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!"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."
Saturday, February 11, 2012
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:
Friday, February 3, 2012
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.
Enter to win
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Dragonfriend
by Roger Eschbacher
Giveaway ends March 03, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
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.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
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 |
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.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Wouldn't You Really Rather Write Fantasy?
"Pedro, just listen to your heart. That's what I do." -- Napoleon Dynamite
Jaq writes from Lithuania (via Goodreads):
It's funny. I've known for the longest time that the first book I ever wrote would be a relatively hard sci fi novel. Just known it. After all, that's the genre I started out reading and that I read the most of over the years. That was the serious branch of speculative fiction, right?
Yeah, well...
Then, along came NaNoWriMo (the novel-writing contest where the goal is to write 50k words in the month of November) and what ended up coming out of my brain? A middle-grade Arthurian fantasy adventure jam-packed with magic and dragons, the most popular of all the mythical beasts of fantasy fiction. Where did all of that stuff come from?
Gee, I guess maybe all of those fantasy stories I'd been inhaling "for fun" over the years were having an influence, too -- those repeated boyhood readings of Ivanhoe, the Arthurian legends, and even the old "Prince Valiant" comic strip. What about all of the works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the other giants of fantasy? Think they might count for something in my pot of "influence stew?"
Yup. They where telling me that, if I really listened to my inner scribe, my writer's heart, I'd probably much rather write a fantasy novel.
The idea for Dragonfriend pretty much just popped into my head when I was trying to figure out what to write for NaNo. I can't ascribe it to anything other than a tiny flash of divine inspiration that told me to draw on influences I'd forgotten about (or was in denial over -- I mean come on, Tolkien? I'm not worthy to touch the hem of his garment, much less toil in his, and I do mean HIS, genre).
Don't get me wrong, I still love sci fi (and have the first draft of a YA space opera I'm going to start editing after the third Leonard book), but I'm very happy that I listened to my heart and remembered that, whether I knew it or not, I really always wanted to write about dragons.
Jaq writes from Lithuania (via Goodreads):
"How did you come up with the idea for "Dragonfriend"? Did you always want to write about dragons?"Thanks for the question, Jaq.
It's funny. I've known for the longest time that the first book I ever wrote would be a relatively hard sci fi novel. Just known it. After all, that's the genre I started out reading and that I read the most of over the years. That was the serious branch of speculative fiction, right?
Yeah, well...
Then, along came NaNoWriMo (the novel-writing contest where the goal is to write 50k words in the month of November) and what ended up coming out of my brain? A middle-grade Arthurian fantasy adventure jam-packed with magic and dragons, the most popular of all the mythical beasts of fantasy fiction. Where did all of that stuff come from?
Gee, I guess maybe all of those fantasy stories I'd been inhaling "for fun" over the years were having an influence, too -- those repeated boyhood readings of Ivanhoe, the Arthurian legends, and even the old "Prince Valiant" comic strip. What about all of the works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the other giants of fantasy? Think they might count for something in my pot of "influence stew?"
Yup. They where telling me that, if I really listened to my inner scribe, my writer's heart, I'd probably much rather write a fantasy novel.
The idea for Dragonfriend pretty much just popped into my head when I was trying to figure out what to write for NaNo. I can't ascribe it to anything other than a tiny flash of divine inspiration that told me to draw on influences I'd forgotten about (or was in denial over -- I mean come on, Tolkien? I'm not worthy to touch the hem of his garment, much less toil in his, and I do mean HIS, genre).
Don't get me wrong, I still love sci fi (and have the first draft of a YA space opera I'm going to start editing after the third Leonard book), but I'm very happy that I listened to my heart and remembered that, whether I knew it or not, I really always wanted to write about dragons.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
A Nice Gift from Amazon
For the time being, Amazon has decided to discount the Dragonfriend paperback by nearly 30%.
It surprised/alarmed me when I saw the price change on the book's page last night, but I was quickly assured by customer service that it doesn't affect author royalties which are calculated off the full list price. On the other hand, it does save you some decent bucks so if you're interested in owning an analog copy of my book, this may be the time to act.
It surprised/alarmed me when I saw the price change on the book's page last night, but I was quickly assured by customer service that it doesn't affect author royalties which are calculated off the full list price. On the other hand, it does save you some decent bucks so if you're interested in owning an analog copy of my book, this may be the time to act.
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