Win a Copy of Urchin King

As part of the Magic Appreciation Tour, I'm very pleased to be hosting a book giveaway for author Katharina Gerlach's historical fantasy novel , Urchin King. The giveaway will run for two weeks, starting on Wednesday 3/7 and ending on Wednesday 3/21. Katharina is providing three Smashwords coupons as prizes and asks me to let you know that Smashwords is offering her book at a substantial discount until 3/10. 

UPDATE: I included a link to Katharina's blog in her bio.

UPDATE TWO: GIVEAWAY OFFICIALLY CLOSED. Katharina has generously decided to award four Smashwords coupons for her book. Congratulations to our winners:  Brian Clopper, Aldrea Alien, Ami Hendrickson, and Daniel Marvello. 

Win me!

About the Book

For fourteen years, street-urchin Paul's miserable existence has kept him safe from an ancient law that sentences all second-born twins to death. When he learns he is the younger twin of the mentally handicapped Crown Prince who's in danger of being killed for his disability, he agrees to play the role of the miraculously healed royal heir. Paul struggles to learn how to act like a born ruler, but finds that his greatest skill, getting by unnoticed, is now his greatest liability. He knows if he is discovered, he will be executed like all second-born twins. 

Katharina Gerlach

About the Author
Katharina Gerlach grew up in the middle of a forest in the heart of the Luneburgian Heather. She enjoys writing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Historical Novels for all age groups. At present, she is writing her next project in a small house near Hildesheim, Germany, where she lives with her husband, three children, and a dog. 

Giveaway Rules

Leave one (1) comment with your e-mail address and the title of your favorite fantasy book on this post by Wednesday 3/21 at 11:59 p.m. PST. This will enter you in a drawing to win one of three Smashwords coupons for Urchin King.

The day after the giveaway ends, the comments will be numbered and three winners will be chosen using a random number generator. Katharina will be sent the winners' contact information and will be responsible for sending out the coupon codes. 

Good luck, aspiring giveaway winners!

We Have a Winner!

Congrats to Eric Schwartz of Kentucky for winning a signed copy of Dragonfriend in my Goodreads giveaway. I'll be mailing out his copy later this week along with some bookmarks and postcards.

(Side note to authors: I highly recommend trying out this gratis Goodreads feature. It's an inexpensive way to generate some interest in your book (basically, your cost on a hardcopy and the necessary postage). I had 790 people sign up for the giveaway, many of whom also put the book on their "to read" list. Nice!)

Savor this sweet victory, Eric, for the gods of logarithmic randomness are not always so kind.

Campaigning It

I'm doing Rachael Harrie's excellent Writer's Platform Building Campaign for the second time. I met so many nice people the last time I did it, I just had to participate again. Here's the deal from Rachael's site:

"Basically, the Campaign is a way to link those of us in the writing community together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms. The Campaigners are all bloggers in a similar position, who genuinely want to pay it forward, make connections and friends within the writing community, and help build each others' online platforms while at the same time building theirs."

If you're an author/blogger, who wants to make some new like-minded friends, I highly recommend going over to her site and signing up. The deadline to register is February 15 and the Campaign runs through March 17. Do it!

Special "Year of the Dragonfriend" Book Giveaway

I've decided that another Dragonfriend giveaway is in order since this is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. Yes, add "clever marketing genius" to my list of attributes. Yup, that's what you should do all right. Sigh. Anyhoo, feel free to click on the link if you'd like to win a free copy of the book. It'll take you over to Goodreads where you can sign up and enter.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Dragonfriend

by Roger Eschbacher

Giveaway ends March 03, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Dragonfriend Book Trailer

Trend slave that I am, I've decided to join in on the book trailer craze by asking my twelve year old to put one together. I think she did a wonderful job, especially considering she was working with a budget of $0 (some of the fancy ones I've seen must have cost many thousands with impressive graphics, animation, sfx, live action, etc.). She used Windows Movie Maker, public domain photos (except for the cover), and creative commons licensed music.

I'm not convinced that book trailers "work," nor, obviously, that it's a good idea to spend a lot of bucks producing one, but I do place them squarely in the "It couldn't hurt," column.

What do you think about book trailers? Help? Hindrance? Meh? Has a book trailer ever tipped the scales in favor of you buying the book? Let us know in the comments.

Dragonfriend Postcards and Bookmarks

Hot off the presses, these beauties arrived early last week. Designed by the excellent Mike Wykowski, I love how they turned out and look forward to giving them out at readings and signings. Penguin sprang for a bunch of postcards for my picture book, Road Trip, and I was surprised at how helpful they were in terms of generating reader interest. I mailed them out to bookstores and left stacks of them at places where there were likely readers -- libraries, bookstores, schools, churches, etc. -- and received invitations to read/sign from these places as well as some mentions of postcard inspired purchases on my website.

Naturally, I had to have some postcards for Dragonfriend and, as publisher, made the savvy executive decision to have some bookmarks printed, too. Yeah, that's me, savvy.

Got any promotional suggestions you'd like to share? Please leave them in the comments.

Guest Blogger Scott Bury Talks Editing

Author Scott Bury can be found at his blog, Written Words. He can also be found in Canada which explains why he spells "favor" funny. I've got a guest post on his blog called "How to Fund Your Novel" so make sure you check that out, too. 

Part one of Scott's excellent fantasy novel, The Bones of the Earth, can be found online in the usual places.  It's got a really cool cover and even cooler words inside.

And now, please, a round of respectfully exuberant applause as Mr. Bury talks about his process...

Scott Bury

First, I want to thank Roger for inviting me to contribute to his blog. He asked me to write about my own editing process in writing my novel.

Right now, I am putting the final touches on my first-published novel, The Bones of the Earth. Part 1 is available on e-book retailers now, but before I could bring myself to put the whole thing up, I thought I would take one more look.

I have written about the four steps every writer, professional or otherwise, needs to take before starting any document.  I call it “getting a GRIP,” for goal, reader, idea and plan.

I call the plan, or outline, the best favour writers can do for themselves. Not only does it help you make sure that your report, story or novel makes sense, when you have one you don’t have to start writing at the beginning.

What I need to edit

Like every big job, preparation makes the actual work much easier. Once you’ve finished writing your draft, you have to re-write, revise, change and edit several times.

Every writer should have an editor. You need that second set of eyes, because you just don’t see what’s on the page — you see what you intended to write. An editor is a frank appraiser of your work. But the responsibility to make the changes, to polish the work and make it as good as it can be, stays with the author.

Scott's Cool Cover

I edit while I’m writing, correcting typos and silly errors, changing phrases and sentences as I change my mind. It’s so much easier with a computer than with a pen and paper.

But really editing requires some time. I need to put my work aside for a while. With my fiction, I find that I need at least a week in between drafts. I also need to edit it at least twice before I show it to anyone else, whether a friend, a beta-reader, a critic or an editor.

It’s important to leave time between drafts. It allows you to detach from the work. You don’t feel so much like every word is your baby. Work on something else in the meantime. Every sentence you write improves your writing ability, so that you’re a better writer when you come back to your earlier work.

What do I need to edit out? Excess description. Readers don’t need to have every single twitch described. They need to read a story that’s moving along. Here are some examples from my own work:

“Some of the older nuns were trying to explain away the dragon as an illusion of the devil.”

becomes

“Some of the nuns said the dragon was an illusion.”

“He rose, and the others of the kobold council rose, too. Goldemar said something in the kobold tongue to Krum Chimmek, and they all walked across the hall.”

becomes

“The council stood and led the visitors across the hall.”

“Javor was the first to spotting the ancient jetties that projected into the river. Austinus decided to stop for the night before they came to the town, and found a campsite near the river, downstream from the crumbling city walls.”

becomes

“Austinus decided to camp near the river, downstream from an abandoned town.”

The leaner text moves the action along. You have to leave some room for the reader’s own imagination to fill in the details. Just give enough for a sketch and let the reader’s imagination do the rest.

Your job is not to paint pictures—that’s the painter’s job. Your job is to tell a story.

I hope I’ve succeeded.

##

Thanks, Scott!

How about you? Any "must do" editing tips? Feel free to share them in the comments.