Why do I go on?

The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the label, Mercury Records, or the graphic artist(s)

I do not write personal posts because this is the only opportunity to show you little vignettes of my novels.
We all need to escape at least for 5 minutes a day.  I gear my posts to do just that.
I have some points I would like to make.
In the words of an “oldie but goodie” song by Leslie Gore… ”It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”
So please read on if you wish.
In the beginning, I knew nothing.

This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

13 months ago, I started writing a love story.
“Charmeine” 140K and “Ransom” 110K were written in about two months.
College essays were the only things I wrote before that.
I most certainly never thought ANYONE would pay to read this love story.
I was positive that I did not write a Masterpiece or Epic.
To be honest, the first drafts of my novels are non-edited, non-formatted and basic crap in the grammar department.
I knew NOTHING about publishing!  
To my chagrin, I didn’t know about editing, formatting, copyrights, beta-readers, book cover royalties, self-publishing, promotion, blogs, Amazon KDP, Barnes and Noble, Nook, Kindle, Goodreads, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or any Social Media.
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Older Editions of “Charmeine”

I gave away non-edited files of “Charmeine” freely with no charge to anyone who wanted it.  Something I keenly regret.
When I was “wised-up” by some very dear author friends, I went to get estimates on a good editor I was given a $2000 minimum price tag.  This was well out of my price range as I am going to Graduate School working full-time just to pay my bills.
However, I did sink a lot of money (well at least a lot of money to me) into the whole “author” thing, i.e. Blog fee, Copyright fee, ISBN fee, Cover Model Royalty Rights, Bookmarks, Swag and other fees that are too numerous to count.
To this day, I have never been in the “black” on my author ledger.  I don’t believe I ever will be either.  Most likely, I will never make a profit.
Dear friends said they would help me edit as beta-readers.  When I finally did get an editor, they were very inexpensive.  I did not get a comprehensive editor but to be fair… I could not afford it.

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As a result, tons of OLD editions of Charmeine are out there… in “Cyberspace” on the internet.
I am haunted everyday by this fact, because I will get reviews on OLD editions that are painful, to say the very least.
Also, why people can’t understand the obvious, I will never know.  I have been criticized how my characters speak.  To be exact, Blood-Hunters are very ancient creatures so they do not use contractions.  No one else in the novels speak in that fashion, just the Blood-Hunters.
To try to remedy these issues, I feel I have been forced to put this on Goodreads and Facebook:
To Reviewers and Readers:
First, the Blood-Hunter race or Elders have been on Earth for thousands of years. Because of this, they do not use contractions like I’m, don’t or can’t. They communicate in a more refined way.
Second, there are several OLD editions out in circulation of my books. Please leave a review on the current edition. Please feel free to contact me at guido.emily@gmail.com to check the edition you have is the most recent.
I LOATHED MAKING THAT ANNOUNCEMENT!  
It is incredibly humiliating and demeaning to me as a struggling new author.  However, after recent events, this is what I feel I am FORCED to do.
Because of no responsibility, reviewers do not have to be professional, fair, and unbiased.  Anyone can leave a review behind a veil of anonymity which are hateful, mean-spirited, and uncharitable.
Let me explain with a few not so hateful examples:
I write about Angels and Vampires.
Some person declared I wrote about God and Christian Doctrine in my novels.  Huh?  Imagine that?  Angels with God and Christianity… seemed natural to me.
One mentioned I was too full of myself to write about God… I just have to smile about this because people through the ages have written about God.  I guess a lot of ancient writers, composers, and philosophers are conceited too.
Some had said the character Charmeine was in paraphrase, a ‘simpleton’ or a ‘hick’ because she used phrases like “Geez Louise” or “Damn it to Hell,” told stupid jokes, and shouted a lot.
Really?  Huh…
If they equate using phrases or yelling with a low I.Q., I will say my 151 I.Q. score must be low. I use those phrases all the time.  I yell when I get excited or upset. Incredibly, I am able to still tie my shoes.  When Charmeine tells a bad joke, she admits it.  She tells jokes to cut tension or just have fun.

Tabbruis

Others stated Tabbruis was dull, stoic, and gloomy. Tell me how you would be if you lived on the Earth for 8000 years, never having happiness or finding love.  Sometimes you have to get through the tough outer coating until you get to the gooey part.
Charmeine makes Tabbruis come alive in the novels.  She is his heart that was missing for 8 millenia.
Now, these next comments I had to laugh about when I read them.   They stated I was conceited to write about an Angel and a Vampire loving each other.  Also my novels are not sexually graphic enough for them.  In the description of the book, it states it is about an “Angel and Vampire Romance” and also “Young Adult.”

The Pulitzer Prize gold medal award (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The editing comments I understand.
My novels aren’t the epitome of grammatical perfection. They will never be Pulitzer Prize winning novels.
However, what I don’t understand are reviewers who get an old edition passed to them free of charge and review it.
Reviewers should make sure they are reviewing the latest edition OR at the very least, mention they have an early edition in their review.
If I get a book free from any source, I make sure it is the current copy before I review.  I know this may be an entirely new concept to some.
However, with self-publishing being more prevalent, I feel I should be fair… even to a self-published author.
I am ever hopeful revisions to the reviewing polices of Goodreads, Barnes and Nobles, and Amazon are on the horizon.

Charmeine and Tabbruis Forever

Why do I go on?
I go on writing because the romance of two ill-fated, star-crossed, opposites who are madly in love with each other is my imagination come alive.
Tabbruis and Charmeine and their family who live in the ‘Castle Charmeine’ are precious to me.  I feel like a parent.
I truly adore to write about their humanness even though they are not human.
“The Light-Bearer Series” and their adventures battling Evil on Earth wasn’t intended to be precious to anyone but me.  However, the novels are becoming more popular.
Oddly, I wouldn’t be making a post like this if it wasn’t for my supportive “Angels” who encouraged me.
I know Angels do walk the Earth… many of them have bolstered and fortified my spirit during this dark time.
To you, and you know who ‘you’ are, thank you for being my friend!

http://youtu.be/ZN3E9Yyd1HA

Filed under: Paranormal Romance, Uncategorized Tagged: Angel, Charmeine, Facebook, God, Goodreads, Pulitzer Prize, Tabbruis, Vampire