Musings of Two Creative Minds

     As many of you know I've been working on "The Door" for the last four years. And looking back on that sentence I'm wishing I'd phrased it differently, because it makes me sound like someone who is the lamest handyman in creation. Hmm... there might be another blog post in that. I can see it now "Choosing Your Words Carefully"...          Anyway, getting back to today's topic, yes I've been working on that novel all this time and it still isn't finished. In fact the closest I've gotten is halfway. Why? See below...         But seriously, I was trying to put too much material and characters into the story. I had forgotten one of the cardinal rules I try to write by, which is "Keep It Simple Stupid". When you have a story that already has a number of twists and turns built into it, DON'T MAKE IT MORE COMPLICATED! Secondly, if you are building a series you don't have to introduce every bloody person who...

As the holiday season swiftly approaches, I began to ponder about how does one give an e-book to someone else as a gift?   Having received my first Kindle last Christmas, I am still very a much a novice at using it.  Mind you I have been learning and I'm enjoying it immensely.  But I'll talk more about e-books vs print in another post.  For now, I wanted to focus on those of us who want to get an e-book for someone we know who has either a Kindle or a Nook.   How would one go about purchasing one without having it arrive too soon?   Well, with the recent release of our latest Para-Earth book (The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home) I found myself rewarding some of our beta-readers with a free copy of the finished product in whatever form they wished (trade paperback, Nook, Kindle, PDF, Smashwords).  Most requested a signed trade paperback, but a couple asked for the Kindle version. So I headed over to Amazon, got into my accoun...

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...

Before I get into promoting my new blog, I thought I should explain myself to you all.  The reason why I've created "The Vampire Blogs" was simple.  It's part experiment, and part story building.  With the popularity of vampires in books, it was only a matter of time before I found myself getting drawn in, although I had sworn to avoid the genre.  Yet, like any writer, I couldn't help speculating on  "Well, if I did a vampire story, I'd make it more original and do this, this and this..."  Naturally, an idea came and began to snowball on me. I wanted to keep most if not all the typical strengths and weaknesses of the traditional vampire, while at the same time making such a being fit into my Para-Earth Series world.  The being I would have a reasonable explanation for the various abilities such as shape-shifting, turning into mist, etc.   I would also give him a few new traits that fit with the being I had made him out of.  I won't go in...

Today I'm going to talk about my experiences with Kindle Direct Publishing, aka KDP Select.  This is a special program offered by Amazon to help authors promote Kindle versions of their e-books.  The program is worldwide which really helps make your work available to a huge market.  You sign a 3-month contract, which can be renewed automatically or ended when those three months are up.  During this period you have the opportunities to raise and lower the price of your work at your leisure.   This is where you will usually see the .99 Cent Weekend Specials coming from, or so I believe.  When I was not in the program I could only lower my Kindle price for "THE BRIDGE" down to about $2.99.  However, this might be so due to the size of the book (which came in at a little over 100,000 words) and/or the fact that I set my royalties at 70%.  When my current contract with KDP ends this month, I may experiment with lowering my royalties cut to 35% and ...

I want to thank everyone who participated and took advantage of getting a free copy of my paranormal/mystery "THE BRIDGE".  The first time I did a Free giveaway, less than 450 people took advantage of the opportunity.  This time I did wee bit better... 896!!! And to all of you who helped spread the word to others about the giveaway...THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!  You gave me the opportunity to reach more people and hopefully turn them into fans.  I know a number of people will be saying, "Gee... too bad those weren't actual money sales."  And they would be right.  However, when you're first-time author and trying to get your name out there, giveaways can be a powerful tool to get a fan-base started.  I've heard from a number of people who keep telling me they loved the first book and are looking forward to the next one.   To date: 1408 copies of "THE BRIDGE" are out there in the hands of readers.  Of those about 100 were actual paying ...

As my KDP Select winds down at the end of this month, I'm making my debut paranormal/mystery "THE BRIDGE" available for Kindle absolutely FREE!  Just click on the Amazon link below this Saturday-Sunday-Monday (August 10-12) to get a free copy.  And if you've already gotten yours, tell your family and friends throughout your network: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pinterest, the works.  I'd love to see a whole new crop of readers get hooked on the first novel of my Para-Earth series.  Book number 2 will be out in time for Christmas, so I'm making sure as many people as possible get a chance to see where it all begins. NOTE: For those who don't have Kindle, fear not.  "THE BRIDGE" will be available for Nook, Apple, Sony and other e-readers starting September 1st.  Stay tuned for that announcement coming soon. Here's the link.  Remember this all starts Saturday August 10th and ends at midnight on August 12th: http://www.amazo...

I've been on a writing roll recently with novel #2 "THE SHIP".  I mean I got some serious wordage down, like over 10,000 words in a couple of days, which I thought was impressive.  But then it happened...  I hit a wall.  Not literally of course, just figuratively.  My story suddenly ground to a halt and I had no idea how to get out of the corner I'd put myself in. Sometimes, writing can be like going through a maze.  You go straight, come to a junction turn right, go a ways, make a left, straight, another left, etc. and you really feel like you're making progress.  In fact, you'll be out of this thing in no time... then you come to a dead end and you have no idea what went wrong.  Sometimes, you can pull out a hammer and chisel, or a huge drill like Wile E Coyote in the old Roadrunner cartoons and make your own way out. At first I pulled out the ACME Super-Atomic Laser Drill to get out of my current dilemma and get the story moving again. ...

Okay gang, I've got something different for you all today.  A writing exercise.  I did one of these a while back and it was well received.  I hope this one will also be as popular.  Sometimes when we're writing, pacing can be an issue.  We have characters who can't (or won't in some stubborn cases) leave a room or a scene which winds up becoming stagnant and boring for the reader.  As writers, it's up to us to keep things interesting with every scene.  Other times we rush through a whole bunch of events within a few pages so things become a mish-mash of actions that might have been better off being spaced out across the entire story instead of clumped together. So pacing your story becomes very important.  And I found this little exercise to be both a challenge and a lot of fun.  It's called "Keep The Engine Running".  The rules are as follows: 1 - Have two characters in a vehicle, with a destination in mind.  The driver of the ...

Well, as you all know last month I did my first free promo on Amazon, where 400 people snatched up their own Kindle copy of my paranormal/mystery "THE BRIDGE".    Now, one of the things that inspired me to take that risk was the fact that I'd read in many different articles and blogs, that such a promo could help actual paying sales.  Those who grabbed a copy start spreading the word about how much they liked the book and tell others to get their own copy.  I can safely say, I've seen a slight increase in the number of actual purchased copies of the book, but nothing astronomical.  So this last weekend I did a special .99 cent promotion which netted about 5 or 6 sales total and that's all.  Now a number of you may be thinking, "Wow, that wasn't very impressive."  And you'd be right.  But, it's about what I expected because, "THE BRIDGE" is my first book.  I'm still an unknown author.  I did try and foster a following in adv...