Scott Seldon's Blog, page 14

Repricing and the Upcoming Release

After reading what Dean Wesley Smith had to say on pricing, and processing it, I have come up with a new pricing scheme. The only drawback is that I had made my story collection, Edge of Hyperspace, free. No matter. I had previously picked $2.99 for old titles and $3.99 for new titles, but on his advice I'm kicking that up to $4.99 for old titles and $5.99 for new titles. But since I distribute through Smashwords, it is going to take a while. Edge of Hyperspace is now priced at $4.99 on Smashwords and iTunes. Rather than jump Well of Dreams from $2.99 directly to $4.99, plus to promote its sequel, I'm knocking it down to free for a couple of months before I up the price. So a smart shopper should currently be able to find both titles available for free for your ereader. Also, keep an eye out for Not Past Redemption free days. I have two left to use before August when the 90 days are up.

As you may have guessed from the above paragraph, my next book, Pirates of I'ab - Zaran Journals Book 2, is ready for the final editing stages. It should be published on Smashwords by the end of July (anyone wanting to review it can ask me for a coupon for a free copy) and on Amazon and other retailers shortly thereafter for $5.99. As a treat, here is the cover.

Dominique Goodall Reads and Writes Wolves

I'll leave the details to my guest, but I have to agree with her, this story was amazing. If you would like to post comments to any of the questions she poses, please click on Contact Me on the left. I will post them as time and content permits.

My current read...

 

‘Through the dark, the family of three heard a deafening noise, and then something jumped out of the bushes at them, surreal and terrifying.

It was a wolf with a man’s face.’

I am currently reading…surprise surprise…Red Riding Hood. It’s
a reworked old classic with a new storyline that all wolf-lovers and fairy-tale lovers will enjoy. The best quote I found was the one at the top of the page – this is the version of Red Riding hood, written by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright
and David Leslie Johnson. Have you read this version at all? It was adapted into a movie, which I also enjoyed.

 

The blurb for Red Riding Hood is this;

In a time when villages are so small that everyone knows everyone else, one girl struggles to find her own way. After her sister’s violent death, Valerie’s world
begins to spiral out of control; a marriage is being forced upon her, her father is the town drunk, her mother wants to control her and her true love wants to run away with her – but where can they run from this small village
and it’s big secrets?

 

For generations, the Wolf has been kept at bay with a monthly sacrifice but now no one is safe. When an expert Wolf-hunter arrives, the villagers learn that the
creature lives among them – it could be anyone in town. It soon becomes clear that Valerie is the only one who can hear the voice of the creature. The Wolf says she must surrender herself before the blood moon wanes, or
everyone she loves will die.

 

Who will save her? Or can she save herself?

 

In this dangerous, riveting new vision of a classic fairy tale, the happy ending may be hard to find.

 

I picked the book initially because…well it had wolves. I try to read
as much as I can about wolves and this was one of the better ones! I know it’s been under a lot of controversy, with people saying that an original story has been ruined…but in my eyes it kinda made more sense! The wolf
is amazing, in the book and in the film and I love to curl up when I’m depressed and read it – it’s got an amazing cover image even!

 

As far as I know, there are no other books out at the moment by these
authors, which is really sad. They could rework a lot of the different Grimm’s Fairy-tales and do it quite successfully, with the slightest bit of gory horror that brings this story truly to life.

 

Being a Fairy-tale/horror genre, this really did encourage me to read
the book in one sitting. I could almost imagine the confusion of Valery after her sister, Lucy, is brutally murdered by the Wolf – a beast which has held the villagers in fear for many years. Unable to know who to trust,
she follows her heart until the very end.

 

I did find that reading this version of Red Riding Hood did help me,
mostly when I twisted the fairy-tale for my own use in an anthology…though I did go about twenty steps further than Blakley-Cartwright and Johnson.

 

I’d like to know what you all thought of Red Riding Hood…

Was it a flop for you?

Or did you find it, like me, a thrilling tale of betrayal, confusion
and love?

 

What books have influenced you in the last few weeks?

 

Dominique Goodall is the author of the soon to be released Echoes of
Winter, book one in the Seasons of the Wolf series and a self-confessed wolf addict. She has currently been published in two anthologies by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing and is currently working on getting
herself better known by sending in manuscripts for as many different anthologies as she possibly can.

As much as she loves to admit it, she never will be able to count her
wolf stuff- there's nothing left for her to be truly able to collect without her own home.

She can be friended on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/WaterSinger

Her author page on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dominique-Goodall-author/250907358312446

The page for Echoes of Winter is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Echoes-of-Winter/355235744499607

Her twitter name is: https://twitter.com/#!/DomGoodall

 

and her blog can be found here: http://dominiquegoodall.wordpress.com/

Comments

Dominique Goodall - June 25, 2012

Thanks for having me here today Scott! I'm glad you liked the story too,
it's which does appeal to me and likely always will...wolves and myself
go hand in paw. Red Riding Hood was always my favourite fairy-tale...so
the way everyone tells it differently really helps!

 

Dreams, Vampires and Stephanie Meyers

This week I'm pleased to have Debra Jayne East with a guest post on her favorite author, Stephanie Meyers.



One evening, I was watching Oprah and I saw a young writer speaking about her new book that was just published. I listened intently because I had always
wanted to be a writer myself. She looked directly into the camera and said, “If I can do it, you can! If you have a desire to be a writer you should pursue it!” That message seemed just for me. Not only did I listen to
her, but I published my first novel, Radiance:Love after Death last year with XOXO Publishing. Let me tell you some things about her amazing story.

The world has been taken by storm these past couple of years by this English major from Bingham Young University. Her name is Stephanie Meyers and everyone on the planet knows she is the author of the bestselling Twilight series. Captivated by a dream one night,
she took pen to paper and fell into writing an epic saga of vampires, werewolves and the Voultari. The publishing world was taken by surprise with this young mother of three boys, especially since she was of Mormon faith and
literally an unknown author.

She sent her manuscript out to 15 publishers and got just one bite. Twilight was found in a slush pile {rejection bin} and bought by Little and Brown for
$750,000. Shortly after, she dominated the best-seller list and Amazon deemed her the most prolific writer of our times. In three years of publication and eight million books later, she was now in the eyes of movie industry
and Twilight came to life on film. The rest is history.

Now, 100 million books later, she has a couple of new titles: producer and clothing designer. She has been listed as one of the top most influential people in Time magazine and also included in Forbes. Her
annual earnings are hovering at 50 million dollars. The unique author also rocked the music industry by including a play list packed with bands like Muse and Linkin Park. The writing world has changed forever. Anyone who can
sell a 100 million books is well…my hero or heroine in this case.

She gave me the courage to believe in myself and I am happy I saw her interview that day. She inspired me to follow my heart and I hope you will check
out my book, Radiance:Love after Death that is being sold in major book stores.

 

Buy links and Social sites:

Amazon http:////goo.gl/kjNTF 

XOXO Publishing http://t.co/skrRzpQD

http://debrajayneeast.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/juliet2cool4u

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Debra-Jayne-East/177696055623372

 

"Why do we do this?"

This week I’m hosting fellow science ficiton writer, Catrina Taylor as she talks about being a writer.

 

Writing is something some of us, simply can't help but to do. It's in our blood, who we are, and how we identify ourselves. When I introduce myself I tell people, "Hi,
I'm so and so's mom, and a writer. And you are?" Might sound silly, but I'm not the only person to do this. Many do. Many enjoy the opportunity to create new worlds and we are proud of those worlds, so we much sing the
praise of our world. Mind you, certainly in my case, I do not sing my own praises but the praises of my world.  

Why do we do this? The easiest reason is simply that we can disconnect the creation from the person. Instead of telling people
how wonderful 'I' am it's the opportunity to tell people how wonderful the creation is. Having been raised to avoid rude behaviors (such as bragging) at all costs, talking about myself is often difficult. If you follow my
tweets you'll see I talk more about other people than I do myself, my projects, or my goals (unless doing so motivates others). I talk about other individual's books, reviews, information, my children, the lives around me
or the lives that affect me.

I am making it hard to draw in business by not being able to speak about myself easily. Why is this? Because with any business,
creating books, creating book covers or other services, we need to ask for the sale. No, I don't mean be pushing and rude or 'shove the book' into everyone's view. I do mean that if we don't talk about the books and ask people
tactfully to purchase, there won't be a 'first reader' or a second or a third etc. Instead it will remain quietly on a virtual shelf somewhere.

So, how do I fix this conundrum I'm in? Oddly enough, facebook fanpages and google plus business pages really enable me to function
as if I'm in a separate skin. I know each of those pages are dedicated to a specific goal. This goal is to make a sale. The sale, whether
it's business or books, is the cornerstone of forward financial movement. The business and book related pages enable me to express myself
regarding the books to an audience that expects me to discuss the books, or the business. This is something that brings great success as the audience is a target audience and the effort is rewarded with a positive result. 

How would I do this in an arena that didn't have that option? It is challenging but
a business mindset is advantageous. My efforts need to be as effective for my business as they are at generating sales for clients, or creating
covers for authors. Keeping the same business mindset I take to the pages empowers me with the ability to talk about my books, albeit occasionally, with the social networking family I adore. As an author, remembering that
our work is our business is key for our progress and helps us reach a sales goal. Using the tools at our disposal enables us to press forward and discuss things that we were otherwise engrained to avoid doing. There are a plethora of additional business related resources for Authors
and others on The Writing Network website. Feel free to venture there for more tips and ideas that work.

 

~About the Author~

[image error] Catrina Taylor is a scifi author and the creator of Xarrok . Xarrok is a world in an undisclosed galaxy, far beyond our reach of space. She plays there often, creating a multitude of adventures that are character driven, and reader experienced. Watch for her
free short story series: Xenonian Origins available on Nook , Smashwords , Amazon and where ever ebooks are sold.

As a single mother, her desire to create is driven by her adored children. Find out more about her on twitter and facebook as TheLadyWrites or on her blogs, TheWritingNetwork and Xarrok.com

Tara Chevrestt - Danger Zone

Next up is one of my fellow writers in the MK Blog Tour. Tara Chevrestt talks to us about a song with lyrics that she associates with one of her books.

In Afterburn, you could say two of my characters are facing the Danger Zone. Remember that song from the movie Top Gun?

 

"Revvin' up your engine, Listen to her howlin' roar, Metal under tension, Beggin'
you to touch and go..."

 

Crystal is definetly under tension, pulled tight by the sexual harassment she's dealing
with at work. She meets Grant, a sexy pilot with tensions of his own...and together, they head into the danger zone.

 

"Headin' into twilight, Spreadin' out her wings tonight, She got you jumpin'
off the track, And shovin' into overdrive..."

 

Crystal is spreading her wings, and she's got Grant going into overdrive and vice versa.
The danger zone is their relationship: it's not only interracial (sadly, some people still react to this in 2012), but against military rules. When her coworkers use her love of Grant against her, Crystal has to think quick
or risk everything.

 

"You'll never say hello to you, Until you get it on the red line overload,You'll
never know what you can do, Until you get it up as high as you can go..."

 

And Crystal will never know how high her and Grant can go unless she stands up and fights.

 

So Danger Zone is the song I would associate with Afterburn, not only cause of the aviation theme, but the words.

 

Afterburn:

Their love burns hot, but will it stay fueled?Crystal is an enlisted mechanic with a
tragic past. Grant is an officer and a pilot with a broken heart. When faced with a difficult decision, will Crystal choose wisely or lose the best thing that ever happened to her?

 

The love between them burns hot, but their relationship won't stay fueled if they can't
beat the obstacles that stand in their way. Besides breaking the fraternization rules, Grant and Crystal have the difference of race between them…but can they prove to the rest of the world, and to each other, that love
is color blind?

 

Afterburn is about overcoming one's past, not judging others, learning to forgive, and
what it's like to be a woman in a "man's world."

http://cache.smashwire.com/bookCovers...

Available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Afterburn-ebook/dp/B007OCAWIM/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332649532&sr=1-2

Also on All Romance ebooks, Bookstrand, Smashwords, 1Place for Romance, and Breathless Press

Tara Chevrestt is a deaf woman, former aviation mechanic, writer, and an editor. She is most passionate
about planes, motorcycles, dogs, and above all, reading. That led to her love of writing. Between her writing and her editing, which allow her to be home with her little canine kids, she believes she has the greatest job
in the world. She is also very happily married.

She also writes as Sonia Hightower. Sonia writes the racy stuff and argues that she was here first. She
just wasn't allowed to be unleashed until the last year.

While Tara and Sonia continue to fight over the laptop and debate who writes the next book, you can find
buy links, blurbs, and other fun bits on their website: http://tarachevrestt.weebly.com/index.html or their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tara-Chevrestt-Sonia-Hightower/218383211513877.

 

 

 

Meet Ed Griffin, writer and teacher

This is the first post I'm hosting in the MK Blog Tour. Read and get to know Ed and follow the links to connect with him and follow his blog.

Ed Griffin: How I Got into Creative Writing

In 1983, at the age of forty-seven, I discovered creative writing.
It changed my life. I would sit down at the typewriter after supper and follow my creative muse. Whole worlds opened to me. I wrote about the space behind my childhood garage where I practiced pitching and dreamed of reaching
the major leagues. I wrote a short story about a group of prisoners on an island. I wrote a poem about getting along with the Russians. Hours passed. Suddenly, as I wrote, an alarm would ring in the house. My wife and I owned
a commercial greenhouse outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a ma-and-pa operation. The alarm meant I hadn’t turned the heat on. I had to shut the door on the vibrant world that grew on the paper in front of me and hurry to the
greenhouses to start the furnaces.

An hour later I’d be back at the typewriter. Type a sentence, stop,
look at it, realize it wasn’t quite true and then search deeper, ever deeper. Layers of middle-aged half-truths disappeared, the comfortable maxims I had surrounded myself with – “Business is good. Don’t make any changes”
and “Relax. You’re getting older.” The fires of my youth burned again – civil rights, world peace, a place in the sun for every person. I was a Catholic priest as a young man, filled with idealism. I marched in Selma
with Doctor King, picketed local companies to give jobs to blacks, and confronted my own bishop over the church’s institutional racism.

As I wrote, I dug, I searched, always deeper, ever more honest. It might be easy to speak a lie, but it wasn’t easy to write one. I started to unravel the tangled skein that was me. What a wonderful gift this was.

Ed Griffin teaches creative writing in a federal penitentiary in
Canada. He started the Surrey International Writers’ Conference and teaches writing in his hometown, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.

Find Ed online at

Personal FB https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1024992482

FB page https://www.facebook.com/EdGriffinWriter

Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/EdGriffin2

Personal Blog http://edgriffin.net/

Writer’s Write Daily Blog http://writerswritedaily.wordpress.com/

Prison Uncensored Blog http://prisonuncensored.wordpress.com/

Touring

Something new to my Ad-hoc blog, I'm participating in a Blog Tour. We will be mutually hosting. Unfortunately my first guest had to cancel, but this is supposed to continue though the summer and there are quite a number of authors participating including a good friend and early reader of Well of Dreams, Juls Duncan.

Unfortunately this "Announcement" template on Google Sites doesn't allow for comments, but feel free to go to my contact page and send me an email or find me on Facebook or Twitter.

Teamwork

While writing is usually a solitary profession, once we have our draft in hand it is important to get it to readers. Often the first readers are friends or fellow writers.

One such writer friend of mine is Juls Duncan, author of Morgan Koda and the Mask of Noesis. We had the opportunity a while back to share our books and give each other comments. I highly recommend her books. Wander over to her website at https://sites.google.com/site/morgank... or her blog at http://morgankodaadventuresseries.blo....

I find it fun that Juls and I write such different types of stories, yet we connected as writers and enjoyed the other stories. Her main character, Morgan Koda, is thirteen and gets involved with magic. My main Character, Ven Zaran, is 45 and had to deal with his own drug addiction while dealing with a crime syndicate.

Some might think that writers are competitors. I think the truth is the opposite, that we are on the same team. It is rare that a reader won't read one writer because they already read another. That isn't the way things work. Successful writers who share the secrets of their success with others, only add to their success.

I am looking forward to encountering other writers on this journey of publication. There is a lot of talent out there, we just need to get it in the hands of readers.

Right, Wrong, & Fiction

In this Presidential election year, politics is at its worst. It doesn’t matter what your political views are, you can find people who agree with you and are 180 degrees opposed to you. Who is right and who
is wrong? That all depends on your point of view.

The same holds true when you write fiction. Any time you are writing from a character’s point of view, they are right. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with them or not, not even as the writer. They
are right from their point of view. And when you switch points of view, your new character is right. You can slant it toward your protagonist, but you can’t make the characters be untrue to themselves.

And when you realize this in fiction, you can reapply it to real life. Whether you are looking at sides people take in politics, religion, sports, or fandom, everyone thinks their side is the right one. What
this means is that if you find yourself in an argument, you need to remember that the person you are arguing with is just as sure they are right as you are. Chances are you are both wrong, at least in part. In fiction you
can see the author’s intent of right and wrong, but in real life it isn’t always possible, especially if you can’t see the right on both sides.

Fiction can make things so much simpler to deal with.

All About Character

Where do writers get their characters? It’s a question I have been asking myself while I rewatch the James Bond films and the original Star Trek. There is nothing similar between
James Bond, James Kirk, and the characters I create. So I’ve been asking myself where these characters who live in my head have come from. I think I have come up with an answer.

When a writer creates a character (in whatever way works for them) there are a multitude of ways. Often it is people we know. I have a few characters like this that were done
quite deliberately. More typically, I create an amalgam of different traits from different sources to create one character. These traits come from both real and fictional sources. The scene I initially wrote in my Galactic
Confederation universe had a character who was mostly Han Solo, though as I wrote the character drifted from that first scene.

One of the most important pieces that goes into each character a writer creates is the writer themself. No matter where a writer draws inspiration for a character, ultimately,
it filters through them. That means that every character has some piece of the writer. That might be anywhere from the writer putting themself in to their work to the writer’s interpretation of someone they know or an archetype.
I’ve noticed this to some extent with my writing. I think the hallmark of a writer good at creating characters is the ability to make the characters different. Give each their own motivation while each one is still a facet
of the writer.