My eBook short story The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card is free on Amazon today and Sunday (4/26-4/27)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JGEZNSU
Please download, enjoy and let me know what you think. I've received one 5 star review and any other reviews on Amazon would be appreciated. All thoughts on the story are welcomed and encouraged on this blog as well. Here is a quick synopsis of the story:
Jarvis Mann was a Private Detective, whose business thrived on the
mundane, paying the bills following cheating spouses, getting in the
middle of messy divorces and working for the Fat Cat Insurance companies
running down false insurance claims. But one day on his office steps a
young man coaxing with the simple word “Please” convinces him to help on
a Winter’s Sunday afternoon to find a missing valuable Ernie Banks
Rookie Bubble Gum Card. With a dry sense of humor he drives the Denver
streets from door to door, friend to friend, until a clue leads to a
surprising discovery, a young man’s personal pain and his friends
selfish act, teach Jarvis a life lesson that will shape him with new
hope and resolve.
A follow-up novel with the same lead character is in the works and should be available later this year. The tentative title is: Tracking a Shadow
Private Eye Jarvis Mann is hired by his latest client Emily White to find an elusive Stalker she fears is trying to harm her, but finds out there maybe more than one man involved. While Jarvis deals with his own love life complications, caught between the affections of two different women.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Any Good Marketing Tips for New Writers
You've got the story written, and now it's published in one format or another, what do you do to get the word out there to people and get some sales? My new eBook short story is out and I've done the usual things, posted on Google Plus in various communities, on Facebook on every book group I can find and sent to friends to see about getting the word out to all their friends I've received one good review on Amazon but so far I haven't gotten much sales traction. What other types of marketing has worked for you to get some sales? Any other tips you can give a new Indie Author trying to navigate this competitive market?
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Writers That Inspire You
With the posting on Amazon of my new short story I wonder from others out there who are the writers that inspire you? Most are probably big name writers, but maybe there are some lesser names out there that you read as well. And do those that inspire you cross over into the genre that your own writings branch into?
For me Robert B Parker, Ian Fleming and Robert Ludlum have been the most influential. Someone that isn't quite as well known that I enjoy is Chris Orcutt and his Dakota Steven's novels.
How about you....
For me Robert B Parker, Ian Fleming and Robert Ludlum have been the most influential. Someone that isn't quite as well known that I enjoy is Chris Orcutt and his Dakota Steven's novels.
How about you....
Friday, April 11, 2014
The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card now a Amazon eBook
My 8400 word short story "The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card" is now an eBook on Amazon for .99 cents. Here is the link and the synopsis of what the story is about.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JGEZNSU
Jarvis Mann was a Private Detective, whose business thrived on the mundane, paying the bills following cheating spouses, getting in the middle of messy divorces and working for the Fat Cat Insurance companies running down false insurance claims. But one day on his office steps a young man coaxing with the simple word “Please” convinces him to help on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon to find a missing valuable Ernie Banks Rookie Bubble Gum Card. Driving the Denver streets from door to door, friend to friend, until a clue leads to a surprising discovery, a young man’s personal pain and his friends selfish act teach Jarvis a life lesson that will shape him with new hope and resolve.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JGEZNSU
Jarvis Mann was a Private Detective, whose business thrived on the mundane, paying the bills following cheating spouses, getting in the middle of messy divorces and working for the Fat Cat Insurance companies running down false insurance claims. But one day on his office steps a young man coaxing with the simple word “Please” convinces him to help on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon to find a missing valuable Ernie Banks Rookie Bubble Gum Card. Driving the Denver streets from door to door, friend to friend, until a clue leads to a surprising discovery, a young man’s personal pain and his friends selfish act teach Jarvis a life lesson that will shape him with new hope and resolve.
Monday, April 7, 2014
New Updated Cover for Short Story
Friday, April 4, 2014
Tools to Get the Job Done
I've learned to write effectively one needs the proper tools. Here are some of the ones I've found that are essential for me to be productive.
The first and maybe most important is a stable, solid, patched and malware free computer. I'm an IT/Network Admin by day and I know from experience if your computer crashes constantly, is dog slow and is malware ridden, then wipe it and start over or buy a new one. If you work mostly at home get a modern desktop computer and a large monitor, 24 inch or larger. Two screens is even better for multitasking. Need to be mobile get notebook, or even better yet a clam-shell device with touchscreen tablet and detachable keyboard. I have a Dell Inspiron desktop for home and Asus Transformer T100 for when I need to be mobile. Whether Windows, Mac or Linux you can't get the job done if the machine can't handle what you need to throw at it. And this can't be a computer you share with the kids or you'll never be able to use it as they'll be playing Minecraft on it it constantly.
Next is MS Word. Microsoft gets a lot of grief about it's products, but Word, at least in the Windows world is the gold standard. It used to be flaky and unstable, Word 95 and 97 crashed frequently making for lost work. But I've found since Word 2007, up to the current version 2013, that it is pretty rock solid. The easy to create Styles makes for custom formatting you can easily save as custom templates. It's review tools for Spell Checking and Thesaurus help correct mistakes, though I find the Grammar functions to be annoying. And don't for forget to turn on the Show/Hide function (¶ icon). And if you use Beta Readers Track Changes is a must.
Scrivener is the next software package I use. It can be used for all of your Word Processing if you'd like, but it's not as full featured as Word in many ways. What Scrivener does that is light years better than Word and what I use it for is creating outlines for your stories and allowing you to organize your thoughts. Create Chapter Synopsis, Character and Places descriptions, a Corkboard to post cards to type out ideas when they come to you. Stuck on what name to use for a character, there is a Name Generator with variables to help you come up with the perfect character name. Many other features as well that I'm still learning. But the best part is it's really inexpensive for what all it does. You can buy it for $40 or less, has very flexible licensing that allows you to install it on any computer in your household and comes in Windows or Mac versions.
To help with editing and cleaning up my work I use a web tool called Autocrit. This is a paid web service, though they have free options as well with limits, where you can copy your text and it will analyze it and create reports looking at key areas to point out potential problems or mistakes. The most important reports I use are the Overused Words, and Repeated Words and Phrases. I can't tell you how often I overuse the same words in my writing and don't even realize it. I don't take everything the report says as gospel, as there are certain reasons to overuse or repeat certain words or phrases. But it is an effective tool clean up some of the clutter.
To store your files and give you access from anywhere, use a cloud service to save your documents. Whether it's Dropbox, OneDrive (formally called Skydrive), Google Drive, Box or any other cloud storage service, you need one so you can get to your files from any computer. Many give you gigabits of space for free. But be sure you keep local backups as well, either on your PC or Notebook, or on a external device hard drive or flash device, as Cloud Services can fail and lose data too. Be sure you have backups of your backups so you don't lose any work.
Now I'm a Windows user, so many of these are Windows based tools, though some cross over into other platforms. Mac and Linux have great tools too, so if you use those operating systems find what works for you. None of these will do the work for you, but you can't do your writing efficiently without them. I'm interested if you have other tools you use to help you get that manuscript finished?
The first and maybe most important is a stable, solid, patched and malware free computer. I'm an IT/Network Admin by day and I know from experience if your computer crashes constantly, is dog slow and is malware ridden, then wipe it and start over or buy a new one. If you work mostly at home get a modern desktop computer and a large monitor, 24 inch or larger. Two screens is even better for multitasking. Need to be mobile get notebook, or even better yet a clam-shell device with touchscreen tablet and detachable keyboard. I have a Dell Inspiron desktop for home and Asus Transformer T100 for when I need to be mobile. Whether Windows, Mac or Linux you can't get the job done if the machine can't handle what you need to throw at it. And this can't be a computer you share with the kids or you'll never be able to use it as they'll be playing Minecraft on it it constantly.
Next is MS Word. Microsoft gets a lot of grief about it's products, but Word, at least in the Windows world is the gold standard. It used to be flaky and unstable, Word 95 and 97 crashed frequently making for lost work. But I've found since Word 2007, up to the current version 2013, that it is pretty rock solid. The easy to create Styles makes for custom formatting you can easily save as custom templates. It's review tools for Spell Checking and Thesaurus help correct mistakes, though I find the Grammar functions to be annoying. And don't for forget to turn on the Show/Hide function (¶ icon). And if you use Beta Readers Track Changes is a must.
Scrivener is the next software package I use. It can be used for all of your Word Processing if you'd like, but it's not as full featured as Word in many ways. What Scrivener does that is light years better than Word and what I use it for is creating outlines for your stories and allowing you to organize your thoughts. Create Chapter Synopsis, Character and Places descriptions, a Corkboard to post cards to type out ideas when they come to you. Stuck on what name to use for a character, there is a Name Generator with variables to help you come up with the perfect character name. Many other features as well that I'm still learning. But the best part is it's really inexpensive for what all it does. You can buy it for $40 or less, has very flexible licensing that allows you to install it on any computer in your household and comes in Windows or Mac versions.
To help with editing and cleaning up my work I use a web tool called Autocrit. This is a paid web service, though they have free options as well with limits, where you can copy your text and it will analyze it and create reports looking at key areas to point out potential problems or mistakes. The most important reports I use are the Overused Words, and Repeated Words and Phrases. I can't tell you how often I overuse the same words in my writing and don't even realize it. I don't take everything the report says as gospel, as there are certain reasons to overuse or repeat certain words or phrases. But it is an effective tool clean up some of the clutter.
To store your files and give you access from anywhere, use a cloud service to save your documents. Whether it's Dropbox, OneDrive (formally called Skydrive), Google Drive, Box or any other cloud storage service, you need one so you can get to your files from any computer. Many give you gigabits of space for free. But be sure you keep local backups as well, either on your PC or Notebook, or on a external device hard drive or flash device, as Cloud Services can fail and lose data too. Be sure you have backups of your backups so you don't lose any work.
Now I'm a Windows user, so many of these are Windows based tools, though some cross over into other platforms. Mac and Linux have great tools too, so if you use those operating systems find what works for you. None of these will do the work for you, but you can't do your writing efficiently without them. I'm interested if you have other tools you use to help you get that manuscript finished?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)