The first draft of Kneel & Prey has been completed. If you’ve been following along, this isn’t so much a first novel, as a reboot. 🙂 The first novel, Water & Blood, became the fifth novel. The second first novel, The Homecoming Incident, was scrapped and will be offered later as a bonus. So the […]
This happens to me a lot. When I outline my book where the climax takes place at a certain place/time, I backtrack and plot when the things leading up to it should happen. Invariably, as I write the actual story, things that I sketched out would take three weeks in the novel occur in a […]
For a business owner, one of the hardest goals to achieve is to duplicate your income. For brick and mortar stores, like fast food restaurants or furniture stores, the only way to double your income is to duplicate your location somewhere else. Like franchising. The great thing about being a writer is every book you […]
Independent publishing is substantially cheaper than its ever been. With Amazon and other distributors offering to distribute your ebook for a small fee and print your print book on-demand with nearly zero up front costs, publishing your book on your own has never been easier. However, to be taken seriously in the market and compete […]
Now that we’re turning the novellas into novels, we’ll have to change some of the titles. Here’s why. The original titles of the five books included an ampersand. The first two are Water & Blood and Shadows & Lies. For marketing purposes, we’d want to make all of the titles consistent, so we’re going to […]
I finished the first draft of Lost & Found this week and the writing process for this novel allowed me to finally find the correct voice and tone for all of the Gabby Wells novels. It was weird to me that it took two novels (that have since been trashed) and three novellas to find […]
Whether you are independently published or traditionally published, the majority of the ownership for your success falls on your shoulders. It is up to the author to write good stuff, build a fan base, establish beta readers and street teams and marketing plans. It’s why real writers treat writing as a business. It’s where the […]
The completion of the Gabby Wells storyline will take me some time. A couple of years. Not including the time it took to convert screenplays into novels that have since been tossed, just getting the novellas written, edited and published will probably take a year in total. We’ll release the novellas, one at at time, […]
Something important occurred to me this weekend. Something that placed a crap ton of pressure on me. As I fleshed out the plot for the second novella, Lost & Found, I realized it is the single most important book in the entire series. Why? Because, we intend to give the first novella The Homecoming Incident […]
One of my continuing challenges I have is my impatience. I am impatient with my career. I am impatient when I read. And I am impatient when I write. One of the things I have tried to temper when I began writing novels were my expectations. Ignorance is a bad guide and I have learned […]
I hate wasting my time. It’s a pet peeve. Just ask my kids. The two main lines they knew not to cross were: don’t disrespect my wife (their mother) don’t waste my time. I’m not saying all of the time with my kids had to be focused and serious. Of course not. Spending an hour […]
Book covers are one of the most important components to getting a potential reader to check out your book. Especially in the online, thumbnail world of perusing ebooks, people really do judge the book by its cover. One of the things that has made self-publishing a success has been the ability for authors to outsource […]
I finished up the first draft of the novella Skyway this weekend. It ran long, as I expected, and will probably be even longer when I get it through the Beta Readers. But it’s a fun ride that starts out with a kick and throws in cool plot twists at the end of nearly every […]
It’s time to dump the term “self-publishing.” Lets call it what it really is, independent publishing. A decade ago, the only legitimate way to get your book to the masses was through the traditional publishing houses. Sure, there were some print-on-demand options available, but the quality of those books suffered in comparison. The marketplace also […]
Funny thing about writing. It’s a lot like life. Just when you think you’ve got it all planned out, it changes right before your eyes. I’m nearing the completion of the second novella Skyway in our five novella Gabby Wells series. The goal of the novellas was to introduce the readers to the characters and […]
The first Gabby Wells novella, The Homecoming Incident, is in the hands of my first group of Beta Readers. Can’t wait to hear their responses, make the tweaks and send it to our second group of Beta Readers. I’m about one-third of the way through the first draft of the second novella titled Skyway. Not […]
Last night, after a long three days of writing over 10,000 words, I finished the first draft of the Gabby Wells novella called The Homecoming Incident. I’ll let it sit a couple of days so my brain can recover. There are a lot of things I need to add to the beginning in order to […]
I set a goal of writing 1500 words a day during Lent. So far I have lived up to that goal. I’ve written over 10,000 words since last week on the first Gabby Wells prequel called The Homecoming Incident. If things go well, I’ll be able to push myself and complete the first draft over […]
To be published or self-publish, that is the question. Since the advent of the ebook, a slow and constant paradigm shift has been occurring in the publishing world. Much like how Napster and, later, ITunes changed the face of music, Amazon and the Kindle have changed the face of publishing. No longer do authors have […]
1500 words a day. That’s my goal. Having suffered with Crohns disease for 24 years it has created numerous limitations in my life, both in diet and activity. So, whenever Lent rolls around, instead of removing a food from my already small list of approved options, I choose to add something to my spiritual plate. […]
