Starting on June 20th, every weekday, all week, Carina is offering a spectacular title for free download. And when they say free, they mean ACTUALLY free. Not "sorta free", or "free with a $50 purchase" free, but actually, totally, no strings attached FREE! So, get thee to Carina press to download a free book every day! Here are the books being offered, and the links and promo codes for your free download:
Monday's FREE BOOK is:
The Debutante's Dilemma by Elyse Mady
Just type in the promo code DEBUTANTEFREE at checkout
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=50C0978A-DAC7-44E7-B627-C26A520471C0
Tuesday's FREE BOOK is:
Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee
Just type in the promo code DEMONFREE at checkout
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=1E5A3A07-9BC7-4449-9B8F-377C21E2F664
Wednesday's FREE BOOK is:
The Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale by Christine Bell
Just type in the promo code TWISTEDFREE at checkout
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=D79D7CD6-1BAA-4D2E-AE65-FF0E42F79BE7
Thursday's FREE BOOK is:
Blue Galaxy by Diane Dooley
Just type in the promo code GALAXYFREE at checkout
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=827CC21D-6F33-437A-977B-B0F291B70367
Friday's FREE BOOK is:
Friendly Fire by Megan Hart
Just type in the promo code FRIENDLYFREE at checkout
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=E1466469-DB0C-404F-A0AA-3491BB9E9B14
Monday, June 20, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Great storytelling - I wanna do that!
Last night I saw a great movie, and I was reminded again of how magical great storytelling can be.
Go ahead and feel jealous because I got to see “Super 8” before its release date…and for free. Oh, the perks of working for a media outlet. Yes, I am a movie aficionado, but for some reason, I just wasn’t feeling this one after seeing the previews, so I was especially digging the free price tag. Of course, I would have gone to see it anyway, being the sci-fi geek I am. They pretty much had me at J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. I mean, wow.
Set in 1979, “Super 8” is the story of a group of tweenage friends who are making a zombie movie on a Super 8 camera when they witness a train derailment. It doesn’t take long before you realize something is amiss in their sleepy little Ohio town. Dogs go missing. People disappear. And the Air Force invades to clean up the train wreck and claim the little white rubix-cube looking things that are scattered everywhere.
If you are a child of the 80s, you should go see this movie. You really should. It reminded me of an “E.T.” and “The Goonies” mashup that was both nostalgic and ridiculously fun to watch.
The movie hasn’t even released yet, so I won’t spoil much and I certainly won’t mention exactly what was in the train that wrecked (hmmm). I will say, however, that J.J. Abrams has compiled an amazing story here that is fun, heart-warming and that carries a great message no matter if you’re 8 or 80. I bow down to you, J.J. Abrams. After that failed mishap “Undercovers,” you have renewed my faith in you!
The main character in the movie is arguably Joe, a young boy whose mother has just died in a work accident when the movie begins. I was 12 when I lost my mother, so when I see movies that feature kids who are experiencing that same grief, I always start squirming in my seat a little bit. Joe’s father is a cop. So was mine. As the movie progressed, I felt more and more in awe at the realism displayed by those two characters. Their interaction was oh-so familiar. I am 99 percent certain my father said some of the exact same things to me, in the exact same manner, as Joe’s dad did to him. There were quite a few scenes where I was reliving that pain and grief and confusion, which leads me to the point of this post.
When I left that theater, I felt raw. I also felt uplifted by the story itself. I was attached to the characters I had just met as if they were old friends. I had made a connection on an emotional level, both to the amazing story and to the characters. And that, my friends, is great storytelling.
I doubt everyone leaving this movie will have the same connection I did, but the best storytellers are able to bring their stories to vivid life through characters that are easily relatable and startingly realistic — at least to the majority of readers or viewers. That is also extremely hard to do, as most writers will readily admit.
I’ve always been convinced that you can tell a good story with characters that aren’t fleshed out, but to tell a truly great story, you need to dig down deep and really develop your characters. Those are the stories — at least in my opinion — that stay with readers the longest.
Who doesn’t remember that Indiana Jones hated snakes more than anything? Ask just about anyone nowadays and they can tell you what happened to Harry Potter when he was a young lad. Who does Katniss Everdeen love more than life itself? Her little sister, Prim, of course.
There are many great storytellers among us today. I’m working at becoming one of them, but even I admit, I’m not there yet. I’m working on it though. Most of all, I’m grateful to have good examples to draw inspiration from.
Go see “Super 8.” If you don’t enjoy it, there’s probably something wrong with you. I’m just sayin’.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Other authors, and should I stalk them? Hmmm
As I’ve taken baby steps into this funny little world called e-book publishing, I’ve come to the shocking realization that (deep breath) … I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. There, I said it. And it’s true.
I don’t consider myself to be an overly stupid person (not all the time), but I never realized how much went into this process. I mean, the line edits and developmental edits — these are things we writers always hear about. I used to think of them as a rite of passage for the authors who made it, so naturally, I used to think, “Ooooh, fun.”
No, not fun! Not fun at all! (Smacking self in the head)
Thank God for line edits and developmental edits, and the editors who recommend them. But I felt like a colossal idiot when I first went through the file my editor sent back to me. Talk about head-slapping and lots of “D’oh!” moments! I felt incredibly stupid at times that I’d let some of that junk slip past me. I even wondered, “Why in the world did they accept this? Dang!”
I now can’t imagine self publishing or e-publishing anything on my own. There is a strong purpose for editors, and not just editors, oh, no.
Then there's publicity and marketing and formatting and a host of other things I've never dealt with before.
I have to say that Carina Press, thus far, has been great at guiding me through the process. I’ve heard horror stories about other e-publishers and publishers, and yes, I admit, I was a little worried. Now that I’ve been added to Carina Press’s author list (my, that sounds so important!), I’ve been hanging back and taking in all of the information being sent my way by list serv and e-mails. Information not just from Carina’s staff and editors, but from other authors as well.
I’m grateful that Carina Press is living up to its reputation, because I really do want my book to be a success. The main reason I want “Cry Wolf” to sell more than, oh, five or six copies, is because I want to write more. I’m a busy gal, and as much as I want to write 24/7, it’s just not possible. I have a full-time job, a part-time job and other various obligations. I feel more compelled to write in the little spare time I have when I know people actually care that I’m not writing. So, in my happy little fantasy world, someday I will have readers who want more stories from me. They also wear superhero costumes in my fantasy world, but the main thing is that they like my stories enough to pound their Kindles and Nooks against their pillows yelling, "More! More! More!"
Hey, no snickering! It could happen!
But this leads to a dilemma. How to market my e-book so that does happen.
Fortunately, I have a very talented friend waiting in the wings waiting to help with this. But I’ve been looking around at other successful authors and — I’ll admit it — trying to flat-out copy whatever it is they do. Author website? Check. Facebook and Twitter accounts. Check and check.
Aside from offering online classes about these things, Carina also seems to promote interaction between its authors, and I have been tip-toeing around the idea of chatting up complete strangers to steal some of their vast and varied knowledge. These are the folks who have been there, done that. These are the folks I need.
But what is appropriate and what’s not when contacting an author, especially one you don’t know and haven’t read? I’d love to settle down and read them all, but, um, did I mention I have two jobs?
Fortunately, I think most authors welcome contact of any kind, as long as it doesn’t raise red flags or ideas of, um, stalking. I’m sure if you’re Stephenie Meyer or Stephen King, you might shudder in fear at checking your inbox, but the rest of us mere mortal authors probably aren’t so overwhelmed or busy that we don’t like to collaborate on ideas or hear from a friendly person every now and then. Most people, in my experience, like to be helpful.
So, apparently, tip No. 1 at learning how to market your e-book is talk to others who have been there, done that. Exchange ideas. You never know when a great one will take seed.
I’m going to go do that. Right now. I just hope I can keep my stalking tendencies in check and don't scare anyone. Yeah, it's been known to happen…
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Think you can't get published? Think again
Author's note: I first wrote the following long-winded post to appear on my friend's blog. Check out The WRITE Business Solutions bog for more great posts from lots and lots of talented people.
I’m a soon-to-be published author, that’s who I am!
This quirky little book I began writing well over 10 years ago finally snagged the attention of an editor or two, and Carina Press will soon e-publish the manuscript I slaved over for years and years.
Sound a little familiar — that slaving away part, I mean?
I have a feeling my sad, little biography will sound familiar to more than a few of you (and if it doesn’t, why are you reading this blog? Reruns of “Two and a Half Men” are probably on somewhere. Go on, now, shoo!)
One of my childhood dreams was to become a published writer. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 12, and she made me promise I’d never stop writing stories for fun since I enjoyed it so much. Being my mom, she naturally thought I was destined to become the next Emily Bronte or something. Poor soul. I conjured up some short stories here and there as I grew older, but none of them ever amounted to much.
In college, I became addicted to reading mass fiction rather than studying or even partying, and I decided that, hey, I could do that too! I could write a book as good as, if not better, than Michael Crichton or Nora Roberts or Dean Koontz or that Stephen What’s-His-Name guy. I pulled out my word processor (remember those?) and began typing away.
I’d start a story, get distracted by another, and toss it aside.
I’d start a story, get distracted by another, and toss it aside.
One day I realized, Hmmm, maybe this writing-a-novel-thing this isn’t as easy as I thought it was.
Oh, yeah, you’ve been there, too, haven’t you?
I never stopped writing, but life came calling in the form of graduation, a career in reporting, and a hundred other annoying obligations. About seven years ago I stumbled across one of my partially written manuscripts in an old box, realized I enjoyed reading it, and thought, “Who wrote this? Me? It’s good! Oh, no, surely I didn’t write this…did I?”
It was a quirky tale about a life-weary tabloid journalist being sent to a small town in South Carolina where a whole bunch of people had reported seeing a werewolf roaming around cornfields and along back roads. She thought the whole idea was stupid, but what’s she gonna do? It’s her job to cover crazy stories. And wouldn’t you know it, the editor of that town’s newspaper is none other than her old college nemesis (and former crush) who seems determined to tag along on her werewolf-hunting adventures. Think “The X-Files” meets “Lois and Clark.”
I transferred the files from an old floppy disk (I’m really blowing you young’uns minds, aren’t I?) to my laptop’s hard drive and began typing away every night when I got off work. It was fun to get to know my characters again. They’d changed a lot through the years, but so had I. It seemed we had a lot to talk about.
Pretty soon, I had reached “The End.” I didn’t think anything in life would ever feel as good as that achievement. A completed 80,000-word manuscript, with my name on it.
Oh, yeah, life was good.
I felt certain I would have no trouble at all of finding someone eager to publish it. But where to start? I had absolutely no idea. I was a meager newspaper reporter with no publishing knowledge outside of the roaring press that churned out the comics every evening as I walked out the door. I went to the library, checked out a dozen or so books on “How to Get a Book Published,” and went home to devour every single piece of advice they could offer. And scratched my head.
I scratched my head a lot as I thought, Hmmm, maybe this getting-a-novel-published-thing this isn’t as easy as I thought it was.
I gave it the old college try anyway. Query letters to agents because you need an agent to find a publisher. Then came the rejection letters — if I was lucky to hear anything at all — piling up my mailbox. Attending writer’s conferences in hopes of making a valuable connection, only to be told “No” in person rather than in a pesky little form letter.
My book was never easy to pitch either. It wasn’t exactly a romance, but it had romantic elements, sure. It wasn’t exactly a horror story, but I’ve been told by more than one person that reading it gave them nightmares for weeks. And comedy? Oh, yeah, there are times when my book aims to get a chuckle out of you, too.
I can’t tell you the number of times I heard friends or family say, “Well, have you ever thought about self publishing?” Sure, I could have self published my book, but call me old fashioned. I wanted to do it the hard way. I wanted a completely unbiased editor or publisher somewhere to say, “Guess what, Angie? We love your book so much, you don’t have to self publish because we’re gonna do it for you!” They don’t call me Nutso for nothin’!
I just knew I was destined to be a writer. Even on those days when I want to toss my laptop across the room because I don’t think I have any more words left in me, I always eventually find myself typing away again.
I tried another year of query letters and writer’s conferences and probably should have been completely discouraged by the reaction I received. “No.” “Sorry, your story isn’t a good fit for us.” “You’ve got a great writing style, but…”
I’m convinced this is how the Publishing Deities weed out the people who just want to be published from the people determined to be published.
My armor of determination got more than a few chinks in it before I got lucky, but Determination became my middle name! Years passed. I tried querying directly to publishers and found I had slightly better luck than trying to find an agent. Instead of one-paragraph form letters, I started receiving two- or three-paragraph form letters sprinkled with some positive, personal feedback like, “You have a great voice, but your story seems kind of far-fetched.”
Far-fetched? Why didn’t you say so? Well, I can fix that!
This is the part of my story where I have to give a thunderous round of applause to the many people, like my friend Tammatha here, who kept encouraging me to keep on fighting the good fight. I consider one of my most blessed moments to be the day I was accepted into an online writing critique group, which was populated with a multitude of talented writers willing and eager to take a gander at that old manuscript of mine. Some published. Some trying to get published, just like me. In other words, a gold mine of different viewpoints and talent.
The feedback I got from them was incredible. I found myself slapping my forehead more than once. D’oh! Why hadn’t I seen that gaping plot hole? If I had been in a Mack truck, I would have driven right through it! What do you mean, my hero seems kind of mean? Really? I quite adored him!
More query letters. More rejection.
But by this point, I was confident of one thing. I now had a publishable story on my hands. But more time passed. More query letters. More rejection.
One day, someone from my first critique group e-mailed to ask me if I’d found a publisher yet. Then she suggested I try querying Carina Press, an e-publisher. “Your story is too good not to be published,” she wrote, nearly four or five years after she’d read my story (and which I took as a great compliment in and of itself).
E-publishing? Ack! No, no, no, no, no! In one of my weaker moments, I had queried an e-publisher and gotten an acceptance letter, only to decide at the last minute that I could do better than that.
Remember how I told you I was old-fashioned? I was holding out for the golden prize — print. But then I began to wonder if I wasn’t being too stubborn or prideful. We live in a day and age where Kindles and Nooks have overtaken our corner bookstores as the No. 1 place to buy the next bestseller.
Carina Press is Harlequin’s e-publishing division. I figured Harlequin was a well-known publisher, even if Harlequin itself hadn’t been my first choice of publisher either when I'd started this process years ago. I was thinking much bigger. (Yes bigger than Harlequin). Still. It was Harlequin!
So I swallowed my pride and told myself, “This is it. Your last shot. If these folks say No, you’re giving up because obviously no one likes your book that much anyway. End of the line.”
You’ve probably been there too, haven’t you?
More than 10 years after that much-younger me had started tying away on a silly little book I’d hastily titled “Cryptid,” I had pretty much forgotten about the query letter I’d sent to Carina Press in January in regards to the much more polished finished product I’d retitled “Eclipse of the Heart.” I was on vacation in New York City with my niece in March, walking around Times Square, when my cell phone alerted me to the fact I’d missed a call.
I listened to the message that had been left and then nearly began bouncing all around Times Square like some kind of lunatic.
Angela James, editor of Carina Press, had personally called to tell me that quite a few people on her staff had read my manuscript and absolutely loved it. Then those words every struggling writer yearns to hear. “We want to publish your book.”
I will never, EVER delete that voice message from my cell phone. Ever.
Sure, I’m still learning the joys of line edits and rewrites — and my book has been retitled to "Cry Wolf" and will release on Halloween 2011 — but I’m having fun soaking up this new knowledge of the publishing world, even as I finish up my next manuscript — a fantasy series I plan to pitch to Carina Press or another publisher soon.
If you take anything away from this blog post, I hope it’s encouragement. I’m living proof that if a writer has a whole lot of determination, is willing to do a little bit of hard work (okay, a whole lot of hard work), is willing to compromise here and there, and maybe has a little bit of talent too, she can finally achieve that prize that we all hope for someday — publication by someone other than herself.
Eh, so what if Carina Press is an e-publisher?
I’m pretty darn proud of myself!
And, for the record, I haven’t given up on print yet.
###
I know what you’re probably thinking. Who is this strange person guest blogging for Tammatha Conerly and The Write Business Solutions? Well, I’ll tell ya who I am.I’m a soon-to-be published author, that’s who I am!
This quirky little book I began writing well over 10 years ago finally snagged the attention of an editor or two, and Carina Press will soon e-publish the manuscript I slaved over for years and years.
Sound a little familiar — that slaving away part, I mean?
I have a feeling my sad, little biography will sound familiar to more than a few of you (and if it doesn’t, why are you reading this blog? Reruns of “Two and a Half Men” are probably on somewhere. Go on, now, shoo!)
One of my childhood dreams was to become a published writer. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 12, and she made me promise I’d never stop writing stories for fun since I enjoyed it so much. Being my mom, she naturally thought I was destined to become the next Emily Bronte or something. Poor soul. I conjured up some short stories here and there as I grew older, but none of them ever amounted to much.
In college, I became addicted to reading mass fiction rather than studying or even partying, and I decided that, hey, I could do that too! I could write a book as good as, if not better, than Michael Crichton or Nora Roberts or Dean Koontz or that Stephen What’s-His-Name guy. I pulled out my word processor (remember those?) and began typing away.
I’d start a story, get distracted by another, and toss it aside.
I’d start a story, get distracted by another, and toss it aside.
One day I realized, Hmmm, maybe this writing-a-novel-thing this isn’t as easy as I thought it was.
Oh, yeah, you’ve been there, too, haven’t you?
I never stopped writing, but life came calling in the form of graduation, a career in reporting, and a hundred other annoying obligations. About seven years ago I stumbled across one of my partially written manuscripts in an old box, realized I enjoyed reading it, and thought, “Who wrote this? Me? It’s good! Oh, no, surely I didn’t write this…did I?”
It was a quirky tale about a life-weary tabloid journalist being sent to a small town in South Carolina where a whole bunch of people had reported seeing a werewolf roaming around cornfields and along back roads. She thought the whole idea was stupid, but what’s she gonna do? It’s her job to cover crazy stories. And wouldn’t you know it, the editor of that town’s newspaper is none other than her old college nemesis (and former crush) who seems determined to tag along on her werewolf-hunting adventures. Think “The X-Files” meets “Lois and Clark.”
I transferred the files from an old floppy disk (I’m really blowing you young’uns minds, aren’t I?) to my laptop’s hard drive and began typing away every night when I got off work. It was fun to get to know my characters again. They’d changed a lot through the years, but so had I. It seemed we had a lot to talk about.
Pretty soon, I had reached “The End.” I didn’t think anything in life would ever feel as good as that achievement. A completed 80,000-word manuscript, with my name on it.
Oh, yeah, life was good.
I felt certain I would have no trouble at all of finding someone eager to publish it. But where to start? I had absolutely no idea. I was a meager newspaper reporter with no publishing knowledge outside of the roaring press that churned out the comics every evening as I walked out the door. I went to the library, checked out a dozen or so books on “How to Get a Book Published,” and went home to devour every single piece of advice they could offer. And scratched my head.
I scratched my head a lot as I thought, Hmmm, maybe this getting-a-novel-published-thing this isn’t as easy as I thought it was.
I gave it the old college try anyway. Query letters to agents because you need an agent to find a publisher. Then came the rejection letters — if I was lucky to hear anything at all — piling up my mailbox. Attending writer’s conferences in hopes of making a valuable connection, only to be told “No” in person rather than in a pesky little form letter.
My book was never easy to pitch either. It wasn’t exactly a romance, but it had romantic elements, sure. It wasn’t exactly a horror story, but I’ve been told by more than one person that reading it gave them nightmares for weeks. And comedy? Oh, yeah, there are times when my book aims to get a chuckle out of you, too.
I can’t tell you the number of times I heard friends or family say, “Well, have you ever thought about self publishing?” Sure, I could have self published my book, but call me old fashioned. I wanted to do it the hard way. I wanted a completely unbiased editor or publisher somewhere to say, “Guess what, Angie? We love your book so much, you don’t have to self publish because we’re gonna do it for you!” They don’t call me Nutso for nothin’!
I just knew I was destined to be a writer. Even on those days when I want to toss my laptop across the room because I don’t think I have any more words left in me, I always eventually find myself typing away again.
I tried another year of query letters and writer’s conferences and probably should have been completely discouraged by the reaction I received. “No.” “Sorry, your story isn’t a good fit for us.” “You’ve got a great writing style, but…”
I’m convinced this is how the Publishing Deities weed out the people who just want to be published from the people determined to be published.
My armor of determination got more than a few chinks in it before I got lucky, but Determination became my middle name! Years passed. I tried querying directly to publishers and found I had slightly better luck than trying to find an agent. Instead of one-paragraph form letters, I started receiving two- or three-paragraph form letters sprinkled with some positive, personal feedback like, “You have a great voice, but your story seems kind of far-fetched.”
Far-fetched? Why didn’t you say so? Well, I can fix that!
This is the part of my story where I have to give a thunderous round of applause to the many people, like my friend Tammatha here, who kept encouraging me to keep on fighting the good fight. I consider one of my most blessed moments to be the day I was accepted into an online writing critique group, which was populated with a multitude of talented writers willing and eager to take a gander at that old manuscript of mine. Some published. Some trying to get published, just like me. In other words, a gold mine of different viewpoints and talent.
The feedback I got from them was incredible. I found myself slapping my forehead more than once. D’oh! Why hadn’t I seen that gaping plot hole? If I had been in a Mack truck, I would have driven right through it! What do you mean, my hero seems kind of mean? Really? I quite adored him!
More query letters. More rejection.
But by this point, I was confident of one thing. I now had a publishable story on my hands. But more time passed. More query letters. More rejection.
One day, someone from my first critique group e-mailed to ask me if I’d found a publisher yet. Then she suggested I try querying Carina Press, an e-publisher. “Your story is too good not to be published,” she wrote, nearly four or five years after she’d read my story (and which I took as a great compliment in and of itself).
E-publishing? Ack! No, no, no, no, no! In one of my weaker moments, I had queried an e-publisher and gotten an acceptance letter, only to decide at the last minute that I could do better than that.
Remember how I told you I was old-fashioned? I was holding out for the golden prize — print. But then I began to wonder if I wasn’t being too stubborn or prideful. We live in a day and age where Kindles and Nooks have overtaken our corner bookstores as the No. 1 place to buy the next bestseller.
Carina Press is Harlequin’s e-publishing division. I figured Harlequin was a well-known publisher, even if Harlequin itself hadn’t been my first choice of publisher either when I'd started this process years ago. I was thinking much bigger. (Yes bigger than Harlequin). Still. It was Harlequin!
So I swallowed my pride and told myself, “This is it. Your last shot. If these folks say No, you’re giving up because obviously no one likes your book that much anyway. End of the line.”
You’ve probably been there too, haven’t you?
More than 10 years after that much-younger me had started tying away on a silly little book I’d hastily titled “Cryptid,” I had pretty much forgotten about the query letter I’d sent to Carina Press in January in regards to the much more polished finished product I’d retitled “Eclipse of the Heart.” I was on vacation in New York City with my niece in March, walking around Times Square, when my cell phone alerted me to the fact I’d missed a call.
I listened to the message that had been left and then nearly began bouncing all around Times Square like some kind of lunatic.
Angela James, editor of Carina Press, had personally called to tell me that quite a few people on her staff had read my manuscript and absolutely loved it. Then those words every struggling writer yearns to hear. “We want to publish your book.”
I will never, EVER delete that voice message from my cell phone. Ever.
Sure, I’m still learning the joys of line edits and rewrites — and my book has been retitled to "Cry Wolf" and will release on Halloween 2011 — but I’m having fun soaking up this new knowledge of the publishing world, even as I finish up my next manuscript — a fantasy series I plan to pitch to Carina Press or another publisher soon.
If you take anything away from this blog post, I hope it’s encouragement. I’m living proof that if a writer has a whole lot of determination, is willing to do a little bit of hard work (okay, a whole lot of hard work), is willing to compromise here and there, and maybe has a little bit of talent too, she can finally achieve that prize that we all hope for someday — publication by someone other than herself.
Eh, so what if Carina Press is an e-publisher?
I’m pretty darn proud of myself!
And, for the record, I haven’t given up on print yet.
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