…my pal, Scott Perkins’ book launch has sumb’dy SAVING THE WURLD… nice start…

Seumas Gallacher's avatarSeumas Gallacher

IMG_7340_BandW (914x1280)
…fellow Crooked Cat Publishing Author, Scott Perkins, (Blog :  http://www.pagestotype.com/ ) has a milestone day today… his debut novel, Howard Carter Saves The World, is available to all of yeez to download and enjoy… he shares a bit about his plot hero, Howard Carter… a name to conjure with, indeed…

A Name to Conjure With

The naming of cats, TS Eliot tells us, is difficult and a game that’s sure to spoil your holiday. He might as well have been talking about the lip-gnawing, brow-furrowing, page-flipping, head-scratching frustrations of naming characters for a work of fiction.

Considering the amount of thought that goes into naming a cat or a character, it’s always surprising to me how arbitrarily we tend to name people in real life. My mom babysat for a kid named Scott and always liked the name, so here I am. I watch friends and family…

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Character Hot Seat: Luke Callindor, Kira Grasdon, & Sari

The poll from March 15th is done and there were a lot of characters who got a vote.  Looking at the top ones, I realized that many of them have won these before and then go on to get no questions.  So, I’m grabbing the ones who gained interest and am putting up multiple characters for questioning.  Think of it as a panel instead of a one-on-one.  Let’s begin and have some fun:

POSSIBLE MILD SPOILERS BELOW CUT Continue reading →

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A Quick Post before the Character Interview

I’ve been watching this and decided to show it.  It’s from the Amazon.uk site:

I always seem to start off strong in the UK while Amazon.com is a battle.  No idea why.

Another reminder:

TWUBS CHAT THIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15th from 12-2 PM EST!

Now to get an errand done and return for interview questions.  Hope people join in and have fun.

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Drop Everything and Read

Nicholas C. Rossis's avatarNicholas C. Rossis

Oh D.E.A.R.!

From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksD.E.A.R. stands for “Drop Everything and Read“. This is a month-long celebration of reading designed to remind folks of all ages to make reading a priority activity in their lives. With declining literacy among children and adults, it is now more important than ever for reading to be encouraged and cherished as a worthy past time.

D.E.A.R. programs have been held nationwide on April 12th in honor of Beverly Cleary’s birthday, since she first wrote about D.E.A.R. in Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Inspired by letters from readers sharing their enthusiasm for the D.E.A.R. activities implemented in their schools, Mrs. Cleary decided to give the same experience to Ramona and her classmates. As D.E.A.R. has grown in popularity and scope, the program has expanded to span the entire month of April . . . offering classrooms and communities additional time to celebrate!

Can D.E.A.R. be celebrated anytime?

Every…

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Building a Book Trailer on a Shoestring Budget (pt 2)

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

It’s still Painful, and It’s even Uglier

Camerman

Welcome back. Now, you have your book distilled, so you can think about what images you want to represent your words. This can be as difficult as making your cover (or approving it, if you were able to have one professionally made). Now it is time to go out and look at what pictures are available.

For starters, be aware that different screen sizes will affect how your images will display. This graphic does a good job showing that:

Screen Sizes

Image courtesy of: maxresdefault.jpghttp://www.youtube.com Video Frame Size

Most modern monitors are the high definition size, but don’t forget about tablets and smart phones.

For each of the slides, you should have a theme. An example using my second book for a trailer would yield the first phrase: With a slave now in tow, He fled for his life

What does that bring…

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It’s Spring! Time for a Bumper Sticker Giveaway!

Michelle Proulx's avatarMichelle Proulx - Author

After the longest winter of my life, I am ridiculously happy to announce that spring has OFFICIALLY HIT HALIFAX, CANADA!

Phew. Honestly, you cannot imagine my relief. Things were getting pretty grim for a while there. I’m looking at pictures from Celeste DeWolfe over in South Korea, who seems to spend all her time going to Cherry Blossom festivals and eating giant cotton candy balls, and then I look out my window, see seven-foot-high snowbanks, and think “Aw man.”

But today it was above zero and the snow’s finally melting and everything is glorious! Therefore, I have been inspired to run a …

Imminent Danger bumper sticker giveaway!

***

The prize: 

1 bumper sticker, as follows …

bumper sticker 1I have one on my car, and it’s super fly. You will be literally the coolest person in the galaxy if you have this bumper sticker on your car.

***

How to…

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Changes, Interviews, and SLEEPER OF THE WILDWOOD FUGUE #fantasy

This was a busy week with my son’s spring recess, Passover, my birthday, and the debut of SLEEPER OF THE WILDWOOD FUGUE!  I didn’t get to rest much, so I’m easing through next week with outlining.  At least until after the TWUBS chat on Wednesday and then I’ll dive into Book 11.  No rest for the obsessive author with a fear of every break being his last.

  • A small change to the blog: I put up moderation for comments, so I have to manually okay the first comment of each post.  The reason for this is I’ve had to delete a few recently to avoid spoilers.  With LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE so far in, it’s hard to avoid and I need to implement a small check.  I do apologize for this and I promise to be prompt with the acceptances as long as I’m not away like I will be tomorrow.  I hope this doesn’t dissuade people from commenting, but it’s really just a book protection thing.

The book is doing pretty good.  They always start slow and I’ve been hanging around the 14,000-20,000 rankings since Day 2.  I still hope to get this book onto a Top 100 list like the others.  Not to start screaming ‘BESTSELLING AUTHOR!’, but just because I want a ‘complete set’.  It’s the collector in me.  This stunt seems to be harder and harder lately in the fantasy realm.  Still, fingers are crossed and tweets are routinely going out.  I’m always looking for some suggestions, but my tight schedule does make working within the various writing groups tough.  Hopefully that can clear up one day.

BIG THANK YOU TO ALL BLOG BLAST VOLUNTEERS AND BIRTHDAY WISH GIVERS!!!

What else went on here?  Everything is a blur, which is why I need a few days of lazy outlining and enjoying a relatively quiet house before tackling the next book.  I feel drained and a little lost at times.  With the kid home, every activity took a hit and getting the marketing done on Tuesday required waking up a little early.  My dad did help by wrangling the kid for a while and taking him shopping.  Still, the imp wanted daddy at times and it resulted in one moment of absurdity.  He has a portable Mickey Mouse bed, which I had to set up on top of my bed.  This is because I was modifying a part of Book 10 and he wanted to sit next to me.  This wasn’t a quiet event.  On the plus side, I only needed to lay the groundwork for a character to realize something in a later book.  Just an identity question that will allow me to reveal the reasoning behind an infamous event in the series.

Characters will be in the hot seat for interviews this week!  See who won the March poll and will make an appearance!

What’s the goal list for the week?

  1. ‘Fast & Furious 7’ and Firehouse Subs for birthday tomorrow.  Most of the day without my chatty shadow.
  2. Outline more of the Sin series, which really needs a better overall title.
  3. Read more of ‘THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY SOMETHING OR OTHER’.
  4. Prep blog posts for May.  As usual, I’m always up for topic requests and questions.
  5. Reply to ‘Character Interview’ comments.
  6. Start writing Book 11.
  7. TWUBS Chat on April 15th, 12-2 PM EST.
  8. Biking in the morning and cooking at night.
  9. Miscellaneous
  10. Discover how the munchkin escaped mommy and is now interrogating me about chocolate.
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Will O’ the Wisp stop for Saturday

coldhandboyack's avatarEntertaining Stories

The Will O’ the Wisp blog tour stops at the site of Carol and Tom Phipps today. The topic is the amount of research that went into this story. Please stop by and check it out Carol & Tom Phipps Fantasy Blog.

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Pssst – Wanna hear a PODCAST of an author being INTERVIEWED?

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

Click on the image or link below and select interview 138 😀

michelle-eastman

http://lgbpodcast.blogspot.co.uk

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Surprise! I Published a Short Story! (Sort of!) Get “Venus in Red” Today for $0.99!

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