Harmony Kent's Blog, page 57

Introducing THE STONES #newrelease #scifi #aliens – Staci Troilo

Exciting news! Fellow author and friend, Staci Troilo has a new book out today! You can find out more on her blog >>>

I’m looking forward to re-reading book one and then binge reading the rest once they’re all out

Harmony Kent’s Hot New Release: INTERLUDES 2

Hi everyone. Today, I’m over visiting Staci Troilo’s place, where you can find another short teaser from my lates book >>>

PLEASE BE AWARE of this SCAM TELE-CALL claiming to be from NHS Track &Trace Service…

Hi everyone, I’m not reblogging as much as I used to so as not to bombard you lovely folks. However, I felt this one was important. Wherever we live, I reckon some sort of scheme like this is going on. Stay safe, everyone >>>

The following is copied from a Facebook post by Sally Cronin (see it HERE) <>>*** shared by Sonia Banks… And so it begins! ‘Good afternoon I’m calling fr…

Source: PLEASE BE AWARE of this SCAM TELE-CALL claiming to be from NHS Track &Trace Service…

Interludes 2 #newbook #shortfiction | Entertaining Stories

Hi everyone. I’m doing the rounds with my newest book, and today, I’m over at Craig’s place. I’d love if you could stop by and show some love.

Have a marvellous Monday!

>>>

Hey everyone, I have a treat for you today. Harmony Kent has a new book to tell us about. Harmony is one of my partners over at Story Empire, so make her feel welcome. Using those sharing buttons r…

Source: Interludes 2 #newbook #shortfiction | Entertaining Stories

How to Publish with KDP: Part Twelve | Story Empire

Hi everyone, I’m over at Story Empire today with the 12th installment of my how-to-publish-to-KDP series of posts.

Happy writing and publishing!

Interludes 2 – my newest book of #Short #Erotic #Romance #Fiction is available for Pre-order!

Hi everyone.

For a lovely change, I have some good news for you all today. My latest book of short stories of erotic romance fiction, Interludes 2, is available in ebook for pre-order now. It goes on live sale on August 16th, in both ebook and print, so I’m going to be getting busy with the whole publishing thing now and doing some promo. I had planned to finish this fun collection much earlier this year and in time for the start of the summer season, but as many of you know, I’ve had a few hiccups along the way. 

Since I first published the original Interludes back in May, 2016–I know, right!? … How time flies. … It has proved to be my best-selling book and gets the most page reads via Kindle Unlimited. So I reckon it’s way past the time for a sequel.

Interludes 2 follows the same sequence as the original with 10 stories, starting at 1000 words for story 1, 2000 words for story 2, and on up to 10,000 words for story 10. Dare I say I had a lot of fun writing this one?

Here’s a bit more about Interludes 2:

 

From author, Harmony Kent, another best-selling collection of short erotic fiction that will tickle more than your taste buds and wet [sic] more than your appetite.

With a range of genres and styles, this book has enough steam for everyone.

WIGGING OUT—contemporary romance in 1000 words. Two strangers. A crowded platform. A collision. And a wig on the floor.

STORM CHASER—ménage à trois in 2000 words. A sabotaged tire. A raging storm. Passion mounts.

MOON-STRUCK—shifter romance in 3000 words. Trapped on a ship orbiting the moon, a horny astronaut falls for a hunky author who has a secret.

THE CLUB—contemporary romance in 4000 words. An invitation and a host, who is so much more than he seems, bring excitement, enticement, and a choice to make.

NUDIST CAMP—contemporary romance in 5000 words. An older woman. A younger man. A gossip discovers their secret tryst. What will happen when it all gets laid bare?

INITIATION—contemporary romance in 6000 words. A pretty daydreamer arrives for her first day at university. A brutal initiation, and a man with an unusual issue, leave her reeling. Strange, the places you find true love.

THE INCOMER—contemporary romance in 7000 words. A divorced beekeeper has spent her whole life in or around her local village. Then a city-slicker architect comes to town. When two worlds collide, a big bang is sure to follow. Can you have a frenemy with benefits?

DOWN AND DIRTY—contemporary romance in 8000 words. On the run from a sadistic ex-husband, Ellie flees to a remote mountain town and takes a job in the mines. Wary of men, she resolves to keep herself aloof, but mother nature has a way of having the last word and will, quite literally, make the earth move if she has to.

REUNION—contemporary romance in 9000 words. A school reunion looms. Not wanting to arrive sad and single, Molly talks her long-time friend Adam into going with her. While the music plays, the sparks fly.

SOUL MATES—supernatural romance in 10,000 words. A bereaved woman seeks solace in remote woodland. All too soon, she discovers that she’s not as alone as she’d expected. And her heart isn’t the only one that needs to mend.

READER ADVISORY: This book contains explicit sex scenes and language hot enough to melt your book. For mature readers only.

 

You can pre-order the ebook via any Amazon store by clicking here: mybook.to/Interludes2

Okay, I suppose I need to stop jumping up down in excitement before I do myself a mischief

How to Publish with KDP: Part Eleven | Story Empire

Hi everone. You’ll find installment 11 of my how-to-publish-to-KDP post series over at Story Empire today >>> All you need to know on Self-publishing to Kindle >>>

Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part eleven in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amaz…

Source: How to Publish with KDP: Part Eleven | Story Empire

Who Gate-Keeps the Gate Keepers? #WritingCommunity #IARTG

Hi everyone. Today, I want to talk about a debacle that has led to an author spending a lot of time and money utilising the skills of various industry professionals, only to get let down from someone who has set herself up as an editor and proofreader who knows what she’s doing. From what I’ve seen of the final MS, I would have to disagree strongly. And I feel so bad for the poor author who has done her best to get a good book out there.

Over the years, I have been drawn in by and supported a few organisations/clubs, which purported to be upholding the high standards of indie writing, only to find out later on that I had been mistaken. Because of that, I am reticent–to say the least–about openly supporting or promoting any club or organisation these days. Even if they start with good intentions, they most likely will morph into something entirely different as they grow and spread, especially as more people get involved in assessing books and/or editing them.

To put you in the picture, here is a screenshot of said author’s acknowledgments from the book in question (for a larger image, please click on the picture–to get back to this post, click on the back button on your browser):

As you can see, I saw the raw MS first. I don’t feel I have enough skill to offer developmental edits, so I don’t do them. If I can’t do a good enough job, I won’t do it and certainly won’t charge for it. This is why I referred the author onward for further development when she asked for my advice and input. In case you’re not familiar with the different types of editing, line-by-line and copy edits are vastly different from a developmental edit. See HERE for a breakdown of the various edits. I offer line-by-line and copy edits (I use both terms interchangeably, and what I do depends upon each individual manuscript and its needs). From the above, we can see that the author then got a lot of useful help over the next two years. I saw the finished MS at this point, after it had received its final edit and proofread from 4WillsPublishing. At this stage, I did not do any proofreading but only the broad formatting to get the MS into shape for both print and ebook. So, although in the acknowledgements, I am named as doing the final proof cleanup, I wasn’t, in fact, tasked with this job, only the overall formatting. 

It all seems good, right? So we thought until now … three years later. That’s five years from the start of all of this. A very kind reader contacted the author before leaving her review. She had seen lots of missing quote marks and punctuation, as well as lots of gaps in the text. So, of course, the author came back to me, thinking this was a formatting issue. Sadly, as soon as I sat and read line-by-line through the raw MS at the points the author had marked for me, I could see straight away that these were errors missed by the final editor and proofreader, unfortunately. Every single one of the extra gaps existed because of hard returns in the middle of sentences. From my files, I can see that I caught many of these at the point of formatting by doing overall page-by-page scans. Obviously, this does not catch anywhere near as much as a word-by-word proofread.

Although a formatter does not read every word but simply scans the pages overall for appearance, I went through this second time (this week) much more slowly to try and catch as many of these editing/proofing omisions as I could. I found over 30, and the vast majority (nearly 20, without doing an exact count) were in one single chapter, the last one. What happened there? I ask.

I feel so bad for this poor author, who has done her utmost and still has issues with the book despite all the time, effort, and money she has put into it.  To help her put this right, having suggested she go back to the final editor/proofreader and her wanting to stick with me, I worked at a substantial discount redoing the formatting and conversions and took a lot longer over the formatting than is usual. I hated charging her, and had these been my mistakes, I would, of course, have put them right for free and as quickly as possible. I guarantee all of my work, no matter how long a time has elapsed. If there are issues, then there are issues, and I will do all in my power to put them right.

None of us is perfect, and we are all human beings subject to making mistakes and missing things from time to time. However, this many mistakes left in a supposedly professionally proofed book is simply unacceptable. Which leads me to my question in this post’s title: Who gate-keeps the gatekeepers? One of the problems with a global internet is that anybody can set themselves up as anybody, and how can we tell if they are who they say they are and as qualified as they say? Most of the time, we cannot. This makes me so frustrated and sad. Even more so when some of these self-appointed professionals slam their fellow editors and authors and tout themselves as the expert authority repeatedly.

This same ‘professional’ has slammed authors with whom I am friends and who I have worked with frequently over the years. One author shared a particularly vitriolic email from said ‘professional’ with me, and it was laughable as well as inexcusable. Many of the things this so-called professional picked out as passive and telling instead of showing, were, in fact, the very opposites. One clear example I do remember is this person telling the author that ‘the moonlight glinted off the glass’ is telling … Umm, no, sorry, but that is a perfect example of showing. Telling would be to write something dull such as ‘the moon was full’. That would also be an example of passive writing. What this self-appointed expert didn’t realise (I would hope!) is that her words showed her lack of knowledge for all to see.

So, what’s the answer? The only thing I can come up with is to, wherever you can, get a recommendation from a fellow writer whose work you respect. Word of mouth is an excellent way of weeding out the folks who know their stuff from those who do not. I wish I could say word of mouth is a sure bet, but I cannot. I also wish I had a better answer. I’ve been burned too many times myself, one from an expensive American editor who assured me he was used to working with writers from the UK. He put so many Americanisms in my book that I had a lot more work to undo much of his stuff. To add insult to injury, he then missed my publishing deadline, which he knew about from the get-go. And I paid through the nose for the privilege. Since then, I’ve been much more careful who I trust.

If any of you know an editor and/or proofreader that you trust, I would love for you to tell us about them in the comments below–along with which type of edit they do, if possible. Hopefully, this will provide a useful resource for us all.

NOTE:

Due to health issues, I have stopped taking on new clients and only work with a few authors that I know and have worked with for years. So, please, understand that this post is in NO WAY an attempt at garnering more clients or work. Right now, that’s the last thing I need … although (tongue in cheek) the income would be nice!

Top Five Mistakes New Authors Make and How to Avoid Them

Hi everyone! In case you missed it … you must see John Howell’s seriously way too funny debut post over at Story Empire … and if you see any size seven feet poking out of the wall, don’t worry about it; that’s probably dear hubby

Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore – Meet the Authors – #Childrens Nicholas C. Rossis, #Fantasy Vashti Quiroz Vega, #Writing Harmony Kent | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

Hi everyone. Along with two fellow authors, I’m getting some love over at Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore, and I’d love it you could pop over and check it out. You’ll also find out a little more about Nicholas Rossis and Vashti Vega