Reel them back In

Von was just minding her own business, going to the break room at our job when she was accosted by one of our readers. She'd just finished reading our third book and demanded to know what would happen next. She begged and begged, promising to buy our next book, she just had to have the answer. Like we always do, Von told her she would have to wait until the next book is out.

We've been bribed, extorted and threatened by readers/coworkers who after reading the ending of one book, wants to know how the cliffhanger is going to be resolved in the next. I think it's one thing as authors we've gotten right. Every one of our books end with bait to get the reader to buy the next one.

If you're an author with one off books with unconnected stories it won't work. But if you're planning a series you may want to give your readers extra incentive to come back. A cliffhanger doesn't have to be the damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks. It could be as simple as will they or won't they get together, which of the characters is hiding a pregnancy, or what's in the briefcase the villain has been carrying around.

Whatever you decide, don't be shocked if your readers get confrontational and want to know what happens next.

Bursting the Bubble

One of our readers asked if we ever considered the possibility of hiring models to pose as our main characters for the cover of our books, The Body Hunters. We politely said no, it wasn't something we would consider.

Reading is about imagination and fantasy. My vision of what Danielle Labouleaux and that fine hunk of a man, Aiden Stone look like may be different from my co-author's vision of them, which is different from our reader's vision of what the couple looks like.  Putting two models on the cover could be disruptive to the reader's experience and may turn them off if the model's appearance is not what they had in mind.

I confess that the same thing happened to me with a series of novels I read. The series was briefly turned into a TV series. Now the male protagonist got a pass, he looked like I would imagine his character to be. His female partner was not. The actress was blond while the character was a brunette. She looked Hollywood glamorous while in the books the character was a bit of a tomboy and an athlete. For whatever reason I just couldn't fall in love with the show like I wanted and the changes in appearance may have been why. Now I'm afraid to pick up the next book in the series because I think the show may have ruined it for me.

It's something to consider as an author when the time comes around to design your book covers. Sometimes letting your audience use their own imagination is the best policy. Besides, the actor I envision as Aiden Stone is a little too busy making movies to worry about a book cover shoot. : )

What is Twitter Etiquette?

As indie author's one of the most powerful tools for getting our name and product out there is social media. It's been a learning process over the past year, but we've finally got it down. I'm not sure about Von, but my favorite social media tool is Twitter. It's short and sweet, no need for extraneous content, 140 characters and you're done. If I happen to find an interesting article or picture, I just click on the blue bird, it's miniaturized to Shrinky Dink size and posted to our Twitter page, easy enough.

As our Twitter followers have grown over the past few months, so have our interactions, or Retweets. At first, we would send a Thank You tweet, thanking them for thinking of us, but we soon discovered that retweeting the retweeters content was even better to return the favor.  If an author happens to follow us then we make it a point to follow them back. It's a good way to grow your network and interact with other people trying to do the same thing you're doing.

I got quite a shock, one day while trying to thank one of our retweeters. I clicked on that author's name to find a profile page full of nudity, whips, chains, and handcuffs. Okay, if we're not comfortable even looking at this person's page, do we have to retweet their material because they retweeted ours?

Another question concerns serial retweeters. If we know they retweet our stuff almost automatically, sometimes several times a day, do we retweet their stuff multiple time also?

What about Followers who speak an entirely different language? Do I follow someone even though I don't have a clue what they're saying?

It's not like someone wrote a handbook on proper Twitter etiquette. I hate being rude and don't want our Followers to think we're trying to snub them. So we had to make up our own rules.
If a Follower is into something risque that we're not quite comfortable sharing on our page, we'll send a thank you Tweet or retweet something safe they've retweeted from someone else.

For the serial retweeters, we retweet them once or twice. Anything more and you're caught in a vicious, repeating loop.

The rest is just play it by ear and stick with our own judgment.  If we're not comfortable with something, than the best course of action is to leave it alone. Over time you'll gain Followers and you'll lose Followers, that's just the way Twitter goes.

Don't Waste Your Gift!

This week, we're preparing to release the third book in our drama/romance/mystery/paranormal series The Body Hunters. Our book release goes hand in hand with the giddy Christmas Day feeling you get with any great accomplishment. The road has been paved with challenges, both personal and book related for myself, Von and our editor, but this is the payoff.

Writing is what we love. Conjuring up drama and putting our characters through hell is what we were born to do. It took us a while to discover our gifts, but when we found it, it flourished. Sometimes the writing process can be the most frustrating thing in the word, but I wouldn't trade my gift for anything.

If you have a gift or that special talent, use it. No more procrastinating, lying to yourself that you'll get started eventually. If you're a runner, go do that marathon you've always put of running. If you're a chef, what's stopping you from submitting that recipe? Writers, stop killing time going over the same material over and over again. Get that book published.

Don't let anything stop you from fulfilling your dream.

Multiculturalism in dogs

Does my Labrador Retriever know that he is? do my Chihuahua's know that they are just that?  At what point do we go from being proud of our culture and ethnicity to ethnocentrism? That we devalue all others and exclude people and other ways of life.
The line is fine and easily crossed. Those of us who are blessed enough to live in melting pot areas of the country like I am, that can find Arabic bakeries and Asian markets along with Polish and Italian meat markets, Soul food restaurants, Mexican restaurants, Indian food and everything in between (My taste buds should never get bored) have an opportunity to enjoy many cultures without ever having to get on a plane. Now you would think that with all these ethnicities I live in a utopia where everyone gets along. Yeah, no! I have heard phrases like 'marry your own culture' and witnessed people who will not talk to you because even though they are living in the land of a really humongous statue that says 'Bring me your huddled masses', huddle only with their own. Birds of a feather.......
My Labrador is yellow and weighs 80 pounds. He is a retired Guide Dog for the Blind. He is smart, playful and loves to...you guessed it....retrieve. He still tries to Guide on occasion forgetting that he is retired and I am not blind. So I wonder what is his culture? Guiding was taught to him so that is not part of his culture, that was his job. Maybe  retrieving, killing and destroying toys is part of his true culture. (hover your mouse over the pictures)

Brooks the ex-Guide dog toy destroyer

My Chihuahua's were there first and Brooks had to adjust to their way of life, much like the Chi's had to adjust to feline culture when they arrived. The Turkish Angora's (Yes we are a multiracial feline/canine household) showed the then 1lb puppies the ropes and how things were done in their feline Arab American household. They grew up speaking cat and had an overwhelming love of them even though cat was not in their DNA.

Cat culture

Brooks never got a chance to learn the ancient and honorable feline culture from the elder statesmen of the feline tribe since all the cats have passed on, but the Chi's have done their best to educate and depart the time-honored feline knowledge and culture of their feline Arab American brothers and sisters to him. Sleeping anywhere he pleases is one of his favorite adopted cat culture activities he's learned.
Now Chihuahua's it's been rumored are not descendants of wolves but from Fennec foxes from Mexico. An interesting theory because that would mean over the many years Chihuahua's have been human's pocket companions we have been forcing a domestic canine culture and silly clothes on a native desert animal. Sound familiar in human history? Do my Chi's tolerate domesticated wolf culture, sparkly shirts that say grrrl power or tuxedo t-shirts for the boy Chi, or do they pine for the desert life of their ancestral homeland? That would explain the burrowing in blankets and sunning themselves in 90 degree temps while their much larger canine companion enjoys air conditioning. Labs are after all from Newfoundland not as the name might imply Labrador, where colder temps are normal.

Psst! We're actually foxes!

Yo no soy un perro! (I am not a dog!)

My 4 legged household companions can teach us all a lesson in diversity and getting along. Enjoying and learning from each other's differences and recognizing that we all share in one universal culture, human culture. We all want ultimately the same things, family, faith, love, a nice place to live and enough to eat, a bright future for our children and to be able to carry on our legacy through them, plus small dogs to dress up. Be proud of who you are and the heritage you came from, take the positive lessons of your ancestors and the good things of your culture and move them forward, share them with others and enjoy the diversity and history of another. Mix it up a little, I'm a firm believer in once you learn about it, you end up respecting it and your world is a richer place for it.
Then again maybe I'm being Pollyanna. (an excessively or blindly optimistic person.)

Part of Chihuahua culture is staring, giving off subliminal messages till you give up the coveted object. Something they learned from their feline Arab American upbringing.

How Much is Too Much?

Last week while in the midst of writing the third book of The Body Hunters Series we had the discussion of how far we really wanted to delve into our mythology. Though our series is about a pair of detectives with extraordinary abilities which they use to solve mysteries; at its heart our story is about two unique people working together while trying to sort out the difficulties of their relationship. What we had in mind was creative and would have made for an interesting story, but was it so far into paranormal mythology that it would turn off the readers?

As an example we referenced the HBO series True Blood. Though I'm late getting into the series, starting halfway through Season 5, the common complaint I hear about it is that they got too convoluted. People miss the earlier episodes when it was a scandalous supernatural tale about who hooked up with whom. I can say the same about a show I enjoyed during its first season ABC's Revenge. The first season was simple; a young woman with a list of names going after the people who wronged her. The second season of Revenge was too far removed from the simple concepts of season one. I gave up watching halfway through and to date have yet to even watch the second season finale.

Keeping these lessons in mind, we decided to scale back on the storyline we were planning. Though the storyline is still present, it's not an all encompassing plot like we originally planned.

While it would have been a compelling story with deeper supernatural elements, we listen to our readers first and foremost. Though our superfans enjoy the paranormal activity that brings our characters together, the thing they enjoy the most is the human connections and relationships. We don't want to alienate our readers by introducing concepts that are too out there. So using these TV shows as examples of what happens when you don't give your fans what they want, we decided to ramp up the drama and a little boom-chica for good measure.

Why Do I Feel Like a Drug Dealer?

The Body Hunters by Raven Newcastle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009X971ME/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_kkARrb04JYMQ1 … via

My customer gives me a barely perceptible nod across the room, like she's a pitcher at a baseball game. She's got that glazed look in her eye and I know she wants the 'product'. She's practically starving for it. The side effects are the same for all my customers; the sleepless nights, mood swings, and euphoria are what they want.

She leaves her desk and I make my move. With the 'product' in hand I pick up a notebook sitting on her desk and leave the merchandise up under it. I'm not worried about payment. She's a returning customer and I know she's good for it.

Like I predicted, she meets up with me at lunch and palms the money into my hand with out a second glance. Unless you were looking for it, you never would know that a transaction just took place.

This is how it is with all my customers at work who are begging for the 'product'. I've set up clandestine transactions in the ladies bathroom, the lunch room, and the trunk of my car. Whatever it takes to get my merchandise out on the street. I'm a born hustler.

If you think I'm talking drugs you're dead wrong. I'm talking about selling my book in the workplace. At some point someone at my job came up with this rule where you couldn't um..how did they put that? Distribute or solicit, whatever. It's a pain in the butt when you're an indie author.

So, I have my superfans who even now are waiting on me to bring contraband into the work place. It's not that I'm breaking the rules. The customers who have internet access go ahead and buy the book online. For those that don't have internet access and still want to support me, I purchase the book and give it to them at work. I'm pretty sure givesies backsies is legal. They're just paying me back for money I spent on purchasing the book, but I want to be off the boss's radar, so I'm stealthy with how I handle it.

One day when I'm sitting on Oprah's couch, we're going to laugh about this story. Until then, I'll be smuggling books in my purse for my clients who badly need a dose of drama.

The Trials and Tribulations of Publishing

This was a very eventful week, the release of the second novel, The Body Hunters: Paradise Denied in our series. It's been an exciting week and I feel like a little kid who got what the wanted for Christmas. One of our Superfans is nearly done with the novel and she is loving every bit of it. She's started a chain reaction with our other fans who are just as excited to get their hands on the book and I can't wait for their reactions as well. There is nothing better as an author when someone loves your work and is as enthusiastic about the characters as you are.

 Though we anticipated a release of maybe January or February 2013 initially, due to a few challenges, it was released a bit later then expected.

After our editor sent us her final changes, my co-author, Von did her final read through before sending it on to me last Thursday. I started on Thursday after work, with my personal deadline of Monday at the latest. I had a pretty normal weekend, all the while going on with my final edit. I was two-thirds of the way through in the wee hours of Monday morning, when I had the brilliant idea to close my laptop and move to another room.  Big mistake.

When I got to the other room and started my laptop again, the screen was completely black. No problem, I told myself, I had this little issue before. Like I learned when I had this issue over a year ago, you just hold down the power button, pop out the battery, pop it back in, turn on your computer again and voila! Wait a minute. Let me try it again. Hold the button down, take out battery, put it back in, hit the button, and....
Okay, what the heck is going on here?

Needless to say, my laptop monitor was completely dead to the world. Nearing panic mode, I decided to put my computer repair class knowledge to the test. I open up the thing, take a look around, and still can't get the monitor to work. Ready to throw the dang thing out the window, I put all 1,099 screws back where they belong and decided to just hook the computer up to my tv and use that as my monitor. But I must have rearranged something when I put it back together because now the power button isn't even working.

I'm tempted to text Von and rant to her, but I remember that it's not even 8 o'clock and she has to work today. Borrowing my mother's laptop which has none of my work stored on it, I start looking for computer repair places in my neighborhood. I can't do anything until the computer place opens so I decide to take a nap.

My rest is kind of broken because the computer is on my mind and that's what's plaguing my dreams. How am I gonna get the book out without my computer?

I wake up a few hours later and text Von since it's now a decent hour. I tell her the devil is messing with us, since when you're close to your breakthrough, he has a tendency to throw a few road blocks and spike strips in your path. For some reason, someone was conspiring against us getting this book published. I call my mother and tell her the same thing, she tells me not to give the devil any power and put him under my feet.

I get to the computer store and whine about the issue I'm having and what I'm trying to do today. The clerk sells me a little box that holds my laptop's hard drive and allows me to continue my work while my computer is in the shop. Ecstatic, I spend the rest of the day finishing my edit.

I did have some other internet issues, but late that evening or early the next morning, whichever you prefer, I was able to finally submit our book to Amazon. Exhausted and giddy at the same time, I finally crawl into bed while the digital book and paperback novel are being published by Amazon.

Whenever I decided to get out of bed the next day, the first thing I do is check on our books progress as far as Amazon. The first thing I notice is the size of the file. Take a wild guess as to how many KB made up our file. Go ahead, take a guess. No, go on and guess. Nope, you got it wrong.

Our book was exactly 666 KB. No, I'm not lying. A story this crazy you cannot make up. I told Von and she had the same reaction I did. Somehow weirdness has a way of following us. Knowing there was no way in the world I was going to live with that number, I republished the novel, throwing in a few of our blog short stories for good measure. Now our story is at a robust and healthy 706 KB.

When somebody throws road blocks and road hazards in front of you, just push on through. You never know what's on the other side.