My contemporary romance novel, A Forever Kind of Guy, came out this month and in preparation for its release I started thinking about a lot of things. Marketing, first of all, which I don’t begin to understand and its importance is something I balk at. Not to insult all the…
THE FOREVER KIND OF GUY QUIZ Is he A FOREVER KIND OF GUY? Take this quiz and find out. 1. Your car breaks down on the freeway. When you call your guy for help he: A) Tells you to lock the doors, sit tight, he’s on his way B) Suggests…
Even I didn’t remember how long ago I started working on this story until I started going through the box where I had stored its entire history on paper. Oh, the trees I have killed. For you tree-huggers out there, I want you to know, I recycle paper. I save…
A recent meeting with a marketing expert goes something like this: HER: What do you feel is most important when it comes to content on your web site? Me: (Mental response) I don’t know. Me: (Verbal response) Whatever will draw more readers to it and encourage them to buy my…
There has been a bit of a furor lately about John Locke’s book on how he became a bestseller offering ninety-nine-cent eBooks while also admitting he isn’t that good of a writer. I have not read his how-to book. From what I’ve read about it, it appears he takes a…
Last week I began a grand experiment. I self-published my book, Not Quite Heaven in digital format, offering it for sale on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and in the iBookstore. After years of pooh-poohing self-publishing, suddenly it seemed like a very appealing idea. Why? Because I kept hearing from other authors that by…
There is no way to explain to someone who’s never written a book, never edited it for (let’s call it what it is) self-publishing, how incredibly tedious and time-consuming the process is. Just when you think it’s perfect and you’ve found and corrected every small mistake in your manuscript, a…
Hidden by Shelley Shepard Gray. I think I’m noticing another trend in the “inspirational” novels I’ve read. Not enough set-up. Whether this is an editing or an author issue, I can’t say. All I know is the heroine’s motivation seems weak at best much too often. In this particular book,…
GET ORGANIZED! PLAN TO STAY ORGANIZED! Someone should benefit from my twenty-plus years of doing everything the hard way. Way back when I started writing novel-length fiction I’ll be the first to admit I had no idea what I was doing. I flew by the seat of my pants and…
