Thursday, April 20, 2017

Edit or Self-Edit and Book Covers Too

I have been spending more hours than I want to count this week updating two of my book covers. I like the new ones, probably because I may have a better understanding now than I did when I built my first ones two years ago.  I am not going to re-do all of them, right now, but likely will do one or two more soon.

I am also back working on my nonfiction book. I took five months off to finish up some other projects and am now enjoying the research and writing of nonfiction once again.


At one time in my life, I spent a lot of time, often too much, editing other writers works. I don’t do much of that any longer as I mostly worked with historical nonfiction although I did take on a few fiction projects. Now I mostly edit my own. What am I getting to here? All the advertisements I get in the form of tweets or email offering, book doctor or editing services. Often the promo starts with a line telling all who read that there are so many, maybe millions, of books and eBooks for sale that are chalk full of errors. And, it’s possible there are, but I would rather read a book with a handful of errors than one that is perfect but without a good story.


 I have downloaded, read and enjoyed, self-edited books by several authors. All were people I follow online or on Twitter, and most were pretty good reads. I did not notice a multitude of errors in any of them and the things I noticed can sometimes be found in mainstream novels. As I said above, if the story is a good one, I will read it.


My point is not that books do not need a good edit, but that some self-edited books come out pretty clean. If you are writing a book and hope to sell a thousand copies, which is what you will need to sell to pay for a middle of the road priced editor. I mentioned book covers above, and good ones will help sell books if the book can be found among the 8,000,000 or so on Amazon. Once again writers like myself, who sell books, steadily but not spectacularly, need to be weary of not spending too much for the creation of a cover. I am not crazy about many of the new covers that seem to be black no matter what the subject, they all look the same to my old eyes.


Today’s photos are from my backyard.

Meanwhile, keep on reading and keep on writing.
Oh - one of the redone covers, this for my first kid's chapter book


Monday, April 10, 2017

A New Book and A New Spring

I am happy to say today that I, at last, got out my second book in the Blade Holmes western mysteries. This one entitled, The Ghost Dance, follows Marshall Holmes from Fort Robinson, Nebraska to Nevada and back to the Sioux Reservations of Southern, South Dakota.  The book centers on the famous circle dance of the white shirted dancers, the Ghost Dance. This one has lots of authentic western history and is a very nice follow up to, Commitment, the first Blade Holmes historic novel.

In other writing news, I am nearly finished with my final touches of my gardening book, then it will get final edits and off to my first readers. If everything goes well, I hope this one is only a few weeks away.
A bee last summer on one of my backyard sunflowers

So what am I reading? Thomas McGuane – Keep the Change, so far I am enjoying it, even if it does fit best into the dreaded category of Literary Fiction. I am also reading and enjoying, Postcards, by famed Wyoming writer, Annie Proulx.
Not only me that enjoys basking in the sun

My book sales are picking up right now, always a good thing and the weather is looking more and more like spring. Can’t wait to start digging in that terrific garden soil again.
We have spent some wonderful days hiking in the new Spring weather

Keep on reading and keep on writing. 


Saturday, April 1, 2017

Writing & The Month of March

I am still surprised at how many posts I see each day that have the same theme. The theme is always something like this - The five mistakes writers make, or, the six no no’s of writing in first person. They pretty much rehash the same things over and over. Seems like I remember a few years ago that bloggers were told to put a number in the blog title for more hits, I still see so many five of this, or six steps to this. Not sure if it works but still seems popular. 

Lately, it looks to me that writing books about writing or marketing are the way to sell books. I seem to get multiple tweets, emails, and links each day to this kind of information. It also seems that writing how to for a hobby or small business books could be a money maker. I see more and more of these often offered in eBook only format and many in the 15-80 page range. How much? All are priced from .99 cents to $2.99. Maybe I will give it a try.  How about, Living Uncomfortable on Retirement Income, or maybe for golfers, Turning A Fade into a Screaming Slice. Probably not, maybe a writing book, Hours and Hours of Writing Only to Start Over – Again.


Well, another month has come and gone, and my book sales were mediocre. My trial at giving away one of my novels met with moderate success and did give me a bit of an uptick in sales. I would recommend it to anyone who writes and is still building an audience.


I finished my first draft of my gardening book – it was fun and so different from what I am used to writing. This one will be a .99 cent eBook and likely an $8.99 soft cover. It gives both sound gardening advice and some fun to read garden murder mysteries. Not sure I have ever seen anything quite like this book. Here is a brief excerpt from the first chapter.

It’s Planting Time

Gardening should be fun. Most of the time it is, but where I live, at high altitude in Wyoming, it can sometimes be tricky business. Start the season too soon, and a gardener may find the garden snow covered by morning. Start too late, and the garden might be covered in snow before harvest. When the growing season is short, timing is everything.
So, when do you start? Tough question, easy answer. No matter if you are gardening at altitude, or in the lower areas of America’s heartland, start after the last snow and harvest before the first hard frost in the fall. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were that easy? Yes, it would, but, unfortunately,  it is not.
Can an experienced gardener predict the best time to plant every year? Ahh, no. But we can all find a way to understand when the time is right to sow those first spring seeds. The best way is to live in the same place for a long time, and then you will know, know the perfect time to plant. If you are new to the area, or if, like me, you forget what last year was like, or didn’t write it down anyway, here is a start.

In 2012, the USDA updated their Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This is the best way to start, all you need to do is type in your zip code and up it comes.

All Photos were taken Thursday in our back yard
It is looking like Spring, at least some days!