A Lesson in Uploading Changes to a Published eBook

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 4 Comments

Been doing a bit of last minute editing before starting any kind of “official” launch or promotion of A Boy Named Rabbit, and had a real surprise last night. I made some changes, saved my newly revised document, converted it to HTML, and then uploaded it to Amazon. Well, lo and behold, the little spinning wheel that lets you know your file is being converted to Kindle format by Amazon wouldn’t stop spinning. It’s a process that I’ve seldom had take longer than 3 minutes or so, but after an hour, I gave up and went away for a while. When I came back again, it was still going. Obviously, there was a problem with the file, but I could find no way to stop the process. That big wheel kept on turnin’ and I was left doing my truly fine Tina Turner impression as I headed off to bed.

When I got up this morning, I found a message alerting me that there was something wrong with my file (ya think?) and it could not be converted. They advised me to try again. After about thirty minutes of checking various things in my Word document, I realized that in shuffling around some items at the back of the book (Author’s Notes, etc), I had failed to remove a Page Break at the end of the last page. And that, my friends, was enough to throw a monkey wrench into the whole process.

If this ever happens to me again, the first thing I’ll be looking at will be the very last page. If that’s not the issue, I’ll check the page breaks at the end of every chapter, and between the other sections of the book. And I’m sharing this with you today, so you won’t panic if it ever happens to you. Kindle does NOT play well with blank pages. A word to the wise, and a lesson learned by me.

Getting to Know You

February 3, 2015February 3, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 23 Comments

Since it’s been a slow week, I thought maybe I’d start a new series of posts aimed at getting to know each other better. My dream is that this site will not only become a great resource for you all, but a place to foster friendships among writers. To that aim, I’m throwing out my first Getting To Know You question. I’d like to get a feel for the group as a whole, so I’d like to know what genre you usually write, and which genres you usually prefer to read. Hope you’ll take a minute to reply. I’ll go first.

1. I write Romantic Suspense, some of which has some paranormal aspects. (Ghosts, The Sight, Appalachian/Celtic legends like the Black Dog), and some which does not…but which might have even scarier aspects, considering the shocking cruelty of human nature, from time to time.

2. I read everything, but in recent years have been particularly enjoying all the great Urban Fantasy out here. My favorite UF series is The Dresden Files. My favorite authors, overall, include Daphne du Maurier (NOT a UF writer, for those too young to know her work), Marisa de los Santos for sheer lyrical romance, Dean Koontz for the truly scary, Edgar Allan Poe, for the infinitely macabre, Lee Child, for creating the force of nature known as Jack Reacher, Terry Pratchett for making me laugh so hard at the Wee Free Men, Neil Gaiman for a delicious Creep Factor, Maggie Stiefvater for making YA disturbingly dark and profound, and Jim Butcher, Ilona Andrews, Kim Harrison, Rob Thurman, Rachel Caine, and many, many more, for making Urban Fantasy so much fun. And oh yeah, Larry Correia, for making it so very, very kick-ass!

Your turn. Share as much as you like. You’re among friends!

Reposting for Sue Coletta

February 1, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 6 Comments

Sue mentioned this in response to another post, and I just wanted to be sure no one misses it:

Sue: My latest post, 50 Ways To Murder Your Fictional Characters, with free .pdf http://bit.ly/1Bwvuxb Thank you, Marcia!

St. Cloud Author Symposium

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 15 Comments

Me, Pretending to Be A Real, Non-Sick Author

Went to my first Author Symposium and Book Signing yesterday, even though I was still dragging around in a semi-stupor of lingering exhaustion resulting from my five-week battle with the flu. I won, though you can’t tell it to look at me! I have to say that even though I wasn’t functioning at 100%, I had a wonderful time, and got to meet some super nice people that I hope to stay in touch with.

For some reason, author Eldon G. Brown and I had to share a very teeny-tiny table, which wreaked havoc with my carefully planned display (most of which stayed in my tote bags), but we made do. We’re authors. When something goes awry, you just yell, “Plot twist!” and forge ahead, right?

Eldon has written several books, available on Amazon. I was really intrigued by Dead Girl in a Charleston Marsh. (You gotta love that title. No, seriously. You gotta.) And the cover is great, too. Check it out!

Next to us was author Louis K. Lowy, a really friendly guy with what looks like a pretty funny book, available on Amazon, as well. Any man who can make me laugh is a friend I want to keep. Check out Louis’ book Die Laughing, and see what you think. I’m going to, for sure!

And the other author in our cul-de-sac was Pamela Labud, who was promoting the first book in her Blue Star Baby Trilogy, Grave Danger. It’s a post-apocalyptic zombie story about a re-animator, and it sounded good enough to convince me I should read it, even though zombies aren’t favorites of mine. Still, a well-told story is always worth the read, no matter the genre, and I could tell from looking this one over, it’s going to be good. After checking out Pamela’s Author Page on Amazon, I was truly impressed with her body of work, which spans several genres and more than one name. 🙂 (She also writes as Leigh Curtis.)

Pamela, Louis, and Eldon, I hope we’ll see you all here on The Write Stuff. I’m sure we can learn from each other, and you can share your work and promos here, as well. Great meeting you!

My sincere thanks to author Gunnar Angel Lawrence (The Perfect Day) for putting the event together. Great job! Also, thanks to the good folk at the St. Cloud Veteran’s Memorial Library for all their hard work. It was a great venue!

All in all, I’m so glad I went, because…how often do you get your picture taken with a cow in blue pajamas? I mean, hello…cow!

Boxed Set Update

January 29, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 8 Comments

Well, I got it listed, and it looks pretty good, I think. Check it out here, and let me know what you think. I shortened the name and threw everything but the kitchen sink into the description. (I just read that you should use every bit of that space that’s allowed, making sure all your keywords show up there, too.) I was hoping amazon would put the comparison up there, showing how much you save buy buying the set, but maybe there was something I was supposed to do to show that. ?? Still learning, here, but at least it’s up. Hope you guys like how it looks, and if you have any suggestions, please feel free to post here. Thanks!