The Perils of Panacea is Alive (ish)! Plus Limited Time Ereader Deals
The moment you’ve been waiting for—or at least the moment I’ve been waiting for—has arrived. The second Sydney Brennan novel, The Perils of Panacea, is now available on Amazon (UK here), Kobo, Nook and iBooks. Woo hoo! Or as auto-correct would like to say, “Woo too!” The paperback version [mumble, mumble, mumble]. What’s that about the paperback, you ask? Well, the paperback still has the electrodes hooked up to it. I slightly underestimated how much time individual steps would take, including file reviews that are totally out of my hands and cover tweaks that are not. And I’ve discovered another em dash Read more…
The Latest from Lava Land
I am a superstitious person. I’m not obsessively superstitious, knocking on things right and left, or swerving out of my way to avoid cracks or black cats. (I do avoid walking near ladders, but that’s because I’m a klutz.) I’m not even consistently superstitious. But superstition sneaks in around the edges of my peripheral vision, like the supernatural logic of a Stephen King novel. I tell myself it’s the by-product of a gifted imagination. (Feel free to use that excuse yourself.) Whatever the reason, I do feel funny sometimes about sharing good news, or at least sharing the cessation of Read more…
My Kingdom for a Blurb
I’ve been working on a bunch of last-minute book launch things lately. As an indie publisher, I am responsible for everything that goes into my book’s production, but I don’t personally do everything. That’s one reason many indie publishers don’t like the term self-publishing. A responsible publisher does not do everything him- or herself. I have a cover designer who makes Sydney’s world come to life. For Panacea, a developmental editor helped me see structural and plot and even footwear issues. As I explained in my most recent post, my copy editor has a fine eye for details like spelling Read more…
No Bread Sticks in Your Trenchcoat: Lessons From My Copy Editor
I’ve been getting The Perils of Panacea back from my copy editor in chunks this week, so that’s exciting. My husband asked, “Does she find a lot of stuff?” She’s reviewing a post-beta read final draft, which I’d like to think is reasonably clean. The answer is still, “Yes, she finds a crap-ton of stuff.” Okay, that might be exaggerating a little, but it’s amazing how many things slipped past me over the course of 100K+ words. Some were typos or awkward phrasing that I’d read too many times to notice. I’d introduced mistakes making changes after the beta reads. And I’d done Read more…
Stories I Love: The Thin Man
I’m constantly realizing things about my viewing and reading habits while writing this series. This week’s revelation: the Stories I Love are all about character. That makes sense. You can definitely enjoy a story that’s plot-driven, and there are some plot-driven stories I’d like to watch or read again, just to see how they made it work, sort of like a mechanic looking under the hood of a fast car. But how many of those stories do you return to time after time after time? The Thin Man movies stay near the top of our DVD rotation not because of Read more…
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