Authors, Kai Strand & LA Dragoni

An author friend recently had a book in a cover contest and reached out asking for honest votes. I eagerly clicked on the link (because I like her cover) and it turned into such an intriguing exercise. The contest had several categories to vote for, though all the books were romance books. Which I think it the first wrong step authors/publishers make in covering a book. No book is simply romance. You can’t tell a story about love without something else surrounding it. Maybe it’s in a contemporary setting. Or futuristic. Or Historical. Now, read those choices again: contemporary, futuristic, historical. What did you picture? A naked man chest in every single one of them? Probably not. Let’s say the cover does have a naked man chest, but the guy is wearing a pair of worn (and probably tight) jeans, a cowboy hat and tossing a bail of hay – what kind of story do you expect to read? Because of the elements portrayed, you will probably expect a western. Back to the c...

First and foremost, happy 91 st birthday to my dad. I love you so much, Dad! *** Back in 2012 Muse It Up Publishing published my middle grade novel, Beware of the White. They are an ebook publisher out of Canada. A great publisher to work with, but my book never did much of anything there. I suspect middle grade isn’t really a good audience for ebook only (unless you already have a great following, which wasn’t and still isn’t me J ) I asked for my rights back (ages ago, really) with the intention of republishing. Guess what? Though I’m not really ready to do that yet, I’m finally a heck of a lot closer than I was. I just finished revising it, I’m considering a new title, I’ve reached out to a cover artist (fingers crossed), I’m talking to a narrator about an audiobook, AND…I’m writing the prequel novella, which I hope to release at the same time. Whaaa…? That’s right. A prequel novella titled, The Making of a Master (Frank’s story). I always wante...

street cred   Commanding  a level  of respect in an  urban   environment  due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments When you make a plan and stick to it – or at least show concentrated effort to accomplish it - you’ll gain street cred among those hoping to achieve their own goals. Last week I observed my 2019 goals from a far. Determined that to achieve the writing goals, I will have to write 51,000 words this year. But how on earth does that fit into my very tight schedule? I’m going to break it into weekly bites so that I can have an idea of how many words per week I should be throwing down in order to complete my goal. There are 52 weeks in a year, but it’s already February 1 st , so let’s subtract four of those. 51k words divided by the 48 weeks I have left in the year equals 1,062 ½ words per week. That kind of stinks. Especially since I work full time, manage some social media pages, write copy for a loca...

Plan - verb (used with object),   planned,   plan·ning. to arrange a method or scheme beforehand for (any work, enterprise, or proceeding): to plan a new recreation center. to make plans for: to plan one's vacation. Last week we examined what I call drone view planning, where you do your high level planning for the year. Now we are going to take those ideas and move a little closer to them. Don’t worry, nothing too scary. I’m not going to make you work too hard. Goal #1: Get book one in my Trickstering series ready for the next step in life. How on earth do I do that? First I have to determine where I am with it and what kind of work needs to be done to get it ‘ready’ for the next step. I’ve recently received a critique back from my very amazing crit partner. Crit partners are heroes. They look at your crap and spend their ver...