L.E. Fraser's Blog, page 2
October 14, 2014
Congrats, winners. Here's how the giveaway went
The Goodreads’ Giveaway program is awesome. This is the second one we’ve run since the book’s release. It was a smashing success, again, and books are traveling off to Indonesia, Chile and Sweden. Back in June, parcels flew to Australia, Great Britain and various states in the US. How cool is that for a Canadian gal?
Being new to the Goodreads’ family in June, I embarked on the adventure with trepidation. My html coding was non-existent. I couldn’t figure out how to preview the material and fretted over how the posted copy would look. It looked fine, whew! Now I’m more familiar with Goodreads, I have every confidence that the team would notify you if you made a stumpy-stupid mistake on your submission. Goodreads is supportive to their authors and readers, something for which I’m grateful as an author and avid reader.
June netted 907 entries to win the book and 452 folks shelved it to read. Exciting!
After learning basic coding, tweaking the copy to include review quotes and expanding the tags, we launched the second giveaway worldwide.
October netted 1759 entries to win the book and 1178 folks shelved it to read. That put Simon Says, Perdition Games as the 4th most requested book for the end date. Oh boy!
Will everyone who shelves the novel read it? Nah, there are titles languishing on my “to read” shelf that I haven’t had time to pull. For the folks who give Simon says, Perdition Games a whirl, some will like it and others won’t. That’s okay because our differences make us unique and interesting.
Love it? Hate It? Let me know. Skully, Perdition Games is in editing, and, based on website comments and reviews for Simon Says, we changed direction a bit so you get more of what you want. Positive or negative, your opinion matters. I write to entertain you.
The most enjoyable part of the giveaway is personalizing the books, branding the packaging and sending the parcels. Winning something is a treat. I hope you like the Perdition Games device stand. I’m an enthusiastic chef and it’s perfect for holding recipes, as well as eReaders, IPads and Smart Phones.
Congratulations to the three winners! Your parcel is flying out of Canada tomorrow and should be in your hands within ten days. If you have any questions, please message me or leave a comment on the website at www.lefraser.com
Pug-Hugs,
Lori
September 18, 2014
Global Goodreads giveaway. This novel is dark and disturbing in places.
Due to the overwhelming interest for autographed copies of Simon Says, Perdition Games during June’s Goodreads' giveaway, I’m happy to announce a second. Everyone’s welcome to join the party. http://bit.ly/SimonSays-Goodreads-Giv...Be warned, if you're after a cheerful story filled with lovely characters doing kind things, don’t enter to win or shelf the book to read. If you want moral integrity... well, best not click on the enter button.
One reviewer celebrated the accurate depiction of the decay of the human condition—glad he enjoyed it. Another reviewer was outraged by the lack of justice—feel bad it upset her so much. Every victim will tell you that crime is not equitable.
Is it a mystery? Yup, Sam McNamara is a PI and an ex-cop, but it isn’t a cosy mystery with cats solving crimes while their human pets stumble along in their paw-prints. It has a psychological component that reveals the flawed reasoning behind the bad decisions of malcontent folks. It is the tale of a dysfunctional family. At the end, the majority of them don’t sit up straight and proclaim, “By gosh, I see the errors of my ways and will strive to be a better person.” They are imperfect, which makes them human.
If you enjoy climbing into the heads of disturbed people, I hope you hit that enter button and give Simon Says, Perdition Games a whirl. To preview excerpts, download the epub sample on Goodreads or visit www.lefraser.com.
To those of you who enter, good luck and thank you! http://bit.ly/SimonSays-Goodreads-Giv...
September 15, 2014
Facebook & Twitter & Plus, oh my!
I live in perpetual fear of social media and wonder if I’m alone.
Everyone seems to be “tweeting” and “posting” engaging content that flows unrestricted from their clever minds. I worry about making a spelling error, offending someone or that my post will be misunderstood, resulting in a bray of well-deserved, sniping rebuttals.
Now, having grown up on military bases with buckteeth (pre-braces) and Coke-bottle glasses (pre corrective surgery), I dealt with my fair share of bullies. Attend five different high schools in multiple cities during the horrid adolescent years, and you’re bound to have a few battle wounds. Let’s not forget, I had a storyteller's imagination and my best friends were characters who lived inside my head. Hum, it should come as no surprise that I’m a wee bit socially awkward. When uncomfortable, I talk too much... well, ramble. The 140-character restriction on Twitter seemed like the perfect way to face my fear. Joining groups was far too intimidating.
How’s it going? Very well. Over the past three months, I’ve met engaging authors and enthusiastic readers. Twitter is a medium to connect with wonderful writers and generous educators who share a wealth of information on many topics. I've even plundered into the murky waters of joining groups. One of my favourites is here on Goodreads. A Good Thriller group has been welcoming and is filled with interesting people. Based on the great recommendations, my reading list keeps growing. The members' amusing posts often evoke chuckles.
At the grocery store checkout on Saturday, I overheard a father speaking to his son. He said it so well that I want to share. The boy was too shy to ask a clerk where he could find a treat he wanted. Dad could see his son in the store, so he told the boy to look around and maybe he’d find what he wanted. Clearly reluctant to go alone, he grudgingly faced his fear and returned with a brilliant smile and the item in his hand. Dad asked if he felt proud. “When you persevere and face your fear,” Dad told his son, “it’s never as bad as you imagined.”
I would have added that sometimes you even get a treat. Thank you to everyone on Twitter and Goodreads who share with generosity and kindness.
Everyone seems to be “tweeting” and “posting” engaging content that flows unrestricted from their clever minds. I worry about making a spelling error, offending someone or that my post will be misunderstood, resulting in a bray of well-deserved, sniping rebuttals.
Now, having grown up on military bases with buckteeth (pre-braces) and Coke-bottle glasses (pre corrective surgery), I dealt with my fair share of bullies. Attend five different high schools in multiple cities during the horrid adolescent years, and you’re bound to have a few battle wounds. Let’s not forget, I had a storyteller's imagination and my best friends were characters who lived inside my head. Hum, it should come as no surprise that I’m a wee bit socially awkward. When uncomfortable, I talk too much... well, ramble. The 140-character restriction on Twitter seemed like the perfect way to face my fear. Joining groups was far too intimidating.
How’s it going? Very well. Over the past three months, I’ve met engaging authors and enthusiastic readers. Twitter is a medium to connect with wonderful writers and generous educators who share a wealth of information on many topics. I've even plundered into the murky waters of joining groups. One of my favourites is here on Goodreads. A Good Thriller group has been welcoming and is filled with interesting people. Based on the great recommendations, my reading list keeps growing. The members' amusing posts often evoke chuckles.
At the grocery store checkout on Saturday, I overheard a father speaking to his son. He said it so well that I want to share. The boy was too shy to ask a clerk where he could find a treat he wanted. Dad could see his son in the store, so he told the boy to look around and maybe he’d find what he wanted. Clearly reluctant to go alone, he grudgingly faced his fear and returned with a brilliant smile and the item in his hand. Dad asked if he felt proud. “When you persevere and face your fear,” Dad told his son, “it’s never as bad as you imagined.”
I would have added that sometimes you even get a treat. Thank you to everyone on Twitter and Goodreads who share with generosity and kindness.
August 19, 2014
Top five stupid things I did as an author: #1
#1: Distribute an unedited manuscript to a book club to beta-read.
Most terrible ideas hatch impulsively. Hence the reason I thought this was an ingenious way to receive unbiased feedback from a pack of strangers who critique the genre. Oh boy, I could incorporate all that fantastic advice before the editorial evaluation, saving time and money. Sure, a wee bit risky, but I have years of experience as a proof-reader.
While boxing the copies with fondness, I spied some typos that had escaped my eagle eye. Yup, science is correct—writers can’t effectively proof their own work. Since the delivery deadline was the next day, I stupidly thought, “Well, they know it’s a first draft, what are a few typos amongst friends?”
Hum... after the dreadful copies had been delivered for distribution, it occurred to me that they weren’t friends—I didn’t know anything about the people in the book club and scarcely knew the woman acting as the go-between. Oops, maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea.
I heard from the group. The email was vague. Understandable, considering that the novel spent six months in editing, the premise changed and the structural edits transformed the ending. The published novel barely resembles the dribble eagerly sent to the book club. I realized that I'd moved from a questionable idea to outright dumb.
After the book’s release, I emailed the book club member and apologized for forcing her group to suffer such a terrible first attempt. I offered (begged) to send her a copy of the published book so she could see the improvements. She accepted the invitation, requesting I send an electronic copy to her work email. My eyes widened in horror as I read the email address. The city library. Worse, she worked in acquisitions! I had sent an unedited manuscript to the acquisition team.
Lesson = you cannot edit or proof your own work. You are too close to it. I’ve heard from (argued with) authors who claim to be great proof-readers. I’m sure you are... but you can’t proof your work. Get over your bad self!
By the way, the city public library did accept the novel and invited me to be the first participant in a new Local Author program. Owning your mistakes is worthwhile. Learning from them and sharing them with self-effacing humour is priceless.
Most terrible ideas hatch impulsively. Hence the reason I thought this was an ingenious way to receive unbiased feedback from a pack of strangers who critique the genre. Oh boy, I could incorporate all that fantastic advice before the editorial evaluation, saving time and money. Sure, a wee bit risky, but I have years of experience as a proof-reader.
While boxing the copies with fondness, I spied some typos that had escaped my eagle eye. Yup, science is correct—writers can’t effectively proof their own work. Since the delivery deadline was the next day, I stupidly thought, “Well, they know it’s a first draft, what are a few typos amongst friends?”
Hum... after the dreadful copies had been delivered for distribution, it occurred to me that they weren’t friends—I didn’t know anything about the people in the book club and scarcely knew the woman acting as the go-between. Oops, maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea.
I heard from the group. The email was vague. Understandable, considering that the novel spent six months in editing, the premise changed and the structural edits transformed the ending. The published novel barely resembles the dribble eagerly sent to the book club. I realized that I'd moved from a questionable idea to outright dumb.
After the book’s release, I emailed the book club member and apologized for forcing her group to suffer such a terrible first attempt. I offered (begged) to send her a copy of the published book so she could see the improvements. She accepted the invitation, requesting I send an electronic copy to her work email. My eyes widened in horror as I read the email address. The city library. Worse, she worked in acquisitions! I had sent an unedited manuscript to the acquisition team.
Lesson = you cannot edit or proof your own work. You are too close to it. I’ve heard from (argued with) authors who claim to be great proof-readers. I’m sure you are... but you can’t proof your work. Get over your bad self!
By the way, the city public library did accept the novel and invited me to be the first participant in a new Local Author program. Owning your mistakes is worthwhile. Learning from them and sharing them with self-effacing humour is priceless.
August 4, 2014
Top Five Stupid Author Mistakes: #2
#2 Hidden hyperlinks... just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
All authors spend hours researching. It’s oodles of fun trying to get specialists to offer their time. Consequently, the easier route is to research online. So long as you double check the integrity of the professional sites and cross-reference all your research to validate the information, you’re good to go. After all, you have to engage in fact checking regardless of whether you look up the information or speak with a human.
In Simon Says, Perdition Games, a character is quoting from the Canadian Constitution. After finding and validating the quote, I copied verbatim and removed the hyperlink. When the book galley arrived, nothing weird showed up on the PDF lay-up. The formatting also looked great on the respective device (Kobo, Nook and Kindle).
However, I’m a control freak and wanted to read every word of the electronic files on each of the devices. The copy was identical to the PDF galleys, no surprise but good to check. Then... I reached the quote. Three random words were underlined. Hyperlinks! Worse, the redirection links landed on sites I’d never visited. We pulled everything, which resulted in a three-week delay in uploading the eBooks to the marketing channels.
So, what happened? There were additional embedded links attached to specific words and invisible. After removing the parent link from the three sentences, the coding on the secondary hyperlinks remained.
This is what you see in your document:
Estelle screamed.
Looks good, right? Wrong. While in your master Word document, hit ALT + F9 This is what you’ll see:
Estelle { HYPERLINK http://www.lefraser.com/ }.
If you are an Indie author working in Word, the easiest method to confirm you have removed ALL hyperlinks in your manuscript is hitting ALT + F9 before conducting your final proof. Don’t EVER convert your document to an eBook without taking this step.
All authors spend hours researching. It’s oodles of fun trying to get specialists to offer their time. Consequently, the easier route is to research online. So long as you double check the integrity of the professional sites and cross-reference all your research to validate the information, you’re good to go. After all, you have to engage in fact checking regardless of whether you look up the information or speak with a human.
In Simon Says, Perdition Games, a character is quoting from the Canadian Constitution. After finding and validating the quote, I copied verbatim and removed the hyperlink. When the book galley arrived, nothing weird showed up on the PDF lay-up. The formatting also looked great on the respective device (Kobo, Nook and Kindle).
However, I’m a control freak and wanted to read every word of the electronic files on each of the devices. The copy was identical to the PDF galleys, no surprise but good to check. Then... I reached the quote. Three random words were underlined. Hyperlinks! Worse, the redirection links landed on sites I’d never visited. We pulled everything, which resulted in a three-week delay in uploading the eBooks to the marketing channels.
So, what happened? There were additional embedded links attached to specific words and invisible. After removing the parent link from the three sentences, the coding on the secondary hyperlinks remained.
This is what you see in your document:
Estelle screamed.
Looks good, right? Wrong. While in your master Word document, hit ALT + F9 This is what you’ll see:
Estelle { HYPERLINK http://www.lefraser.com/ }.
If you are an Indie author working in Word, the easiest method to confirm you have removed ALL hyperlinks in your manuscript is hitting ALT + F9 before conducting your final proof. Don’t EVER convert your document to an eBook without taking this step.
July 22, 2014
Top Five Stupid Author Mistakes: #3
#3 Expect everyone you know to be over the moon about your book.
Keep in mind, these are MY dumb errors upon retrospect. Just wait for the horror of #1 where I bring stupidity to a new level.
The foundation of a great marketing plan is to know your primary target market and to develop a unique selling point that speaks to them. Creating a single line USP that hooks a reader’s interest is the hardest part of the marketing plan. Without it, you can’t promote successfully. In a saturated market filled with oodles of hopeful authors, a great cover and book blurb won’t cut it. You must have that USP tag line and direct it at your target audience. Don’t waste precious time promoting to people who don’t read because it hurts their brain. Don’t exhaust yourself trying to convince someone who is an avid non-fiction reader to give your mystery a whirl. Why invite more rejection into your world?
Sure, announce your book release to everyone you can. Send an email to every contact you possess. Pull out cards promoting your book everywhere you go. Most likely, many of these people don't fit your target demographics. There’s no need to take their lack of eagerness as a self-confidence sucking affront and curl into the fetal position to enjoy a good cry.
As you write your novel, consider what makes it unique and what type of person would enjoy it. Prior to publication, ensure you know your target market well and have a good idea of where to find them. Speak to the right reader, the right bloggers and the right reviewers. Seems like common sense, right? Yup, hence the reason these are “stupid” mistakes.
Joining a cult is easy, getting out alive is another story
For readers who like unorthodox mysteries with characters portraying psychologically challenged behaviour. SIMON SAYS, PERDITION GAMES
www.lefraser.com
Keep in mind, these are MY dumb errors upon retrospect. Just wait for the horror of #1 where I bring stupidity to a new level.
The foundation of a great marketing plan is to know your primary target market and to develop a unique selling point that speaks to them. Creating a single line USP that hooks a reader’s interest is the hardest part of the marketing plan. Without it, you can’t promote successfully. In a saturated market filled with oodles of hopeful authors, a great cover and book blurb won’t cut it. You must have that USP tag line and direct it at your target audience. Don’t waste precious time promoting to people who don’t read because it hurts their brain. Don’t exhaust yourself trying to convince someone who is an avid non-fiction reader to give your mystery a whirl. Why invite more rejection into your world?
Sure, announce your book release to everyone you can. Send an email to every contact you possess. Pull out cards promoting your book everywhere you go. Most likely, many of these people don't fit your target demographics. There’s no need to take their lack of eagerness as a self-confidence sucking affront and curl into the fetal position to enjoy a good cry.
As you write your novel, consider what makes it unique and what type of person would enjoy it. Prior to publication, ensure you know your target market well and have a good idea of where to find them. Speak to the right reader, the right bloggers and the right reviewers. Seems like common sense, right? Yup, hence the reason these are “stupid” mistakes.
Joining a cult is easy, getting out alive is another story
For readers who like unorthodox mysteries with characters portraying psychologically challenged behaviour. SIMON SAYS, PERDITION GAMES
www.lefraser.com
July 13, 2014
Top Five Stupid Author Mistakes: #4
#4: Procrastinating about the website & social media
The website and Perdition Games social media launched a month after the first book in the series, Simon Says... how dumb is that?
Even though your book is not launching for six months or more, it is monumentally stupid to ignore the social media side. It isn't that people didn't warn me. The nagging was relentless. So, why did I procrastinate?
Novelists typically are not huge fans of the promotional side of publishing. There are exceptions, and those authors deserve admiration. I like to huddle in the office, crouch over the computer and write. There comes a time when you have to wake up and smell the coffee. No, you don't have oodles of time to worry about it later.
As the release date of Simon Says loomed, the social media discomfort morphed into something that resembled terror. I feverishly researched and felt overwhelmed. The only advice my sons gave was not to be a “twitter-twatter”. How do you avoid it, when you don’t know what it is? The book's social media resembled balancing on the head of a pin with sharks circling below. Ignoring it was a fine idea. Playing with the pugs was more fun. Pearl, Porsche and Cole received many walks and treats. Then, the publisher announced that the book was available on the marketing channels, driving traffic to the website, Twitter and Facebook... which didn’t exist.
Will this author ever leap from her bed excited to embrace the Perdition Games social media? Hum, probably not, worried as I am over becoming a twitter-twatter. However, it is great fun finding other interesting people to follow, because there is a wealth of neat stuff out there. Many photographers and musicians are brilliant. Every time someone follows Perdition Games, I’m utterly thrilled and the pugs get a run in the forest to celebrate. Help keep a pug slim and happy, please follow us at https://twitter.com/PerditionGames
Next week: #3 Expecting everyone you know to care about your book
The website and Perdition Games social media launched a month after the first book in the series, Simon Says... how dumb is that?
Even though your book is not launching for six months or more, it is monumentally stupid to ignore the social media side. It isn't that people didn't warn me. The nagging was relentless. So, why did I procrastinate?
Novelists typically are not huge fans of the promotional side of publishing. There are exceptions, and those authors deserve admiration. I like to huddle in the office, crouch over the computer and write. There comes a time when you have to wake up and smell the coffee. No, you don't have oodles of time to worry about it later.
As the release date of Simon Says loomed, the social media discomfort morphed into something that resembled terror. I feverishly researched and felt overwhelmed. The only advice my sons gave was not to be a “twitter-twatter”. How do you avoid it, when you don’t know what it is? The book's social media resembled balancing on the head of a pin with sharks circling below. Ignoring it was a fine idea. Playing with the pugs was more fun. Pearl, Porsche and Cole received many walks and treats. Then, the publisher announced that the book was available on the marketing channels, driving traffic to the website, Twitter and Facebook... which didn’t exist.
Will this author ever leap from her bed excited to embrace the Perdition Games social media? Hum, probably not, worried as I am over becoming a twitter-twatter. However, it is great fun finding other interesting people to follow, because there is a wealth of neat stuff out there. Many photographers and musicians are brilliant. Every time someone follows Perdition Games, I’m utterly thrilled and the pugs get a run in the forest to celebrate. Help keep a pug slim and happy, please follow us at https://twitter.com/PerditionGames
Next week: #3 Expecting everyone you know to care about your book
July 6, 2014
Top Five Stupid Author Mistakes: #5
Since self-effacing humour is the best medicine for stupidity, over the next five weeks, I'm going to share the dumbest mistakes I made pre- and post-publication of Simon Says.
#5: Writing the whole first draft and then talking with my editor
I love my editor. Why does she put up with me? I wrote all of Simon Says and then sent it to her, "Ta-da! What do you think?"
It had potential... if half of it was cut and the other half was rewritten. She was right and so we did. I then turned around and made exactly the same mistake with Skully. For some miraculous reason, she's still working with me. Skully promises to be an exciting addition to the Perdition Games series.
The issue with writing the entire draft without the guidance of an editor is that you love your darlings and the neat-o things they're doing. It all makes perfect sense to you. You’ve researched and made-up brilliant storylines that are expertly woven through your plot. Right?
Wrong, you’ve meandered down the avenue of didactic writing with cut-out characters and confusing POVs. You could have saved yourself a lot of pain and misery had you sent your premise, character sketches and outline to your editor first. A professional and objective evaluation of your ideas will save you months of rewriting.
Do I always do as I'm told? Nope, I can be a wee bit stubborn, often to my detriment. If you aren't keen on a part of Simon Says, it's because I didn't take the advice of my editor. The parts you love are because I did.
Next week - #4: Procrastinating about the author website!
#5: Writing the whole first draft and then talking with my editor
I love my editor. Why does she put up with me? I wrote all of Simon Says and then sent it to her, "Ta-da! What do you think?"
It had potential... if half of it was cut and the other half was rewritten. She was right and so we did. I then turned around and made exactly the same mistake with Skully. For some miraculous reason, she's still working with me. Skully promises to be an exciting addition to the Perdition Games series.
The issue with writing the entire draft without the guidance of an editor is that you love your darlings and the neat-o things they're doing. It all makes perfect sense to you. You’ve researched and made-up brilliant storylines that are expertly woven through your plot. Right?
Wrong, you’ve meandered down the avenue of didactic writing with cut-out characters and confusing POVs. You could have saved yourself a lot of pain and misery had you sent your premise, character sketches and outline to your editor first. A professional and objective evaluation of your ideas will save you months of rewriting.
Do I always do as I'm told? Nope, I can be a wee bit stubborn, often to my detriment. If you aren't keen on a part of Simon Says, it's because I didn't take the advice of my editor. The parts you love are because I did.
Next week - #4: Procrastinating about the author website!
July 1, 2014
Happy Birthday Canada!
You look great for 147! For those of you who will be on the East Coast between July 1 and the 8th, try to get tickets to the Royal International Tattoo at the Metro Centre in Halifax. It is the world’s largest annual indoor show and is spectacular http://www.nstattoo.ca/
Simon Falconer wrote a coffee table book about the Tattoo and the history of the show. It’s well worth reading. Fantastic photos and informative, interesting copy.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Simon Falconer wrote a coffee table book about the Tattoo and the history of the show. It’s well worth reading. Fantastic photos and informative, interesting copy.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
June 28, 2014
Giveaway gifts have been sent!
For the ten winners of the Simon Says, Perdition Games giveaway, I wanted to let you know that the packages have all been sent out.
Two are going to Australia, one to Great Britain, and seven to the USA.
The shipping origin is Canada, so depending on where you are located, you will receive your package in 6 to 10 days.
In the unlikely event you don't receive it, please contact me via my website http://www.lefraser.com
Thank you for participating, congratulations on winning and happy reading. I hope you enjoy.
Two are going to Australia, one to Great Britain, and seven to the USA.
The shipping origin is Canada, so depending on where you are located, you will receive your package in 6 to 10 days.
In the unlikely event you don't receive it, please contact me via my website http://www.lefraser.com
Thank you for participating, congratulations on winning and happy reading. I hope you enjoy.
