Musings of Two Creative Minds

...Or making hard choices while revising your novel Whenever I write a novel, or short story, so many ideas come to me that I immediately write down as I'm going on along.  I have so much fun with my characters I sometimes wonder if I'm getting enough interesting scenes into the story.  I start to worry that I'm having too much of a good time listening to my characters bantering back and forth to make them feel more real and alive, that I start to wonder whether or not there's enough action going on in the book.  When that happens I start coming up with more  scenes that help get the readers' pulses pounding.   But then when I go back to start the second draft I look back over the entire story and find that word count is much higher than I originally planned.  I try to aim no higher than 120,000 words, which by industry standards is still pretty long for a novel.  Mind you, even though I'm an independent author and don't have to abide by w...

Last week I talked about getting business cards to help market my other blog site "The Vampyre Blogs - Private Edition".  Yesterday, the cards arrived and here is what they look like... Front (click on card to get a better look) The front view contains information about me, the blog site and where to find it, along with my e-mail and a little note at the bottom letting people know the site is a precursor to the book which will be coming out in December of this year. Back (click on card to get a better look) The back view talks about the novel itself.  The title of the book and it's release date is clear and visible in the center, with a quote from Nathaniel above it.  Underneath the title, is another note that explains that "The Vampyre Blogs" is part of my Para-Earth series and that other books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online outlets. "So what happens next?", I hear you ask.  This is where the fun...

Building an audience and marketing yourself... These six words strike fear and terror into the hearts of almost every new author I meet.  It also has the same effect on some of the more experienced authors I know as well.  Why?  Because there isn't a 'silver bullet' that will solve the problem for you.  There are so many different methods out there to try and raise audience awareness of your work and who you are.    Plus there's no guarantee which method is going to be the right one for you.  So you have keep trying and trying until you find one that works.  This is especially hard if you don't have a good budget to work with.  Many sites will promote your books for a fee.  Oh there are some that will do it for free, but the results vary from author to author.   You can also hire a publicity group to try and build hype, but even then you have to be careful.  The words "Buyer beware" applies to hiring someone el...