Ah, another Friday which is another word for par-teee. Always nice to see the eve of the weekend. I hope your week was a good one. Gwen Plano and I received our manuscript back from the editor and were both impressed with the quality of work. She did a marvelous job taking our text and helping the story. Of course, Gwen and I tried to write a book all while having surgeries. I would not recommend that profile to anyone.
As we say, all is well that ends well and we are now hopeful of having a book that folks will enjoy reading. We decided to go with a mystery story rather than a thriller.
The title is The Predator a world domination fight to the finish.
Here is a preliminary blurb:
After the death of Brad and Sarah, it is apparent that a…
Infinite Waters: 9+1 Speculative Fiction Short Stories has probably the strangest history of all of my books. Its launch was marked by the closing of Greek banks and the imposition of capital controls. As a result, instead of a big promo, all I could do was depend on you good people to spread the news of its release.
And now, it has officially become my first book to be translated into French. I have my wonderful translator, Krystallia, to thank for this, and my very own half-French wife, Electra, to thank for the translation (I hear it’s great but my French is rather limited, so what do I know?)
Any French-speakers among you may enjoy reading my irreverent short stories. As a reminder, the anthology includes the following…
It’s time for another installment of my 2019 Author Interview Series. This week, I’m happy to welcome Tim Cagle. Let’s take a look at the 10 questions that Tim chose to reveal a bit about himself.
Please enjoy getting to know him.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?
I am a semi-retired medical malpractice attorney so my schedule is much lighter than it was as I have not been in a courtroom for a while. I write constantly and continue to evaluate ideas. I’ve been lucky because I’ve never experienced writers’ block. Maybe that’s because I suffer from lawyer’s disease and probably like to listen to myself talk so I have no need to become blocked.
I’m also an ex-law professor and frequently get contacted by ex-students who are now lawyers to opine on cases or answer questions about admissibility of evidence. I still get ideas…
As usual, here is your warning that this story has cursing, sex (not graphic), innuendo, and violence. It’s my Rated-R action adventure called Derailing Bedlam. This is the fourth outing (third official) for Cassidy and Lloyd, so feel free to click on one of the two covers to see how it started. Each one is 99 cents!
I think I should apologize for all these series posts that I’ve been doing for the last two weeks. I promise that I’ve got a ‘Ye Olde Shoppe’ coming on Friday, so just hold out for a little longer. There’s just been a lot on my mind in regards to writing and how things have gone for me. Of course, my mind eventually came down to the audience I’ve gained with my books and an old tip that I was given when I started.
Back when I began, I was told by several people that I should develop my audience for fantasy and that these readers would follow me anywhere. Maybe I misunderstood, but I haven’t found that to be the case. First of all, I’ve learned that a lot of people are fans of saying ‘I don’t really read fantasy, but good job’ and they stuck around my blog without supporting the writing. Not a horrible thing since my posts need love too, but the money comes from book sales. Other people bought the books without reading, reviewing, or passing on the word, which is their choice. I’ve been told by some that they wouldn’t start reading until the entire Legends of Windemere series was out. No problem there because that’s still interest and I can’t blame them considering what happened with ‘Wheel of Time’ and ‘Game of Thrones’. Eventually, I did gain a fan following that made me feel like I had made it to the next level of being an author. Time to put that theory to the test, which resulted in . . .
Crossing Bedlam and a lot of crickets. Things got strange here because I had a lot of praise for the idea and the cover. Once the book came out, people started telling me that the genre wasn’t for them or they thought the cover was too cartoon-like. Keep in mind that I spent a lot of time trying to get input and felt like I was on the right track. Now, the cover thing aside, I was shocked to find that the theory had failed. Most of my fantasy fans didn’t care about Cassidy and Lloyd even though I wrote it. So, I hadn’t actually hit that level where fans will follow you everywhere. The Life & Times of Ichabod Brooks didn’t fare much better too, which was odd because that was fantasy. I’ve noticed that many people have walked away now that Legends of Windemere is done and War of Nytefall isn’t drawing them back. This could be a few reasons:
I’ve been told that people aren’t into vampire stories. While Clyde and the others are vampires, they are still in Windemere. I would say that this is more fantasy than vampire too. Them being vampires defines the world, stakes (ouch on the pun), and other aspects of the world, but not the overall story. Much of this stems from what people think when vampires are brought up, so they already assume a lot of what’s going to happen. Uphill battle already.
People may have been more interested in the characters of Legends of Windemere than the story, the world, or me. Once Luke Callindor, Nyx, and Fizzle retired, they went off to look for something else. People kept asking me to do give stories to the other characters instead of letting me move on to another idea. So, the audience I developed could have been much more nuanced and specific than I realized. This is great for a series, but not when you want to move on to another project.
Readers might have been burnt out on me. I was releasing 3 books of my series every year, so I could have pushed myself too much. Be nice to think readers simply needed a break and will give my new series a try, but it isn’t looking that way. Maybe I should figure out how to get a new banner for the blog to say ‘War of Nytefall’. Not sure how that factors in.
So, I’m not sure what to think about the idea that fans will always follow an author. I do see it with some indies, but they don’t really step that far outside of their genre. I don’t feel like I’ve gone too far with War of Nytefall since the Dawn Fangs were around in Legends of Windemere. Yet, it could be just enough that readers don’t want to follow, which puts me back to square one.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m very thankful for everyone who has followed me on each of my adventures. That foundation of support has kept me going even during this rough patch. My concern is more about how one can maintain momentum between series if the majority of the audience isn’t willing to make that jump. How does an indie author begin anew while still holding onto what came beforehand? I’ve seen some authors make a pen name for each series/genre, but most of my work is in Windemere. People will probably figure out it’s me once they see the blurb mentioning the world or anything that came from one of my other series.
Maybe I’m talking out of frustration because I feel like I’ve tried everything that is within my power. I’ve battered my head against the wall to make it as an author, but the engine ran out of steam without me realizing it. No matter how much coal and water I put in there, it won’t help much if I don’t have many passengers. Is this analogy still working? I should probably stop now. Man, these posts have been long. Really sorry about that. I promise humor on Friday.
Amazon has now released an Early Access feature that shows the direction the company wants to take their software.
Prepare Your eBook and Paperback with Kindle Create
The new feature’s main point is that it lets you design both a Paperback and eBook edition from a single file. In effect, Amazon wants you to stop using Word to format your document. Instead, you will paste your text into Kindle Create and format it there.
Several elements that you needed to enter manually until now, will be handled automatically by Kindle Create. Specifically:
Kindle Create will automatically enter the book title at the top of the right-hand pages and the author’s name on the left-hand ones. Their alignment and style can’t be changed.
Hey there, people…guess who’s still around and creating (though not posting as much as she should)! I’ll get more into the stuff I’ve been working on a bit later, but there’s one main focus for this next week…
Next Tuesday marks the release of a brand new anthology of superhero stories, comprised of 10 tales! I wasn’t able to do these promo images for everyone, but I have managed to draw enough of them for a week.
All proceeds from this anthology will go to Alex’s Lemonade Stand, to help in the fight against childhood cancer.
Each day leading up to the release, I’ll introduce a bit about the authors involved and their stories, starting with the head of Fiction-Atlas Press herself: C.L. Cannon, and her story “Turncoat”.
Turncoat Synopsis: No one’s seen Max Gressier in over a decade. Most assume he’s dead. But when the government sets up an…
Not sure I need to do a lot of context build up for this. It’s a fun action sequence from War of Nytefall: Loyalty. There is an increasing difficulty in doing these without spoilers though. Then again, most of my books have been out for a long time, so there might be some wiggle room. After all, part of the fun of reading adventure books is the journey. Might even be more fun than the destination. Here we go!
I’m not 100% certain where I plan on going with this. The topic came to mind after a day of hearing people tell me how talented I am when it comes to writing. For a while, I’ve been struggling with a lot of doubt in regards to my creative abilities. This is the first time in my life that I’ve been this low, so I’m thankful for the support. Their words did make me feel better about my situation, but there was still a sting to it.
The sting came from me wondering why I couldn’t get anywhere if I did have talent. I’ve read works by other indie authors who are incredibly gifted, but they are struggling or have left the game behind. Various published authors that I love have very little name recognition even within their own genre. As an author, if you don’t praise one of the big names of today then you’re made to feel like something is wrong with you. It’s like we’re supposed to grab a mentor who doesn’t know we exist and follow their path. We bring them up more than our own works in the hopes of getting attention or being associated with them. I think. Whenever I see this being done, I begin to wonder if natural or even developed talent are enough.
We live in an age of short attention spans, rapid fire information, and connections to the world that we can’t always turn off. People can get famous on YouTube for being foolish just as easily as they can for being talented. So, is talent even a factor today? Can it be overshadowed by somebody who is simply charismatic and famous? I started to touch on this with the celebrity author post in November. It does feel like quality of writing isn’t as essential as it once was. It’s more important for the author to be marketable or the story to be easily adapted. So many people refuse to touch a book that hasn’t been turned into a movie or TV show. It’s rather frustrating for someone who is focused on the literary side of art.
This topic opens a fairly big door too because I’ve realized that talent isn’t always agreed upon. If not that someone has it, but on who has more when comparing authors. For example, one of the conversations I had in the celebrity author post made me realize that I see Tolkien as more talented than Rowling. The other person made it sound like Rowling was more talented than Tolkien. Now, I’m not calling anyone out and hope that I didn’t offend because I want to say that we’re both right. It’s personal taste and preference that guides our definitions of talent, which means these aren’t universal. This makes getting higher up the author food chain even tougher because you need to appeal to the right preferences, but that might not be possible if your talent takes you in a different direction. For example, I’ve been told a lot that I should change my style from 3rd person present tense to something more common. Just don’t have it in me to make that kind of compromise because part of my storytelling talent stems from evolving within that style. My only hope is that I can find someone with the right contacts and pull who wants to give me a chance.
Yeah, there’s that other aspect of being a successful author. Natural talent is part of it, but luck might be the bigger factor. How many talented people have gone unnoticed because they weren’t lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time? That one query letter that you didn’t send could have been the one that struck gold, but the agent didn’t seem to have an interest in fantasy. Responding to that one negative review has painted you as a spoiled author who can’t take criticism even though you simply wanted to clarify something in the story. Every step on this path can lead to an event that overshadows your talent, which makes things very frustrating.
So, here I sit with my talent and voices and notebooks. I’m not sure what I have to do to get anywhere with my writing. All I can do is push forward, but it’s hard to do when you go for so long without finding a carrot. I’ve been starved for reviews, sales, or anything for a long time. Seems like I’m not the only one, so at least I’m in good company. Yet, it does make me wonder and worry. How much of the equation is talent these days? Does the talent have to be in writing or simply in promoting yourself? What can a person do if they’re talented at writing, but not very good at the promoting and business side of the author world?
(So, my phone isn’t really letting me reblog when I go to Safari. I can’t even get it to acknowledge that I’m following sites. The WP app has no clear reblog button. Really hope this does the trick.)
Kick off the new year with this steamy must read… Flare Up by @ShannonStacey #NewRelease #Romance @Barclay_PR
“Lucy. It’s Friday.”
It’s time for another installment of my 2019 Author Interview Series. This week, I’m happy to welcome Tim Cagle. Let’s take a look at the 10 questions that Tim chose to reveal a bit about himself.
