Running a small business like Sonlight Press, LLC is a challenge. Getting your novels written and out to the public is even harder. Putting those two together requires a bit of money and a lot of faith. Here’s where my money went this past year. They say Editing and Book Covers are the most important parts […]
It’s not uncommon for writers to use their work to express their fears. This is true for me as well. The Gabby Wells Thriller series is infused with my internal struggles. Gabby faces a lot of serious crap in these novels, stuff no 15 year old should have to face. She’s a bit broken by […]
God never seems to draw a straight line. I wish he did. It’d sure make life a lot easier. The path I’ve been on in writing the Gabby Wells Thrillers is one of the most convoluted one could conceive. Two years ago, almost to the day, I posted about this strange unfolding. Back then I […]
It took eight years to get my original idea into a printed book. Through three screenplays, two 13-episode television series scripts, two novels that were scrubbed and four novellas that were augmented, Kneel & Prey, the kick off of the Gabby Wells Thriller series, is finally complete. It was a long journey with far more […]
Author Pete Bauer and Dorothea Bauer talk about the top 3 things they did well in 2014, what they could improve upon and Christmas and share some exciting plans for 2015. Mobile Users: Click Here to Listen Topics Covered: Last Podcast New Podcast Top 3 Things We Did Well Top 3 Things We Need to […]
It’s taken writing over 500,000 words to get here. From the first attempt of converting 13 television scripts into a novel to 100 drafts later to a near finished product to tossing it out and starting over. From turning the idea of five novels into five novellas and five novels to then deciding to write […]
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, […]
Been very efficient this past week, typing out over 12,000 words. I’m nearing the end of the first draft of Lost & Found and I must say I’ve really enjoyed putting Gabby through hell. Writers have an odd relationship with the characters they love. They create them, cherish them, give them hopes, dreams, goals, loves […]
Writing is a lot like golf. It only takes one good swing to keep you hacking away for another 18 holes. While working on the first draft of Lost & Found I inadvertently setup a really awesome situation. The options were limitless. With that came pressure not to screw it up. So, I tentatively started […]
Plotting out Lost & Found has really come in handy. In a week I’ve written nearly 8,000 words. The story is humming along. I’m about half-way through, so it should end up in the 30,000 – 40,000 range, like the rest. I have been amazed how changes in the market, or new information I have […]
I’ve been chugging along slowly, but surely. Mostly slowly. I was able to draft almost 7500 words on the Lost & Found novella before I slowed things down. I realized that I knew the end of the story, but some of the middle parts were fuzzy. And, since I was diving head first into writing […]
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 […]
