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Versatile Blogger Award

March 31, 2013

Remarkable things sometimes grow in the strangest places.

This edition of my blog is a little different from most.

I received a nice accolade last week from another writer and blogger, Marny Copal, who nominated me – or more precisely this blog you’re reading, Painting With Light, for the Versatile Blogger Award.

It’s given by bloggers to other bloggers who are writing things they like and find interesting.

Why It’s Special
You don’t always know people appreciate and enjoy what you do, particularly when it’s something you’re going to do anyway, with or without encouragement.

But it’s both exciting and humbling to be told someone does.

I want to thank Marny for thinking my constant drivel is worthwhile. I try to make it interesting, but I’m not always certain I succeed. I know there are a lot of other indie authors out there, and some of them are writing pretty exciting things.

I want to encourage and help all that, if I can. I’ve even thought about offering to do reciprocal interviews, if anyone was interested.

The Aha! Moment
Of course, there’s a bit of self-serving hope in all of it, too. I’d like to think some few of you might someday take a chance on one of my books after you’ve visited here.

I don’t ever plan to get rich off them, and will continue to write them even if my friends and relatives also quit buying them. Still, a guy can always dream, and I thank you for visiting.

If you get a chance, I recommend you also visit Marny’s blog, too. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there.

Requirement No.1
One of the requirements for accepting this accolade is nominating other bloggers you regularly follow, whom you think are doing an excellent job talking about their chosen subject (you’re supposed to tell them about their nomination, too).

So, to satisfy that requirement, here are my choices, in a completely random order (you’ll notice they all have something to do with writing) and you may also notice there are far fewer than the fifteen that are usually recommended:

The Creative Penn
Seumas Gallacher
K.M. Weiland’s WordPlay
Jeff Goins, Writer
T.W. Ditmer
M.S. Fowle
Cindy LaFerle
C.S. Lakin
Tom Rydder

I’m certain I’ve left someone off the list that should be there, and I’m going to apologize profusely right now for the omissions. I’ll blame it on age and lack of sleep (and hope that works).

Finally, I’m supposed to tell the person who nominated me (and all of you, presumably) seven things about myself you might not know.

Requirement No.2
So to finish my acceptance, here goes:

• My first direct male ancestor to arrive in the New World sailed from Ireland to the colony of Virginia in 1635

at the age of 18.

• I met my soul mate when she was fifteen (we were married a little more than five years later).

• She’s still my best friend.

• A voracious reader with a reasonably good memory, I was a National Merit Scholar in high school.

• I write at least 1,000 words a day (and that doesn’t include email or blogging).

• I gave my six-year-old grandson a duplicate of the Gold Medal I won for my debut novel, ribbon and everything.

• He wants to wear it into the shower in the morning.

That’s it. Now you know more about me than I often intend to tell.

Thanks again, Marny. I’m delighted to know there’s someone out there that actually likes this stuff I ramble about. I can hardly wait to find out what, if anything, those nominees above have to say.

Oh yes … for all of you celebrating one of the big holidays at this time of year, whatever it may be, take the time to look around you and appreciate your family.

Time doesn’t wait for any of us, and wonderful memories were meant to be created now.

Tags:award-winning author, book marketing, indie writers, self-publishing, using social media
Posted in Awards, Book Promotion, Book Trailer, Market Your Book, Versatile Blogger Award | 9 Comments »

Pursuit of the Dreamcatcher

March 11, 2013

Dreamcatchers are a fascinating Native American tradition. Intended to protect sleeping individuals, positive dreams slip through, while negative dreams get caught in the web to expire with the first rays of the sun.
~ Photo courtesy Nicolas Moulin

Positive or Negative Dreams
One of the comments I came across not too long ago in my indie-publishing research really stuck with me. I believe it was Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, who said it:

“In the self-publishing gold rush, more money will be made in author services than in book sales.”

What does that mean?

Well, put quite simply, it means the folks that are selling services to help you indie-publish are probably going to make a helluva lot more money than you are.

I’ve had a very modest success with indie publishing, which I hope is due more to book quality (see the press release containing my latest book review) than any marketing effort on my part or, for that matter, which service platform I used.

I’m locally known for doing my own e-Book conversions and for researching the tsunami of new services that promise to help indie authors self-publish. I was even asked to give a presentation on self-publishing options at the Rochester Writers Conference at Oakland University last fall.

The Dreamcatcher Mystique
What did I discover? It’s sad but true, Mark Coker was right. The vast majority of even traditionally published authors rarely sell more than five thousand copies of a book.

While there are exceptions (there are always exceptions) the odds of an indie writer-publisher selling even that meager amount of fiction is a significant longshot.

Still, we keep trying, don’t we?

I attribute that to the dreamcatcher mystique of publishing. We all want to be the next fabulous discovery. The next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. Or even better, one of the indie-famous … like Amanda Hocking, John Locke (the self-published author, not the “Lost” TV-series character) or J.A. Konrath.

Who wouldn’t want to live that positive dream? But given the new multitude of services that promise to help an indie writer get to that Nirvana, where do you go for help?

The Results of All That Research
There are good single-channel, retailer-driven services, like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace or Barnes & Noble PubIt!

You will also find (presuming you’re looking) good multiple-channel distribution services like Smashwords or BookBaby that often include some kind of formatting and conversion service. Along with the newer Apple iBooks Author (which I am just now researching) these are some of the best services.

If you’re like me and determined to do most of it, if not all of it yourself, these are the ebook conversion services I have used to date:

J-Edit, a free, open source program to convert my Word manuscript to an HTML file; and Calibre, another open source (free) program to convert that HTML file to the proper MOBI and EPUB files required for Amazon and other e-Book uploads.

Sigil is another multi-platform EPUB ebook editor that I’ve heard tons of good things about, but have not tried yet myself.

That’s it. Are these all of the services that are available? Not by a long shot. But they work for me.

When all is said and done, however, the hardest part … the very hardest part … is getting someone to notice your book. I’m talking about that most dreaded of “M” words … Marketing.

Now that spring is around the corner, I’m getting ready to launch a serious word-of-mouth campaign, starting with schools, book clubs, book fairs and possibly book stores. I’ll let you know some of the details as they come together, and will report on the success (or failure) of each of them.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my lovely bride is asking me to get off the computer again. As much as I want to stay and see what the dreamcatcher has snared, I think she’s found a shorter pier for me to take my long walks on.

Or maybe she’s just calling me to breakfast.

Tags:award-winning writing, indie writers, press release, self-publishing
Posted in Award-Winning Fiction, Awards, Book Promotion, Book Review, Market Your Book, Storytelling | 4 Comments »

Universal Balance, Indie Publishing and a Tease

March 7, 2013

UNIVERSAL BALANCE
I read a lot. I guess I’ve said that about myself before and it sounds like self aggrandizement, even to me. But it’s true.

My reading speed with excellent comprehension is well over 1200 words a minute (sorry, Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, I don’t need you).

There isn’t a day that goes by I don’t read my share of things. Newspapers (plural), magazines, books, letters, websites, email and blogs. Probably more than my share.

I’m sure there’s someone, somewhere, who didn’t have enough time to read today because I spent so much time doing it (I do apologize … I just can’t help it).

Why am certain? Call it karma, or providence, but I have this idea it’s somehow all about universal balance.

Well, all this reading leads to thinking, which leads me to ideas … and since my ideas often get hopelessly entangled in the emotional side of relatively mundane, often impractical things, I occasionally rant … or at least mutter about them under my breath.

My long-suffering wife has learned to deal with it by telling me to take a long walk. She often includes a comment about a short pier, but in the end I’m usually still muttering.

In the winter I think she takes pity on me. To get rid of me for a while she doesn’t send me out in the cold, she suggests I write some more on one of my stories or my blog.

Just last evening she suggested I write another book.

Since this would be in addition to the one I’m already working on, she obviously wasn’t satisified my mumbling had been sufficiently muffled by the bitterly cold walk I already took (or maybe she was upset the pier was too long).

In any event, I took her advice, gravitated again to the keyboard and now it’s you, Dear Reader, who has to deal with my thoughts.

That could be a good thing. It all depends on how you look at it.

INDIE PUBLISHING
As you know if you’ve been here before, I’ve been thinking about indie publishing a lot lately, because I’ve done so much of it this past year.

I brought out three books and had one of them become an award winner (you can’t see my broad grin but, trust me, it’s there).

I’m also working on book Number Four while trying to figure out how to market the ones I’ve already written, so I research incessantly. When I’m doing that, my wife wishes I would get off the computer.

If that sounds in direct opposition to her admonition to ‘go write’ you’ll understand why I’ve come to the conclusion I’ll never really figure her out, even though I’ve been trying for almost 43 years.

SAMPLE
That leaves only the “tease” I promised (an excerpt from the sequel to Reichold Street – unnamed as yet – that I hope to have out later this summer).

To set the stage: Randy and Donnie are brothers who grew up on Reichold Street. They are only secondary characters in this book, but will intereact with the main protagonist.

Both were wounded in a drive-by shooting (in the first book) and Donnie, a promising, talented writer, lost his wonderful ability with words. Shortly after that, they lost their mother to cancer … and now, fifteen years later, they’ve also lost their father.

This is written from the perspective of Randy, the oldest brother:

We made the ride out to Cloverlawn in silence. The cortège was a great long one; one of the longest I’ve ever seen. I failed to understand how Dad seemed so beloved by so many people in Brickdale. I had met most of his friends. There weren’t many.

My brother and I rode alone in the car behind the hearse, silent for the journey’s duration because Donnie made it clear he didn’t want to talk. So we sat there in black suits looking like two dressed statues made of stone. We didn’t even speak to the driver.

We made the long, slow turn near the woods Mom loved. As we entered the cemetery, I spied the first of the apple trees near her plot. It was far too early for Mom’s favorite blue Caryopteris to be in bloom, or for there to be ripe apples on the ground under the trees, but the twisted, gnarled old trunks showed plenty of promise with their blooms.

I stepped out of the car and the apple blossom scent, mingled with the damp musk from the woods, reminded me again how much my parents had enjoyed the area. They’d spent a lot of time looking for homes there. Years. It was, by itself, a good memory. They had always been happy in that patient search, although it had been fruitless. They never left behind the rusty, diesel smell of Brickdale.

For a moment I watched the long string of cars queue up behind us. Then I caught sight of the tent that stood over the dark maw in the earth next to my mother’s grave. Seeing the hole where we would bury Dad darkened my already somber mood.

Donnie was crying.

I honestly don’t remember the words the pastor said at the gravesite. I do recall saying the Lord’s Prayer aloud with the other mourners, but even that memory is vague. I felt faraway and detached as I watched Donnie throw a handful of dirt into the grave while the coffin was lowered into its concrete vault.

People started to leave, but Donnie and I sat on a pair of folding chairs and watched until the workmen had filled the hole completely. We were alone then, except for the driver from the funeral parlor, who kept looking at his watch as if we were keeping him from an appointment.

When I finally stood to go, the driver’s sigh was an audible, palpable thing. “C’mon, Donnie,” I said, “there’s nothing left to do here.”

Silence filled the back seat of the limo again until we were almost home. That was when Donnie quit staring out the side window and looked across the seat at me. “I should write about this someday,” he said.

Donnie turned back and stared out the window, while his hand held an imaginary pen and drew tiny figures in the air.

Then it was my turn to cry.

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Read this AMAZING review for my novel “REICHOLD STREET”
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