Where It All Began

As I come to the end of book two in my series, Chronicles of Shilo Manor, I'm finding my mind wondering back to where it all started.  The idea.  The actual birth of the story. 

If you don't already know, this series blossomed from a dream I had.  Well, I "thumbed" through my archives and found the original scene I wrote--what happened in the dream.  As I read it, I realized this short would be a perfect freebie for my ShiloManor.Com site.  So, I took a little break from Cornerstone Deep Echoes and went into site admin mode.  I added The Transformation of Anna to the Extras page on the site dedicated to this series.

If anyone is interested in how it all began...and, well, how my sleeping mind works, lol, hop on over and read the portion of the dream that actually grew from a nightmare to a paranormal romance.

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Dealing With Rejection Letters - FFW

** Notice:  Names have been changed to protect the innocent **

To Eagerly Seeking Agent,
 
Thank you for submitting to All Mighty Literary Agency.
 
We greatly appreciate your submission, and have given The Greatest Work Ever our careful consideration. Unfortunately, your project is not a good fit for us at this time.
 
We wish you the best of luck in finding an enthusiastic agent and in your writing career.
Again, thank you for thinking of All Mighty Literary Agency.
 
With best wishes,
All Mighty Literary Agency

Okay.  We’ve all got them.  Rejection letters.  Or worse, we got no reply at all.  It’s hard not to let it discourage you.  I have a friend that wrote a book several years ago and has submitted it a total of three times.  She took each rejection so hard that she had to wait until the sting wore off enough and she built up more courage to send it out again.

While rejection hurts, it’s important not to take it personal.  It might be that your story truly isn’t what the agent/publisher was looking for at that time.  Move on to the next one on your list. 

Famous authors went through it just as we have.  But they persisted.  Let me share a few notes that some of them received.  Most of these are taken from Andre Bernard's little book Rotten Rejections:  The Letters that Publishers Wish They’d Never Sent.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence

'for your own sake do not publish this book.'

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

'an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.'

On Sylvia Plath

'There certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us to take notice.'

The Deer Park by Norman Mailer

'This will set publishing back 25 years.'

Lust for Life by Irving Stone

(which was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies)

‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’

Carrie by Stephen King

'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias.  They do not sell.'

Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller

‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

‘... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy.  It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.’

So, keep it all in perspective and don’t give up.  Remember, it’s happened to the best.

Check out the other Fantastic Friday Writers’ blogs!

Lost In Amazon...Book Promo

I’m always on the look out for more places to promote my book, Cornerstone Deep.  So, when my publisher mentioned a few more opportunities on our group loop, I checked them out. 

Okay, this might sound like an add for Amazon, but I was surprised at how much they offered by way of author involvement.  To be honest, when I checked around the Amazon world, I was intimidated.  It’s huge!  And I found it difficult to sort it all out.  One of our fellow authors said that she got lost in Amazon.  We all agreed that would make a great title for an adventure novel.  *teehee*  Lost In Amazon. 

Anyway…

My publisher, to my delight, provided easy access links to get me to the right places.  Author Central seemed to gather the most conversation with several mentioning how it helped them. 

With Author Central, you can upload your book trailers, link your twitter feeds, announce upcoming events like book signings, etc.  Your book information is taken from Amazon’s “shelf” and available for readers to check out…including reviews that have been posted.  You can access your books’ sales information and find out where they’re selling best and in what format.

Shelfari is another place to share your works.  What I like about this was that you can add information about your book; the characters, settings, and favorite quotes.  Your readers can also add their favorite sayings from your book.  Others can add tags to help your book be found in more places when readers search and reviews can be added there too.  It’s set up in a way that makes it easy to keep track of what’s on your TBR list and what you’ve read and rated.  If anyone wants to swap reads and review, let me know. *wink*

I haven’t looked into it yet, but they have an area for Kindle users.  You can sign up to allow readers to highlight and comment on parts of your book, and you can leave little bits of added information for them…interact with your fans. : )   

I hope this gave you a few things to check into if you haven’t already gotten involved.  If you know of anything that is working great for you, do share!

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Ravencraft Romance Realm Grand Opening

I've joined with the women of Ravencraft Romance Realm--five romance authors blogging about...that's right, romance--and our Grand Opening is coming up!  I had to let everyone know now because we have so much planned for that week you'll need to mark it on your calander.  Talk about a line-up!  Guests, outstanding topics, contests and prizes!

Just let me share the announcement with you...

 

Announcing RRR's Grand Opening Celebration!

 

 

Ravencraft Romance Realm is celebrating its Grand Opening July 25th through July 29th !!!!!


This is going to be a HUGE event! There will free give-aways each day of the week, contests, and over $100 in awesome prizes including romance books from well-known RWA authors, gift cards to Amazon, Barns&Nobel, Victoria's Secret and more, book marks, tote bags and these other goodies:

 

 

 

We'll also have guest appearances from romance authors Delilah Devlin, Carol North, and Kate Douglas!


So mark your calendars, the fun starts July 25th!!!!!!

 

 

I'm the lucky soul to be interviewing Carol North on Wed. July 27th.  She will be featuring her novel, Savannah Heat, and on that day alone you'll have the chance to win a signed copy of her book with a matching tote!

 

 

 

It's exciting with so much happening, you have to drop by and enter to win the daily give-aways and the grand prize give-aways at the end of the week.  There will be first, second, and third prize drawings, this is so big!  Honestly, most of the books in the grand prize drawing are straight from the RWA conference.  I've donated three signed copies of Cornerstone Deep and they will be part of package too.

 

Here's the daily line-up:

 

Monday - Danielle Ravencraft, author of A Trace of Love.

Tuesday - Marsha A. Moore, author of Tears on a Tranquil Lake and Tortuga Treasures.

Wednesday - Charlene A. Wilson, author of Cornerstone Deep.

Thursday - Kay Dee Royal, author of Big Girl's Don't Cry Wolf, One Plus One, and How to Net a Prince.

Friday - Sharon Hamilton, author of Angel.

 

We all look forward to a great week.  So, join in the fun and I'll see you there!

 

 

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Highlighted Author's New Site

We've been working very hard to get Highlighted Author's new site ready to take over from being a small blog on Blogger.  From the time it opened in 2010, it's grown and branches have been developed to fill the need of more space to spotlight great authors and books. 

Now, I'm excited and proud to announce that HighlightedAuthor.Com is open.

Each week Highlighted Author spotlights a different author and their work with excerpts, insights, and easy access links to connect to new favorites and information.  We also offer promotional ad space and author profile pages.  

I'd love to have you stop by and have a look around.  Let me know what you think.  Sign up to be notified when we post another great author and book for you to check out--which will be every Monday for over a year, guaranteed--and join our following.

This week we have Elizabeth Mueller and her new release, Darkspell.  We're part of her July blog tour and she's having a month long contest with some very cool prizes each week.  Come on by and enter to win!

Hope to see you there!


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Goodbye Character Cafe

One of my favorite blogs has shut down.  The Character Café closed this week.  It was so fun to have my characters do the blogging and act out some scenes in their lives that where outside the storyline. 

Since most of the posts featured characters from Cornerstone Deep, I’ve decided to move the posts from the time we spent on Character Café to the site dedicated to the series the book comes from, The Chronicles of Shilo Manor.  The new site, ShiloManor.Com, features insights to the series; excerpts, quotes, pics that inspired the characters and settings, character profiles…well, you get the idea.  I’m still working on it, but you’re welcome to stop by and say hi. : )

I’ll really miss working with the other five authors on The Character Café.  And the characters.  I’ve grown to love them all.

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