Maybe I need a website?

Yesterday I was very understandably angry about what happened to my YouTube account. It was later determined that my account did nothing wrong and it was given back. I have never used my youtube account for book related purposes (other than watching book reviews), but I was still angry to see it go. The incident did get me thinking about promotions and blogs vs. websites and now I am wondering if I need a website. I know many authors have both blogs and websites. Blogs are usually used to write their ideas in and talk about things that matter to them, while websites are used to promote their books and inform about them. I think one of the areas where I'm lacking is informing people about myself. I'm bad at talking about myself, and never really know what to say on my author bios. I also think that a website would be a great way to introduce myself to a new group of people, but I'm still not one hundred percent sure.

Cover Reveal

Although I am not releasing my next novel just yet (still editing it), I have decided to share the cover.

As you might have guessed from the title, the novel is about werewolves. I will try to put the blurb up soon, or at least give some kind of summary about the novel soon.

Fivver for cover art

I'm just starting out as an author, so I can't afford much when it comes to cover design. I found a website called fivver in my search for a cheap cover and instantly joined it. I liked that I was able to search through the projects until I found one that I liked. I purchased the gig without thinking much of it. I got the cover back the same day, probably about an hour after I had placed the order. I was content with the finished product, but didn't think much about the cost. When you do a five dollar gig on fivver, you only end up getting four dollars after the gig is complete. If I could afford to, I wouldn't use fivver, but I do think it is a good tool. Before everyone starts getting angry and thinking that I am cheating the artist by using fivver, think of this, a new artist trying to start a business. I'm not saying everyone on there is a new artist, but they can use the site to help themselves build a following. They would also have covers to show later on when trying to get more work. I can see both sides of fivver, the good and the bad.

Cover models

They say you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I often find myself doing just that. If there's a model on the cover I usually picture the main character in that book to look like the cover model. Today I got the cover for Hair of The Wolf, which included a cover model. I was a bit shocked at her appearance and my eyes lingered on the cover for awhile. It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong, I had pictured her differently. I had pictured Anyssa to have soft features, like a slightly chubby face that was friendly. I realize that when I read a book I may not be picturing the character the same way as the author did, but now I find myself wondering if the author is always happy with their model. I know that traditionally published authors have no control over their covers, but what about self published authors? I would like to hear more from people about their experiences with book covers and cover models. Did the cover always turn out as expected?

An Idea that won't go away

I have this idea that keeps coming back to me, but it's not for a book. One of the things that I have always wanted to do as an author is connect to other authors and readers, and it's possible with social media, but I think there could be a better way. If I knew how to build websites I would build one where authors and readers could interact on a different level. It wouldn't be like good reads, although it would probably have some elements. Authors would be able to search for reviews with ease and vice versa. The website would allow people to search for categories that they enjoy reading in, and allow other authors to connect with each other for promotions, book cover quotes, and allow them to recommend books besides their own. Maybe I haven't been looking in the right place for this, but I would love a website like to this exist. I wish I had the tools to build it.

Why can't we get a decent female superhero movie/tv show?

Recently I commented on a youtube video about a Black Widow movie. I said that I was not in favor of it, which sparked a debate in the comments section. People went crazy, until I put my reasoning. I don't think Scarjo can carry a movie. I've seen Lucy and thought it was a decent movie, but I wouldn't have gone to the movies to see Lucy. I also don't enjoy the way the character was treated in the comics. I also think that she's not the best comic book character to get a movie. Her story has been told, and she's also better as a supporting character. Something else that really gets on my nerves is that female superheros usually have to have female villains. While their rouges galleries are smaller, I'm sure the producers have their pick of great comic material to work with. Why not pick a good story and improve on it? Story means a lot to me when I go to the movies, as I'm sure it does most people. Is the movie industry afraid to give us a female character who might not make it out alive? I came across an article when I first started writing about how you need to put your characters in danger if you are writing fiction. No one wants to read a book about a heroine who faces no risks. Anyway, sorry if I was rambling.

My first author interview

As a self published author, I am always looking for new ways to reach readers. One of the things I couldn't wait to do was an interview, so after seeing a post asking for authors to do interviews, I reached out to another blogger. The interview can be found here.

The Newspaper

Someone once told me that one of the late shows has one of those segments where they show newspapers from around the world. The newspapers shown are horrible. Most of them have bad grammar, or just don't make sense. I lived in a small town with a newspaper like that for five years. I remember one headline saying something along the lines of, "he had fifty pounds of weed and a reel fast truck". For five years I avoided the newspaper, which is a big deal to me because I have always wanted a job working for the newspaper. The grammar errors got to me more than I thought they would (the guy who wrote for the newspaper was also kind of a jerk). It kind of makes me wonder how people see my little blog. I don't check for grammar errors in my blog, but I would like to think I sort of have a grip on that. Even if it's a small grip on grammar. I would hope that people don't turn away from my blog just because I misspell a word or misplace a comma. I don't check my grammar and spelling in my blog, I just write. Sometimes I write about things I'm passionate about, and other times I just write short blogs.

This year I'm going to do it!

This year I am going to do National Writing Month. You can find my profile here.

Writing a real character

A few years ago I started working on a novel that I planned to self-publish. I decided to title it Hair of The Wolf, but I stopped working on it to work on other projects. I decided to revisit the story after I had finished with Zombie Bite. I was surprised to find that the bones of a great story were there. I began rewriting passages and changing things and adding more details. One major thing I decided to do was make the character struggle with anxiety and depression. Why was this an important part of the story? Well, she’s a werewolf, but not just any werewolf, the one who exposes the existence of supernatural beings to the public. She didn’t do this one purpose, but she still has to live with it. She is forced to live in an apartment where she is always monitored. She has no freedom, but if she did most of the wolves have decided that they would like to cause her harm for exposing them, so she is understandably changed by this. It made sense for this character to be struggling with depression and anxiety. I love to read, yet none of the novels that I have ever read have ever featured a character struggling with these issues. I’m not saying that there aren’t books like this, I just haven’t read any ones that deal with werewolves/vampires/zombies. It doesn’t make sense in some cases. I’m a huge fan of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but she always gets herself in some kind of trouble that normal people wouldn’t be able to handle. Shouldn’t she feel at least a little anxiety around these supernatural creatures? I just feel like it makes sense and is more realistic for my main character to have these problems.

Writing Advice From Twitter

I joined twitter when I first decided that I was going to write a book. I wasn't writing Zombie Bite yet. I was writing Hair of the Wolf, which I still plan to publish. I knew the time wasn't right to release Hair of the Wolf. I honestly needed to go through more and learn more for that novel, which I am currently working on. I want it to be better than Zombie Bite, and longer. I want it to be a full length novel and I want to see it in paperback as well as hardcover. I want to be able to hold that book in my hands. However, I wouldn't have even gotten to where I am now without the advice I got on twitter. 

1. Don't make every tweet about writing. No one wants to follow someone who is only talking about their book. You should promote your book, but it shouldn't be every tweet. If your twitter feed is bland I will assume that your book is as well. Tweet often, and about things not related to writing or your book. How about starting a discussion about a tv show you like or a movie you recently saw? You'd be surprised at how many people you can bond with. 

2. Post Quotes from your book long before the book is published. This is a great way to draw interest. Your characters say interesting things, so why not post those quotes on social media? It can cause the reader to relate to your characters long before the book is even out.

3. Don't be afraid to share parts of your writing. When I first started I was afraid that people would steal my writing. I know that it's silly now, but I was. It's likely that no one will share your writing and if you post a chapter or two it can help to get people hooked. 

4. Don't spend money to promote your book until you have at least three books written and published. This one I asked a writer about. I didn't know much about promotion and I asked him when I should start buying for ads (like the ones on facebook). He told me that it was pointless to put an ad in when you only have one book. If someone enjoys your work and you have more than one novel they will be able to download the next one as soon as they are finished with the first. I have done this with books so it made sense to me and I haven't paid for ads yet. 

What inspired me to write Zombie Bite?

In my last post I wrote about my new book, Zombie Bite, but I didn't really shed to much light on it. I started writing it the night after I watched a movie called Stake Land that I saw on the Syfy channel. Stake Land is a bleak movie about vampires who roam the earth like zombies. The movie caused me to wonder what the world would be like if zombies actually existed. What would the people actually be like? I'm sure quite a few would have gone insane, and the others wouldn't be in a much better state. What would life be like after some time had gone by? What methods would people use to survive? Who could they trust. I found myself writing a rough draft about a young woman who was driven to help people after an event made her unable to face the survivors in her camp. For the longest time I wasn't sure how to end it. I sat on the novel for awhile, unsure of what to do with it. Did I want Eli, the main character's husband to survive? Did I want him to die? I wasn't sure so I wrote both outcomes and picked the one that seemed to be the best fit for the novel. I also ended up changing quite a bit, including the incident that drove Zoey away. It's strange how much changes when you convert from rough draft to finished piece. I kept some of the ideas for another novel. Honestly, I may write a whole series about those survivors. I had planned to when I started writing them. I was going to write a sequel that featured Zoey and a few other books about the other people living in the hotel. Maybe a prequel showing how everything started, how they came to be living in the hotel. Do I still have plans for those things? I'm not sure. So many new ideas have come to me lately that I don't know what I'm going to write next, but I know I'm going to put my all into it and try to make it better than the first.

Looking for a Halloween read?

Zombie Bite is a great Halloween read about a woman, named Zoey, who stumbles upon some infected survivors and attempts to save them. Things go wrong in her attempt to save them, and they end up infecting her husband. Zoey's heard whispers of a cure and she knows that she can't just leave him to die.
 Check out the book by clicking here.

Want to give me some input on something new I'm working on? Click here

Weekend Review, Halloween Edition: Scream the tv series

It's back! Weekend reviews are back! I know I usually write about books, and hopefully I will be back to reviewing (and writing) book soon, but I also watch a lot of movies, tv, and play a lot of video games so you might see a lot of that thrown in here as well. I have decided to try to post about only scary books/movies/games/tv shows for the entire month of October. The first tv show that I am going to review is Scream. Now, I haven't gotten to watch both seasons, in fact, I haven't finished the first. This show was on tv at the time that I was living with my ex and it was one of the shows he didn't want us to watch so we didn't watch more than the first episode. Now that I am away from him, I started to watch it again. At first I wasn't sure if I would like it. I am a fan of the original three movies (I watched the 4th but have no thoughts on it), and I didn't like how they changed the killer's mask. I also didn't like how some characters seemed to be rip offs of other characters, like Noah being a rip off of Randy. I pushed myself to keep watching and found that it was entertaining. The story was different, which is why there is a different mask. Everything seems to still link to the mother, which I honestly wish they have changed, but the show itself is entertaining. The blood wasn't cut for tv, and the show does feel like it exists in the same universe as the movies.

My 'beef' with magazines

Lately I have been submitting articles to magazines with the hope that they will agree to publish something and I can get my name out there while also making some money. This means that I've been looking at a lot of magazines and also going to their websites. After seeing one of my friends post something on Facebook about the amount of ads in a magazine I realized that I had a problem with magazines. Now let me start by saying that I don't have a problem with every magazine, just the type that you'd be likely to find in a hair or nail salon. The type that the hospital I used to work at carried. Magazines that are full of more ads than articles, and the articles they are filled with are trash. Sure, I love to read gossip magazines every now and then, but I would rather read something with substance. Why can't the hospital carry magazines with articles about people who have done great things, or lived through something that the average person may never live through? The closest thing they carried was people magazine, which is aimed at both men and women. Why do magazines aimed at women have to be about cooking or pleasing their man? Why do the magazines aimed at us have to be full of ads for things we can't afford or that we don't need? I don't mind a small ad every few pages, but most magazines have full pages with bored looking models or stinky perfume samples. Honestly, I would pay more money for less ads and more decent content. Now I'm sure there are tons of magazines out there for women that are actually great, but they aren't as easily accessible as Cosmo. Part of me wants to make a kickstarter for a magazine that I want to read, but the other part wants to find magazines that I would read and promote them.