Dan Alatorre's Blog, page 16

Dear Mr. Alatorre…

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Who did what to whom?? I don’t know for sure!

August 12, 2019

Format: Kindle Edition

Dear Mr. Alatorre, write the next Carly and Sergio quickly!! LOL I was still guessing at nearly the end of the book. I had part of it figured out but not the whole plot. Loved it! Thank you.

Mr. Alatorre has quickly become one of my favorite authors.

“I was intrigued on page 1; all the following pages mesmerized & compelled me to keep reading.”

Mr. Alatorre has quickly become one of my favorite authors.
His imagination astounds me, with each book different and original.
His thorough research is obvious in the myriad of details that build the story.
The characters are believable, the heroes very likable and the villains despicable.

“What would you do with a time machine?” College grad paleontologists dig up just such a machine and, one by one, they can’t resist taking a ride.

The results are nasty, nearly fatal.
Even so, temptation overcomes the danger.

The book also explores the very real, ferocious battles faced by paleontologists and archaeologists for ownership of their discoveries. Scientists, colleges, landowners, corporations and even the federal government get tangled up in espionage, with lots of lawyers thrown in. Nefarious elements try to flat-out steal artifacts.

The suspenseful plot twists around human nature, the supernatural ability to transcend time, a blooming romance, and the desperate lies and greed in the fast-moving ownership struggle. The team needs to evade all of dangerous people to stay alive.

Mr. Alatorre has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His imagination astounds me, with each book different and original. His thorough research is obvious in the myriad of details that build the story. The characters are believable, the heroes very likable and the villains despicable.

The ending of this book is bittersweet yet satisfying.

I loved every well-crafted word!

– Amazon review by Linda McKay of The Navigators

Want to see what all the fuss is about? Click HERE to get your copy of The Navigators today!

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FROM USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR DAN ALATORRE: THE NAVIGATORS

SOME SECRETS AREN’T MEANT TO BE KNOWN

A freak landslide at a remote mine site uncovers a strange machine to a group of paleontology grad students. Wary of corrupt school officials, team leader Barry takes the machine home to study it in secret, reaching only one realistic – and unbelievable – conclusion: It was designed to bridge the time-space continuum. It’s a time machine.Testing delivers disastrous results, sending one team member to the hospital and nearly killing another. When word leaks about the discovery, the ultimate power struggle ensues: the university wants it for funding, the power company wants its energy regenerating abilities kept under wraps, and a rival group wants to steal it for themselves. No one cares if Barry’s team comes out alive.Fleeing for their lives, the students must fight the school, the police, and each other if they want to learn the truth about what they’ve discovered – a truth with more severe consequences than any of them can predict.

PRAISE FOR THE NAVIGATORS:
AMONG THE BEST OF THE YEAR

“Amazing. Couldn’t put it down”- Happy Meerkat Reviews

“A MODERN DAY RAY BRADBURY”

“I never read sci-fi, time travel type books so the fact that I liked The Navigators is a true testament to how well it was written. The Navigators was riveting indeed! It was like reading a modern-day Ray Bradbury novel but funnier and wittier with snappier dialogue – an excellent job of combining fun, snappy dialogue with deeper, more meaningful conversations. This book was a fun, exciting, insightful and touching read.” – Lynn Cooper, author of Cupcake Cutie

“AN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT BOOK”

“Dan Alatorre will keep you glued to your seat” – Lucy Brazier, author of Secret Diary of Portergirl

“I LOVED IT!”

“I loved it! Really good story line and it kept the tension throughout. I couldn’t wait to see the outcome and was not disappointed.” – Suzanne Bowditch, author of Elen, A Celtic Trilogy

“SOMETHING FROM THE SPIRIT OF ISAAC ASIMOV”

“It’s a beautiful story!! Beautiful! There is something in here, something from the spirit of Isaak Asimov and all those days when I started reading science fiction. The writing is so clean, and you kept the magic rolling all the way.” – Art Jeffries, author of The Collector

“THIS STORY HAD ME HOOKED FROM THE START”

“This story had me hooked from the start, a well thought out complex storyline that has everything. Mystery, intrigue, betrayal and romance. In addition, enough danger and excitement to sink several ships!” – Anita Dawes, author of Scarlett Ribbons

Read The Navigators NOW

 

I’M A USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR!

Yep, you read that right.

Do No Harm, a medical thriller box set, debuted at #55 on the USA Today bestseller list this week.

My contribution was The Gamma Sequence, an 80,000 word novel I wrote in 36 days. (If you want to learn how I WROTE an 80k book in 36 days, click HERE.)

Now that I have achieved USA Today Bestselling Author status, how do I feel about it? And how much work was involved?
I feel very proud.
And it was a lot of work.

Get Do No Harm HERE.

1. First of all, writing a book at all is hard.

80% of American adults would like to write a book. Of that number, the vast majority never start writing one.
Of those who start writing a book, most never complete it.
Of those who complete their book, a huge percentage never do anything with it. It never gets published, never gets queried, never gets to see the light of day.
Of that ever-shrinking percentage that achieve all those things, something like 95% of them will never make more than a few thousand dollars from books in their lifetime.

So you can see that writing a book it is difficult at all, much less doing a really good one in a really limited period of time. I documented that in an earlier post HERE, but in a nutshell, I got up really early and I work really late – but before I started, I laid out an outline and I bounced ideas off some trusted friends who I knew would steer me in the right direction. I knew when I was done writing, I’d get help from beta readers and critique partners, editors… So if you don’t have the support of that kind of team, it probably won’t happen. (Hold that thought for later.)

So just completing a book is obviously an accomplishment, but as an author I know lots of people who complete books. That’s not that big of a deal to us.

2. Making a USA Today bestseller list requires a lot of MARKETING.

The dreaded M word.

* Shudder *

(Most authors suck at marketing, including most of the ones that I’m friends with.)

A while back I got invited to be in a group of New York Times best-selling authors and USA today bestselling authors who were going to put together a box set. That box set group had some dysfunction, and even though we sold quite a few copies of our book, it didn’t really have the success we all dreamed it would.

So I was a bit hesitant to try again.
After all, the stuff doesn’t happen for FREE.
Every contributing author has to pony up a big chunk of money because we’re going to be buying lots of ads,

but the idea is if you have 17 people in the same boat all rowing in the same direction, you are much more likely to get where you want to go. Not only that, but what one person lacks as far as skills, another person might have. This was crucial. We would have a set manager, but each of us was going to have to row our own oar as well as believe in the set leadership AND in each other – but also be ready to go above and beyond when we saw we had a strength that someone else didn’t have, and ask them if they might have a strength I didn’t have… When you multiply that by 17 people, you’re gonna have a lot of strengths.

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But let’s face it. I became a USA Today bestselling author as part of a box set with 16 other people.
How much of the achievement is mine?
I was faced with a very similar question when I was a child.

I was always a swimmer. From the time I was 4 or 5, all the way through high school, I was on the swim team. In summer I swam for the country club team, and in winter I swam for the YMCA team. Swimming was as natural to me as walking. I wasn’t the best swimmer – my sister was; she was bound for the Olympics – but not me. I was a natural swimmer and I was very good at it, but I wasn’t great at it.

But at my YMCA – Hamilton West YMCA in Hamilton, Ohio – stands a childhood record for a relay I was on that got first place. That record stood for decades. I was very proud that I contributed to a relay that, more than 20 years later, was still standing. It may still be standing; there’s no way to know – they remodeled and took the record boards down. No one knows where the boards are now, but 20+ years later, who cares?

When the Olympic track and field team takes the field, they have a relay race.
If one member of the relay team trips and falls, that relay team is not going to win the gold level.
Each member must give their very best effort or they are not going to win that day.

Four years later, another team will be awarded a gold medal for the same event. That doesn’t mean four years earlier the winning team didn’t win.

Of the four people on my swim team’s medley relay that won our medal, I was not the best swimmer. Two guys on that relay team could have done any part of the relay and probably gotten a better time than what I was able to do. But the simple fact is, that relay required four different swimmers, and even if they were 10 times better than me, there was only one of each of them. They had to do their part, but they couldn’t do all four parts. Without me, they don’t get that record.

Was I the best one on the team? I wasn’t even the best swimmer on that relay. But we had to have four, and I did my job. We won that day, and decades later no one else had topped the group we put on the starting blocks that day.

And that’s the case here. Who can say if I didn’t contribute my book and my marketing and my efforts and my pushing other people – who can say how well the box set would have done? After all, my prior box set did not achieve the results this one achieved.

When the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl, every member of the team gets a Super Bowl ring because every member of the team contributed to the win. The backup kicker who never saw the field was there in case the main kicker couldn’t do his job but also to push the main kicker to be the best he could be – because if he slipped up an inch he would be replaced. The mindset of TEAM.

If you proscribe to that mindset, you might win a few Super Bowls.

I never felt comfortable for one minute during the Do No Harm box set that I could do anything less than 100% for fear that I would bring the entire relay down just like an Olympian who tripped during the track and field relay or a member of my record-setting swim team relay group. Everybody had to give their best.

[image error]Today and always I will be proud of making the USA Today bestseller list.
And my next goal will be to win the title in a solo effort.
But… will I really do it solo?

A lot of people along the way would help me formulate my outline, assist me in streamlining my writing, beta read to catch errors, edit for pace… reviewers will help me gain recognition and marketers will advertise for me. I don’t pretend to do any of those things all by myself. I’ve lost valuable teammates, too. It hurts when they go, but I have to mourn the loss and then move on because I have a goal.

I can’t quit because of difficult circumstances.
There are always difficult circumstances.
I rally with whoever’s left and that’s my team now – and we move forward.

It’s a team effort.

Editors. Beta readers. Marketers. Isn’t that part of my team? So I’ve never really published a book all by myself. I’ve always had someone else on my team helping.

Today, my team won a medal.

[image error]My detractors will say (and have said) it doesn’t count. For them, it doesn’t – but are they helping me achieve it solo, or are they talking down a risk and effort I was willing to take that they weren’t? Are they helping me achieve my future goals or are they hindering me from achieving my future goals? No one can know for sure, but the goals will be pursued anyway. I wish them well as I move forward – sincerely, I do – but I also notice that

most of the people who put down this achievement have not obtained this achievement themselves, and for those who have obtained a USA Today bestseller status solo – are you willing to help teach me how to do it? I did what I could. If you are willing to help me, I am willing to learn from you.

Meanwhile, remember: the guy who runs the hundred yard dash and wins a “solo” gold-medal – he still had a coach. That’s part of his team. You soloists have editors and marketers and critique partners telling you what to fix. Pretend it’s a solo effort because one name appears on the cover of the book. We all know it isn’t.

This wasn’t a solo gold-medal.
This was a relay race medal.
But we won.
Which means as a member of the relay team, I won.

And if you look to trash talk the accomplishment, as some will and some have, then I say this: this Olympics allows solo efforts AND team efforts on the field at the same time.

Today, my team won a medal.

I’m proud of them, and I’m proud of me.

Tonight, I celebrate what we have accomplished.
Tomorrow, I set my sights on the next higher goal.

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Get this amazing novel and a bunch of other ones in the Do No Harm box set.

Apple
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

And if you already purchased it, please go leave a review!

 

 

Why Your Book Isn’t Selling

We have addressed hundred of writing related topics here on the blog; use the search button to find the ones you need.

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In a nutshell, your book isn’t selling because your cover is amateurish and your blurb sucks.



Bad cover
Bad blurb

Got it?

Those two things are the biggest reasons people pass on buying your book.

They can’t read it if they don’t click on it, and the cover and blurb are the only things between them and your story at this point, right?

Let’s get that fixed now, shall we?

Finding a good cover

You can spend a lot of money for a good cover but you don’t have to, and first you need to see what fans of that type of story want in a cover – because it doesn’t matter if you like it, it only matters that people who read that genre find the cover appropriate.

Author ego, step aside.

 

So here’s what you do.

Look at the top selling books in the genre your story fits best into, then look to emulate what those covers have in common, whether you hire it out or buy pre-made.

Usually, unless you are an amazing artist, you should not do your own covers. They look homemade about 99% of the time and you are NOT the 1% who can do them and look good, so don’t. It’s a different skill set. Focus on writing if you’re an author. You can have a pro looking cover for about $69 so save yourself the headache of your book not selling.

Get a few mock ups together, and ask as many fans as you can which they like. After about a dozen impartial votes, you will have a clear winner and that won’t change if you get 100 more votes or 1000 more votes. Like this:

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Post that on your blog, you personal Facebook page, wherever. Count the IMPARTIAL votes. Your sister doesn’t count here.

Let the fans choose. They are never wrong.

Save yourself the headache of wasting money on ads that don’t get you sales when your cover is the reason the book isn’t selling.

But that’s only part of the equation.

 

WRITING A BOOK BLURB

That is harder than it sounds, my friends.

And because yours sucks, it’s costing you.

See, your main selling source, Amazon, is largely an impulse buy. That’s important to know, not if you’re Stephen King with a huge following, or Hugh Howey, but if you’re small or independent, you need the Ammy advantages to work to your favor.

THE RULES:
1. You must write a good story

Actually, you can write crap but then I don’t want to talk to you and you need to be a super marketer.  And you need to be a super marketer anyway. But there are a LOT of guys writing crap and making money on Ammy, so if we write good stuff we should be able to do even better. Otherwise the terrorists win. And “good story” includes no typos and all that jazz. We have lots of posts on this blog about how to write good stories. Read them and use the advice therein.

2. You must have a good cover, as noted above.

Well, only if you wanna sell stuff. A brightly colored cover with contrasting colors will catch the eye and draw attention to it. So will other things, like big boobs or puppies, but those images may not fit well with the story inside the cover, so govern yourself accordingly. And again, we’re writing good stories so we might want the cover to represent that – depending on the genre. (Romance covers tend to have pretty faces on them; mysteries tend to not show faces. Checking out the top sellers will clue you in to that.) But if your cover doesn’t catch the reader’s eye, it’s not gonna sell well. Think impulse buy. The cover has to make people want to read the blurb.

3. The blurb has to make people want to read the story.

The blurb is a few lines about your story that bait the hook and make people want more, so they click BUY. Think IMPULSE BUY. And if you’re a good storyteller, you might take 80,000 words to tell your story. That in no way means you are good at condensing it down to 100 – 250 words of ad copy – and make no mistake, that is what your blurb is. It’s a tiny ad that, along with your professional looking cover, make people want to click BUY. If it doesn’t do that, it’s a loser – and I’ve had my fair share of loser blurbs! I still do! For several reasons. They are hard to do well, and I didn’t really know that until recently, but mainly because I have a hard time writing blurbs for my own stuff. Probably, so do you.

Now, you’d say as a writer you should master your blurb. In fact, I’ve seen several well known writers who may or may not write their own blurbs, say just that. It’s writing! You’re a wordsmith! Just do it.

It’s not that easy. It is a different kind of writing, just like a painter is an artist but we don’t expect him to be a master sculptor or pottery thrower. It is a different skill set AND most of us are TOO CLOSE to our work to be objective enough to write a good blurb. (More on blurb writing HERE and HERE.)

4. The other rules are things like pricing and whatnot.

That’s totally your call, but I can offer a few guidelines. When you are known as well as Stephen King, you can charge Stephen King prices. Don’t work for free if you don’t have to – and you don’t have to. Run sales on occasion but otherwise, we could write 10 posts on pricing and still not resolve the question. Most authors who follow my rules should be able to sell their stuff at above $2.99 or more and not have issues.

These steps aren’t the ONLY way to do things, but they’re a lot better than having NO way to do them – and no clue how to start. Have a better way? Roll with it!

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Dan Alatorre has had a string of bestsellers and is read in over 112 countries around the world.

To get free books and updates on his newest novels, join his Readers Club HERE.

 

Need a favor

Need a favor. I have a book in Do No Harm, a collaborative box set that went live today. Each author has to get 10 reviews posted for their book. If you have read The Gamma Sequence by me, or Only Wrong Once, by my friend Jenifer Ruff, could you please post a quick review on this link and say it’s for that specific book. Here is the link:

https://www.amazon.com/Do-No-Harm-Seventeen-Thrillers-ebook/dp/B07RFSSQZ4

Here is how to find your past reviews so you can just copy.

• Go to Amazon

• Your Account

• Orders and Shopping Preferences

• Your Amazon Profile – should see all your reviews

Thank you!!!

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A Taste Of The “Fun” In My Intense Murder Mystery Double Blind

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My murder mystery Double Blind is intense and filled with very dramatic – and occasionally gruesome – scenes. Two detectives are hunting a serial killer while the killer is hunting them. It’s not a “cozy” mystery.
The two detectives are partners, but they are also friends – and that’s where the book get the charm readers love.

I was formatting the paperback version today for its imminent release, and I happened upon this scene. A recent review noted how real the characters are, and that’s because of how they interact, their dialogue, their unspoken moments – but also how

they give each other crap, as friends do.

This scene made me chuckle about how much they like and trust each other, and what good friends they are.

Check it out.

After swirling the wine around in her glass, Carly took a long drink. She closed her eyes and let her head ease back into the couch cushion. “Okay, what happened out there?”

Sergio shrugged. “I got ambitious and—”

“I heard what you told the lieutenant. Now I want the truth.”

“That is the truth.”

“Hey.” She leaned forward. “It’s me.”

[image error]Her eyes stayed on his, not like an angry wife or an upset mother, but like a friend and partner who needed to know. Who deserved to know.

“Okay, I froze.” Sergio glanced around the room. “I wanted it to be our guy so I could take him down, or maybe just get the thing ended, but also . . . I was thinking about Franklin. And the victims. I was thinking about a lot of stuff.”

“Well, there’s the problem.”

“I wasn’t focused.”

She wagged a finger at him. “You were trying to think.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I mean you’re a good cop and you were analyzing things when you should have been in the zone and reacting.”

He stared at the beer bottle. “Maybe.”

“Not maybe. Let me ask you this.” She sat up, pointing a finger at him with her wine glass hand. “Did you think it was our killer? I mean inside, on a primal level, where we just react, did you think it was the guy?”

“I felt like . . .” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I thought it could be something bad, but, no. On a gut level, I didn’t think I was staring our serial killer in the face.”

She sat back. “I’ve gone through a few doors with you, Marty. I won’t be worried when we go through the next one, and don’t you be. What happened tonight, that could have happened to any of us. Tomorrow’s my turn. But tonight, if I’m wearing the wire and approaching that guy, I’m thinking it’s our killer. I’ll be ready to unload my magazine into him if he asked for a cigarette.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s right. You weren’t. So drink up. We live to fight another day.”

“Tell that to Breitinger.”

“I did.” She swigged her wine. “He gets it. He told me you were off your game tonight and I told him you’d be back on it tomorrow when it’s my turn.”

“When did you have time for all that?”

“You took a while to get out of that surveillance gear.”

“What did he say?”

“He said maybe the operation needs to slow down.”

“It can’t slow down! It’s been—”

“Chill, partner. I told him it can’t slow down, too. We have zero apprehensions and a lot of victims. Slowing down is not the answer.”

Sergio eyed her. “So now what?”

“Well.” She folded her hands across her abdomen, securing the wine glass between her fingers. “He said I should take you out and get you drunk. So, cheers.”

Sergio took a gulp of his beer. “I should drink here more often. Kyle likes the good stuff.”

“Kyle sticks to wine.”

“Well, I appreciate you buying good beer in case I stop by. Last time I was here, you made me drink Bud.”

“I didn’t buy it. You gave us that last Christmas, as a present. I finally put it in the fridge yesterday.”

“How’d you know I’d be coming?”

“Christmas is coming, Marty. There are these things called Christmas parties. I knew somebody’d drink it.”

He took another gulp. “You’ll need to get more, because I’m going to drink the whole case.”

She swirled her wine. “That’ll be difficult. You only gave us a six-pack.”

A smile, right? And this happens immediately after a very intense scene.
It’s an awesome book. You should check it out.

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62 reviews, and almost all of them are 5-stars.
They can’t all be relatives.

 

 

Just finished Double Blind. Good grief your mind concocted THAT and also does children’s stories?

From a reader:

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Oh my! Just finished Double Blind.

Good grief your plot and mind that concocted THAT  and also does children’s stories leaves me in amazement.

At first I almost stopped reading as it was just plain gory and sickening to spend time reading about people at the mercy of their repulsive delusions. I might have stopped but I had such a favorable impression of your personality and I had promised to read it. I have to say now I’m truly glad I did. I do read fast and I kinda sped through a few sections wanting to get more details. I liked Carley and Sergio, felt they could be real people, and actually understood the motivations of the others because you fleshed out their characters so well. One thing I didn’t quite get was how Big Brass turned into such a staunch guy so quickly for Johnny, I expected at the end in the hospital room to find out he was undercover…I could write so much more but by now you know I thought the plot was outstanding, triple convoluted, and so well thought out.

A reader gets sucked into the story as the descriptions and dialog make it seem real.

There were a few times I just wanted to warn the characters because their analysis was so off base, but then it would be just that way if those things had really happened. You are truly gifted I think. So now I will be looking up the next case of your dynamic duo but I hope, being a little old grandma and all, that it won’t be quite so graphic. I’ll write a review tomorrow, you’ll get high marks. Great work! 

“A Must Read Medical Thriller” – Gotta Love That!

[image error]A recent review on Amazon:

July 22, 2019 “A Must Read Medical Thriller”

I couldn’t put this book down.

You will have to set aside your day because once you start the story, you have to continue to the end.

I absolutely loved the characters and the story line.

Dan Alatorre’s writing is excellent.

I appreciated all the research he had to have done to create such a visual representation of events that could actually take place. The ending has an unexpected twist.

Dan Alatorre is an extremely talented author.

I can see this story becoming a movie someday in the near future!





What a nice review. I’m almost blushing.
Almost.
Can you see me smiling from where you’re sitting?

Hollywood, are you listening???

Wanna see what all the fuss is about? Right now, The Gamma Sequence is part of the “Do No Harm” box set: 17 novels, all for 99 cents – but this deal ends VERY soon. You can read The Gamma Sequence NOW by joining my Readers Club, then you can preorder Do No Harm for 99 cents, and when it releases on July 31 you’ll be able to post a review AND start enjoying the other 16 other complete novels.

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Preorder your copy of Do No harm TODAY:

Apple

Barnes & Noble

Kobo and others

Amazon

and contact me about reading The Gamma Sequence RIGHT NOW

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Oh, just do it. You know you want to.

 

What’s The Role of a BETA READER?

[image error]If I do my job properly as a writer, I have put together what in my head is a relatively cohesive, interesting story.*

That’s it. In a nutshell, that’s my job.

The role of a BETA READER is to:
read the finished manuscript (book, story, whatever) before it is released to the general public and  give the author feedback.

That’s it.

The Beta can do as much or as little as they want, or as much or as little as the author asks.

Pretty blurry job description, isn’t it?
Yep.

Let’s go back to me and my job as a writer for a sec. Occasionally, I am wrong about the whole “cohesive story” thing. Sometimes we writers just write stuff that makes great sense to us – and no sense to anyone else.

Ooh, he’s so metaphysical.
Or, maybe he’s freaking obtuse.

It’s hard to tell sometimes. The old barn was a metaphor for the MC’s marriage, but the wrecked car wasn’t. Unless you want it to be, dear reader; then it absolutely was.

Assuming that we didn’t go completely bananas and write some fog of a diatribe, my critique partners will point out glaring errors in passive voice or grammar or missing words or missing quotes. That’s their job.

So when I’m done listening to what my Critique Partners have to say, I fold in their suggestions (or ignore them at my peril) and then I give the book one more look and decide it’s ready for the general public.

[image error] Typo!
That’s where the beta reader comes in.

There’s nothing like sending your manuscript out to thousands of people and having them write back and say you had a typographical error in the first friggin’ page, or ask how the butler could do it when he wasn’t even present when the murder happened!

Oops .

The point is, your critique partners are really looking at your story a little differently from a regular reader. CPs will probably enjoy your story, but they are not reading it only to enjoy it. They are reading it to make sure it makes sense, to make sure that flows, to make sure that there’s a good pace, to make sure there’s no grammatical errors, to make sure your quotes and commas and words are all properly in place and spelled right. What they’re not doing is saying, “Let me just pick this story up and read it cover to cover like a regular would. Not their job.

That’s the role of the beta reader.

To simply read the story and give you whatever feedback they happen to assess from it.

For some, it’s going to be, “Hey there were no typos, there were no grammatical errors, it’s good to go.” For others it’s going to be, “You didn’t develop these characters enough in the beginning, so I don’t care about them enough halfway through when you start killing them off.”

In my head, my story flows pretty smoothly – I knew what I meant to say with just about every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence…
Maybe not every word, but, you know; I do my best.

So when I have all my chapters together, I will release it to a second set of critique partners – who get to read it more like a book and less like a critique.

They are pretty happy with that, those CPs who got to do it that way. They’re almostbeta readers

The job of the beta reader for me is just to read it make sure that what I intended to be there is there. If they see errors, point them out; otherwise, “Good story, it worked/did not work for me” – and not every story is gonna work for every reader. We know that.

So for me the job of the beta reader is basically… whatever the beta reader thinks it is.

Some look for grammar, some look for content, some look for jokes.

I’m happy with all that.

If they all write back and say, “This is the best thing that ever read!” I’m good with that, too.

* My real definition is: a well told story with interesting characters told in a compelling manner, but who’s counting.

WANNA BE A BETA for my latest project? Click  CONTACT ME  and say so!

 

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Dan Alatorre is the author of several bestsellers, including the fast-paced murder mystery Double Blind.

Check out his other works HERE and check back often for interesting stuff.

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Music to my ears

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Hi, Dan!  I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading Double Blind.  I gave you a glowing review on Goodreads since I loved this story.
I found myself really interested in what would happen to Carly, Sergio and everyone else.  You generate characters that speak and behave like real people.  I enjoyed the read a lot, thanks.
Have a great night!  I’ll talk to you later.