couple of redrafts later on.  If I stopped to edit I think I would lose the momentum and vision of the story I am trying to tell.

Did you hire a professional editor?

For Changers' Summer I didn't.  It had been through two crit groups, plus revised a number of times and commented on in a fair amount of detail by a couple of agents.  I am looking into using an editor on The Rat King, the next book in the trilogy.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

No, I have to write in silence, I cannot write if there is music as I listen to it instead of writing.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Yes I did and publishers over a few years.  This novel had the full manuscript requested by some agents but never got me close to having an agent represent it.

What made you decide to go Indie? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

I have only just published my first indie work, at the beginning of June and it was a change of circumstance that made me consider it.  I run a small wargaming business (Black Hat Miniatures) as my day job and was working as an IT Consultant one day a week as well (which had been my main career until ill-health forced a change).  The IT consultancy stopped and I looked around to see how else I could supplement my main income.

I came across the idea of publishing your own books on the Kindle through Amazon and it seemed a good opportunity to see if I could make any money from my writing apart from occasional short story sales.

Now, the book and the short stories are picking up some very favourable reviews and that has made me realize that indie publishing will let me get my work out to people who enjoy reading as well as, perhaps, making some money.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did it you do it yourself?

My covers are done professionally – I am not a designer and know my limitations!

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

As this is something of an experiment and I knew very little about the indie publishing scene when I started I guess I am winging it in some ways.  The plan is to publish the rest of the trilogy and another completed YA novel over the next year and then see how sales are.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Join the Kindleboards.com forums – there is a wealth of experience there and that is where I learnt most of the information you need to look professional and promote your work.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I lived in a number of places aroundLondonwhile growing up, so no one place in particular.  I went to primary school in Old Harlow inEssex. Then two Grammar schools: One inNewport, Essex and one inRamsgate,Kent.

Where do you live now?

Woking inSurrey, about a mile and a half from where the martians landed on Horsell Common.

What would you like readers to know about you?

I once wrote computer games for a living on the Spectrum and other 8-bit computers and in fact they are going to be released soon for the IOS operating system on the Ipad, iphone, etc.

What are you working on now?

I am currently writing the second book of the Changers Trilogy – The Rat King which I hope to publish in early 2012.  Then it will be on to The Layneman Experiments, which is the final book which will be out middle-late 2012.

I have a completed 70K YA Victorian Fantasy called "Sheldak" which was completed in 2004 and needs revising.  I have had an initial read through this and started making notes to fix plot problems, etc.

I also have two adult SF/SF Thrillers which are about halfway through and I intend to return to these next year.

End of Interview

You can buy Changers' Summer, at Amazon US here, Amazon UK or Smashwords. And you can find Mike on the Web here.

IndieView with indie reviewer, Tomes of the Soul

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"Knowing your genre is the key thing when seeking reviews. You need to know who your target audience is and where they look for reviews, and target those sites. When looking at potential review sites look at how often they post, where they post, their layout, the genre(s) they review and which books they give what ratings to. This can provide you with a good indication of whether a review from that site will be of use to you in promoting your work."

Tome Keeper 26 July 2011

About Reviewing

How did you get started?

I've always loved reading, ever since I was very small, and spent many years working in the library sector. As part of my job I used to give verbal reviews of books to readers all the time and I've always enjoyed sharing my views with others. When I got my Kindle in February, I had quite a hard time finding useful reviews to base my purchasing decisions on. Many of the indie books had very short reviews that just said if it was good or bad, with no explanation of how they had reached their decision. Other reviews used too much of what I would consider 'technical language', and read more like a university style reviews rather than a honest reader's opinion. I figured that if I was unsatisfied with some of the reviews offered, others might be too, and if I was going to read a book anyway I may as well share my thoughts with others in a style that appealed to me. So Tomes of the Soul was born.

How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?

I have a very laid back approach to reading and reviewing, I am a reader first and reviewer as almost an accidental second. I read a review copy as if it was any other book, so whenever, wherever, often stopping and starting, and going over bits if I've forgotten what happened in the last chapter. I don't force myself to read or make any notes, I feel that if something is important enough to be mentioned in the review, that it will stick in my mind. I also go for the overall feel of the book rather than an in-depth chapter-by-chapter break down. I've only made notes on a few occasions, usually things like odd-spellings or references I want to check out at a later date, something I would do with any book I read. After reading a book, I usually write up the review within a few days and it either gets posted straight to the site, or saved for later.

What are you looking for?

The most important thing is that it is a good read! It doesn't really matter if it's written like Dickens or Shakespeare, if it doesn't grip me and I don't get enjoyment from it. So I'm looking for something with pace, that drags you along with the story, that has an actual story (surprisingly often missing) and that is believable. If it is a thriller or crime novel, I want something that keeps me guessing, I don't want to have figured out who did it by the end of the first chapter and just be reading the book to see if I'm right. For non-fiction, what I'm looking for depends on the purpose of the book, but I often look for something that is easy to read, flows well and is informative.

If a book has a great plot, great characters, but the grammar is less than perfect, how do you deal with that?

I have a learning difficulty that often means that I don't pick up the odd spelling/grammar mistake, so my personal view is that if it is enough for me to notice and detracts from the reading experience it needs to be mentioned in the review and will affect the rating. Obviously the odd missing comma or one word spelt wrong isn't going to be something I worry about too much. What really gets me is poor sentence structure, and I will mention it in a review because it seriously affects the readability of a piece. Above all I explain these things in my review, so if a book is great bar the grammar I won't completely slate it but will explain to readers how the grammar affects the reading experience.

How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?

It varies. I am a very fast reader naturally, and have been known to get through a 350 page novel in a few hours but it all depends on the book and what else is going on in my life. If I'm working, then it will often take me a week to get through a novel, if the book is fantastically gripping, I might take less than a day, if a book is a bit slow, it might take me a month or more of short sittings to get through it. This is why I never give a deadline or estimate to authors who request a review, I just don't know.

How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?

I wanted a very simple system that looked at how enjoyable the book is to read. I give ratings on a five star system, with half stars given for a book that has properties of two categories. Rating books is very subjective, and ratings can vary a lot between reviewers, I'm always suspicious of books that have all 5-star reviews, because I think it's unlikely that every reader will love the same book and at the same time surprised when one I give 5-stars only gets 3-stars from someone else.

For me the ratings go like this:

1 Star – I will give this to books that just were not enjoyable, generally because they were hard to finish or I had to give up on them. I also award this to non-fiction books that are inaccurate or have a strong bias that is not acknowledged by the author. It is a book that I would not recommend, and if someone asked me about it I would steer them away from it.

2 Star – This is a book that wasn't that enjoyable for whatever reason, but generally means that there were no major issues. This is likely to be given for a simple, obvious plot line, poor formatting, or a hard to read writing style which detracts from the reading experience. Again a book I wouldn't recommend unless you could get hold of a free copy.

3 Star – An enjoyable, solid read. This is something that is good but just hasn't got anything to make it stand out. Not one for a re-read but worth reading.

4 Star – A book that is gripping and a joy to read. It's the type of book that I can't put down when I start reading, and one that I would re-read happily. It's the type of book that should be at the top of your to-read list but just doesn't have the 'x-factor'.

5 Star – An amazing book that is a fine example of its genre and has that elusive 'x-factor'. It is a book that I would recommend and would get even if I had to pay the full RRP, the type of book that would make me pre-order the author's next offering. For non-fiction books this means that the book represents the definitive guide to the information and a book every interested party should read. This rating means BUY THIS NOW!

What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?

Knowing your genre is the key thing when seeking reviews. You need to know who your target audience is and where they look for reviews, and target those sites. When looking at potential review sites look at how often they post, where they post, their layout, the genre(s) they review and which books they give what ratings to. This can provide you with a good indication of whether a review from that site will be of use to you in promoting your work.

If you have a site that only posts monthly or less often reviews, the chances are that there will be little continuing traffic to that site, will your review be seen that often? Is it likely to be stumbled upon by people looking for similar books? These are the kind of things you need to look at. Does the blog/site advertise/re-post reviews? If the webmaster is active in promoting their site, the greater the chance of people finding your review. It is also important to choose a reviewer who is willing to cross-post their reviews to sites like Smashwords, Amazon or Goodreads, these are sites where many people regularly look for reviews before purchasing new material, and you want to have as many quality reviews on these sites as possible. Layout is an important factor in determining if visitors stay on the site and how easy it is to find what they are looking for. If a site has as many widgets as possible on their home page or a messy layout, the chances of a reader getting to your review is slim, look for simple layouts with some search/tag function so interested parties can find reviews that appeal to them.

A special word of warning about genres, your book will be more likely downloaded if the review is on a site that reviews many similar books, as the traffic to the site will be more targeted. There is no point having your sci-fi book reviewed on a site that mainly looks at chick lit, it's unlikely that those readers will be interested in your offering. That is not to say that general book review sites are a waste of time, as they may have bigger readerships, just make sure you have a balance between genre-specific and more general sites, and avoid sites that only deal with material out of your genre, it will be a waste of your time and the reviewers. Also look at the ratings they have given similar books. If a reviewer marks down books with 'stereotypical' plots and your book has a 'stereotypical' plot don't use that site, similarly if a reviewer likes longer fiction and yours is a collection of short stories, they are probably not the best reviewer to go with. Many reviewers will be happy to look over a summary and tell you if your book will be a good fit for their site.

Above all else check the review submission guidelines and follow them, any good review sites will have them listed, and these will tell you what a reviewer requires to consider your book. I've in the past had to chase people to send review copies and the like, and it slows the whole process down. Also make sure your book is available somewhere or on pre-order, before asking for reviews, especially for an unknown author. There is no point in me reviewing a book that the author has no release date for and no idea where the book will be sold. People who read the review are likely to want to buy a copy straight way if they are going to buy it at all; without a link, the review is useless.

Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?

I've had the odd comment on the blog but it's a rare occurrence. It would be nice to know if people have found my reviews helpful, and even, if they have read the book, if they agree with the review or not. It would definitely put a smile on my face.

My advice to authors on getting a "bad" review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author's point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to "argue" with the reviewer – would you agree with that?

Definitely! Do not do a Jacqueline Howett! I think authors have to remember that they, indie or not, are professionals and need to act professionally at all times. You put a book out there for people to read and hopefully enjoy, it is their right to comment on it. You just have to deal with that. If there is a particular piece of the review that you don't think is accurate and feel that it would mislead readers, then you might want to *privately* e-mail the reviewer and discuss it but I think that is only in exceptional circumstances, for example if the reviewer quotes spelling mistakes/odd words, and it is the result of a regional dialect.

I think the key thing with bad reviews is to ignore the overall rating, and look at what the reviewer says is wrong; all good reviewers will explain this. Compare, what the reviewer says is wrong with other bad reviews, is the same thing coming up time again? If this happens I think you need to look at your work and see if it is something you can improve in a new edition (spelling, grammar, cover) or something you can bear in mind for your next book. Overall, I think authors need to remain objective and realise that people have different opinions on what is good, and in the end, if you can't handle bad reviews, you either shouldn't read them or shouldn't publish your book – simple as that.

About Reading

We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly not enough about reading, which is after all why we're all here. Why do you think people love reading? We're seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a past-time is dying – do you think that's the case?

I think that using your imagination is something that is slowly dying in our culture, due to the availability of new technologies, and that is what reading provides, and why I love it. It's great to create the pictures to go along with the text in your head, and also to just escape somewhere quiet and peaceful on your own for a while.

I agree that reading is dying out; I've worked in education, and seen children with reading ages way below their chronological ages, those who have never read a book for pleasure and associate reading solely with school. There is just so much competition to books nowadays, and there is often the opinion that those who read are loners and boring. These ideas, whilst most of us know are tosh, are constantly presented to the youth and they fully believe them and that reduces the appeal of reading.

There are three things that I think need to be done to encourage reading in the younger generation, firstly, schools need to be much more open with what is read in class, students should be allowed to choose what appeals to them rather than being given a prescribed reading list, often with books that they simply don't relate to ("Miss, why do I have to read some dead guy's book!"). Libraries need to be normalised as a place to hang out and enjoy themselves, rather than as stuffy places where you have to be silent. When I was working in libraries we had great success with introducing CDs and games consoles in the teen section, and promoting ourselves as a place to use computers and get help with their homework. We had a young, modern collection including manga and ran regular, fun, teenage reading groups, and I think this combination resulted in many more young people considering the library as a place for them.

About Writing

What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?

A lot of the mistakes I see are in terms of promotion and an understanding of how e-books work. I think it is very important that indie authors are aware that they are competing with established, agency published writers, and that no exceptions are made for them. I've seen authors arguing that there are mistakes in their work because they cannot afford an editor and that therefore readers and reviewers should ignore the spelling and grammar issues, it doesn't work like that I'm afraid. If that is an issue, then there are many students who would be willing to act as an editor for the experience and will require no financial compensation. The same thing applies to covers etc. always strive to be as good as the agency books in all areas.

Another common mistake is not promoting themselves enough as an author. Authors, especially indie ones, need to use every method at there disposal to promote their work: build a website, use twitter, register on goodreads, register on twitter, use giveaways, anything to increase awareness of yourself as a writer. Of course, if you do this, you need to make sure your communications are professional at all times, and don't go too far, for example spamming forums with adverts for your book.

We're told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel, what do you think about that; if a book hasn't grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?

I don't agree that five-pages is enough to get a feel for a novel, the first five pages could be great and the rest of the book have no development. I generally read the first few chapters of a book and if I feel I'm just trawling through it and not getting any enjoyment, I put it down. I do think that every paragraph has the potential to sell the book, and hold that if it is a 5-star book I should be able to pick any paragraph from any place in the book and it should be as good as the first and last paragraphs.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the Page 99 concept, what are your thoughts on that idea?

As I said above, I feel every paragraph should be just as good, so I do think there is something in the Page 99 concept, although I don't see any reason that Page 99 would be a particularly good indicator for the whole other than that. I think a better test would be to read the first page, last page and middle page and track the development from that. However, the Page 99 theory is an interesting one, who knows maybe in the future we'll just review one page.

Is there anything you will not review?

I always say that I won't review erotica, but that isn't strictly true. There are many erotic works that are cornerstones of literature (Marquis de Sade is just one example), others are a combination of genres and weave erotica into a well-developed story, so if the blurb appealed to me I would read and review it. However, I don't accept submissions from this genre, as I have found most the of work to not be of the type or quality that I wish to read, and also what people like in terms of erotica tends to be very personal.

About Publishing

What do you think of the oft quoted comment that the "slush-pile has moved online"?

I think there is some truth to this. Whilst agencies did prevent some very good work from being published, they also kept a lot of rubbish from being published as well, and with the ease of online self-publishing, a lot of the poorer quality work is finding its way onto sites like Amazon and I think there is a risk of readers being put off indie authors because of this. I have read some awful work, poorly written and with an incomprehensible plot, after having downloading it from Smashwords or Amazon and there is very little a reader can do in this situation. That is why I think that reviews are such a benefit to both authors and readers alike. I have to point out that the majority of work from indie authors is good or better and I am more than happy to read indie work.

Do you think attitudes are changing with respect to Indie or self-published titles?

Slowly but surely yes. I also think the situation can only improve with more awareness of the quality of most indie books.

Do you have any ideas or comments on how the industry can "filter" good from bad, asides from reviews?

It would be nice to see more awards programs like the EPICS, and to see these better promoted in the mainstream to recognise the talents of e-book authors in general. I also hold the unpopular view that sites that sell e-books should have some sort of screening process to stop poor quality or 'private label' e-books going on sale and so bringing down the overall quality of e-books available. I have no clue how they could implement this through, and would not like it to end up as the same kind of gate keeping traditional publishers perform.

End of Interview

You can visit Tomes of the Soul here.

All my Twitter friends in one place

[image error]You can find them all here. A great bunch of readers, writers, editors, book designers, and reviewers.

IndieView with Thea Atkinson, author of, Formed of Clay

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"My approach is that of discovery. I want to write what I want to read. So I sully forth trying to tell myself a story—one that I really want to hear. I always fall short, but really, that's what propels me."

Thea Atkinson 3 July 2011

The Back Flap

More than anything, young Sentu wants to learn the new letters of Pharaoh Menes's court. Born of lowly fellahin stock, he believes his acceptance into the priesthood for study must surely be a miracle of his ka–only those borne of a higher caste are afforded such privilege. Or so he believes.

He soon learns that not all is as holy as it appears in the privileged world of Egyptian scribes and priests. The acolytes suffer under the tutelage of Hozat, the High Priest: ritual sacrifices involve more than mere beasts, they involve anyone who stands in Hozat's way to ultimate power.

Though Sentu is at first spared much of the darkest of Hozat's secrets, he soon realizes he cannot escape the fate of his ka forever. When Pharaoh conquers Nubia and takes hostage that land's powerful sorceress, Sentu's own world crashes around him, and he has to discover whether justice is more important than forgiveness.

Formed of Clay is a study of betrayal and absolution within the rich world of ancient Egyptian mythology.

About the Book

What is the book about?

The theme? Betrayal and absolution. Redemption. Those things play out a lot in my fiction

When did you start writing the book?

The first draft was back in 2000, I think, and it's part of a much larger work: a series that will eventually find its way into ebook format.

How long did it take you to write it?

It took about 6 months from start to finish, as it's a novella, so I could manage it in a short time

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

The research. I had to get all the 'bit's right.

What came easily?

The research. I love mythology.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

For shame, but my brothers (or bits of them) are in almost every character I write. Don't tell them that though, they will want money.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

Every author I've read has influenced me in some way, but I admire Alice Munro and Annie Proulx and Anita Shreve and Donna Morrissey

Do you have a target reader?

Yes. Anyone. Ha. Seriously, I wish I knew who it was. I know who it isn't, but not who it is. It's not a person who likes fluff and only fluff reading. I like fluff sometimes, but not all the time. It's not someone who only reads horror or fantasy or YA. My reader likes multiple genres and enjoys character driven stories. Who is that? I have no idea. Sad, isn't it?

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

Not really. My approach is that of discovery. I want to write what I want to read. So I sully forth trying to tell myself a story—one that I really want to hear. I always fall short, but really, that's what propels me. I want to know about the characters and what motivates them…what brings them to the ends they end at, and what will they do once they get there.

When I'm writing, it's about 2000 words a day. But sometimes I need to incubate and process. I often write before I research and then discover that the research is bang on to what I've written. That's always a surprise, and it's how I know that I'm tapping into something like an Akashic record of tales somewhere in the ether. (too airy fairy for you?)

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just Chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

Yes. But my outlines are very brief. Just notes really about an idea from scenes. A real skeleton affair. Not even a skeleton, really. Kind of like a half there framework. A couple of bones. Small bits of sentences. I couldn't call it an outline. Nope. Don't outline.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you've finished?

Always when I'm done. Always.

Did you hire a professional editor?

Hmmm. No. I have a few really good critique partners and we help each other out there.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

HO Yeah! Tool, A Perfect Circle, Dave Matthews Band, Incubus, oh so so many. I LOVE music. In fact, my other hobby is snapping pics of musicians doin' their thang.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Yes. If fact, I have an agent. I had one long before I went indie.

What made you decide to go Indie? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

My novels don't fit into the typical or traditional model.  It seems every review I receive, though postitive, mentions that they would never know what bookshelf to find my writing on. And that's the ultimate reason: I just got tired of waiting to find the niche. Mind you, now it's a struggle because I'm still trying to find a way to market them.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did it you do it yourself?

Alas, I'm a poor gal and had to do them myself. I hope someday to afford a great cover artist.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

Winging it. And it shows in my sales. Anyone have any advice? See below .

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Write every day.  Study other writers.  Pay it forward whenever you can.  Always assume your writing needs to be edited and then accept with grace the comments others give you because every comment can help improve the work in some way even if you don't agree with it. Then study some marketing. That's a big deal.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a rural area in Nova Scotia. It was a place full of fog and salty air and people fishing off the ends of wharves. When I was a kid we'd walk an hour to go fishing, but we never owned poles. We scrounged Popsicle sticks to wrap the line around and we'd find rusty old hooks on the wharf and old nails for weight. Even with such shoddy gear, we'd always catch a flounder or two.

Where do you live now?

Grin. Same place but a 15 minute drive from the old homestead. I hope I never have to move.

What would you like readers to know about you?

The simple truth is that I was brought up in a community on the tip of the province, which meant almost everything in my life had something to do with water.  I lived in a fishing community even though my father was a brick layer, I worked in fish plants from the time I was 14 until I was in my 20s. My mom was a floor lady in a fishplant. I married a fisherman.

I can tell you that I intimately understand back breaking labor because of the hours I spent hunched over a filleting machine or a fish trough. I understand what it's like to wear bread bags over socks before putting feet into rubber boots because there's so much water at the plant, that there's no guarantee it won't splash over the top and get your feet soaked.

I can tell you what it's like to slit the belly of a herring over and over again, looking at the clock, telling yourself you won't look again for at least another hour, and then when at last you think enough time has gone by you discover only 10 minutes have passed.

I will admit that for me: It was all a little slice of heaven.

I took some computer programming training early in my career but I ended up as a teacher at a local community college teaching writing because I also spent some time as a freelancer.  My writing is heavily influenced by the fact that I live so close to water, but also, because as the only sister to three brothers in a neighborhood full of boys, I tend to write about relationships.  It always intrigued me to watch how the boys reacted to people.

What are you working on now?

The first book in the Flesh of the Gods series. The prequel is Formed of Clay.

End of Interview

You can buy Formed of Clay from Amazon, BN, Smashwords and Itunes. You can find Thea here at her website or follow her here on Twitter.