Sunday, September 23, 2012

Things I Didn't Know

I've been around a while. I knew you had to get organised to be an author - hence my blog. Well... you need so much more. I'm going to try to keep tabs on it and blog here, so next time I invent myself, I'll know what to do (and maybe it'll help someone else).

Your books need your support on Amazon. This means you need an author page, you need to create that at author central - bio, photo, link your books, website, etc etc. It also means you need to tag your books (so they can be found in searches) and then you have to get your friends to check the tags (bump up the number of tagged correctly things) [can you tell I'm so good at this?] and then you should like other authors' pages, so they'll like you. More likes = more people find you. More tags = more people find you books.

But remember - as you're doing all this, don;t review your own books of write scathing reviews about anyone else (that;s been in the blogosphere lately!).

Then Facebook - an account in your pen name here is needed. And you have to do things with it (I'm doing an online course next month to assist with this).

Author photo - this should be easy, but it wasn't! Does the photo represent you? Are you looking too happy/silly/awful/sleepy/fat/skinny/whatever whatever?

Author bio - this has to "sell" you and give people a snippet about you to make them interested in you.

When you do blog tours, you have to have a bit about yourself to paste there, plus something interesting to blog about (and as you can tell from here, I struggle for interesting). Not to mention logging onto their system and working out how on earth it works, scheduling your blog and hoping like heck you've done it right.

Okay, I think that's it right now. I'll update as I go along. Seriously, it's all time consuming and a little overwhelming! I should have got published in my 20s when I was on top of the internet - not now when I've fallen behind.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

real edits

I had my first lot of real edits, from a real editor...and you know what? They weren't as scary as I expected! Actually, they weren't a lot different to getting my critique partner's comments back on my writing! And that is a huge THANK YOU to RWA for having a Critique Partner Scheme that gets you prepared, and to my wonderful critique partners - especially those who've been there from the start when we corrected each other's spelling! We've come a long way.

But speaking of coming a long way - my story had been through at least 8 or 10 hands before the editor saw it. So that's how wonderful the editor is - she picks up things that have been left by everyone else.

Major things:
  • repetition (I know, I thought I'd nailed this LOL! Imagine if she saw it the first time)
  • tightening sentences
  • adding the meat juices to the sandwich (as one writing friend said), which is adding layers of detail I thought would have been insignificant.

Nothing too major but those layers of detail made me think - a lot. My girl started on the page... but I really did have to think back and work out what her life was before she appeared on my page. And I thought that stuff was just baloney to fill in paperwork for the plotters/planners ;)

So another huge learning curve but one I loved.

I've sent back my changes and fixes - wonder what happens next! So much learning.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I have edits

Real true edits, from a real live editor, appeared in my Inbox today - and I have to confess I'm excited.

And then I read through them...

and I'm still excited!

I can see they're going to make my story stronger - if only I can answer the questions! My story has a few gaps, and character gaps, that need some explaining. Things I hadn't considered. So that's fun. I'll have to get back into my character's head and work out the answers.

Wish me luck, I'm off to edit...

Monday, September 3, 2012

Love's Rhythm

I've just read Lexxie Couper's Love's Rhythm and it's a beauty.

I first 'met' Nick Blackthorne, rock god, in Tropical Sin, Lexxie's book in the Bandicoot Cove series. He was a charming, delicious but tortured man, on the verge of losing his music and love of life. In Tropical Sin he engages with a couple who pique his interest and lust (you should read that too, actually the whole Bandicoot Cover series!) and this makes him find his mojo.

Jump to Love's Rhythm and the man who's found his mojo, now needs to claim the woman he left fifteen years ago. It's a beautiful tale of a man going to fast forwards, and the woman who love him too much to hold him back. The story has echoes of that proverb: If you love something set it free; if it comes back to you, it's yours; if it doesn't, it never was.

I loved this story.