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!

Greetings!

February 2, 2015February 2, 2015 / louisklowy / 6 Comments

Thank you, Marcia, for inviting me to be a part of your wonderful blog site.

A little info on myself. My name is Louis, formally Louis K. Lowy. A former firefighter, I sometimes feel as if I jumped from the fire into the frying pan when I took up writing as a means to fulfill my passion to create characters and worlds that I longed to inhabit or longed to avoid. I also play the bass guitar, but not as frequently as in the past–somethings gotta give when you take up writing.

I’m a recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, my work has appeared in, among others, New Plains Review, The MacGuffin Magazine, The Chaffey Review, and the anthology Everything Is Broken. My first published novel, Die Laughing, is a humorously dark sci-fi adventure set in the 1950s.

My forthcoming novel, Pedal, is due to be released in the spring. It’s the story of a 49-year-old elementary school music teacher who is fired and struggles to reclaim her life back through bicycle racing. My third novel—Anatomy of A Humachine: Book 1 To Dream—is another sci-fi story, though of a complete different nature. It’s scheduled for publication in March 2016.

I’m looking forward to sharing insights, resources, and some plain, good ol’ conversation.

My website is www.louisklowy.com

Twitter @louisklowy

Facebook/Louis K Lowy

Pinterest/louisklowy

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!

Question on Boxed Sets for Kindle

January 28, 2015 / Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

Well, here I am with my first two books in the Wake-Robin Ridge series out, and I want to offer a special deal on a boxed set of the two. I have them all saved in one document, everything matchy-poo and pretty, and a lovely boxed set style cover. I’m ready to upload, but I’m stumped right out of the box (ed set). I can’t figure out how to do the title to show this is a series, and a set that includes Books 1 & 2, and the names, and whatever else I’m allowed to put in there.

I spent some time online looking at other boxed sets (good golly, ollie, there must be a ginormous market for multiple werewolf/vampire/demon erotica!) but that was really no help, no matter the genre. I found titles as short as “Boxed Set: The Naked Vampire Series” to titles that had 30 or 40 words in them. None of that looks like it’s allowed, but there it was.

Now, if I wanted to list my set as “Boxed Set: Wake-Robin Ridge Series, Books 1 & 2: Wake-Robin Ridge, A Boy Named Rabbit” well…anyone know how I would go about doing that? Is it one title? Should it be a title and subtitle? And what about that rule that says every word of it must be on the cover of your book? I didn’t find that to be true in very many cases, and I looked through hundreds. (Only half of which had naked vampires on the covers!)

Have any of you done this? Do you have any ideas? I looked through the Help files and found nothing useful. 😦 I’m stuck!

Disconnect by Alistair Haddow

January 28, 2015 / Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

Author Alistair Haddow, would like everyone to know that his short novel, Disconnect, will be available for download free from Friday, January 30 through Sunday, February 1. Check it out, and remember to share with your peeps! Thanks, and good luck, Alistair. Hope you get lots of downloads.