03/31/2012 • 6:51 PM 1
Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Amazon’s KDP Select program has now been running for more than three months so I thought it would be good to take a quick look back over what has happe…
Via www.publishyourownebooks.com
Filed under: publishing
03/31/2012 • 12:57 PM 0
Feel them feel their power, enjoy the jam and see how many of the books in the video you’ve read.
Filed under: publishing, Bitches in Bookshops, books, reading, video, YouTube
03/30/2012 • 11:24 AM 0
Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Wisdom from the 4-Hour Workweek hit: How to spread a meme by Tim Ferris. Skip down to the end for the point by point summary. ~ Chazz
Filed under: publishing
03/29/2012 • 6:48 PM 0
Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
We rarely travel off the self-publishing road on this blog. All the more reason to vary from the usual map occasionally. Here’s a link to an interesting guest post about an alternative route to traditional publishing on David Gaughran’s blog. (His is a great blog. Bookmark it!)
Via davidgaughran.wordpress.com
Filed under: publishing, book, David Gaughran, publishers, traditional publishing
03/27/2012 • 6:57 PM 4
How about you? Do you prefer outlining first or just diving in and trusting the Force, Luke?
(That animal at the end is Piggle, the cutest skinny pig on earth.)
Click to check Sex, Death & Mind Control here.
Filed under: Books, Video, What about Chazz?, writing tips, Chazz, pantsing, plotting, Sex Death & Mind Control, writing, writing tips
03/27/2012 • 9:18 AM 0
Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Does this book qualify as "literary" fiction? I don't know.
I reject the distinction many people make between literary writing and fiction. I think good writing is good writing.
Is literary fiction a different genre? Perhaps, but since all good fiction has depth, style and character and can be intellectual, the boundaries are fuzzy. Still, the arguments people make for those distinctions are no less interesting.
Maybe the literary novel is like pornography: undefinable but you recognize it when you see it. I don’t necessarily recognize it, though. Is my book Self-help for Stoners literary fiction? It has all the elements listed in the link, but I really don’t know. I just call it suspense. If you figure out if Self-help for Stoners is “literary” or not, please email me. I’d love to know! Click Jane Friedman’s link below to see if you can puzzle it out. ~ Chazz
Filed under: publishing, book, fiction, jane friedman, Literary fiction, Literature, Sex Death & Mind Control
03/25/2012 • 4:19 PM 3
Once upon a time, as a healer, I engaged in counselling someone in a spiritual quest to free them from pain. It’s a long story I will not indulge today, but I will say that before each of those appointments, I meditated. I did that then. ow writing is the only meditation I seem to need. Before each of those appointments, I went to my bookshelves. I’ve collected books for years, so I have several thousand waiting to be rediscovered. Each time, one of those books would call to me. I felt a change in energy through my palm as I ran my hand along the shelves. I would then open the book at random…or seemingly at random. Something always arose in the client’s session that related to the passage from the chosen book. The woman I worked with used to be trapped in an electric wheelchair. She walks, drives, travels and lives a full life now. She became a healer and took my place. Make of that what you will.
When I’m stuck or need a nudge or a connection to an epiphany, I still go to my bookshelves. Call it inspiration, weird, or the hypnogogic state, pattern recognition, divine intervention or neural connection through confirmation bias. Call it nonsense if you want. I’m conflicted about it myself. Nevertheless, it worked. It still works. When I need it, that intuition can propel my narratives forward.
I’m now revising one book while writing another. As I survey my extra desk (spreading out is such luxury), there are several piles I either reference or keep close by just to stay on track. I thought you might be interested to know what I pulled from my bookshelves to draw from as I go through my process:
For my crime novel:
The Pool Bible by Nick Metcalfe (as in nine ball), Mobspeak, The Dictionary of Crime Terms (Sifakis), Writing the Private Eye Novel, Cause of Death A writer’s guide to death, murder & forensic medicine (Wilson), How to Write a Mystery (Larry Beinhart), New York City Day by Day and Frommer’s New York City.
For Editing:
The Artful Edit (Susan Bell), The Subversive Copy Editor (Carol Fisher Sailor).
For Inspiration:
Brother (William Goldman), Best American Crime Writing 2003, When the Women Come out to Dance and The Hot Kid (Elmore Leonard), Small Town (Lawrence Block), This Year You Write Your Novel, (Walter Mosley).
NEXT POST: Pantsing versus Plotting
Filed under: ebooks, Editing, getting it done, My fiction, publishing, What about Chazz?, writing tips, Elmore Leonard, Hot Kid, Larry Beinhart, Lawrence Block, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley, William Goldman, writing and intuition
03/23/2012 • 4:34 PM 6
Specifically, are there words or phrases you might encounter in an Amazon book description that turn you off the book immediately? Are these annoying words or phrases arbitrary?
This is an original work, based on international road sign design. It symbolizes the question "Where do we go from here" and is also a play on the words "Right of Way". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For me, it’s the word cuppa. “Would you like to come in for a cuppa, Miss Beasley?”
Oh, god. Spare me. Hate it. I can’t tell you why because I don’t know. Maybe I associate it with a low-class colloquialism that sounds like a warning of cliched, filler dialogue ahead, but I’m just guessing.
On the other end of the spectrum there’s something about writing the word weight with a calligraphic pen that is so enjoyable, I have written it down a page while doodling, over and over. Is this a weird, unexplored cul-de-sac of OCD? What are the words that make you want to grind your teeth? Or does this just happen to me?
Filed under: rules of writing, What about you?, writing tips, English, overused words, Phrase, what bugs you?, Word
03/22/2012 • 10:48 AM 3
Here's the new cover design for my novella. The graphic designer is Kit Foster of kitfosterdesign.com. IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS IMAGE IN YOUR BROWSER, you can get the new cover image here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83426
The Dangerous Kind is a top-notch, heart-wrenching novella of suspense (and I don’t just say so myself). Happy with the guts of the story, I put a bad cover on a good book. My reasoning at the time was that I didn’t want to spend money on any book that wasn’t a full-length work. I priced The Dangerous Kind at just 99 cents to introduce my flavor to new readers. I did not consider that you can’t sell a gorgeous mansion if the front of the house looks condemned.
I created the first cover for my novella using picnik and morguefiles.com. I’m actually happy with some of the short story ebook covers I created, but with The Dangerous Kind? I made a mistake. The original cover makes sense to readers only after they’ve read the story. If I were a freakish hybrid with Bones McCoy after an unfortunate transporter accident, I might say, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a writer, not a graphic designer!” I should have asked for professional help instead of trying to do it on the cheap. I can recognize a good cover, but there’s a big gap between flying the plane and riding in back.
I was shortsighted. Once an ebook is for sale, you get to sell it forever. Why not make the best first impression you can? It will make a better return with a pretty face and you have forever to make back the investment. That’s what a good cover is: an investment, not a cost. My graphic designer is Kit Foster of kitfosterdesign.com (great guy!) so the cost was reasonable, too.
The other good move I made (finally!) was to ask for a cover endorsement from a fellow suspense novelist. I got one from a bestselling author: Jeff Bennington, author of Twisted Vengeance (and more). Jeff read The Dangerous Kind and gave me some nice quotes for the cover. Cover endorsements give readers courage to make that first click to buy our work and get sucked into our worlds.
Thanks Kit and Jeff. I may find new mistakes to make, but I don’t think I’ll be repeating this one moving forward.
Filed under: All That Chazz, authors, Books, ebooks, Publicity & Promotion, self-publishing, writing tips, Amazon Kindle, E-book, Jeff Bennington, Kit Foster, new cover, Novella, short story, suspense novelist, The Dangerous Kind
03/21/2012 • 10:35 AM 0
Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Otis Chandler says: “The most valuable commodity for the sustained promotion of a book is word-of-mouth buzz . . .
Filed under: publishing
Winner of Writer's Digest's 2014 Honorable Mention in Self-published Ebook Awards in Genre
The first 81 lessons to get your Buffy on
More lessons to help you survive Armageddon
"You will laugh your ass off!" ~ Maxwell Cynn, author of Cybergrrl
Fast-paced terror, new threats, more twists.
An autistic boy versus our world in free fall
Suspense to melt your face and play with your brain.
Action like a Guy Ritchie film. Funny like Woody Allen when he was funny.
Jesus: Sexier and even more addicted to love.
You can pick this ebook up for free today at this link: http://bit.ly/TheNightMan
See my books, blogs, links and podcasts.
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 