Stylo Fantome's Blog, page 5
July 14, 2014
Never Judge a Book by Its Cover ..., Unless It's Mine, In Which Case, You Better Judge It To Be Awesome!
Drum Roll, Please ....
I finally have a cover! YAY!
Actually, I've had the cover for quite some time, but I signed up for a “cover reveal” with a blog, and they set the reveal date, so there ya have it! It was very hard keeping it a secret.
My cover was designed by the AMAZING Najla Qamber at http://www.najlaqamberdesigns.com/. If you haven't seen her work, GO CHECK IT OUT RIGHT NOW! The only part I had in it was the font for the title, and the woman. Everything else, including the tag-line, was all Najla. Genius. I feel unworthy of such a nice cover. I think it fits the book PERFECTLY, down to the little “S” on his cufflink. S-for-Satan, of course.
I go to shutterstock.com a lot for inspiration. It's amazing how much a picture can inspire me. Sometime while I was writing the book, I can't remember when, I came across the picture of the girl. I liked it because it's interesting and she is pretty, but I didn't think much about it at the time. She wasn't Tate – her face was too round, and her eyes are blue. I imagine Tate to have a more narrow face, and she has dark brown eyes.
But as I sent off my ideas for the cover, I kept going back to that picture of the girl. I began to associate it with the book. Whenever I thought of the cover, I thought of that girl. So I sent it to Najla, and told her that picture captured how I felt about the book, but I didn't know if it would work.
Naj's response? “Oh, I'll make it work.”
The picture of the girl was a head shot, only down to the neck. Not a problem! Najla reduced the image's size, gave her some shoulders, and then layered her on top of the man. Can't even tell! It looks like one picture.
Magic.
I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to picture manipulation. I can barely edit in Paint on Microsoft. I can barely draw a stick figure. It's vair sad. Thank god graphic designers exist, or else I'd be lost!
So thank you to Najla, to the amazing cover.
Thank you to Forever Me Romance book blog, http://forevermeromance.blogspot.com.au/, for setting up my cover reveal and all my other promo stuff. Awesome job with all the html. Another thing I'm helpless at!
And thank you to all the blogs who signed up for the reveal, it means a lot. Being an indie author is hard work. Being a new, unknown indie author? Even harder. It's like chucking pebbles into the ocean – only 80 million other people have the same idea.
I just hope some of my waves make it to shore!
To keep up to date on this stuff, head to my facebook page:
facebook.com/stylofantomeauthor
And hey, someone awesome even started a street team for me! For reals! If interested in following or joing, go to my page and hit me up!
I finally have a cover! YAY!
Actually, I've had the cover for quite some time, but I signed up for a “cover reveal” with a blog, and they set the reveal date, so there ya have it! It was very hard keeping it a secret.
My cover was designed by the AMAZING Najla Qamber at http://www.najlaqamberdesigns.com/. If you haven't seen her work, GO CHECK IT OUT RIGHT NOW! The only part I had in it was the font for the title, and the woman. Everything else, including the tag-line, was all Najla. Genius. I feel unworthy of such a nice cover. I think it fits the book PERFECTLY, down to the little “S” on his cufflink. S-for-Satan, of course.
I go to shutterstock.com a lot for inspiration. It's amazing how much a picture can inspire me. Sometime while I was writing the book, I can't remember when, I came across the picture of the girl. I liked it because it's interesting and she is pretty, but I didn't think much about it at the time. She wasn't Tate – her face was too round, and her eyes are blue. I imagine Tate to have a more narrow face, and she has dark brown eyes.
But as I sent off my ideas for the cover, I kept going back to that picture of the girl. I began to associate it with the book. Whenever I thought of the cover, I thought of that girl. So I sent it to Najla, and told her that picture captured how I felt about the book, but I didn't know if it would work.
Naj's response? “Oh, I'll make it work.”
The picture of the girl was a head shot, only down to the neck. Not a problem! Najla reduced the image's size, gave her some shoulders, and then layered her on top of the man. Can't even tell! It looks like one picture.
Magic.
I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to picture manipulation. I can barely edit in Paint on Microsoft. I can barely draw a stick figure. It's vair sad. Thank god graphic designers exist, or else I'd be lost!
So thank you to Najla, to the amazing cover.
Thank you to Forever Me Romance book blog, http://forevermeromance.blogspot.com.au/, for setting up my cover reveal and all my other promo stuff. Awesome job with all the html. Another thing I'm helpless at!
And thank you to all the blogs who signed up for the reveal, it means a lot. Being an indie author is hard work. Being a new, unknown indie author? Even harder. It's like chucking pebbles into the ocean – only 80 million other people have the same idea.
I just hope some of my waves make it to shore!
To keep up to date on this stuff, head to my facebook page:
facebook.com/stylofantomeauthor
And hey, someone awesome even started a street team for me! For reals! If interested in following or joing, go to my page and hit me up!
July 7, 2014
Let's Talk About Sex, Baby (but not you and me, cause that would be weird …)
(WARNING: I DO TALK ABOUT SUBJECT MATTER THAT'S IN THE BOOK. NO SPOILERS, BUT I KNOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO GO INTO A BOOK COMPLETELY BLIND)
Okay, I'm gonna keep it 110% real with y'all, I've decided. So let's do it. Let's talk about SEX.
I have talked about this in posts on Facebook, but I'll repeat some stuff. 98% of the world is going have, has had, and will continue to have, sex. The big nasty. So basically, EVERYONE is doing it, but most people act like it's the biggest, dirtiest secret ever. Um, most people breathe, too, but we don't treat that like it's a dirty little secret. Should we? For god's sake, we also pee and poop, and even those aren't treated as taboo as sex, which is just weird, in my opinion.
I like sex. I'm going to assume most of you do, too. Feels pretty awesome, is usually a lot of fun. I'm gonna hope most of you have the same feelings about it, and if you don't …, I am very, very sorry.
I don't care what people are into – I, myself, to be completely honest, am pretty vanilla. I do not own a sex swing or any ball-gags. Not that I am against those things, they just don't hold too much appeal for me, personally. However, if my husband were to show up at home with a riding crop and handcuffs, I wouldn't say no thank you, either.
So now that you have an idea of the way my tastes run, I hope it shows my thinking regarding my own story. I do not do the things Tate and Jameson do, though I do find them kind of sexy. What's really strange, though, coming from such a vanilla person – I didn't find it dark. I didn't realize that's what it was, when I was writing it. I didn't realize it till I started reading the reviews.
Abusive? Dark? It's all consensual – Tate literally begs for half the stuff Jameson does to her; she MAKES him do some of the things, almost against his will. Several times, throughout the story, he checks with her, asks her if what they're doing is okay. Asks if she thinks there is something wrong with him. I actually worried that would take away from his Alpha-“cred”.
Is it abuse, if one person is asking for it (literally, not figuratively) and the other person is hesitant to deliver?
What does it say about me, that I didn't find these things dark? I thought I was writing about two people who liked kinky, aggressive, “different” sex. I didn't even start using the word “sadomasochistic” till I saw the reviews. I just knew I didn't want to write ANOTHER bondage story. I wanted to write about a different kind of sex-story. The sex never bothered me, never scared me or made me uncomfortable.
I'm very glad I wrote it this way, though, for a lot of different reasons. One of my beta readers, after reading it, told me: “it was creepy, some of the sex scenes were almost verbatim what goes on in bed between my husband and I, it's so nice to see it out there. Nice to know other people are like us.” See? It's all a fantasy, and I'm glad I could represent that for some people. Another reader told me she read parts of the story to her fiancee and then asked him if they could try some of those things out. WOW! I asked her if they had, and was told “ooohhh, yeah. It was AWESOME.” I was flattered beyond words.
I don't want anyone to EVER pee on me, but hey, some people are into it. You go, guys. Good for you. Some people like to have needles inserted into various body parts. Wow. Very brave. And some people like it with the lights off, laying down, nice and quiet. Whatever works for you!
I have just been feeling …, torn? Wondering what is wrong with me, that I didn't find the story dark and/or abusive. I mean, hey, I've read The Dark Duet, and this book ain't that (love those stories, BTW). The way Jameson treats her isn't right, that's for sure – but as a person. That's when he truly turns into Satan. I never associated that with the sex they had; that was something different.
Ultimately, I am very thankful for the positive responses I have gotten, and I am glad that for a small group of people, I could represent them – though I almost don't feel worthy, considering I'm representing something I don't necessarily take part in.
And I hope if you're reading this, if you've read the book, you'll also read the second one and see all the different sides Jameson has to offer. Hard, soft, abusive, giving, generous, jealous …, who knows, maybe even loving?
Oh god, sweetness. Now THAT makes me ill. Give me filthy language and heavy hands any day …
(sounds an awful lot like the devil talking, doesn't it?)
Okay, I'm gonna keep it 110% real with y'all, I've decided. So let's do it. Let's talk about SEX.
I have talked about this in posts on Facebook, but I'll repeat some stuff. 98% of the world is going have, has had, and will continue to have, sex. The big nasty. So basically, EVERYONE is doing it, but most people act like it's the biggest, dirtiest secret ever. Um, most people breathe, too, but we don't treat that like it's a dirty little secret. Should we? For god's sake, we also pee and poop, and even those aren't treated as taboo as sex, which is just weird, in my opinion.
I like sex. I'm going to assume most of you do, too. Feels pretty awesome, is usually a lot of fun. I'm gonna hope most of you have the same feelings about it, and if you don't …, I am very, very sorry.
I don't care what people are into – I, myself, to be completely honest, am pretty vanilla. I do not own a sex swing or any ball-gags. Not that I am against those things, they just don't hold too much appeal for me, personally. However, if my husband were to show up at home with a riding crop and handcuffs, I wouldn't say no thank you, either.
So now that you have an idea of the way my tastes run, I hope it shows my thinking regarding my own story. I do not do the things Tate and Jameson do, though I do find them kind of sexy. What's really strange, though, coming from such a vanilla person – I didn't find it dark. I didn't realize that's what it was, when I was writing it. I didn't realize it till I started reading the reviews.
Abusive? Dark? It's all consensual – Tate literally begs for half the stuff Jameson does to her; she MAKES him do some of the things, almost against his will. Several times, throughout the story, he checks with her, asks her if what they're doing is okay. Asks if she thinks there is something wrong with him. I actually worried that would take away from his Alpha-“cred”.
Is it abuse, if one person is asking for it (literally, not figuratively) and the other person is hesitant to deliver?
What does it say about me, that I didn't find these things dark? I thought I was writing about two people who liked kinky, aggressive, “different” sex. I didn't even start using the word “sadomasochistic” till I saw the reviews. I just knew I didn't want to write ANOTHER bondage story. I wanted to write about a different kind of sex-story. The sex never bothered me, never scared me or made me uncomfortable.
I'm very glad I wrote it this way, though, for a lot of different reasons. One of my beta readers, after reading it, told me: “it was creepy, some of the sex scenes were almost verbatim what goes on in bed between my husband and I, it's so nice to see it out there. Nice to know other people are like us.” See? It's all a fantasy, and I'm glad I could represent that for some people. Another reader told me she read parts of the story to her fiancee and then asked him if they could try some of those things out. WOW! I asked her if they had, and was told “ooohhh, yeah. It was AWESOME.” I was flattered beyond words.
I don't want anyone to EVER pee on me, but hey, some people are into it. You go, guys. Good for you. Some people like to have needles inserted into various body parts. Wow. Very brave. And some people like it with the lights off, laying down, nice and quiet. Whatever works for you!
I have just been feeling …, torn? Wondering what is wrong with me, that I didn't find the story dark and/or abusive. I mean, hey, I've read The Dark Duet, and this book ain't that (love those stories, BTW). The way Jameson treats her isn't right, that's for sure – but as a person. That's when he truly turns into Satan. I never associated that with the sex they had; that was something different.
Ultimately, I am very thankful for the positive responses I have gotten, and I am glad that for a small group of people, I could represent them – though I almost don't feel worthy, considering I'm representing something I don't necessarily take part in.
And I hope if you're reading this, if you've read the book, you'll also read the second one and see all the different sides Jameson has to offer. Hard, soft, abusive, giving, generous, jealous …, who knows, maybe even loving?
Oh god, sweetness. Now THAT makes me ill. Give me filthy language and heavy hands any day …
(sounds an awful lot like the devil talking, doesn't it?)
June 30, 2014
Oh, Starry Night ...
So yeah. Ratings. Reviews. As an author, it's what we live for - what we need to survive in this writing world.
But I'm gonna keep it real with y'all - I am scared shitless of my first 1-star review. And it's coming. Ooohhh, it's coming.
Virtually EVERY book has AT LEAST one 1-star review - and most much more than that. From the beginning of this journey, I have tried to prepare myself for this eventual catastrophe. Everyone gets them, not everyone is going to like what you do, some people have shit-for-taste, blah blah blah. All easy to tell yourself - until you see that star.
NO!!!!! MY LIFE IS OVER!!!! WHY DID I EVEN BOTHER!?!?!? I'M USELESS!!! A WASTE OF SPACE!!!! MY PARENTS SHOULD HAVE LEFT ME IN THE WOODS FOR WOLVES TO RAISE!!!
.... is the general feeling.
YES, I am terrified of that moment. We can all say that we handle rejection and criticism well, but deep down, most of us don't. The negative always sticks more than the positive. Don't know why, it just does. Ten people can tell me my story is awesome, but one person says it's crap, and that's it. Hopes and dreams, crushed against the rocks of despair *insert dying noises here ______*
Of course, I have gotten bad feedback before - Degradation will be my first published story, but not my first book. I have written several over the course of the last ten years. So of course, I have heard the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And the real REAL ugly. One story, a beta reader didn't sugar coat it at all - I was repetitive, boring, plotless; my characters either too over the top, or too forgettable.
Jesus, why did I even bother being born?
Days. Those comments ate at me for DAYS. It's like someone stepping on a piece of your heart. It sounds cheesy, but it's the truth. That wise sage, Will Smith, said in a song once "I'm not just giving you an album, I'm giving you a piece of me, and when you say you don't like it, it's like you're saying you don't like me." Maybe that's why it hurts so much - that reader just didn't like ME. And/or my child, which is really what a book feels like - something I created and threw out into the world as a mini-representation of the best I have to give. And pffffffft, someone craps all over it. Heart. Crushed.
And there is also guilt and confusion that go along with it. Quite frankly, I didn't agree with her. Isn't that wrong? That's what bothered me the most. Am I blind to my own faults? Or is this person just giving bad feedback? Is it egotistical for me to think that? Or could it just possibly be true?
Eventually, I got over it. Yeah, it stung. It hurt. It SUCKED, big time. But eventually I turned my thinking around (like a true egotist), and now whenever I get bad feedback, I just repeat some things to myself. So I'm going to pass them along, and hope that it can help someone else.
There are some VERY big name books out there that I absolutely DID NOT like. I mean, with a passion. Like, I wish I could unread them, get those hours of my life back. Thought they were god-fucking-awful, and what is wrong with everyone that they all love them so much!?
Now, if I had been a beta reader for those books, I would've told the author that - I would've said, this is horrible. Don't quit your day job, because writing just isn't for you. And I would have been WRONG, cause these people are selling thousands and thousands of books, have gone from indie to published, and have more followers and fans than I can probably ever dream of. What if they had listened to me?
Sometimes, you just have to pick and choose. Take the advice, but don't compromise your vision. Realize that not everyone is going to like the way you write, or what you write. Understand that some people, though they review, are incapable of being truly objective. Know that sometimes, you do bad work, and need to be corrected.
But mostly - keep lots of liquor and snacks around, and I hope you have a best friend's shoulder to cry on (or several, as was my case). Trust me, after about a week of a bad review/beta comment chomping away at your soul, you start to let it go.
Now my question is ..., when does it get easier!?
But I'm gonna keep it real with y'all - I am scared shitless of my first 1-star review. And it's coming. Ooohhh, it's coming.
Virtually EVERY book has AT LEAST one 1-star review - and most much more than that. From the beginning of this journey, I have tried to prepare myself for this eventual catastrophe. Everyone gets them, not everyone is going to like what you do, some people have shit-for-taste, blah blah blah. All easy to tell yourself - until you see that star.
NO!!!!! MY LIFE IS OVER!!!! WHY DID I EVEN BOTHER!?!?!? I'M USELESS!!! A WASTE OF SPACE!!!! MY PARENTS SHOULD HAVE LEFT ME IN THE WOODS FOR WOLVES TO RAISE!!!
.... is the general feeling.
YES, I am terrified of that moment. We can all say that we handle rejection and criticism well, but deep down, most of us don't. The negative always sticks more than the positive. Don't know why, it just does. Ten people can tell me my story is awesome, but one person says it's crap, and that's it. Hopes and dreams, crushed against the rocks of despair *insert dying noises here ______*
Of course, I have gotten bad feedback before - Degradation will be my first published story, but not my first book. I have written several over the course of the last ten years. So of course, I have heard the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And the real REAL ugly. One story, a beta reader didn't sugar coat it at all - I was repetitive, boring, plotless; my characters either too over the top, or too forgettable.
Jesus, why did I even bother being born?
Days. Those comments ate at me for DAYS. It's like someone stepping on a piece of your heart. It sounds cheesy, but it's the truth. That wise sage, Will Smith, said in a song once "I'm not just giving you an album, I'm giving you a piece of me, and when you say you don't like it, it's like you're saying you don't like me." Maybe that's why it hurts so much - that reader just didn't like ME. And/or my child, which is really what a book feels like - something I created and threw out into the world as a mini-representation of the best I have to give. And pffffffft, someone craps all over it. Heart. Crushed.
And there is also guilt and confusion that go along with it. Quite frankly, I didn't agree with her. Isn't that wrong? That's what bothered me the most. Am I blind to my own faults? Or is this person just giving bad feedback? Is it egotistical for me to think that? Or could it just possibly be true?
Eventually, I got over it. Yeah, it stung. It hurt. It SUCKED, big time. But eventually I turned my thinking around (like a true egotist), and now whenever I get bad feedback, I just repeat some things to myself. So I'm going to pass them along, and hope that it can help someone else.
There are some VERY big name books out there that I absolutely DID NOT like. I mean, with a passion. Like, I wish I could unread them, get those hours of my life back. Thought they were god-fucking-awful, and what is wrong with everyone that they all love them so much!?
Now, if I had been a beta reader for those books, I would've told the author that - I would've said, this is horrible. Don't quit your day job, because writing just isn't for you. And I would have been WRONG, cause these people are selling thousands and thousands of books, have gone from indie to published, and have more followers and fans than I can probably ever dream of. What if they had listened to me?
Sometimes, you just have to pick and choose. Take the advice, but don't compromise your vision. Realize that not everyone is going to like the way you write, or what you write. Understand that some people, though they review, are incapable of being truly objective. Know that sometimes, you do bad work, and need to be corrected.
But mostly - keep lots of liquor and snacks around, and I hope you have a best friend's shoulder to cry on (or several, as was my case). Trust me, after about a week of a bad review/beta comment chomping away at your soul, you start to let it go.
Now my question is ..., when does it get easier!?
June 23, 2014
ARC Warning! Warning! This is Only a Warning!
So most people who beta read Degradation noticed I added a disclaimer at the beginning. These seem to be all the rage, and why not?
Funny thing is, I don't necessarily put it there so people won't "pirate". At this point in the game, I'm a nobody. Who wants to pirate something that no one has ever heard of? Is it even pirating?
Also, what exactly does pirating entail? A million years ago, I used to record movie off of TV on to VHS tapes (what are those!? some of you are asking, god), and then sometimes I would take them to a friends house for a slumber party, or they would bring their own tapes to my house. Sometimes, we would make mix-tapes with music and give those to friends or whoever. Is THAT pirating? Did we all pirate our way through the 80's and 90's?
Vair confusing. So I thought a lot about it. If I send an ARC/Beta copy of my book to a person, do I want them just handing it out willy-nilly? NO. If they loved my book so much that they just HAVE to share it with their bestie, do I think that's awesome? YES. Some fine lines there!
We indie authors work hard. We don't have a whole publishing team behind us. A lot of the time, we don't have anyone, to start with - we are doing this purely out of love. So when I decided I was going to write a disclaimer asking people not to give my shit away, I decided to explain exactly what I go through, so they could understand why I would prefer it if they didn't just bandy my story about.
Let me take you through a day in my life as an “indie author”. I get up at 6:30am, feed my dogs and let them out. Then I get ready and go to my real-job at 8am. I work all day – we get paid for our lunch breaks, and thus are required to stay at work and help if needed (aka, some days there are virtually no lunch breaks). I get off at 4pm, and Tuesday-Saturday, I go home, I make popcorn, I plug my laptop into its cooler, and I sit down and start typing. I try to stop around 6pm to feed the dogs and nibble on something for myself. If it's been a hard day at real-work, sometimes I'll quit the computer around 11pm. Usually, though, I go till 1am – that is my cut off time, unless I'm “in the zone”. Stopping at 1am means I usually don't go to sleep-sleep till closer to 2am. Sunday and Monday are my days off, so right now while I'm in the middle of setting up a release, I am getting up, getting on my computer, and then not getting off of it until it's time for bed.
Do the math. 8 hours at my real-job. Another 8-ish on my writing-job. And one of these jobs does not pay, as of yet. I do it out of love and compulsion, and to appease the voices in my head. When I am working on a book, I have virtually no social life, I ignore my family, everything becomes about the book. I write, I edit, I beta-read, I run my social websites, I follow multiple blogs, and I am my “marketing department”, so yes, indie authors work hard.
I do not expect to rake in the dough for my efforts, but I also don't want anyone ripping off my hard work. And what's really a worry for me, right now in my beginning stages, people who take/download/accept pirated copies are less likely to leave reviews – which is a killer. I am a very generous person and would love for anyone to read my book. If someone wants to read it badly enough to pirate it, I would ask that they e-mail me personally, and maybe something could be arranged. If the person reading this right now loves my story and has a friend that just MUST read it – contact me. We'll talk it over. I have several ways I can be reached: here, Facebook, stylofantome@gmail.com. Sharing is caring, but only when done appropriately and with the author's full knowledge and cooperation.
So with all that said – know that with every ARC I send out, I change one teeny, tiny thing in each copy. So if something does get pirated, or leaked, or distributed, I can trace it back to the person that did it. Seriously. A two sentence e-mail is all it takes, and we can start a dialogue. Please don't steal.
And if you do anyway, for the love of god, please leave a review. You owe me that much, at least.
Honestly, "pirating" and "unlawful distribution" don't scare me at this juncture - as I said, I'm a nobody. But what does scare me - what has scared me since I was very young - is losing control of my own work.
We all see those messages, when you sign up for Facebook or Grooveshark or Macys.com, whatever, a little "Do You Accept These Terms and Conditions?" box. We never actually read them, do we? I couldn't care less if Macy's sells my e-mail address, or what kind of shoes I like to buy, to some outside company.
But when I signed up for Draft-to-Digital and Amazon Direct Publishing, I read every single word in those contracts. My work belongs to ME, and no one else. Even if no one ever reads my work, or they do, but they all hate it, it's still MINE. My blood, sweat, and tears. I would hate it if I accidently signed those rights away.
But I would hate it even more if someone STOLE it. I have a silly, irrational, fear that there could be a possibility that someone could read my work, and like it ..., enough to plagiarize it. THAT would piss me off. THAT would make pull out the big guns. I don't have a publishing house behind me to help me sue someone, but I could come to someone's house and beat them over the head with a copy of my book, if I found out they were using it for their own gain.
That shit's not cute.
And THAT'S why I find the ARC/Beta warning necessary.
Because I'm paranoid, and apparently vain. And maybe, just maybe, a little crazy. But hey, you've been warned!
#sorrynotsorry
Funny thing is, I don't necessarily put it there so people won't "pirate". At this point in the game, I'm a nobody. Who wants to pirate something that no one has ever heard of? Is it even pirating?
Also, what exactly does pirating entail? A million years ago, I used to record movie off of TV on to VHS tapes (what are those!? some of you are asking, god), and then sometimes I would take them to a friends house for a slumber party, or they would bring their own tapes to my house. Sometimes, we would make mix-tapes with music and give those to friends or whoever. Is THAT pirating? Did we all pirate our way through the 80's and 90's?
Vair confusing. So I thought a lot about it. If I send an ARC/Beta copy of my book to a person, do I want them just handing it out willy-nilly? NO. If they loved my book so much that they just HAVE to share it with their bestie, do I think that's awesome? YES. Some fine lines there!
We indie authors work hard. We don't have a whole publishing team behind us. A lot of the time, we don't have anyone, to start with - we are doing this purely out of love. So when I decided I was going to write a disclaimer asking people not to give my shit away, I decided to explain exactly what I go through, so they could understand why I would prefer it if they didn't just bandy my story about.
Let me take you through a day in my life as an “indie author”. I get up at 6:30am, feed my dogs and let them out. Then I get ready and go to my real-job at 8am. I work all day – we get paid for our lunch breaks, and thus are required to stay at work and help if needed (aka, some days there are virtually no lunch breaks). I get off at 4pm, and Tuesday-Saturday, I go home, I make popcorn, I plug my laptop into its cooler, and I sit down and start typing. I try to stop around 6pm to feed the dogs and nibble on something for myself. If it's been a hard day at real-work, sometimes I'll quit the computer around 11pm. Usually, though, I go till 1am – that is my cut off time, unless I'm “in the zone”. Stopping at 1am means I usually don't go to sleep-sleep till closer to 2am. Sunday and Monday are my days off, so right now while I'm in the middle of setting up a release, I am getting up, getting on my computer, and then not getting off of it until it's time for bed.
Do the math. 8 hours at my real-job. Another 8-ish on my writing-job. And one of these jobs does not pay, as of yet. I do it out of love and compulsion, and to appease the voices in my head. When I am working on a book, I have virtually no social life, I ignore my family, everything becomes about the book. I write, I edit, I beta-read, I run my social websites, I follow multiple blogs, and I am my “marketing department”, so yes, indie authors work hard.
I do not expect to rake in the dough for my efforts, but I also don't want anyone ripping off my hard work. And what's really a worry for me, right now in my beginning stages, people who take/download/accept pirated copies are less likely to leave reviews – which is a killer. I am a very generous person and would love for anyone to read my book. If someone wants to read it badly enough to pirate it, I would ask that they e-mail me personally, and maybe something could be arranged. If the person reading this right now loves my story and has a friend that just MUST read it – contact me. We'll talk it over. I have several ways I can be reached: here, Facebook, stylofantome@gmail.com. Sharing is caring, but only when done appropriately and with the author's full knowledge and cooperation.
So with all that said – know that with every ARC I send out, I change one teeny, tiny thing in each copy. So if something does get pirated, or leaked, or distributed, I can trace it back to the person that did it. Seriously. A two sentence e-mail is all it takes, and we can start a dialogue. Please don't steal.
And if you do anyway, for the love of god, please leave a review. You owe me that much, at least.
Honestly, "pirating" and "unlawful distribution" don't scare me at this juncture - as I said, I'm a nobody. But what does scare me - what has scared me since I was very young - is losing control of my own work.
We all see those messages, when you sign up for Facebook or Grooveshark or Macys.com, whatever, a little "Do You Accept These Terms and Conditions?" box. We never actually read them, do we? I couldn't care less if Macy's sells my e-mail address, or what kind of shoes I like to buy, to some outside company.
But when I signed up for Draft-to-Digital and Amazon Direct Publishing, I read every single word in those contracts. My work belongs to ME, and no one else. Even if no one ever reads my work, or they do, but they all hate it, it's still MINE. My blood, sweat, and tears. I would hate it if I accidently signed those rights away.
But I would hate it even more if someone STOLE it. I have a silly, irrational, fear that there could be a possibility that someone could read my work, and like it ..., enough to plagiarize it. THAT would piss me off. THAT would make pull out the big guns. I don't have a publishing house behind me to help me sue someone, but I could come to someone's house and beat them over the head with a copy of my book, if I found out they were using it for their own gain.
That shit's not cute.
And THAT'S why I find the ARC/Beta warning necessary.
Because I'm paranoid, and apparently vain. And maybe, just maybe, a little crazy. But hey, you've been warned!
#sorrynotsorry
June 16, 2014
Blog? Vlog? Log? What the ...,
So it says I should have a blog. Everyone has a blog. But what am I supposed to write about? I spend a vast majority of my time writing about other people - I'm not entirely sure that I know how to write something from myself.
So it's my first Blllllooooog - a "Web Log", as a friend explained the word to me! - and I guess I should explain myself and the type of stories I like to write.
I'm a fairly silly, nutty person, (don't know if you could tell) who takes a very light hearted approach to life. I try and eliminate all stress from life; I am vair go with the flow. "The universe tends to unfold as it should," as the movie Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle so wisely taught me. Stressing only ever created more stress, so there ya go. Happy happy, joy joy thoughts.
My writing, on the other hand, tends to lean towards angst. Sometimes dark. A little dirty. Sometimes a lot dirty. I think there are humorous parts - usually from side characters - but on the whole, I don't write humorous book. Not sure how this came about, because I like to read humorous books (seriously, David Wong. I would marry him ..., if both of us weren't already married ..., and if he knew I existed).
I have SIX completed books, awaiting publishing. I wrote one, and I love it, it's kind of like a first born child, but I just knew it wasn't "the one", the first release. So I wrote another story, trying to build up my "alpha male" muscles. I luuuuurve to read about an alpha male, but I didn't write them so well - in real life, I prefer guys like myself; happy-go-lucky, go with the flow, funny. So writing an alpha was kind of foreign to me.
A two part story was born, Pen vs. Sword. I wanted to write something that had an alpha male, a likable female lead, and also represented what I felt was a REAL relationship. None of this two-weeks-oh-we're-in-love-but-we've-never-actually-spoken-because-we're-too-busy-alternately-fucking-and-fighting stuff. I wanted something I, and other women, could relate to in a real sense.
But as I was finishing up the very last draft of the first part - it has been edited and beta read and is basically ready for the publish button - Jameson's story was born.
And I mean, it BURST out of me. I turned into a freakin' zombie. My husband was worried about me. I wrote all night, I snuck into the bathroom at work to write on it, I barely ate, I just wrote, wrote, wrote. The story DEMANDED release, there was no other option.
And as I was typing it, I just kinda new. This was the book. The book, the one that should be first. I made the working title "Degradation", and it just kind of stuck.
The next two pieces of work didn't fall out of me quite as easily - I doubt anything will ever again. Writing Degradation was a unique experience.
I have been writing stories since I learned how to write - no joke. It sounds corny, but it's the truth. In second grade, they made us take computer classes, and they had the Oregon Trail computer "game" (am I showing my age yet!?) and a typing test - one of the portions of the test was free typing. I took to it like a duck to water. I mean, a medium that allowed me to put down the words almost as quickly as I could think them!? Mind. Blown. I now type around 90 wpm, with an 96% accuracy. Comes in handy, for those zombie-writer moments.
I used to write paranormal - all through high school, that was my preferred genre. Vampires, psychic energy, that kind of stuff. Then I stopped writing for a while. I mean, you never really stop, not in your head, but I stopped putting words to paper.
It wasn't until I read a book, and realized it was self-published, that my brain kind of clicked back on. Then, I was reading another self-published book, and in the acknowledgements, the author thanked a particular book blog.
"Book blog? Qoi?" I had to investigate, and OH MY GOD, there are other people out there that read the same stuff I read!? People who love to read and review this stuff!? E.L. James started out writing fanfiction!? She's got a major motion picture coming out!! HOW COULD I NOT KNOW THIS STUFF!?!?
Life. Changed.
So I started writing again. I worried it wouldn't come back as easily. I was wrong. I mean, who knows if I'm good; I think I'm good, but I might just be a tad bias. But the words certainly pour out of me.
So there you have it. My first blog. My first book. I hope you enjoy both. There may be more blogs. There will definitely be more books.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have recently acquired all the seasons of AbFab, and I find myself trying to figure how to turn it into a religion ...
So it's my first Blllllooooog - a "Web Log", as a friend explained the word to me! - and I guess I should explain myself and the type of stories I like to write.
I'm a fairly silly, nutty person, (don't know if you could tell) who takes a very light hearted approach to life. I try and eliminate all stress from life; I am vair go with the flow. "The universe tends to unfold as it should," as the movie Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle so wisely taught me. Stressing only ever created more stress, so there ya go. Happy happy, joy joy thoughts.
My writing, on the other hand, tends to lean towards angst. Sometimes dark. A little dirty. Sometimes a lot dirty. I think there are humorous parts - usually from side characters - but on the whole, I don't write humorous book. Not sure how this came about, because I like to read humorous books (seriously, David Wong. I would marry him ..., if both of us weren't already married ..., and if he knew I existed).
I have SIX completed books, awaiting publishing. I wrote one, and I love it, it's kind of like a first born child, but I just knew it wasn't "the one", the first release. So I wrote another story, trying to build up my "alpha male" muscles. I luuuuurve to read about an alpha male, but I didn't write them so well - in real life, I prefer guys like myself; happy-go-lucky, go with the flow, funny. So writing an alpha was kind of foreign to me.
A two part story was born, Pen vs. Sword. I wanted to write something that had an alpha male, a likable female lead, and also represented what I felt was a REAL relationship. None of this two-weeks-oh-we're-in-love-but-we've-never-actually-spoken-because-we're-too-busy-alternately-fucking-and-fighting stuff. I wanted something I, and other women, could relate to in a real sense.
But as I was finishing up the very last draft of the first part - it has been edited and beta read and is basically ready for the publish button - Jameson's story was born.
And I mean, it BURST out of me. I turned into a freakin' zombie. My husband was worried about me. I wrote all night, I snuck into the bathroom at work to write on it, I barely ate, I just wrote, wrote, wrote. The story DEMANDED release, there was no other option.
And as I was typing it, I just kinda new. This was the book. The book, the one that should be first. I made the working title "Degradation", and it just kind of stuck.
The next two pieces of work didn't fall out of me quite as easily - I doubt anything will ever again. Writing Degradation was a unique experience.
I have been writing stories since I learned how to write - no joke. It sounds corny, but it's the truth. In second grade, they made us take computer classes, and they had the Oregon Trail computer "game" (am I showing my age yet!?) and a typing test - one of the portions of the test was free typing. I took to it like a duck to water. I mean, a medium that allowed me to put down the words almost as quickly as I could think them!? Mind. Blown. I now type around 90 wpm, with an 96% accuracy. Comes in handy, for those zombie-writer moments.
I used to write paranormal - all through high school, that was my preferred genre. Vampires, psychic energy, that kind of stuff. Then I stopped writing for a while. I mean, you never really stop, not in your head, but I stopped putting words to paper.
It wasn't until I read a book, and realized it was self-published, that my brain kind of clicked back on. Then, I was reading another self-published book, and in the acknowledgements, the author thanked a particular book blog.
"Book blog? Qoi?" I had to investigate, and OH MY GOD, there are other people out there that read the same stuff I read!? People who love to read and review this stuff!? E.L. James started out writing fanfiction!? She's got a major motion picture coming out!! HOW COULD I NOT KNOW THIS STUFF!?!?
Life. Changed.
So I started writing again. I worried it wouldn't come back as easily. I was wrong. I mean, who knows if I'm good; I think I'm good, but I might just be a tad bias. But the words certainly pour out of me.
So there you have it. My first blog. My first book. I hope you enjoy both. There may be more blogs. There will definitely be more books.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have recently acquired all the seasons of AbFab, and I find myself trying to figure how to turn it into a religion ...
