Appreciate Your Cover Artist

If you haven't thought about all the time and effort that goes into creating your book cover, then you're among the majority of writers. Sometimes I've loved my book covers and sometimes I've been a wee bit disappointed, but still thought they were good.

I've been busy putting my returned rights books back into publication via e-book. Getting the text in appropriate format is not difficult at all, nor is uploading the information to the digital platform.

However, searching for photos to make my own covers has been very time intensive! Hours and hours of looking through photos trying to the perfect images is not fun. And, then I had to put on my graphics hat and try to remember everything I'd learned about using my program to its fullest. I do not have photoshop, nor do I want to spend funds to purchase any programs. I have PaintShop Pro v.6...and older program.

Finally, I completed my second book cover.

Hit and Run is now available for purchase in the Kindle Store at Amazon and Foxfire should be available for purchase on Tuesday.

I'm excited to have these books available for purchase again and I hope you like the bookcovers!

Have you ever designed a book cover or have you thought about how much time and effort goes into creating one? Have you ever been disappointed with a book cover?

Amazon Kindle - Hit and Run

Yesterday, I decided to work on putting my returned rights books on the Kindle platform at Amazon. A friend and fellow author, Becky Barker, gave a presentation on how to do this at one of my RWA chapter meetings. I'd been putting it off, worrying that it would be difficult to do.

BUT, much to my surprise, the whole experience took less than two hours. The book uploaded very fast, unlike my experience with Smashwords. What took the longest was finding the image I wanted to use for my bookcover. Searching through pages and pages of photos, especially when you have a very definite idea of what you want, is very time consuming. Finally, I opened my mind to other possibilities and found one that I really liked.

The advantage I have is that my books have already gone through a professional edit since they were published previously. Both books sold really well. I did some small edits to removing words I felt didn't match my current platform of being an inspirational author, but the plot and characters have not been changed in any way.

The book itself is not yet available on Amazon. The digital platform site requires 48 hours to complete the process. Next month, I plan to release FOXFIRE.

Perhaps I'd better start the photo search now!  How about you? Do you have a Kindle e-reader or have you thought about putting any of your books on the Kindle Store at Amazon?

Oh, Those Query Letters...

Are you ready to submit, but don't have a clue what to put in a query letter? Don't freak out. It happens to all of us.

One thing is critical. Research your market. Make sure you target the right editor/agent and always, always address the query letter to a person.

That being said, you'll probably learn more by visiting this blog than from anything I can say:
Query Shark

Good luck with your submissions. Thanks for stopping by.

Below are the new book covers for my releases on Smashwords.

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Stretching the Brain Muscle

I spent the afternoon yesterday formatting one of my out of publication books, FOXFIRE, to publish at Smashwords. Amazing how many things wind up incorrectly formatted in Word when you look at the coding. Honestly, I thought the file would be clean because it looked fine in print. Hah!

I spent at least four hours going line by line through the pages and removing tabs, and spaces before paragraph returns. Overall, the experience wasn't difficult. The hardest part was thinking in terms of one continuous flow instead of pages. Since Ebook readers are all different, you can't use page breaks. Also, it was different to look at single spacing. I have to look on it as a brain exercise. We all need to do that from time to time...stretch our brain muscles just like our body muscles.

Now all I need to do is create a book cover. Since, I love working with graphics that should be fun.

The experience taught me to be more cautious with future manuscripts. From now on, before I even send my work to an editor, I'll comb through for any unusual coding.

Any readers out there who have published on Smashwords yet? Care to share your experiences, insight?

Enjoy the day, and thanks for stopping by!

Why Do I Do It?

I keep a small stock of my books in my office to use for promotion. When hubby and I were meeting with VA to plead our case, we had a wonderful lady who saw our problem and found a way to help. God had truly sent an angel to help us that day. I had reached the bottom that day, and I couldn't stop sobbing, worrying that my retirement from my day job meant my hubby would be without critically needed health care. My prayers were answered.

On the first day that hubby saw his doctor, we stopped to thank our angel. I asked if she liked to read and her eyes lit up. "I love to read," she replied. I then told her that I was an author and asked if she would like to have one of my books. After an enthusiastic yes, I promised to bring a book next time.

And I did. Actually, I signed all three of my books and took them to her on our next visit. I felt it was just a small token to thank her.  Last week, when hubby and I made another trip to the clinic to pick up some meds, we saw Karen and waved as we passed.

She called out to stop us. "I've been hoping to see you," she exclaimed. "I've been telling everyone here that I started reading FOXFIRE and I love it! I'm half-way through and, honey, you have developed those characters so well. I'm really enjoying it. I can't wait to pick it up again."

So, for all the people who wonder why I write...that's why.

Writing is a lonely business. It's just me and the characters. I might love them, but what about the people who buy my books? When I hear that I've entertained someone and that they, too, love my characters, it's all worthwhile.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dear Author: "Can you help me understand POV changes?"

Some of my newer writing friends are baffled when they receive feedback that they've changed POVs. What does that mean?

POV (point of view) is probably the easiest and hardest thing to explain. POV comes from what the character is seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, hearing, or thinking. In fiction, editors want to know what is happening in a scene from ONE character's point of view. The temptation for the writer is to show the scene from every point of view because we, the writer, know what's going on in each character's mind.

Let's look at an example from my romantic suspense novel, FOXFIRE. Tyler is a vet and Grace is his office assistant. She accompanied him to an elderly man's home where Tyler had to euthanize the man's dog. Grace has a dog named Tiffany. She is filled with grief after the incident. After Tyler brings her home, they sit together in her living room. Below is the wrong way to write the scene:

Grace sat in the rocker.

Tiffany came out of the kitchen, her jowls dripping water. She walked to Tyler and leaned against him. He ruffled her fur, thinking again about the poor dog he'd had to euthanize. He wished he could have saved the old man's pet. (This indicates that the scene will be in Tyler's POV because we know what he's feeling know through his thoughts.)

Grace felt awkward. What could they talk about to avoid the issue forefront in both their minds? (Now we see what Grace is feeling. Hmmm. So, Tyler can't be privy to her thoughts unless he's a mind reader. We've clearly switched POV to Grace at this point. This is a no-no. It is called head-hopping.)

He met her gaze. "The first time I had to euthanize an animal, my dad was with me. Later we sat and talked about it. He helped me understand what I'd done was the humane thing." Tyler shook his head. He wanted to walk over and hug her. He wanted nothing more than to comfort her. (Again we've switched POV back to Tyler! Grace wouldn't know that Tyler wants to hug her. That's what he's thinking about out.)

Grace swallowed. The lump kept rising in her throat. She wouldn't resort to tears in front of Tyler. She bit the inside of her mouth, a trick that always worked. She watched Tyler's fingers absently stroking Tiffany's ears. (Again another POV switch. Now we are in Grace's head. We see what she sees, feel what she's feeling.)

"I suppose you get hardened to it," she said.

"Never."

****************

Okay, now that we've seen the wrong way to write the scene, how can we write it to show both POV's without doing that head-hopping thing? How to do it? Remove any instances where we are in Tyler's head and reveal his emotions through dialogue. Here is the scene only in Grace's POV:

Grace sat in the rocker.

Tiffany came out of the kitchen, her jowls dripping water. She walked to Tyler and leaned against him. He ruffled her fur and she dropped to the rug at his feet.

Grace felt awkward. What could they talk about to avoid the issue forefront in both their minds?

He met her gaze. "The first time I had to euthanize an animal, my dad was with me. Later we sat and talked about it. He helped me understand what I'd done was the humane thing." Tyler shook his head. "I still have a hard time dealing with it. No matter how prepared you are, it always hurts to see life fade away."

Grace swallowed. The lump kept rising in her throat. She wouldn't resort to tears in front of Tyler. She bit the inside of her mouth, a trick that always worked. She watched Tyler's fingers absently stroking Tiffany's ears.

"I suppose you get hardened to it," she said.

"Never."

*****
This scene shows that Tyler must have had as hard a time with putting the dog to sleep as Grace did. But, it is strictly in Grace's POV.

I hope this helps a little with understanding how to use POV.  Another trick is to write part of the scene in one POV and use a break *** and begin writing in the other character's POV. This is particularly helpful in love scenes.

Please feel free to ask any questions by commenting on the blog, or you can contact me directly through my website. I love to hear from my followers.

Thanks for stopping by!