Heather Osborne's Blog, page 21

How do you read?

As a self-published author, I do appreciate it when people come to me with minor errors missed by my editor, myself, and my beta readers. I know it is very possible to not catch everything when editing. I have read many mainstream books that have a few typos.

This got me thinking though. Are people harder on indie/self-published authors? Do they expect more because we do everything ourselves, without the help of “experienced” people from publishing companies? Do you find yourself looking for errors when you know the book is self-published?

I suppose the big question I would want to ask is….why? Why do we put pressure on self-published authors to supersede mainstream ones? Are our expectations that much higher with self-published books? This forced me to reflect on the way I read books. I review many books a month working for Readers’ Favorite. I’ve seen the fantastic all the way to the not-so-fantastic. Major editing errors do impact my rating decisions, but I do take into consideration the plot. I politely mention errors to the author and leave it be. I wonder though if I’m reading to find mistakes instead of taking the book at face value.

Why do I only do this with indie authors though? Why doesn’t anyone do this with mainstream ones? Don’t they have a right to know, just like any other author? I believe this revelation has forced me to change how I read all books. From now on, I plan to read to enjoy. If errors crop up that are grievous, I will let the author know, mainstream and indie. All authors deserve equal treatment. I truly hope people take the time to experience all types of authors because there are some pretty damn good self-published books out there! If you need a recommendation, I’d be happy to oblige, or just check my Goodreads account.

Equality for all authors!

Giftcard Giveaway!

I’m running a giveaway for anyone who has or wants to review “Crushed Gardenias”! You can enter with the Rafflecopter link here. The winner will get a $5 (or currency equivalent) giftcard to Amazon! The giveaway will run from 19/4 to 26/4!

If you review, I would appreciate posting to your Amazon site as well as Goodreads :-)

**Disclaimer: Giveaway ends April 26th 2015 at 11:59 PM GMT. Open to all countries.  Prize will be awarded via email giftcard.  Winner will be selected by Random.org and be notified by email. Winner have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected. My opinions are my own and were not influenced by any form of compensation.  Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are in no way associated with this giveaway.  By providing your information in this form, you are providing your information to me and me alone.  I do not share or sell information and will use any information only for the purpose of contacting the winner.**

Women’s History: The First Female FBI Agent

Much like my post on Female Soldiers During the American Civil War, I like to give a bit of historical background to the novels I write. Female FBI agents are very prevalent in the United States today, making up 19% of the bureau’s special agents. This left me curious. When did women first start working for this elite agency?

As a tie in to my upcoming novel, “The Fairest of Them,” I decided to delve into the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, a.k.a the FBI. According to their website, the FBI stemmed from a special group of law enforcement agents, founded during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. He teamed with Attorney General Charles Bonaparte in 1908 to lay the foundations to what would later become the FBI. In 1918, with the end of WWI, the group of Special Agents was renamed the “Bureau of Investigations.”

Alaska Packard Davidson

But this isn’t a history lesson on the formation of the FBI! I’m here to tell you about women in the FBI! The history on this subject is sparse, but one name I found was Alaska Packard Davidson. She served as a special agent from October 1922 to June 1924. She was 54 years old when she was appointed. When J. Edgar Hoover took over the Bureau, Davidson, along with several other female agents were dismissed.

Hoover is only known to have hired one female Special Agent during his entire term in office. That was Lenore Huston, an agent from 1924-1928.

Lenore Huston’s credentials

After, according to the FBI’s website:

On July 17, 1972, the first two women of the modern era entered the FBI Training Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Fourteen weeks later they emerged as special agents. Over the next 40 years, women agents reshaped the Bureau, achieving leadership posts across the U.S. and around the world. This series looks at their roles, their challenges, and the rewards of a demanding career as a G-woman.

A pretty big gap in history! You can learn more by going to: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/may/women-agents_051612/women-agents_051612

Don’t forget to look for “The Fairest of Them,” with my own Special Agent Rae Hatting. Coming soon!

When You Meet An Author….

Try not to squeal like you’re going to jump out of your skin! Okay, I did before I met her, but that’s not important. Please. Don’t mention how I danced around the living room like a fool or bounced around in the bed until my husband told me to shut up and go to bed…..*hides*

Maria Snyder and I

Maria V. Snyder (http://www.mariavsnyder.com/), author of the Study series and Chronicles of Ixia, kindly agreed to meet with me and another girl outside of her signing in Edinburgh yesterday. She graciously spent three hours with us, talking of everything from family, her books, what inspires her, what inspires us, and anything in between (including the weird weather, which went from sun to wind to rain to snow and back again!).

I have to say, it was one of the BEST moments of my life, topped only by marrying my husband and having Alex, my son, so far!

She showed me what kind of author I aspire to be. I try to respond to everyone who messages me and make sure they feel they are worth my time because, hell, all readers who find my books in the slew of titles on Amazon and read them ARE worth my time!

She signed every book in the Study series for me. I mean, zowwie! And….she took away a signed copy of “The Soldier’s Secret” from me! I about fell over.

I have to stress, she didn’t have to meet with us. She didn’t have to sign all my book copies (the girl with me, Tori, had every book by Maria V. Snyder…hi Tori! We’re Facebook friends now!). BUT she did! And I will forever remember her for it, as if I could forget!

Anyways, to wrap up, it was a BRILLIANT day! I have renewed vigor and I feel so humbled by the entire experience! Take chances, live life, have no regrets!

Happy reading!

Five Stars for The Soldier’s Secret!

A shiny five star badge from Readers’ Favorite for my latest novel! This is such an honor for me because I feel I put so much of my own blood, sweat, and tears into this novel.

This is the review:

Reviewed by Melinda Hills for Readers’ Favorite

When her father is severely injured at the family store and Emma discovers that her younger brother has left home to join the Confederate Army, she realizes the only way to get answers about Harrison and her older brother, Will, is to join the army herself. The Soldier’s Secret is really a big one – Emma Mansfield becomes Emmett Hawkins and fights alongside the men of the Union Army in the Civil War. Heather Osborne relates the horrors of the bloodiest war on American soil and the pressures families faced, given the shortage of news regarding loved ones. Emma is fortunate enough to find both brothers as well as her fiance, Colin, who joined the Union forces as a doctor. Together, Emma and Colin escape the front lines in Virginia and the unreasonable attention from an unscrupulous officer who takes this desertion particularly personally. Hiding along the way home to Rochester, NY, Emma and Colin meet some wonderful people who are willing to help. What cost will this have on everyone involved as Timmons pursues the pair?

The Soldier’s Secret by Heather Osborne is a well-told tale of devotion, courage and daring during the course of the American Civil War. The writing is lively and realistic to the time period and the characters bring the action to life – from the drawing room of a wealthy family of the North to the blood and mayhem of the battlefield. Beyond the sorrow and devastation, though, the book clearly demonstrates the importance of family and the lengths to which some people would go to protect their loved ones. Hope keeps everyone grounded as they all wait for the action to play out and for the family to be reunited once more. This is a great story!

The book is available on all Amazon marketplaces and soon will be available in paperback! :-)

Featured Author: V.M Sawh

Another unexpected Readers’ Favorite discovery! I love fairy tales rewritten with a twist and V.M. Sawh’s series, “Good Tales for Bad Dreams,” certainly met that criteria! I was lucky enough to have Sawh respond to my request for an interview, after I read and reviewed the two stories in this series, “Cinders” and “Hontas.”

I loved both short stories, but felt “Cinders,” although very dark, was lacking in the area of character development. I was happy when Sawh provided me with a free link to the prequel, “Anastasia” and told me “Cinders” had a word limit. I can more than understand this because “Crushed Gardenias” had a word limit and people were disappointed when it ended. I look forward to reading this one as well.

Anyways, on with the questions!

Q&A:

What made you want to become an author?

I have been writing from a very young age and I still have copies of all of my early, handwritten work. The first scribblings of a story I ever wrote was a little piece called “Jungle Peril”, about a pair of swashbuckling explorers tackling smugglers in the wild bush. Given that the wild bush was essentially my backyard in South America, I think I had some first-hand knowledge to back up my wild imagination. My problem has always been caused and solved by those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. I devoured those as a kid, because I loved that there were always multiple paths, twists and endings to every story. So, when reading regular books, I always thought of different ways things could go and how I wanted them to play out. Writing my own fiction allows me to explore those ideas.

Where did your ideas for Cinders and Hontas come from?

Legend has it that Cinders was originally written for submission to an anthology, kind of as a lark. I was looking for a challenge and one day, during a long drive, I was listening to a piece of Japanese music, and this scene popped into my head. I was describing it to my wife when the story took on a life of it’s own. She then told me I had to write it down and try to submit it. So, the challenge became to try and take this very traditional fairy-tale and depict it in a way that it had never been done before. Of course, when I applied my particular flavour to it, the submission was rejected for being too graphic ~ and that was the toned down version! Taking this rejection to heart, I decided to go all full-tilt-boogie on the thing and take the censorship wheels off. That story was eventually published as Cinders.

I wrote Anastasia due to a reader’s request to know more about some of the side characters in that world. Taking that on as a fun exercise, Anastasia got away from me and became it’s own story, sort of a sequel to Cinders.

Now with Hontas the goal was to tackle a genre I had never written before. Mind you, that had been the challenge with the previous two as well, but hey, what can I say – stretching yourself is good!

Part of exploring the Pocahontas story was an attempt to deal with my own feelings of alienation with regards to Indian culture (dot, not feather). I transplanted that struggle into the main character and used her as a cypher. She is an ‘other’ and even though I grew up in Canada, there were many times when I felt like the ‘other’ as well. So that story came out of a desire to express that dichotomy that I think a lot of immigrants and particularly immigrant children feel.

What tips would you give to aspiring authors?

Nobody was born with a pencil in their hand. There’s talent and there’s practice. You need both in order to make it. Chasing trends is like a dog chasing cars. You’ll never catch them and all you’ll be is lost and out of breath. Be original. Write the stories you’d want to read.

What are you working on for future release?

Good Tales For Bad Dreams will continue. I am planning a set number of releases before moving to a hardcover print collection.

The next installment of Good Tales for Bad Dreams takes us far away from Earth, to the outer reaches of space on a distant, unknown planet. Two sentient robots have been abandoned on its surface, one is an advanced planetary survey droid carrying the latest scientific technology and a healthy curiosity; the other is a battle-hardened combat drone that’s armed to the teeth and ready to go to war. The two are forced to work together both to survive the brutal landscape and to plan their own rescue. What they don’t know is that the planet has one other surprise in store for them: they are not alone.

This is V.M. Sawh’s “Hansel & Gretel”. This is GR3T3L-1.

I have to say, personally, out of the two, I loved Hontas more. I gave it five stars over at Readers’ Favorite. I’m looking forward to the sci fi take on Hansel & Gretel!

Kind thanks to V.M. Sawh for taking the time to answer my questions!

Contact Links:

Website: vmsawh.com (for The Official)

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/VMsawh/ (for The Pretty Pictures)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vmsawh (for The Issue Discussions)

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/VMSawh

Twitter: @VMS_author (for the Random & the Immediate)

Google+:  V.M. Sawh

(P.S. I don’t know what’s up with the formatting of this last bit. Ebil WordPress!)

Happy reading!

Enter The Reviews Sheriff!

heatherosborneauthor:

An excellent piece on reviews!

Originally posted on Names Starting With 'Z':

Recently, one of our Facebook group members posted a wonderfully original idea, that understandably, generated quite a stir, as original ideas are liable to do. He proposed that for the very reasonable cost of an American quarter or $0.25 per review, he would comb through each of our reviews on a daily basis and find those pesky negative reviews that are so painful, anxiety producing, and demoralizing for the indie author. He offered to read and clean them for us before sending them our way.

He specified that he would cleanse them of any insulting, non-constructive, malicious criticism, but keep anything that would help the writer become a better writer. That, ladies and gentlemen, seems an awful lot of work for 25 cents. We have quite a few members from the United Kingdom, so they’d have to do the Euro conversion on that.

At first, I thought his offer was…

View original 1,221 more words

Meet Detective Luke Thompson

A short teaser post for #teasertuesday. Enjoy my brooding detective!

6 Ways to Survive Bad Reviews

Originally posted on Catherine, Caffeinated:

Once upon a time I used to think that the worst thing about Being a Writer was the writing itself. Don’t get me wrong: I love having written and I love making up stories and I love writing funny dialogue that (shamefully) makes me chuckle as I type it up, but I don’t much like the actual writing bit, which can be really hard sometimes and gives you headaches and breeds guilt and gets in the way of mindless TV watching. When it’s going well it’s the most amazing feeling in the world ever, but when it’s going bad you wish that your biggest dream was something a bit more doable, like to fly in a plane or find a toy inside of a Kinder egg.

But anyway. I digress. My new worst thing about Being a Writer is reading bad reviews.

Now I’ve been very lucky not to have had…

View original 1,120 more words

You Gotta Have A Thick Skin!

Gotta love Snoopy!

As an author, I take something I’ve painstakingly created, slaved over, put my heart into and send it out into the world for people to read, enjoy, criticize, and, in some cases, chew up and spit out.

I knew getting into this business was never going to be easy. You have to contend with bullies, street teams, and other authors who want to see you fail so they can step over you and get just that bit higher to the top.

As a reviewer, I try to take into consideration all these things and take books as they are meant to be taken as per their genre. With certain genres, come certain reader expectations.

What I love though about reviewing is getting feedback. When I leave a review, I try to be diplomatic (many of my author friends will tell you, I send them reviews first before posting). I want to put myself in a position where if I were reading the review as the author, how would I feel? This technique seems to have worked well because I’ve gotten some very kind things back from authors, even when I may not have left what would be considered a glowing review.

This fills me with hope and happiness that there is some good left in the world. I think we all too often forget the faces behind the books. That author has feelings just like the rest of us. I don’t take into this constructive criticism. To grow, an author needs both positive and negative feedback made in ways to show what could be done differently from the readers’ perspective.

Anyways, this concluded my babble for today. I’m in a very good mood and continuing to work on my next release. I’ve ordered paperback proofs of The Soldier’s Secret and, in the next few days, I hope to feature a very unique author and his take on fairy tales and legends!

Happy reading!